Senator Kuehl's Fifth 2007 Essay: The Trailer Bills
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
- Organization: Senator Sheila Kuehl
This is my fifth essay for 2007 and the third of several on the 2007-2008 budget. In previous essays, I set out some of the provisions of the budget bill, itself, as well as the separate budget bill containing changes from the Conference Committee report made by the Assembly. In the next essay, I will write on the $700 million in blue pencil cuts made by the Governor. I will save the report on the actual provisions on the budget, as signed, for the last few essays in this series. In this essay, I will set out some of the statutory changes voted on August 21st to implement the budget, as well as the compromise bills on the environment, air quality and health demanded by the Senate Republicans as a condition of their additional vote. Visit my website at www.sen.ca.gov/kuehl to read my previous essays. For those of you who received this essay by forwarding, it is written by California State Senator Sheila Kuehl. If you wish to subscribe to receive these essays on a continuing basis, (no charge), please send an e-mail to Sheila.Kuehl@sen.ca.gov, titled "subscribe". If you receive it directly and wish you didn't…..send an e-mail to the same address, but title it "unsubscribe".
What Are Trailer Bills?
Throughout the year, both houses of the Legislature consider every line of the Governor's proposed budget and make changes to, or adopt, each of them. Many of the line items in the budget also require a change in the statutory law relating to conditions placed on their expenditure, or oversight, or the establishment of new fund aggregates, or procedures or mandated actions by the executive branch. These statutory changes are gathered into a number of subject matter-specific bills and presented for a vote at the same time as the budget, and are called trailer bills. Below, I set out some of the provisions in each of the trailer bills adopted with the budget on August 21st.
Trailer Bill on transportation issues
-Moved over $600 million of $800 million in extra gasoline gas tax monies realized because of the higher than expected price of gasoline away from regular transportation expenditures and into the General Fund. $200 million was allocated to local agencies. Also allocated half of these monies for 08-09 into the General Fund.
-Repaid Prop 42 (old transportation bond) monies in full.
-Reallocated $15.6 million to the High Speed Rail Authority.
Trailer Bills on education issues
-Reauthorized the STAR test for the second grade and lined up the sunset date to coincide with the sunsets for all other testing.
-Conditioned school meal funding on compliance with higher nutritional guidelines for free- and reduced-price school meals, including a prohibition on fried foods and foods containing artificial trans fats.
-Extended the "school district of choice" inter-district transfer authorization to 2009.
-Conformed state testing law to federal requirements by requiring limited-English-proficient students in kindergarten and first grade to be assessed in English listening, speaking and early literacy skills.
-(Having already voted July 20 (by a majority vote) to repeal the EdFund, which administers the Student Aid Commission's Federal Family Education Loan Program), Adopted a trailer bill to authorize the sale of the EdFund student loan guarantee program to a private entity. The Governor had indicated that the state could realize a billion dollars from the sale. (I voted against this bill, believing that there would be insufficient oversight of a private agency running the student loan program)
-There had also been a trailer bill on the floor that would have allowed the State Board of Education to grant a charter to a charter school for three years. This bill was not taken up.
Trailer bill on public safety issues
-Prohibited the intake of youthful offenders convicted of non-violent, non-serious offenses into the State Division of Juvenile Facilities, but, instead, leaves these youth in county care and custody.
-Required all non-violent, non-serious offenders released to parole after September 1,2007 to become the responsibility of the counties, with a new block grant to the counties to support the programs.
-Authorized lease revenue bonds for new local facilities for youthful offenders, and made programmatic changes to help the counties provide for these offenders.
-Phased out state concession fees for the state prison telephone contract in order to save the families of inmates a little money.
-Specifies $50 million must be used for in-prison rehabilitative services.
Trailer bill on human services issues
-Requires performance data on child support collections
-Dropped the requirement for increased inspection visits of licensed community care facilities
-Increased foster family home base rates
-Suspended the CalWORKs cost-of-living adjustment
-Required DSS to identify options for increasing parent participation in work in the CalWORKS program
-Delayed the cost-of-living adjustment for the Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Program (SSI/SSP) for six months.
-Increased the maximum reimbursement amount in the private Adoption Assistance Reimbursement Program
-Allowed Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants recipients who complete their naturalization process while receiving benefits to continue to be eligible for benefits until they receive SSI benefits, if eligible.
Trailer bill on environmental protection issues
-Required all state agencies to report quarterly to the Secretary of the Cal EPA on their greenhouse gas emission levels and actions taken to reduce their emissions.
-Required the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to report quarterly on Proposition 1E funded flood control projects.
-Grants authority to DWR to apply equal cost share requirements for local governments for the assessment of project and non-project levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley that protect urban populations and critical water conveyance infrastructure.
-Requires DWR to comply with equal greenhouse gas performance standards as publicly owned electric utilities when procuring energy.
Trailer bill limiting the application of CEQA
A separate trailer bill, negotiated as a condition of receiving the final vote on the budget, was one of the major reasons the Republican Senators gave for holding up the budget. They insisted on waiting until the Assembly returned to enact the bill, which requires the administration to develop guidelines for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, as required by CEQA and adopt the guidelines by January 1, 2010. Until then, any
document required by CEQA for transportation projects funded under the Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality and Port Security Bond Act of 2006, or flood control projects funded under the Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006, the failure to adequately analyze the effects of greenhouse gas emissions does not create a cause of action for a violation of CEQA.
The hope was that transportation and flood projects financed through these two recently passed bonds would not be constrained by the state Attorney General suing contractors. Later analysis of this trailer bill, however, brought a smile to environmentalists faces, as it enshrined, in one sentence, the contested issue of whether the effects of greenhouse gas emissions are included in the impacts required to be assessed in CEQA. It seems now, they are.
Trailer Bill related to general government matters
Two additional conditions of voting for the budget raised by the Republican caucus involved the standards currently in law for the "greening" of government buildings and the amount of time vacant positions would be held open. The first was removed and the second was shortened from one year to six months.
Trailer bill related to health issues
-Appropriated 99 million dollars for emergency physicians.
-Increased rates for long-term care nursing homes
-Increased rates for health care plans participating in the MediCal Managed Care Program.
-Allows the state to get MediCal monies expended on recipients back if the recipient sues a third party and collects. A provision that courts need not be limited in granting damages to the MediCal amounts if they thought the injuries were serious enough to warrant more was removed, as a condition of a Republican vote for the budget.
-Continued the HIV/AIDS Pharmacy Pilot project through June 2008.
-Presumes children who are eligible for Healthy Families are eligible for MediCal, without a new application.
-At the request of the Administration, continued rate freezes related to the purchase of services for individuals with developmental disabilities.
Next: a few details about the $700,000,000 in additional cuts made by the Governor before signing the budget.
What Are Trailer Bills?
Throughout the year, both houses of the Legislature consider every line of the Governor's proposed budget and make changes to, or adopt, each of them. Many of the line items in the budget also require a change in the statutory law relating to conditions placed on their expenditure, or oversight, or the establishment of new fund aggregates, or procedures or mandated actions by the executive branch. These statutory changes are gathered into a number of subject matter-specific bills and presented for a vote at the same time as the budget, and are called trailer bills. Below, I set out some of the provisions in each of the trailer bills adopted with the budget on August 21st.
Trailer Bill on transportation issues
-Moved over $600 million of $800 million in extra gasoline gas tax monies realized because of the higher than expected price of gasoline away from regular transportation expenditures and into the General Fund. $200 million was allocated to local agencies. Also allocated half of these monies for 08-09 into the General Fund.
-Repaid Prop 42 (old transportation bond) monies in full.
-Reallocated $15.6 million to the High Speed Rail Authority.
Trailer Bills on education issues
-Reauthorized the STAR test for the second grade and lined up the sunset date to coincide with the sunsets for all other testing.
-Conditioned school meal funding on compliance with higher nutritional guidelines for free- and reduced-price school meals, including a prohibition on fried foods and foods containing artificial trans fats.
-Extended the "school district of choice" inter-district transfer authorization to 2009.
-Conformed state testing law to federal requirements by requiring limited-English-proficient students in kindergarten and first grade to be assessed in English listening, speaking and early literacy skills.
-(Having already voted July 20 (by a majority vote) to repeal the EdFund, which administers the Student Aid Commission's Federal Family Education Loan Program), Adopted a trailer bill to authorize the sale of the EdFund student loan guarantee program to a private entity. The Governor had indicated that the state could realize a billion dollars from the sale. (I voted against this bill, believing that there would be insufficient oversight of a private agency running the student loan program)
-There had also been a trailer bill on the floor that would have allowed the State Board of Education to grant a charter to a charter school for three years. This bill was not taken up.
Trailer bill on public safety issues
-Prohibited the intake of youthful offenders convicted of non-violent, non-serious offenses into the State Division of Juvenile Facilities, but, instead, leaves these youth in county care and custody.
-Required all non-violent, non-serious offenders released to parole after September 1,2007 to become the responsibility of the counties, with a new block grant to the counties to support the programs.
-Authorized lease revenue bonds for new local facilities for youthful offenders, and made programmatic changes to help the counties provide for these offenders.
-Phased out state concession fees for the state prison telephone contract in order to save the families of inmates a little money.
-Specifies $50 million must be used for in-prison rehabilitative services.
Trailer bill on human services issues
-Requires performance data on child support collections
-Dropped the requirement for increased inspection visits of licensed community care facilities
-Increased foster family home base rates
-Suspended the CalWORKs cost-of-living adjustment
-Required DSS to identify options for increasing parent participation in work in the CalWORKS program
-Delayed the cost-of-living adjustment for the Supplemental Security Income/State Supplementary Program (SSI/SSP) for six months.
-Increased the maximum reimbursement amount in the private Adoption Assistance Reimbursement Program
-Allowed Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants recipients who complete their naturalization process while receiving benefits to continue to be eligible for benefits until they receive SSI benefits, if eligible.
Trailer bill on environmental protection issues
-Required all state agencies to report quarterly to the Secretary of the Cal EPA on their greenhouse gas emission levels and actions taken to reduce their emissions.
-Required the Department of Water Resources (DWR) to report quarterly on Proposition 1E funded flood control projects.
-Grants authority to DWR to apply equal cost share requirements for local governments for the assessment of project and non-project levees in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley that protect urban populations and critical water conveyance infrastructure.
-Requires DWR to comply with equal greenhouse gas performance standards as publicly owned electric utilities when procuring energy.
Trailer bill limiting the application of CEQA
A separate trailer bill, negotiated as a condition of receiving the final vote on the budget, was one of the major reasons the Republican Senators gave for holding up the budget. They insisted on waiting until the Assembly returned to enact the bill, which requires the administration to develop guidelines for the mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, as required by CEQA and adopt the guidelines by January 1, 2010. Until then, any
document required by CEQA for transportation projects funded under the Highway Safety, Traffic Reduction, Air Quality and Port Security Bond Act of 2006, or flood control projects funded under the Disaster Preparedness and Flood Prevention Bond Act of 2006, the failure to adequately analyze the effects of greenhouse gas emissions does not create a cause of action for a violation of CEQA.
The hope was that transportation and flood projects financed through these two recently passed bonds would not be constrained by the state Attorney General suing contractors. Later analysis of this trailer bill, however, brought a smile to environmentalists faces, as it enshrined, in one sentence, the contested issue of whether the effects of greenhouse gas emissions are included in the impacts required to be assessed in CEQA. It seems now, they are.
Trailer Bill related to general government matters
Two additional conditions of voting for the budget raised by the Republican caucus involved the standards currently in law for the "greening" of government buildings and the amount of time vacant positions would be held open. The first was removed and the second was shortened from one year to six months.
Trailer bill related to health issues
-Appropriated 99 million dollars for emergency physicians.
-Increased rates for long-term care nursing homes
-Increased rates for health care plans participating in the MediCal Managed Care Program.
-Allows the state to get MediCal monies expended on recipients back if the recipient sues a third party and collects. A provision that courts need not be limited in granting damages to the MediCal amounts if they thought the injuries were serious enough to warrant more was removed, as a condition of a Republican vote for the budget.
-Continued the HIV/AIDS Pharmacy Pilot project through June 2008.
-Presumes children who are eligible for Healthy Families are eligible for MediCal, without a new application.
-At the request of the Administration, continued rate freezes related to the purchase of services for individuals with developmental disabilities.
Next: a few details about the $700,000,000 in additional cuts made by the Governor before signing the budget.
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