URBAN COUNTIES CAUCUS

Transcription

1 URBAN COUNTIES CAUCUS Chair Supervisor Greg Cox Executive Director Jolena L. Voorhis UCC Board of Directors Meeting Summary November 28, 2012 Alameda: Contra Costa: Los Angeles: Orange: Riverside: Sacramento: San Bernardino: San Diego: San Francisco: San Mateo: Santa Clara: Ventura: UCC: SPONSORS: Casey Kaneko, Michael Corbett, Nicole Wordelman, Steve Wallauch, Melinda McClain Supervisor John Gioia, Supervisor Mary Piepho, David Twa Supervisor Don Knabe, Nick Ippolito, Bill Fujioka, Ryan Alsop, Manuel Rivas, Patricia Carbajel, Mark Tajima, Olivia Rodriguez, Alan Fernandez, Martha Flammer, Steve Kawamura Supervisor John Moorlach, Jay Wong, Donna Grubaugh, Tim Lynch, Melinda McClain Supervisor John Benoit, Supervisor John Tavaglione, Alex Gann Supervisor Susan Peters, Supervisor Phil Serna, Nav Gill, Brad Hudson, Laura Enderton-Speed, Leslie McFadden Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt, Supervisor Josie Gonzales, Josh Candelaria, Tim Lynch Supervisor Greg Cox, Supervisor Bill Horn, Geoff Patnoe, Cathy Christian Supervisor Eric Mar Connie Juarez-Diroll Supervisor Liz Kniss, Supervisor Ken Yeager, Patti DeMellopine, Danielle Christian, Michael Rattigan Supervisor John Zaragoza, Mike Powers, Sue Hughes, John Crimback, Jeff Pratt, Chris Stevens, Michael Corbett Jolena Voorhis, Lennette Childs BARCLAY s CAPITAL, CITIGROUP, KAISER PERMANENTE, LILLY USA I. Call to Order UCC Chair Supervisor Greg Cox convened the meeting and called the members to order. II. Roll Call of Counties There were 15 Supervisors present and all 12 counties were represented at this meeting. III. Approval of Minutes from September 5 and September 7, 2012 and October 3, 2012 UCC Board Meetings APPROVED 1

2 IV. Items for Consideration 1) State Budget a) Update on State Budget Staff reported with the passage of Proposition 30 on November 6, 2012, the budget situation is much improved and the trigger cuts proposed in the Budget Act will not be pulled. Governor Brown indicated that for the first time there would be a balanced budget. However, it should be noted that there could still be a budget deficit due to the projections for the Facebook IPO turning out to be lower than expected. In addition, it is hard to say how much revenues will come in from the temporary tax increases which can fluctuate from year to year. Preliminary estimates are the Proposition 30 will result in $8.5 billion in revenues in Staff also reported that the LAO released their fiscal outlook for 2013 and it does note that the economic climate is much better and that there is a deficit of $1.9 billion mostly due to redevelopment funds being lower than expected, increase costs from Healthy Families Transition, and impacts of Facebook IPO. The forecast does assume that the fiscal cliff is avoided by the federal government. If the fiscal cliff is not addressed the California budget could be affected. b) Realignment Update Staff reported Proposition 30 also included important constitutional protections for counties under the 2011 Public Safety Realignment. As a reminder here are some of the protections provided under Proposition 30: Constitutional Protections Protects counties from future actions of the legislature (after September 30, 2012), or the judiciary by requiring that counties do not have to provide program delivery unless the state provides annual funding for the additional requirements. Protects counties against regulations, executive orders or administrative directives implemented after October 9, 2011, that would increase county costs. Provides at least a 50/50 share (county/state) of costs for any federal law or regulation changes, settlements or judicial orders. Provides that the State shall not submit to the federal government any plans, or waivers that have an overall effect of increasing the cost borne by a local agency for programs or levels of service mandated by the 2011 Realignment Legislation unless the State provides annual funding for the cost increase. Realignment Funding Provides dedicated funding to counties to fund the realigned programs through the VLF and Sales Tax as outlined in the 2011 Budget Act. Provides that the funds must be exclusively used to fund the provision of Public Safety Services by local agencies as specified by the 2011 Realignment Legislation. Provides that the Realigned programs are not considered a mandate, and no mandate claim may be submitted (SB 90 process). The funds cannot be used by local agencies to supplant other funding for Public Safety Services. 2

3 If the taxes that fund the 2011 Realignment are reduced or cease to be operative, the State must annually provide funds in an amount equal to or greater than the aggregate amount that otherwise would have been provided by the taxes. If the State fails to annually appropriate this amount, the Controller must transfer that amount from the General Fund to the Local Revenue Fund Tax Provisions Temporarily increases the personal income tax on the state s wealthiest taxpayers for seven years. The amount of the tax (10.3 percent up to 12.3 percent depends on the income by the filers). Temporarily increases the state sales and use tax rate by one-quarter percent for four years. Removes the sales tax revenues directed to realignment programs from the Proposition 98 calculation. Provides that the revenues from the temporary tax increase will be provided to schools and community colleges. The funds could be used for any educational purpose and would count towards meeting the Proposition 98 guarantee. Of the monies, 89 percent would be provided to schools and 11 percent to community colleges. In addition, there may be an attempt to try to realign more programs to counties in 2013 depending on the Governor s January Budget proposal. There have been discussion of realigning child support, and other health and human services programs to counties however, there has been no specific proposal by the Administration. 2) Other Emerging or Continuing Legislative Issues a) Legislative Update Staff provided the final UCC Bill List for 2012 and included all of the bills on which UCC had taken a position. Here are some of the major bills that UCC worked on during the year: AB 1590 (Campos) Local Government Meetings This bill would have applied provisions of the Brown Act to Assessment Appeals Boards. This bill was amended to provide some exceptions for Assessment Appeals Boards. Position: Oppose Unless Amended. Status: Held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. AB 1692 (Wieckowski) Bankruptcy This bill would have made changes to the neutral evaluation process adopted through AB 506. These changes included giving more authority to the neutral evaluator to get financial documents and would increase the time of the mediation. Position: Oppose. Status: Held in the Senate Rules Committee. AB 2031 (Fuentes) Community Corrections Partnerships This bill would have added a rank and file deputy sheriff and a rank-and-file probation officer to the membership of a Community Corrections Partnerships (CCP) and required their vote on 3

4 the local plan. This bill would have also added similar individuals to the new State Board of State and Community Corrections. Position: Oppose. Status: Vetoed. SB 703 (Hernandez) Health Care Coverage: Basic Health Program This bill would have established a basic health plan within the Exchange. Position: Support. Status: Held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee. SB 1002 (Yee) Public Records: Electronic Format This bill would have previously required local agencies to provide certain documents in an open, searchable format. This bill was amended and changed to a study bill by the Assembly Appropriations Committee. Position: Removed opposition. Status: Vetoed. SB 1003 (Yee) Local Government: Open Meetings This bill allows the District Attorney or any interested party to file an action to determine the applicability of the Brown Act to the actions of the Legislative body for a nine-month period. This bill also establishes a process to avoid litigation through a cease and desist letter by the Board of Supervisors. Position: Neutral. Status: Signed, Chapter 732. b) Laura s Law Survey Per the request by the UCC Board, staff conducted a survey of all 58 counties regarding Laura s Law and asked the following questions: 1. Has your county considered opting-in to Laura s Law? 2. With the recent extension of Laura s Law (AB 1569) does your county have any plans to consider adopting the law? 3. What were the determining factors for your county s decision regarding the adoption or rejection of Laura s Law? 4. What are the barriers, if any, to the adoption of Laura s Law from your county s perspective? Staff reported receiving responses from 13 counties and it looks like the major barriers are cost, concerns from the mental health advocates, and additional court costs and time. Only 1 county (Placer) has indicated that they are considering opting-in right now due to the passage of AB As soon as staff has all the results tabulated, details will be provided to the Board. 3) UCC Legislative Priorities and Policies 2013 a) UCC Draft Priorities for 2013 APPROVED with amendment Staff provided the draft UCC Priorities for 2013, with changes noted. There was also a clean version in the materials. 4

5 The main changes to the priorities include: Updated the priority for Constitutional Protections and Realignment to reflect the passage of Proposition 30 and the adoption this year of the fiscal superstructure. Minor change to the budget priority. Updated Health Care Reform. Due to the fact that the Governor has stated he will call a special session in December on Health Care Reform, the priority is updated to reflect the issues that we anticipate in the special session and issues at the federal level. Updated Pension Reform. Since the pension reform package was adopted by the Legislature and the Governor this priority was shortened to allow staff to work on any clean-up measures or other attempts to continue to reform pensions. New Priority on CEQA Reform. CEQA reform has been noted as a main priority for Senate Pro-Tem Steinberg. We have added some language to allow UCC to work with other local governments on CEQA reform and to ensure that local governments land use authority is maintained. Supervisor Knabe asked for an edit to the Realignment priority to include language that any reforms on probation and parole would need adequate funding. The priorities were approved with this amendment. b) UCC Draft Policies for 2013 APPROVED with amendment Staff provided the UCC Policies for Most of the changes are grammatical in nature with the following exceptions: Added a new policy on protecting realignment funding. Added a new policy on worker s compensation reform. Added a new policy on Laura s Law. Revised the policy on CEQA reform to reflect the priority for this year. Added a new policy on bridge funding due to the effort on Map 21 in 2013 which could make changes to the allocation of funding. Added a new policy on economic development. Added a new policy on cap and trade funding. Supervisor Knabe asked for a new policy to be added to oppose any suspension of Proposition 1A. This was approved by the Board. c) UCC Conflict of Interest Policy for 2013 APPROVED According to the UCC By-Laws the Board must annually adopt a Conflict of Interest Policy. In the attachment that was provided by staff at the meeting, the conflict of interest policy for 2013 was identical to last year s adopted policy. d) UCC Year End Report Informational In a separate handout made available at the meeting was the UCC Annual Report for This report summarizes the issues that UCC worked on during the year with summaries of the final budget action, legislative action, and a summary of the pension reform package. 5

6 4) Executive Director Contract Renewal APPROVED The Executive Director was hired with a three year contract in The current contract expires on December 15, The Executive Director asked the Board to renew the contract for another year under the same terms. Since the Contract is a personnel issue, it was forwarded only to Board Members under separate cover. 5) Election for CSAC Executive Committee and First Vice-President Nominee APPROVED Staff provided a memo outlining the procedures for the Urban Caucus to appoint members for the Executive Committee and a nominee for CSAC President. CSAC staff was in attendance to answer any questions regarding the procedures. The Urban Counties chosen to represent the CSAC Executive Committee are: Alameda, Contra Costa (Supervisor John Gioia as First Vice President), Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Diego (Supervisor Cox as alternate) and Ventura. Supervisor John Gioia was elected as CSAC 1 st Vice-President. 6) Nomination of UCC Officers APPROVED According to the UCC bylaws, at the November or December meeting of the final year of a legislative session the sitting chair shall appoint a nominating committee of two Supervisors. The committee shall nominate at least one member of the Caucus for the office of Chairperson and one for the office of Vice Chairperson with one person representing a Northern California county and the other representing a Southern California county. The nominations shall be presented to the Board at the first meeting of the calendar year in The persons elected by the Board shall serve for two-year terms, consistent with the sessions of the California Legislature. At the first Board meeting of the second year of the legislative session, the Chairperson and Vice Chairperson shall rotate offices with the Vice Chairperson becoming Chairperson and the Chairperson becoming Vice Chairperson. Supervisor Knabe nominated Supervisor John Moorlach to serve as Chair of UCC for 2013 which was passed by the Board. Supervisor Federal Glover was nominated as the Vice-Chair which was also approved by the Board. The gavel will be turned over during our February 2013 meeting. V. Proposals for Next Month s Meeting Agenda 1) State Budget 2) Realignment 3) Laura s Law Survey 4) Legislative Update Meeting adjourned until January 9, The January meeting will be held via conference call. 6