State Budget Battles Predominate the Legislative Year: The year 2009 proved to be one of the most challenging and perplexing in the history of the combined advocacy campaigns launched by CFILC and the Systems Change Network. It was a year of ups and downs with respect to our advocacy of state budget issues affecting people with disabilities as budget revenues shortfalls continued to grow and horrific budget agreements became unraveled even before the ink had dried on the Governor’s signature on the budget and various trailer bills.

We all understood that the national and state economies had lagged far behind projections that they would begin recovering at various points in time throughout the fiscal year. Yet, no one, even leading economists and fiscal analysts could have anticipated continued increases in unemployment rates, home and business foreclosures, the lack of consumer confidence, and the extremely slow impact of Federal stimulus funding.

In California, our experiences in this regard were exacerbated by the fact that the “smoke and mirrors” budget solutions proposed by the Governor and legislative leaders to close the state budget deficits in past fiscal years were finally exposed as sham solutions that had only a temporary impact and needed to be resolved once again in this budget. After agreeing to limited revenue increases that were part of the narrowly passed February 2009 budget agreement, Republicans drew yet another line in the sand opposing any additional revenue increases. This, in turn, forced continued cuts in programs and services for seniors, people with disabilities, and poor and low-income community who, once again, were forced to bear a disproportionate share of cuts in vital programs and services. Many advocates for these communities voiced their strong opposition to continued cut backs in the wake of significant corporate tax cuts the Governor and the few renegade Republicans who agreed to vote for the February 2009 budget bill insisted be a part of the final budget agreement.

Brief Summary of the February 2009 Budget Agreement: In what proved to be an earlier indicator of future budget shortfall challenges that lay ahead, on February 20, 2009, Governor Schwarzenegger signed a spending plan that addressed the state’s worsening crisis that included substantial deficits carried over from 2008. The final agreement included a total of $41.6 billion in proposed “solutions.” It included $30.3 billion to balance the 2009-2010 budget. Another $11.3 billion was also included to close the gap for the remainder of the 2008-2009 budget after fiscal analysts in the Legislative Analysts Office determined that the actual incoming budget revenues upon which that budget agreement had been projected only months before had fallen far below those estimates.

Specifically, the agreement included $14.9 billion in spending reductions, $12.5 billion in temporary increased revenues, $7.9 billion in Federal economic stimulus funding, $5.4 billion in new borrowing, and $957.2 million from the Governor’s line item vetoes.

The February agreement also assumed that the state would receive $5 billion from the sale of bonds backed by lottery proceeds in 2009-2010. It also required voter approval authorizing the sale of bonds and related changes to the lottery. These measures were part of a seven-bill package that were put before the voters for approval in a May 19^th special election. Finally, the agreement assumed that the state would receive $134.4 million in internal borrowing from several special funds.

Brief Summary of the May Revise and Yet Another Mid-Year Budget Deficit That Negated the February 2009 Budget Agreement: Even before the February budget agreement had been fully implemented in terms of those spending cuts, temporary borrowing, and all of the other gimmicks had been put into action, it became crystal clear that the May Revise would force the Governor and the Legislature to face the February agreement all over again and to try to come up with another fiscal game changer. The impact of the Federal economic stimulus bill was having a very slow impact both in California and throughout the nation. The national and state economies had yet to achieve much improvement as joblessness rates grew, businesses cut back their operations or shut down, the housing market continued to decline, millions of Americans saw their retirement accounts dissipate overnight, and more and more families had to file bankruptcies due to job losses and health care costs.

The May Revise showed that the incoming state revenues continued to lag far behind the projections made in September 2008 and February 2009. The State Controller took quick and decisive action in notifying the Governor and the Legislature that the state treasury would soon be devoid of the cash necessary to sustain government spending as he prioritized those entitled to protection against those paid to vendors and individuals and families relying upon government assistance. He predicted that the state would once again be forced to write registered warrants---IOUs----that may have provided a temporary respite, but that would further harm the state’s credit rating and substantially increase the interest payments for such borrowing out of the General Fund.

In the wake of these mounting crises, the disability community and other communities of interest launched massive letter writing campaigns and other forms of protests and rallies to bring public attention to the real harm that would soon be inflicted upon least capable of surviving the approaching economic storm. It was critically important to continue to send these messages and everyone participating deserves recognition for their incredible and selfless personal sacrifices.

If those actions had not been taken, it is clear that the voices of our community would not have been heard at all by the budget negotiators. More importantly, it gave legislators who supported us the courage and commitment to continue the upward battle. As California Senate President Pro Tempore stated when asked why he was expending so much of his political capital to support In-Home Supportive Service (IHSS) workers, his was response was “It is because they are doing God’s work.”

Yet, in the final analysis, the budget deficit had grown so large, so unmanageable, that it would have been impossible to preserve all of these vital programs and services. Every community, every constituency, was forced to bear unbearable burdens and it became near to impossible to ask for them to absorb even more to spare other communities of interest. Nevertheless, rather than becoming a source for divisiveness, there was more unity of purpose among the disability community and our allied partners than most ever would have dreamed would be possible as the fight for one became the fight for all.

The entire budget resolution environment became entrenched in behind-the-scenes negotiations. Although both the Assembly and the Senate convened a series of public committee hearings to solicit testimony and seek solutions, they were largely an exercise in futility. Both the Governor and the Republican Caucuses in each chamber once again resounded their “no tax” pledges and it became impossible to move them from these positions because of the significant power invested in the minority power by California’s two-thirds constitutional requirement for the passage of a budget agreement.

While we continued to “preach to the choir” to our Democratic allies, even district office level rallies, protests, and office visits had little impact on Republicans. They were not only unwilling to “share our pain,” some of them, particularly those who were part of their leadership team, denied that there was even any pain to be borne. The Governor and Republicans in both chambers continued to insist that spending cuts alone were sufficient to close the budget gaps.

The facts certainly did not support those claims and they offered no evidence to support their claims and continued to fail to propose any detailed plans or any alternative budget bill. “Just Say No” became their rallying cry and they successfully deflected any significant interest by the media that was woefully lacking in undertaking any form of investigative reporting.

One major distraction was a wildly inaccurate claim that pointed to alleged fraud within the IHSS system that Republicans claimed would also serve as a major budget solution. The Governor convened a successful “dog and pony shows” where Republican-leaning county District Attorneys supported his effort to convince the public that IHSS fraud was rampant and out of control.

Most of this evidence came from grand jury investigations in certain counties where it was shown that the local IHSS administrative systems lacked even basic fiscal controls and were in dire need of reform to control costs. The Governor made various assertions about the percentages of IHSS workers who were committing alleged fraud. His estimates continued to increase as the IHSS fraud allegations gained more public and media attention. At one point he proposed that as much as 25 percent of IHSS payments were fraudulent, although when challenged by the media to support those figures, he admitted that they were mere estimates based in large part on anecdotal information.

Of course, sustaining the sacrifices necessary to continue protests and rallies opposing budget cuts for people with disabilities came at a great cost. These campaigns did generate local media coverage, but tended to cause considerable burn out among our Advocates and consumers as the months dragged on with crisis after crisis. Even the well-know advocate and self-admitted public policy workaholic Marty Omoto temporarily closed down his CDCAN publication for several days before once again renewing his commitment to tracking and reporting on the ongoing debate and budget battles. He had expressed some frustration about community organizing tactics, but soon admitted that these efforts needed to continue.

The Long, Hot Summer Finally Produces a “Hold Your Nose” Budget Agreement That Imposes Additional Harm on Seniors, People With Disabilities, and Poor and Low-Income Families and Their Children: As the new budget deficit continued, polls illustrated that the general public was becoming weary of the endless fighting among Democrats and Republicans. The situation was certainly made worse by the national economic crisis and the lack of any indicators that the economy was improving. Consumer confidence continued to fall and the spending necessary to promote that economic growth was not meeting expectations. The American public increased their savings and tried to cope with the tremendous losses in their financial resources.

Given this environment, the Democratic and Republic leaderships in each chamber agreed to close down any further committee hearings on the budget deficit. Negotiations continued at a snail pace and became quite contentious. The shut down was attributed to the need for legislators to block themselves off from further lobbying activity or efforts on the part of special interest groups to urge specific actions on the budget. The tactic worked in some twisted sense as the “leaks” that historically have emerged from similar closed door the negotiations were relatively few and far between.

At various times the Democratic leadership put up specific budget proposals up for a vote on the Assembly and Senate floor to demonstrate how entrenched Republicans were and to increase criticism about the unwillingness to offer any budget alternatives. These efforts failed to have any impact on public opinion and the only individuals who were privy to the debate were those who were willing to watch the endless hours of the television coverage of the floor sessions.

In the end, the budget agreement that emerged was one that everyone hated. It also was, once again, based upon overly optimistic projections about economic growth and other temporary gimmicks that only served as cosmetic changes to the underlying problem. One unusual proposal that was included in the final agreement was that California would fully privatize the State Compensation Insurance Fund by selling it to the private insurance market. The Fund oversees the workers compensation system that offers insurance to employers and settles claims by injured workers. The agreement assumed that the sale would produce $1 billion in revenues that would close the deficit. Since that proposal was publicized, most experts predict that the sale would never achieve that amount of revenue.

Finally, on July 28, 2009, the Governor signed a package of bills that narrowly passed the Legislature. It proposed to close the then-existing $23.2 billion deficit. The package included a total of $24.159 billion in “solutions”---$16.125 billion in spending cuts; $3.492 billion in revenues and revenue accumulations; $2.182 billion in borrowing , including $1.935 billion from local government property tax revenues; $1.005 billion in fund shifts; and $1.355 billion in other solutions, including one-time savings from deferring the payment of state employees’ final paychecks for the 2009-2010 fiscal year until July 1, 2009.

Line-Item Vetoes: In addition to this huge $16.125 bill in spending cuts, the Governor used his line-time authority to cut expenditures by another $497.2 million. The majority of that cut, approximately $394 million, was squeezed out of the already bleeding of health and human services program budgets, including the Child Welfare Services Program, the Healthy Families Program, and Regional Center services for children with developmental disabilities.

The Governor’s Negotiations Tactics Included Devastating Program Cuts in the Health and Human Services Budgets, Including Target Cuts in the IHSS Program: By now, most of our readers have had the opportunity to review the carnage imposed by these inhumane budget cuts for people with disabilities. The Governor and Republicans insisted upon massive cuts in health and humans services programs because these budget items constitute one of the major categories of discretionary spending. The ability of the Legislature to spread budget cuts across the board has been limited by prior voter initiatives that preserve certain spending categories including, for example, Proposition 8 education funding that dedicates a large part of the state budget to public education programs.

Health and human services programs were hit extremely hard by the budget. Many of these cuts were based on unsound public policy since many of the reductions in state contribution shares of spending may result in the loss of Federal matching funding. Moreover, since many of these programs often mean the difference between life and death, various disability rights advocacy organizations and legal coalitions immediately filed lawsuits challenging the legality of many specific program cuts. Similarly, local government associations and transportation funding associations filed their own legal challenges after the Governor and the Legislature agreed to raid their budgets to close the budget gap.

One of the major categories of contention in the budget negotiations surrounded proposed cuts in the IHSS Program. Due in large measure to prior political conflicts between the Governor and unions representing IHSS workers, opposing many of his voter initiatives and other budget bills, the Governor particularly targeted the IHSS Program for huge cuts. Democrats fought hard against his proposed elimination of the program, but the ones they were forced to accept to reach a budget accord were nothing short of draconian in nature.

The most severe cuts came about with respect to the near total elimination, with some limited exceptions, of domestic and related services for IHSS recipients with a “functional index” rank, as measured by the need for each individual service, below Rank 4. The budget agreement also eliminated, with some exceptions, all IHSS services for individuals whose weighted average is below Rank 2. These changes, which took effect September 1, 2009, resulted in a mere savings of $53.2 million in 2009-2010.

State and local agencies are still in the process of evaluating exacting how these rankings and appeals of these rankings that will result in the denial of prior services will be implemented. CFILC and the Systems Change Network are also cooperating in developing training for Independent Living Center staff and our consumers.

In addition, the budget agreement also eliminates the state subsidy for IHSS recipients who are required to pay a share of the cost of services, effective October 1, 2009. This program cut will result in a cost ineffective savings of $41 million for 2009-2010. The Governor and Republicans followed through with their purported effort to find real “solutions” to alleged IHSS fraud by requiring recipients to be fingerprinted and further requiring that IHSS workers will be subject to more extensive and prohibitively expensive Department of Justice criminal background checks. The cost savings to the IHSS system that would be realized from the fingerprinting and background checks is specious at best. Finally, the budget bill reduces state funding for Public Authority administration by $4.6 million, a 20 percent reduction.

The Governor also targeted the IHSS Program for additional cuts through his line-time vetoes. They included an additional cut of $28.9 million the Administration insisted upon to provide that no IHSS recipient with a rank below 4 are eligible to be exempted from the new restrictions on domestic and related to domestic services. Due to his veto, more IHSS recipients, potentially including those who need feeding tubes and ventilators, will lost access to at least some domestic and related services.

At this point in time, I won’t go into further detail about other health and human services cuts. We have disseminated other documents reporting on these cuts in the SSI/SSP grants, the Medi-Cal Program, and other health and human services programs. If any of our readers are interested in receiving or accessing this information, please do not hesitate to contact me at your convenience.

In closing on this short recitation of the ongoing 2009 budget battles, we all know by now that it is likely that many of the proposed budget solutions incorporated in the budget bill for 2009-2010 will ultimately prove to be non-sustainable. The state and national economies remain fragile and continued advocacy action in all of its forms will need to be continued.

The reality is that no matter how burned out we may have become in this extremely difficult year, we need to continue to make our voices heard. Regardless of whether it may be a renewed effort for our past strategies and approaches or some new manifestation of public and media outreach and education, it is clear that communities of interest who fail to send their messages will become easy target for future cuts.

Nevertheless, it is entirely timely and appropriate to acknowledge that we did make a concerted and largely successful effort to advocate on behalf of people with disabilities. The budget deficits will continue in 2010 and for the foreseeable future beyond, so we should take an opportunity in the interim of the 2009-2010 Regular Session of the Legislature to rest and recuperate and begin the process of evaluating both our successes and chosen strategies to make improvements and recruit more of our consumers to become activists on behalf of our issues.

A REVIEW OF OUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS

WHILE THE STATE BUDGET IMPASSE MAY HAVE NEGATIVELY IMPACTED MANY OF THE BILLS WE SUPPORTED, WE HAD MANY SUCCESSES ON OUR SPONSORED BILL AND ON LEGISLATION WE SUPPORTED AND OPPOSED

A Review of New Bill Tracking Systems and Operations That Were Adopted Effect for 2009: Last fall, immediately prior to the beginning of a new legislative session with a host of brand new, newly elected Assembly Members and Senators, we agreed that we should revise our systems and procedures for monitoring our legislative agenda. Rather than having a large list of bills classified as ones we would “watch”, but not necessarily take a formal CFILC Board of Directors position or support or opposition, we established higher priorities to monitor bills. We decided that we need to focus on bills that directly impacted people with disabilities and Independent Living Centers. Our finding was based on our assessment that past PPC teleconferences spent too much time discussing these watch bills.

Based on our predictions that the state budget would monopolize much of our time, attention, and staff resources in 2009, we agreed: (1) that we would narrow the number of bills recommended for a support or oppose position; (2) we would expedite the process for the PPC to review and recommend bills to the Board; (3) we would only discuss the status of bills with a formal support or oppose positions at the PPC Teleconferences; (4) that we planned to give our policy subcommittees more responsibility for tracking reviewing our legislative agenda; (5) we would encourage our policy subcommittees and interested individual to recommend other bills for consideration of a support or oppose position after filling out appropriate forms; and (6) that we would delegate responsibility for tracking watch bills or those we wanted to continue to monitor in case they changed direction during the legislative process to the Public Policy Director and CFILC’s lobbyist.

For the most part, this revised system worked fairly well. We consistently reviewed our only our legislative agenda during the PPC Teleconferences and over time with the recommendation of our policy subcommittees or individual Advocates we reviewed and added additional bills to that agenda. The delegation of watch bills to the Public Policy Director and the CFILC lobbyist ensured that we tracked these bills, but dispensed with the need to discuss every one during the teleconferences.

The only unanticipated development was our underestimation about how extensively the state budget would tax our time and resources. Yet, while this diminished our plans to have our subcommittees become more proactive, we needed to adapt to these developments. More importantly, in 2009 we found that there were no major issues or important bills that we needed to track that “fell through the cracks.”

During this fall, we plan to revisit and make appropriate changes to this new system. We will keep every apprised of any proposed revisions and ensure that they are scheduled for discussion by the PPC.

By All Objective Standards, CFILC and the Systems Change Network Enjoyed a Successful Year 2009: Although it is true that many of the bills were most strongly supported and viewed as major priorities were not enacted into law because of the state budget deficit, we enjoyed many unexpected successes. Our “losses” were attributable to the fact that most of the health and human services bills we hoped would move forward fell by the wayside because of significant costs they would have imposed on the state General Fund. Many of these bills met the minimum threshold to be automatically referred to the Suspense Files of the Assembly and Senate Appropriations. All too many remained in those committees and became inactive for 2009 after they failed to garner the votes and support of the Assembly and Senate leadership necessary to be voted out of those committees due to their fiscal impact.

CFILLC Support Bills That Were Not Reported Off the Suspense File or That Were Removed From Further Consideration: There were some bills that became inactive because they remained in the Appropriations Committees. SB 110 (Liu) People with Disabilities: Victims of Crime was an example of this category since it was a bill supported by CFILC that remained in the Senate Appropriations Committee after it failed to be voted off its Suspense File. It would have required the compilation and reporting of statistical data relating to the deaths of children with disabilities, the number of people with disabilities killed as a result of domestic violence, and the number of deaths of dependent adults. The bill was analyzed as having a significant impact on the General Fund since it would have required substantial reimbursements to local government agencies that would have been obligated to compile and report this information. As a result, it did not garner the necessary votes or support from the Senate leadership to move forward in the legislative process.

Another important bill that fell by the wayside, not as a result of its fiscal impact, but because the author could not identify sufficient votes on the Assembly floor, was AB 1538 (Ma) People with Disabilities: Prohibitions on the Use of Restraining Devices. Disability Rights California sponsored this bill that CFILC supported. It would have prohibited the use of specified types of restraining techniques schools have been using to restrain pupils with learning or behavioral disabilities. It came about after DRC investigated allegations of abusive restraints and isolation techniques involving 7 students with these disabilities throughout the state. Unfortunately, we were forced to move this bill to our bill tracking report’s INACTIVE LIST.

In the area of health care, we strongly supported AB 214 (Chesbro) Healthcare Coverage: Durable Medical Equipment. This bill was among our highest priorities and would have made it mandatory for healthcare insurance plans and insurers to provide this coverage. Many insurers refuse coverage or place low dollar limits on their coverage for DME, thereby forcing people with disabilities to absorb expensive costs to acquire these devices that improve the quality of their lives or allow them to work. The Governor had vetoed a similar bill in 2008, but this bill failed to be voted out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense File.

One major and controversial bill that CFILC and other disability rights advocacy organizations strongly opposed was AB 1037 (Lowenthal) Medi-Cal Managed Care Pilot Project. The bill was sponsored and heavily funded by a major health care HMO in the counties of Riverside and San Bernardino. It would have established a Medi-Cal managed care pilot project in those counties that would have referred people with disabilities to that managed care plan, rather than allowing them to continue using fee-for-service medical providers that may have treated them for many years.

CFILC, DRC, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty had been invited to early discussions involving the author’s office and the sponsor to discuss whether we could support their pilot project. They spent a great deal of time explaining the benefits of this approach for people with disabilities. However, after reading the bill and discussing it in more detail, we concluded that there were no guarantees that people with disabilities would have choices in selecting fee-for-services or the managed care plan. Indeed, the bill included a “default” provision whereby people with disabilities who failed to make a choice between the two options would automatically be enrolled in managed care and would have been required to go through major obstacles to change that default.

There were a number of other equally disturbing provisions included in the bill. While the sponsor agreed to certain limited changes in the amendment process, they refused to budge on the default provisions, so our opposition remained in effect. Fortunately for us, the bill was analyzed as having annual costs to the General Fund of $300,000 to $500,000 and the bill was not voted out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and became INACTIVE.

Finally, another bill we strongly supported relating to the single payer health care system to provide universal coverage to all Californians also remained INACTIVE due to cost implications, not to mention a threatened veto by the Governor.

A Review of Several Important Bills With a CFILC Support Position That Were Passed by the Legislature and Signed Into Law By the Governor: Although the state budget deficit forced many of our priority bills to become INACTIVE for 2009, we had some important successes. Overall, of the 17 bills that were on our legislative agenda that were sent to the Governor, nine bills with a Support position were enacted into law.

AB 623 (Emerson), which was a bill dealing with Continuing Education by Architects, was the only bill on our legislative agenda with a formal CFILC Oppose position. AB 623 was vetoed.

In addition, as previously discussed, the Public Policy Director and the CFILC lobbyist agreed to monitor several bills that had a Watch position. Most of the bills did not directly impact people with disabilities or Independent Living Centers, but were monitored to determine whether they should be brought to the attention of the PPC at a later time for a vote recommendation to the CFILC Board of Directors. Four of these bills were vetoed and three were signed into law. Following this narrative description of the final status of our legislative agenda, I have attached a complete listing of all of these bills, including a description and the final outcome.

Passage of AB 1269 Dealing with the California Working Disabled Program: One surprising success in the area of health care was the enactment of AB 1269 (Brownley), a bill that was one of our highest priority bills. This bill was the only major health care-related bill we supported that was voted out off of the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense File and signed by the Governor.

This landmark bill authorized persons with disabilities enrolled in the California Working Disabled (CWD) Program, who are allowed to retain their Medi-Cal health care coverage while they are employed. AB 1269 allowed these individuals to retain their CWD eligibility for a period of up to 26 weeks during periods of time while they are temporarily unemployed. Thus, it provides needed health care coverage during these periods and also provided certain exemptions from the calculation of eligibility for the program for savings participants may have secured. The passage of AB 1269 was a major accomplishment because in 2008, Assembly Member Brownley authored an identical bill that failed to be voted off of the Suspense File due, in large part, because of the cost factors.

Passage of Our Priority Sponsored Bill, AB 398: Of course, another major accomplishment was the successful passage and enactment of AB 398 (Monning & Chesbro), a bill that we co-sponsored with Traumatic Brain Injury Services of California (TBISCA). TBISCA is the statewide membership organization representing the seven service providers contracted by the State of California to provide programs and services to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) survivors and their families under the California Traumatic Brain Injury Program.

Since the TBI Program was originally enacted into law, it had been administered by program managers within the Department of Mental Health (DMH). However, the TBI service providers argued that this administrative scheme was a poor fit since DMH had neither the staffing nor expertise to deal with TBIs, which are primarily physical injuries rather than a mental health condition.

The opportunity to transfer the TBI Program from DMH to the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR) took place this year because DMH was undergoing a major reorganization due to changing priorities and staff reductions. CFILC and TBISCA met last fall to discuss the possibility of sponsoring a bill to effectuate the transfer and decided to seek authors who may have been willing to carry the bill.

Assembly Members Bill Monning and Wes Chesbro agreed to be joint authors of the bill. DOR was selected as the best suited state agency to oversee the TBI Program because it already administers the vast majority of programs and services for people with disabilities, including those provided to consumers by Independent Living Centers.

Since the Executive Branch generally opposes on principle efforts by the Legislature to alter the duties and responsibilities of state agencies it administers, overcoming that resistance required that we secure an agreement by DOR and the Health and Human Services Agency to negotiate appropriate amendments that would provide for a smooth transfer of the TBI Program and reach an agreement that would avoid a veto of the bill. We eventually secured an agreement by these agencies to provide technical assistance and support to amend AB 398 after it was passed by the Assembly and transmitted to the Senate.

We were very successful in that endeavor and we eventually reached a mutually agreeable compromise on a final agreement. These amendments were incorporated when the bill was heard in the Senate and the bill garnered strong bi-partisan support and was signed by the Governor.

Our ability to successfully co-sponsor this important bill and to negotiate an agreement with the affected state agencies proved to be an important step forward in advancing our legislative agenda and building our capacity to be acknowledged as a player in the State Capitol. We were able to use the negotiation skills of CFILC and TBISCA to cover some very technical areas in the bill and to generate strong support among the TBI service providers, our Independent Living Centers, and the Systems Change Network. Action Alerts were posted at the most strategic times during the legislative process and our ability to garner that support, as well as support from other allied partners, played a major role in having AB 398 signed into law.

Overall, we are confident that AB 398 will have a positive impact on the delivery of programs and services to TBI survivors and their families. They will be offered enhanced opportunities to acquire the skills, training, and supportive services necessary to live and work independently. Moreover, the bill includes express provisions authorizing DOR to work cooperatively with the TBI service providers to apply for Federal vocational rehabilitation funds, as well as future opportunities for Federal funding for California’s returning veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who may have required TBIs while in service to our nation.

Other Important Bills That Were Signed Into Law or Vetoed: While this article will include a more detailed and comprehensive listing of all of the bills with CCILC Support or Watch positions that were signed into law, I will briefly touch upon some of the more important bills. The full report will provide more information about each respective bill.

In the category of Diversity, Assembly Member Ruskin successfully authored AB 386 Postsecondary Education: Disabled Students. This bill expanded the definition of postsecondary education materials that must be made accessible to students with disabilities to include some of the emerging technological applications. The publishers and manufacturers of these materials will be required to ensure the accessibility of audiovisual materials, pod casts, and web clips. They also will be required to ensure that electronic versions of these materials must be compatible with audiovisual captioning software for the deaf.

One bill that we supported, but was vetoed by the Governor because of its potential cost mandates was AB 611 (Fong) Emergency Services: Limited English Proficient Populations. This ambitious bill addressed an important issue dealing with the inability of people with limited English proficiency to access and comprehend emergency response information and directions disseminated to the public during state emergencies and disasters. The bill required the California Emergency Services Agency to ensure that it would work cooperatively with ethnic media and community based organizations to develop appropriate communication alerts and warning information as part of all emergency preparedness and response capabilities.

This is a genuinely important issue because past assessments of prior state emergencies and disasters have underscored serious deficiencies in the ability of state and local emergency response agencies to effectively communicate with California diverse populations that are not proficient in English. CFILC had been working with the agency on similar problems that will be encountered by people with disabilities who may not be able to access this information because of their disabilities.

We had contacted the author’s office and the bill sponsor earlier in the year to determine if we could work together to include people with disabilities in their legislation. Ironically, they received feedback from the Administration that this proposal would add even more costs relative to making this information available to people with disabilities. Therefore, they declined to accept our proposed amendments even though their bill was nevertheless vetoed due to the same cost arguments from the Administration.

Returning back to bills that were signed by the Governor, CFILC supported AB 501 (Emerson) Limited Licensing of Physicians and Surgeons with Disabilities. This bill closes an existing gap in the law that prevents physicians and surgeons with disabilities from being eligible for a restricted license that would nevertheless enable to practice medicine under certain limitations. The bill was signed by the Governor and will increase some employment opportunities for this physicians and surgeons with disabilities.

One major accomplishment in the area of Housing was the successful enactment of SB 290 (Leno) Tenancies: Notices. This bill repealed an existing sunset date for an existing law that requires the owners of residential rental property to give at least 60-days notice prior to terminating the tenancy of a renter who has lived in that unit for one year or more. The bill would make this requirement permanent. Our Housing Subcommittee strongly supported a prior bill that made this requirement part of a pilot projects and advocated to pass this bill that would provide more notice to people with disabilities who are renters since it is often more difficult for them to find suitable alternative and accessible housing when their rentals are no longer available to them.

AB 123 (Portantino) Housing for Elderly and Blind Persons and AB 720 (Cabellero) Housing were two other housing bills signed by the Governor that made technical changes in the law governing the availability of housing elements for people with disabilities. A fuller description of these bills is discussed in the attached report.

Finally, in the area of Transportation, one important bill that was signed by the Governor that had a CFILC Support position was AB 144 (Ma) Distinguishing Placards and Special License Plates. This bill increased the fines applicable to the unauthorized use of distinguishing placards and special license plates for parking vehicles owned by people with disabilities. The bill also will improve the enforcement of these violations by allowing them to be handled in a manner similar to other types of motor vehicle tickets. Currently, these violations are treated as misdemeanor violations that requires that they be prosecuted as crimes by district attorneys in the court system. In many cities and counties where there are significant backlogs in all types of misdemeanor violations, the enforcement of disabled parking violations are often relegated to the back burner which, in turn, allows violators to continue abusing these law with impunity.

FINAL REPORT ON THE CFILC LEGISLATIVE AGENDA:

THE DISPOSITION OF BILLS THAT HAD FORMAL POSITIONS OF SUPPORT OR OPPOSE OR THAT WERE PLACED ON A WATCH LIST

FINAL LIST OF 2009 ACTIVE BILLS

CFILC SPONSORED BILL

AB 398 (Monning/Chesbro) Acquired Brain Trauma: State Administration

CFILC Position: Support/Co-Sponsor.

We are co-sponsoring AB 398 in conjunction with Traumatic Brain Injury Services Association of California (TBISCA).

Description: This bill would transfer administrative oversight over the California Traumatic Brain Injury Program from the Department of Mental Health (DMH) to the Department of Rehabilitation (DOR).

Status: 10/11/09. Signed into law by the Governor.

ACCESS

SB 209 (Corbett) Civil Actions: Access by People with Disabilities

CFILC Position: Support.

Status: Signed into law by the Governor.

Description: We had hoped that SB 209 would be the legislative vehicle to implement additional changes to last year’s SB 1608. As such, CFILC wanted to be sure that we were invited to the negotiation table to discuss substantive changes similar to the very productive discussions we had engaged in with the business and restaurant associations.

We had written to the author to express our interest in negotiating on some important unresolved issues, such as funding the California Commission on Disability Access, the appointment of the Members and Executive Director of the commission, and other emerging issues. Accordingly, we wrote to the author that the CFILC Board had taken a qualified support position that was conditioned upon whether SB 209 would emerge as an omnibus follow up bill to SB 1608. Even though the bill never became such an omnibus bill, the Board voted to take a Support position on the bill.

AB 501 (Emerson) Architects: Continuing Education

CFILC Position: “Oppose/Disapprove” (see description for an analysis of why we took this position on the bill).

Description: This bill originally required architects to complete additional continuing education requirements relating to health, safety, and welfare as a condition of license renewal, if the California Architects Board determines that it is in the interest of the public. In its original version, we had concerns that it would have a negative impact on the continuing education requirements that were imposed by SB 1608 (Corbett) relative to continuing education requirements on disability access laws and regulations. The author had not been supportive of that bill, so we almost took a ‘watch” type of position on the bill because of those concerns about what directions this bill could have taken. The bill was later substantially amended and addressed a concern as to whether or not the board had the authority to impose the very broad continuing education requirements. The Governor vetoed the bill because he did not think that the proposed requirements required a statute to go into effect and that he believed that it could be handled administratively. He also opposed adding more mandatory continuing education requirements for licensees.

While the bill did not move in the directions we were concerned about, we still retained for purposes of our lobbyist’s bill tracking reports a “disapprove” type of position on the bill. The veto of the bill addressed those concerns.

Status: Vetoed by the Governor.

DIVERSITY

AB 386 (Ruskin) Postsecondary Education: Disabled Students

CFILC Position: Support

Description: This bill amended current law that requires publishers and manufacturers of instructional materials used in postsecondary education institutions to be accessible for disabled students. It expands the definition of work products that must be accessible to include audiovisual materials, podcasts, and web clips. It also requires that the electronic versions of the materials be compatible with audiovisual captioning software for the deaf.

Status: 10/10/09. Signed by the Governor.

EMERGENCY PREPARATION

AB 611 (Fong) Emergency Services: Limited English Proficiency:

CFILC Position: Support.

Description: Requires the Secretary of California Emergency Services to consider the multiple languages and needs of limited English speaking populations during all state emergency preparedness planning, response, and recovery. It also requires the Secretary to work in collaboration with ethnic media and community-based organizations in developing communication alert and warning information and to use a registry of qualified bilingual persons in public contact positions to assist in emergency preparedness, response, and recovery, as deemed necessary.

Status: 10/11/09. Vetoed by the Governor.

EMPLOYMENT

AB 501 (Emerson) Limited Licensing of Physicians and Surgeons with Disabilities

CFILC Position: Support

Description: This bill authorizes the California Medical Board to issue a license to a disabled physician or surgeon to practice medicine under specified conditions, but does not allow a physician or surgeon from out of state not licensed in California to practice under those specified conditions. This bill would allow them to be licensed, thereby opening up new employment and medical practice opportunities for these disabled physicians and surgeons.

Status: 10/11/09. Signed by the Governor.

HEALTHCARE

AB 1269 (Brownley) Medi-Cal Eligibility

CFILC Position: Support.

Description: This bill is the only major healthcare-related bill supported by CFILC that was voted off of the Assembly Appropriations Committee. It is similar to the California Working Disabled (CWD) Medi-Cal bill, AB 851 (Brownley), that we supported last year. That bill was not passed into law after it was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee after failing to be passed off of its Suspense File. However, one of the key provisions of the bill that would have deleted the sunset date for the CWD Program was enacted in one of the Budget Trailer bills for FY 2008-2009.

This bill would enact the other major objective of AB 851, which is to would authorize persons who are eligible for enrollment in the Medi-Cal program, but who are temporarily unemployed, to elect to remain in the program for a period of up to 26 weeks. It would also provide additional financial resource exemptions for Medi-Cal eligibility, and further would extend the financial resource exemptions for the beneficiary under which he or she later becomes eligible for medical assistance where eligibility is based on age, blindness, or disability.

Status: 10/11/09. Signed by the Governor.

HOUSING

AB 123 (Portantino) Housing for Elderly and Blind Persons

CFILC Position: Support

Description: This bill allows residents in certain types of affordable housing to remain in their residences and have access to community-based supportive services that might keep them from having to move into an assisted living environment or skilled nursing facility.

Status: 8/6/09. AB 123 was signed by the Governor on August 5^th and has been chaptered into law (Chapter 82, Statutes of 2009).

AB 720 (Caballero) Housing

CFILC Position: Support

Description: This bill authorizes any city or county that uses funding from its Low and Moderate Income Housing Fund within a redevelopment project area for purposes of substantially rehabilitating a unit to count that unit towards meeting it share of the regional housing need for affordable housing for low, very low, or extremely low income households. The bill would increase the availability of such low-income housing.

Status: 1011/09. Signed by the Governor.

SB 290 (Leno) Tenancy: Notice Requirements

CFILC Position: Support

Description: SB 290 repeals the sunset date for existing law requiring the owner of a residential rental property to give at least 60-day notice prior to terminating the period tenancy of a tenant who has lived in the unit for one year or more. The repeal of the sunset would make the requirement permanent.

Status: 10/11/09. Signed by the Governor.

TRANSPORTATION

AB 144 (Ma) Vehicles: Distinguishing Placards and Special License

CFILC Position: Support.

Description: Allows the inappropriate use of placards or licenseplates issued to disabled persons to be adjudicated as a parkingviolation. It also increases the applicable penalties for violations. These changes will result in more infractions for violations since there is a lower standard for the prosecution of infractions, compared to the requirements for prosecuting them as misdemeanors. The Board ultimately voted to Support this bill.

Status: 10/11/09. Signed by the Governor.

LIST OF INACTIVE 2009 BILLS IN THE CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE

DIVERSITY

SB 110 (Liu) People with Disabilities: Victims of Crime

CFILC Position: Support

Description: This bill specifies that information related to deaths of children with disabilities and people killed as a result of domestic violence be included in procedures related to reporting these crimes. It also would apply to deaths involving dependent adults. These crimes would be immediately reported by DDS to local law enforcement. The bill makes a number of other technical, non-substantive changes in the various provisions of law that currently specify the ways in which in information is gathered and disseminated.

We submitted a letter of support to the author’s office.

SB 110 was not voted out of the Senate Appropriations Committee Suspense File and has been held in the Committee, so it became inactive for 2009.

Status: 5/28/09. Inactive.

AB 1538 (Ma) Pupils with Disabilities: Prohibitions on Use of Restraining Techniques

CFILC Position: Support

Description: AB 1538 is a bill sponsored by Disability Rights California (DRC) that prohibits the use of specified types of restraining techniques. It limits the use of physical restraints during emergency situations or when it is a component of a pupil’s Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP) and only when all prescribed conditions outlined in the bill have been met.

DRC sponsored the bill after it conducted an investigation into allegations of abusive restraint and seclusion practices involving seven pupils with disabilities throughout the state. The investigation revealed the failure of school personnel to comply with existing regulations governing the use of physical restraints and the failure of current law to sufficiently regulate the use of these risky practices.

By way of background, in 1990, AB 2586 (Hughes) was enacted into law to require the development and implementation of positive BIPs for pupils with disabilities who exhibit serious behavioral problems. Following the enactment of the bill, administrative regulations were adopted to require that approved behavioral emergency procedures be outlined in a special education local plan area (SELPA) and further specified that these emergency interventions should not be used as a substitute for BIPs.

These regulations provided guidance for school personnel to respond to emergency situations “to control unpredictable, spontaneous behavior which poses a clear and present danger of serious physical harm to the individual or others and which cannot be immediately prevented by a response less restrictive than the temporary application of a technique used to control the behavior.”

In cases where an emergency intervention was implemented for a pupil who does not have a BIP, the regulations required the individual education plan (IEP) team to review and determine whether the incident constituted a need to modify the BIP. Thus, current law and regulations provided for the use of positive behavioral interventions that are consistent with the individualized nature of the needs of pupils with disabilities.

According to the author and sponsor of AB 1538, many of these regulations do not have the authority of state law and the meaning of “restraint” was not defined. In addition, there are other gaps or inconsistencies in the regulations governing the appropriate response to emergency situations.

AB 1538 attempted to clarify these gaps and inconsistencies and outlines specific duties and requirements. It defined the various types of restraints that may be employed and prohibits the use of physical restraints for the purpose of coercion, punishment, convenience, or retaliation by staff, or as an extended procedure beyond the immediate emergency. The bill also specified that the educational provider shall avoid the use of prone restraint techniques whenever possible.

The bill also prohibits the use of physical restraints that inhibit or impede a pupil’s ability to breathe, including prohibitions on staff members placing pressure on a pupil’s back or using their body weight against the torso or back. Other prohibitions govern covering a pupil’s face as part of a physical restraint, placing pupil’s in a facedown position with the pupil’s hand held or restrained behind his or her back, and any technique for which there is a reasonable basis to believe that it would endanger a pupil’s life or jeopardize his or her medical, psychological, or physical condition.

On June 1, 2009, the author removed it from the Assembly 3^rd Reading File and placed it on the INACTIVE FILE. She did not remove it from the Inactive File for further consideration, so the bill failed to meet the deadline and became inactive for 2009.

Status: 6/1/09. Inactive.

EMPLOYMENT

AB 1213 (Skinner) Employment of Persons with Disabilities

CFILC Position: Support

Description: This bill would have required that the Superintendent of Public Instruction to be a member of the Governor’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities. AB 1213 was referred to the Senate Labor and Industrial Relations Committee, but it became inactive after the author suspended any further action in the committee hearing.

Status: 5/21/09. Inactive.

HEALTHCARE

AB 214 (Chesbro) Healthcare Coverage: Durable Medical Equipment (DME):

CFILC Position: Support.

Description: This is the reintroduced bill that would mandate that all healthcare service plans and insurers provide coverage for DME. The bill is sponsored by DREDEF.

Last year, the Governor vetoed a similar measure after citing costs as the basis for his veto. Nevertheless, DME coverage is an important issue for the disability community. This is a bill that we will actively advocate upon through the SCNetwork.

We sent a letter of Support to the author’s office.

AB 214 was not voted out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense File and has been held in the Committee, so it became INACTIVE for 2009.

Status: 5/28/09. Inactive

AB 1037 (B. Lowenthal) Medi-Cal: Managed Care Pilot Project

CFILC Position: The PPC voted to take an OPPOSE, Unless Amended position on this bill. However, in partial response to a meeting involving the author and her staff member, the bill sponsor (Molina Health Care), and CFILC, DRC, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty, we were given a set of amendments that deleted some of the specific provisions for which we expressed strong concerns. While they wrote to the author that they appreciated the new direction the bill would propose to take, DRC also wants them to consider additional proposed amendments for the author’s consideration.

Description: As introduced, this bill is similar to one CFILC opposed last session by Assembly Member Negrete McCloud that was dropped. The bill would establish a mandatory Medi-Cal managed care pilot program in Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. The bill would be limited to these counties, but we advised the sponsor that the disability community opposes mandatory Medi-Cal managed care on principle because it limits access and restricts health care for people with disabilities. Her staff also indicated inadvertently that the Administration supports the pilot project and envisions it as a precursor to statewide Medi-Cal managed care as a cost reduction effort.

In the course of the meeting we expressed that we were specifically concerned that beneficiaries would not necessarily always be guaranteed true “choice” in deciding whether to go on the proposed Medi-Cal managed care plan or continue to receive coverage under their current Medi-Cal fee-for- service coverage. As introduced, the bill included a “default” provision that provided that in situations where enrollees to select a fee-for-service or a managed care plan they automatically would be assigned to a managed care plan. We also questioned whether the build in consumer protection mechanisms were genuine or mere “window dressing” and whether the time deadlines for having the Department of Health Care Services to develop and implementation plan were achievable.

The author subsequently amended the bill to make some limited efforts to address some of our concerns. However, the main issue of concern relating to the default provisions remained in the amended version of the bill and we continued to oppose the bill. We circulated a letter of opposition to the Chair and Members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee asking them to keep the bill on the Suspense File. The bill had annual cost estimates of $300,000 to $500,000 which made our job a bit easier, even though we opposed the bill on public policy, rather than fiscal, grounds.

We were pleased to learn that AB 1037 was not voted out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense File and has been held in the Committee, so it is INACTIVE.

Status: Inactive.

SB 810 (Leno) Health Care: Single Payer Health Care System

CFILC Position: Support

Description: This bill is similar to the single payer health care bill that we supported last year, SB 840 (Kuehl) that was vetoed by the Governor. It embodies the single payer health care concept that supporters are using as the legislative vehicle to enact it into law. Prospects for convincing the Governor to sign it into law this year proved to be slim to none, but it nevertheless is an important bill that needs as much support and assistance as possible.

A letter of Support was sent to the author.

SB 810 was not voted out of the Senate Appropriations Committee Suspense File and has been held in the Committee, so it is INACTIVE for the rest of the year.

Status: Inactive.

OLMSTEAD

AB 885 (Nestande-R) Area Agencies on Aging and Independent Living Centers

CFILC Position: Support

Description: This bill is a re-introduced version of prior bills that CFILC has supported in the past. Unfortunately, none of those bills have been enacted into law due in large part to the fact that other Federally-funded programs would also want to have similar treatment when a budget deficit occurs. The bill was sponsored by the association of Area Agencies on Aging and it would provide for continuous funding derived from Federal funding for area agencies on aging and ILCs whenever there is a budget impasse.

Both areas on aging and ILCs experience tremendous difficulties in continuing to operate their programs when budget impasses force the State Controller to withhold paying vendors and service providers when the stalemates occur and state budgets are not enacted by the constitutional deadline. As a result, many ILCs are forced to apply for loans or access their lines of credit. This is a major concern because the ILCs are forced to incur non-reimbursable costs for interest payments.

In still other cases they are forced to reduce office hours, layoff or reduce hours for staff, or operate with skeletal staffing and reduced services to consumers. All of these contingencies could be avoided if this bill was enacted into law because the respective state agencies would be authorize to allocate Federal “pass through” funds to these providers even if a budget agreement has not been reached.

We sent a letter of support to the author’s office.

AB 885 was not voted out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense File and has been held in the Committee, so it is INACTIVE for the year.

Status: Inactive

BILLS THAT WERE GIVEN A “WATCH” STATUS
AND WERE MONITORED BY THE PUBLIC POLICY DIRECTOR AND THE CFILC LOBBYIST BECAUSE THEY DID NOT MEET OUR PRESCRIBED CRITERIA TO BE RECOMMENDED TO THE BOARD FORA FORMAL SUPPORT OR OPPOSE POSITION

AB 85 (Hill) Vote by Mail Ballots

Description: As originally introduced, this was a “spot bill” that proposed to deal with vote by mail ballots. We placed it on watch status because voting by mail ballots are an issue the broadly affects people with disabilities. However, the bill was taken over by another author and became a technical bill that changed the laws governing junk dealers and recyclers. As such, we dispensed with continued monitoring of the bill.

Status: The substantially changed bill was signed by the Governor.

AB 1142 (Price) Medi-Cal: Proof of Eligibility

Description: This bill requires hospitals that obtain proof of a patient’s Medi-Cal eligibility subsequent to the date of service to provide all of that information to all hospital-based providers and ambulance service providers separately for their professional services. It would impose penalties up to three times the amount payable for non-compliance.

Status: Signed by the Governor.

SB 120 (Lowenthal) Residential Utility Services

Description: This bill revised existing public utility termination notice provisions that currently only apply to multi-unit residential tenancies to any residential structure, including a single family dwelling.

Status: Signed by the Governor.

SB 786 (Yee) Civil Procedure: Attorney’s Fees and Costs

Description: This bill prohibits a prevailing defendant in a strategic lawsuit against public participation to file a motion to recover attorney’s fees and court costs under specified circumstances. It applies to open government and public record access lawsuits.

Status: Signed by the Governor.

SB 791 (Tee) In-Home Supportive Service Providers: COBRA

Description: This bill provided that, for purposes of in-home supportive service providers, the entity that administers health benefits under the Federal COBRA requirements shall be the same entity that implements a specified Federal COBRA subsidy program for these same providers.

Status: Vetoed by the Governor.

SB 410 (Ducheny) Workforce Investment Act: Federal Funding.

CFILC Position: The CFILC Lobbyist had tracked this bill as having a Support position, but there was no formal vote by the Board, so I am treating this bill as a “watch” bill for purposes of our final report.

Description: This bill sought to provide greater oversight over the spending of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Funds, known as the stimulus funding. It set clear legislative goals and priorities relative to the use of those funds for workforce readiness programs.

The bill was vetoed by the Governor. In his veto message he indicated that he felt that the bill could have made unnecessary changes in the state law related to the Workforce Investment act and would duplicate that which is already required by Federal law. He felt that all of the bill’s proposed actions are already allowed by the Act. Finally, he felt that his Administration was already working with the California Workforce Investment Board to ensure that California’s one-stop career centers are effectively coordinating with a broad array of partners and stakeholders to deliver comprehensive workforce services to the people of California.

Status: Vetoed by the Governor.