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California Could Add More Paid Sick Days for Workers. Here’s How Much Time They Would Get

September 11, 2023 By Cathie Anderson 1 Comment

California lawmakers stood in the vanguard in 2014 when they mandated that workers be allowed three days of sick pay annually, but more than a dozen other states have since enacted more generous sick leave policies than that one.

Sen. Lena Gonzalez, D-Long Beach, said it’s time that California increase the amount of mandated sick time, and she has introduced Senate Bill 616 to get it done. Initially, the measure would have mandated at least seven days of sick pay, but Gonzalez amended the bill last week to say at least five days.

COVID-19 left people unable to work for significant periods, Gonzalez said, and federal and state laws ensured they got the supplemental recovery time and sick pay to avoid infecting co-workers and suffering financial setbacks. Even now, it can take five days or longer for COVID-19 to clear the body, supporters say.

“Families no longer have the temporary protections afforded by COVID-19 supplemental paid sick leave, which ended last year,” Gonzalez said. “This back-to-school season, let’s commit to ensuring that parents can take the sick leave they need to take care of their health and the health of their children.”

A coalition of employer groups opposed the legislation, saying that many small businesses are still in survival mode because of financial setbacks they incurred during the pandemic.

“Despite the economic struggles that businesses have faced recently, the number of overlapping leaves has grown over the last few years and continues to grow,” they wrote in letters to legislators. “Some are paid and some are unpaid, but even unpaid leaves increase costs on employers because the employer must either shift the work to other existing employees on short notice, which leads to overtime pay, or be understaffed.”

They also pointed to an estimate from the workforce solution company Circadian that said unscheduled absenteeism costs roughly $3,600 per year for each hourly employee in this state.

Poll: Small business owners support 7 days

In July, though, the Small Business Majority said that its polling on SB 616 found that an overwhelming majority of small business owners, some 85%, support expanding guaranteed annual paid sick days from three days to as many as seven. The organization noted that owners have concerns about their employees’ finances as well as their own.

Kim Robinson, who manages two health clinics in Stockton for Community Medical Centers, said she has long supported SB 616 as a wellness advocate but that she now is facing a sick time challenge at work that has shown her just how crucial this measure is.

Robinson’s employer allows the 56 hours of sick time that SB 616 initially required, she said, and even so, she has struggled to accommodate the demands of caring for not only herself but also an adult child and a parent who both have ongoing medical conditions.

Robinson said she believes her story encapsulates what many workers experience as they try to hold down jobs that provide the income their families need to survive while also trying to care for ailing relatives.

A Community Medical employee for five years, Robinson said she feared the company would fire her for taking excessive time off after her mother’s health deteriorated two years ago. She was running through her sick time and, although her company’s sick leave exceeded the state-mandated time, she knew it wouldn’t be enough last year.

The thing about sick time, she said, is that if you use all those hours up, you have to wait until you can accrue more time before you can take leave. With her mother’s condition, she said, emergencies and unexpected urgent needs had cropped up.

Robinson decided last year that it would probably be best to apply for an intermittent leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. If workers have qualifying reasons, and Robinson’s case did, this law entitles them to take unpaid, job-protected time off to care for themselves or family members.

If workers have earned paid time off, FMLA allows them to use it rather than going without a check. Robinson had acquired as much as 224 hours by early this year.

Community Medical approved Robinson’s FMLA request last year, and before it expired this summer, the company’s human resources team reached out to her and asked if she wanted to renew it. Robinson assured them that she did, and at their request, supplied them with information from her mother’s physician explaining how much time she might need.

“Her provider put in that it could be up to 40 hours a week, up to eight hours a day. This isn’t saying that this is what’s going to happen,” Robinson said. “It is just giving guidelines that, if it needs to happen, I’m able to take that time off, and it will fall under the Family Medical Leave Act so that my hours are protected and can’t be used against me as I’m taking excessive time off and be terminated from my job.”

Fear of losing employment haunted worker

Robinson feared losing her job even as she earned fresh accomplishments. Last month, for instance, one of her health centers earned the highest possible marks on two inspections, a scheduled one by the California Department of Public Health and a surprise one by the joint commission that accredits her company’s clinics.

She recalled how the auditor from the joint commission chuckled and said, “I can’t find anything that you guys are doing wrong.”

The clinic, based at Stockton’s Dorothy L. Jones Family Resource Center, was 100% compliant, Robinson said, and while other Community Medical Centers clinics also had gone through surprise inspections, none of them had earned that high a score. She managed this without the help of the two medical assistant leads who normally help her run the clinics she manages: One had gotten a promotion, and the other had taken some time off.

Despite the wins, Robinson said, her worst fear came true when she received emails from her company telling her that they could not accommodate the leave time spelled out in her intermittent FMLA and that they were placing her on an unpaid leave of absence until Sept. 20. At that time, the note said, the company would reassess how to proceed.

No one called to discuss this decision, Robinson said, and no one has yet returned her calls and emails for more information.

In a statement sent to The Bee, the company did not address Robinson’s specific case. The Department of Labor said they would need more information to determine whether Community Medical’s actions were legal.

Robinson said she was left with unanswered questions as her company email was disabled: Would she be able to pay her rent or her daughter’s college tuition? What would she do if she exhausted all her paid time off and had none left when her mother needed her to be there for eight hours or more every day?

Still, Robinson fielded staff calls for direction and, after scheduled vacation time, she said, she returned to the office because she had never requested the unpaid leave. Her teams at both clinics were relieved but surprised to see her, Robinson said, because other staff told them she’d been fired.

Undeterred, Robinson messaged her supervisor and told her that she was not on leave and had not requested to take a week off for FMLA time. Another manager had been assigned to cover her clinics, Robinson said, so she also told her manager that was unnecessary since she was back in the office.

Slowly, she said, her email was restored, and her manager welcomed her back to work.

Sarah Taft, the communications director at Community Medical, said the company, which also runs health centers in Dixon, Lodi, Manteca, Tracy, and Vacaville, offers a variety of benefits to meet the needs of its employees, including a generous holiday and paid-time-off schedule. Full-time employees can earn 56 hours of paid sick leave annually, she said.

“We welcome input on our benefits from employees and are committed to providing the support they need to thrive,” Taft said. “Improving health and well-being in our communities is our mission and it drives everything we do.”

Robinson said she hadn’t given her employer any reason to think she couldn’t handle her workload. The move to place her on unpaid leave, she said, made her keenly aware that workers could easily have their lives turned upside down in disputes over sick leave.

How much sick time do other states mandate?

So many people are in that sandwich generation, caring for both parents and kids as they try to earn a living, she said, and they need more job protection than the current three days afford them.

Proponents of SB 616 have told legislators that this is a pocketbook issue for many workers. Missing 3.5 days of work without pay equates to losing an entire family’s monthly grocery budget, they said, so those four additional days could mean the difference between putting food on the table and kids going hungry.

In California, seven cities already mandate that employers provide nine to 10 days of sick time, according to researchers at the California Budget ajnd Policy Center. They are San Diego, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and Emeryville.

Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia also mandate more sick days than California does. Six require more days for all employers or soon will:

▪ Washington: One hour for every 40 hours worked

▪ New Mexico: 64 hours

▪ Colorado and Minnesota: 48 hours, the Minnesota law will go into effect in January

▪ Vermont and New Jersey: 40 hours

Six states require employers to offer 40 hours of sick time once their workforce has met or exceeded a specific number: 10 in Oregon, 11 in Massachusetts, 15 in Maryland, 18 in Rhode Island, and 50 in Connecticut and Michigan.

The number of sick days vary in two states and D.C., depending on employee headcount:

▪ New York mandates 40 hours of sick time for businesses with fewer than 100 workers and 56 hours businesses with 100-plus employees.

▪ Arizona businesses with fewer than 15 workers must offer 24 hours of sick time, but those with 15-plus have to offer 40 hours.

▪ In Washington, D.C., companies with 24 or fewer employees must provide 3 days, those with 25-99 must offer 5 days, and those with 100-plus workers have to give 7 days.

Click here to read the full article in the Sacramento Bee via Yahoo News

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Legislature, unions

California Lawmakers Vote to Limit When Local Election Officials Can Count Ballots By Hand

September 10, 2023 By Adam Beam 4 Comments

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California lawmakers on Friday voted to limit when local governments can count election ballots by hand, a move aimed at a rural Northern California county that canceled its contract with Dominion Voting Systems amid unfounded allegations of fraud pushed by former Republican President Donald Trump and his allies.

Shasta County’s board of supervisors, which is controlled by a conservative majority, voted in January to get rid of the voting machines it used to tabulate hand-marked ballots for its roughly 111,000 registered voters. County supervisors said there was a loss of public confidence in the machines from Dominion Voting Systems, a company at the center of discredited conspiracy theories since the 2020 presidential election.

At the time, leaders did not have a plan for how the county would conduct future elections, including the March 2024 Republican presidential primary in delegate-rich California that could be key in deciding who wins the GOP nomination. The county had been preparing to count ballots by hand for its next election on Nov. 7, 2023, to fill seats on the school board and fire district, and decide the fate of two ballot measures.

On Friday, the California Legislature, which is controlled by Democrats, essentially voted to stop Shasta County officials from using a hand count to tally votes. The bill, which was approved by two-thirds of lawmakers in both chambers, would only allow hand counts by local election officials under narrow circumstances. The exceptions are for regularly scheduled elections with fewer than 1,000 eligible registered voters and special elections where there are fewer than 5,000 eligible voters.

“Hand counts are complex, imprecise, expensive and resource intensive,” said Assemblymember Gail Pellerin, a Democrat from Santa Cruz who authored the bill and is a former local election official. “Research has consistently shown that humans are poor at completing rote, repetitive tasks.”

The bill now heads to Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The fight over voting machines has divided the Shasta County, a mostly rural area where the largest city is Redding with a population of 93,000 people.

Should Newsom sign the bill, County Clerk Cathy Darling Allen said the county has the equipment it needs to tabulate votes in upcoming elections. Despite the county getting rid of its Dominion voting machines, local leaders gave her permission to purchase equipment needed to comply with federal laws for voters with disabilities. The system that was purchased, made by Hart InterCivic, includes scanners capable of tabulating votes electronically.

Darling Allen said in an email she hopes Newsom signs it, calling it a “commonsense protection for all California voters.”

Shasta County Board of Supervisors chair Patrick Henry Jones said Friday the county would sue to block the bill should Newsom sign it. He said state officials “cannot guarantee that these machines haven’t been manipulated.”

“The state is now attempting to block us from being able to have a free and fair election without any outside influence,” he said.

Pellerin said the argument that voting systems are easily hacked “is a fallacy.”

“It is illegal for any part of a voting system to be connected to the internet at any time, and no part of the voting system is permitted to receive or transmit wireless communications or wireless data transfers,” she said, adding that California’s election standards are some of the most strict voting system standards in the country.

Trump and his allies have been pushing county officials across the country to embrace hand counts amid conspiracy theories surrounding voting equipment, particularly those manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems. But few counties have agreed to do so. Last month, Mohave County in northwestern Arizona rejected a plan to hand-count ballots because it would have cost $1.1 million.

Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News following the 2020 presidential election, alleging the news agency damaged its reputation by amplifying conspiracy theories that the company’s voting machines had rigged the election in favor of Democratic President Joe Biden. In April, Fox News agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems nearly $800 million to settle the lawsuit. The judge in the case found it was “CRYSTAL clear” that none of the accusations about Dominion’s machines was true.

While hand counts of ballots occur in some parts of the United States, this typically happens in small jurisdictions with small numbers of registered voters. Hand counts, however, are commonly used as part of post-election tests to check that machines are counting ballots correctly, but only a small portion of the ballots are counted manually.

Election experts argue it’s unrealistic to think officials in large jurisdictions, with tens or hundreds of thousands of voters, could count all their ballots by hand and report results quickly given that ballots often include dozens of races.

As one example, Cobb County, Georgia, performed a hand tally ordered by the state after the 2020 election. It took hundreds of people five days to count just the votes for president on roughly 397,000 ballots, according to local election officials. To count every race on each ballot using the same procedures, one official estimated it would have taken 100 days.

“Doing something like a full hand count in a sizeable jurisdiction is not the way to put those conspiracy theories to rest,” said Gowri Ramachandran, deputy director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s Law School. “It’s a way to waste a lot of money and potentially create chaos.”

Click here to read the full article in AP News

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: ballots, California Politics, elections

Schiff and Porter Increasingly Dominate Race for Senate, Poll Shows

September 9, 2023 By Benjamin Oreskes 4 Comments

California has more registered Republicans than any state in the union, but that doesn’t mean one of them will make it to the runoff for the state’s U.S. Senate seat.

Six months ahead of the March 5 primary, two Democrats appear likely to face off next year to decide who will replace longtime Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by The Times.

The prospect of Steve Garvey, the former Dodger and Padres legend, entering the race as a high-profile Republican hasn’t scrambled that dynamic, the poll found.

Reps. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank and Katie Porter of Irvine are neck and neck, with support from 20% and 17% of likely voters, respectively, the poll found. The two have opened up sizable leads over their other prominent Democratic opponent, Rep. Barbara Lee of Oakland, who sits at 7%.

Garvey, who has not announced whether he will run, and Republican businessman James Bradley each also had 7% support in the poll. Attorney Eric Early, a perennial GOP candidate, sits at 5%. Roughly a third of likely voters surveyed said they were undecided.

Under California’s top-two system, the two candidates with the most votes in the primary, regardless of party affiliation, advance to the general election.

“The more Republicans there are [in the race], the lower their chances are of getting somebody in the top two, just because they divide each other’s support up,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Times-Berkeley poll and a longtime California pollster.

“You can change that with a lot of campaigning, but they don’t appear to be that competitive right now for the top two positions,” he added.

The GOP’s Early was favored by 18% of likely voters in a Times-Berkeley poll in May but saw his support plummet through the summer. In that survey, Porter was close behind him with 17% support, followed by Schiff with 14% and Lee at 9%.

Garvey was not included in the previous poll but has been weighing entering the race all summer, his advisor Andy Gharakhani said. “Steve is seriously considering entering this race and speaking directly with voters on the issues they care most about,” Gharakhani said.

Despite several months of campaigning, Lee remains less well-known than Schiff and Porter, with half of likely voters having no opinion of her. Although she is the only Black candidate in the race, she trails among likely Black voters with 16% support, behind Schiff’s 30% and Porter’s 21%.

One factor that has the potential to shake up the race is whether Feinstein will be able to finish her term in office. She was hospitalized with shingles for a week starting in late February. The illness kept her in San Francisco for months. The dozens of Senate votes she missed, including several on judges, led some in her party, including Rep. Ro Khanna of Fremont, to call on her to step aside.

Last month, she was hospitalized again after falling in her San Francisco home.

If Feinstein were to leave before the end of her term, Gov. Gavin Newsom would need to appoint a temporary replacement. After he appointed a man to fill the former Senate seat of Vice President Kamala Harris, the governor committed to picking a Black woman if Feinstein’s seat were to become vacant.

Newsom hasn’t endorsed anyone in the Senate race, but some supporters of Lee have said he should appoint her if the seat opens up.

Asked what Newsom should do if Feinstein steps down, 51% of likely voters said the governor should appoint someone who is prepared to run for a full Senate term in the 2024 election.

A quarter of likely voters said he should appoint someone who is willing to serve as an interim appointee and not run for a full term. The rest had no opinion.

Schiff and Porter have remained mum on that issue, simply wishing Feinstein the best in her recovery.

The race between Schiff, a former prosecutor who was first elected to the House in 2000, and Porter, a UC Irvine law professor who was first elected in 2018, is shaping up to be a generational clash.

Likely voters older than 65 favor Schiff over Porter, 29% to 12%, the poll found. Those younger than 50 tend to favor Porter: She leads Schiff 23% to 14% among likely voters 30-39 and 27% to 6% among those 18-29.

That could pose a problem for Porter: She does best among those who, while considered likely to submit a ballot, often don’t show up at election time. A recent Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies analysis of voting in the state found that habitual voters tend to be white and older than the average Californian. Frequent voters were also disproportionately over the age of 50.

But the fact that the election is taking place in a presidential year could mitigate that disadvantage, said Sara Sadhwani, a professor of politics at Pomona College.

“One of the things about younger voters … that we tend to see is an increase in turnout in a presidential election year,” she said.

Porter has done an excellent job during committee hearings of creating viral moments that appeal to younger voters on social media, Sadhwani said. The question, though, is whether those voters will show up for the primary in March.

Schiff has leveraged his prominent role as a top antagonist of former President Trump to boost his Senate run. That appears to be paying off with some Democratic voters. He won additional attention when GOP House Republicans voted to censure Schiff for, in their view, going to too far in his efforts against Trump — a reprimand that Schiff has described as a badge of honor.

“It was an opportunity for Schiff again to remind voters in California about the important role that he has played in attempting to save our democracy,” Sadhwani said, adding that Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had only “helped amplify that profile” with the censure vote.

Schiff is by far the best-known candidate in the field, with only 24% of likely voters not having an opinion of him. He got favorable views from 43% of likely voters polled, while 32% had an unfavorable view.

Porter is less known, with 43% of likely voters saying they had no opinion of her, 38% saying they liked her and 19% saying they had an unfavorable view of her.

She leads among voters in Orange County, where she lives, but Schiff leads in the San Francisco Bay Area. The two are neck and neck in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the state.

The fact that both leading Democrats are from Southern California is a shift from the state’s previous pattern, noted Chris Lehane, chief strategy officer at Haun Ventures, who previously was an advisor to Gov. Gray Davis and Vice President Al Gore.

“Historically, Democratic primaries were won by a Democrat in the north over the Democrats in the south,” Lehane said. “I think it’s a real question of whether that’s still the case.”

“When you think about 30 years ago when Feinstein first ran, it was a purple state. Now it’s a deep-blue state. Everything has become nationalized,” he added. “It looks like there no longer is the Giants vs. Dodgers dynamic.”

Schiff leads Porter 31% to 26% among registered Democrats surveyed. Among likely voters who identify as strong Democrats, he leads her 35% to 27%.

The two are essentially tied among voters who are registered without a party preference or as members of a smaller party.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Election, US Senate

California Judge Halts District Policy Requiring Parents Be Told If Kids Change Pronouns

September 8, 2023 By Amy Taxin 1 Comment

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) — A judge on Wednesday halted a Southern California school district from requiring parents to be notified if their children change their gender identification or pronouns at school.

San Bernardino County Superior Court Judge Thomas S. Garza ruled after California Attorney General Rob Bonta sued the Chino Valley Unified School District for adopting a policy requiring schools to tell parents when their children change their pronouns or use a bathroom of a gender other than the one listed on their official paperwork.

“Today’s decision by the San Bernardino Superior Court rightfully upholds the state rights of our LGBTQ+ students and protects kids from harm by immediately halting the board’s forced outing policy,” Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement.

Garza’s order halts the district’s policy while Bonta’s lawsuit continues. During a court hearing Wednesday, Garza raised questions about why the policy came up in the first place and how it protected students.

Full details of the order were not immediately available. The next court hearing on the issue was scheduled for Oct. 13.

Sonja Shaw, president of the Chino Valley Unified board of education, said she was disappointed by the ruling but hopes the case will bring attention to the issue. She said she and other parents feel state officials are limiting their ability to be involved in their children’s education on issues ranging from gender identification to curriculum.

“I don’t understand why they are so gung ho on this issue, but everything else we have to inform the parents about,” Shaw said. “There is obviously an issue and parents are concerned.”

Chino Valley Unified, which serves 27,000 students about 35 miles (55 kilometers) east of Los Angeles, is one of several that requires parents to be informed if their children are transgender. The district passed the policy this summer, saying it supported the rights of parents to be involved in their children’s care and education.

Two nearby districts have done the same, while at least two others in the state are bringing up similar measures this week.

Bonta argues the policy will forcibly out transgender students in violation of their privacy rights and threaten their well-being. Chino Valley contends the policy seeks to involve parents so they can provide support their children need.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Delbert Tran, a deputy attorney general for California, said students were already being affected by the policy and feared being themselves at school, and that risking the safety of one transgender student would be too many. “This policy needs to be addressed now,” Tran told the court.

Anthony De Marco, an attorney for Chino Valley Unified, argued the policy would not affect students who were holding private conversations with teachers, but would involve parents in situations where students were making more public decisions such as changing their name or pronouns or using bathrooms or joining sports teams of a gender other than the one on their official paperwork. “We need those parents to be part of a successful transition,” De Marco said.

He also questioned whether elementary school students as young as 4 and 5 years old should be treated the same as high school teens involved in confidential counseling.

Earlier this year, the Spreckels Union School District in Monterey County settled a lawsuit filed on behalf of a mother who accused the school of “social transitioning” her then-11-year-old child in 2019 by allowing the student to use male pronouns and bathrooms at school without her consent. The child later re-identified as a girl, her mother has said. The district agreed to pay $100,000 but didn’t acknowledge wrongdoing, according to the Center for American Liberty, which represented the mother.

The national conversation over transgender rights has intensified as other states have sought to impose bans on gender-affirming care, bar transgender athletes from girls and women’s sports, and require schools to “out” transgender and nonbinary students to their parents.

On Wednesday, the California State Assembly voted to declare every August as Transgender History Month, the first such declaration in the nation.

“The move comes as over 500 anti-LGBTQ bills have been introduced in state Legislatures across the country” with most targeting “human and civil rights” of transgender people, an Assembly press announcement said.

In California, parental notification policies cropped up after Republican state lawmaker Bill Essayli proposed a statewide bill on the issue, but it never received a hearing in Sacramento. He then worked with school board members and the California Family Council to draft the policy that was voted on in Chino Valley.

Essayli said he hopes other school districts evaluating similar proposals will not be discouraged by the judge’s decision.

Click here to read the full article at AP News

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Legislation, LGBTQ

Grieving Families File California Ballot Proposal Aimed at Fentanyl Dealers

September 7, 2023 By Ashley Zavala 1 Comment

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Frustrated by what they call inaction from California lawmakers, families who have lost loved ones to fentanyl poisoning took matters into their own hands on Tuesday.

Matt Capelouto, who lost his daughter Alexandra in 2019, and Chris Didier, who lost his son Zach in 2020, hand-delivered the proposed initiative to crack down on fentanyl dealers to the California Attorney General’s office in Sacramento.

“Together, supporting this ballot initiative, we can bring hope to stop the flow of this deadly drug as well as the demand,” Didier told reporters outside of the building while the sidewalk was lined with dozens of massive photos of loved ones lost to the drug.

The proposed ballot initiative would ask California voters to require courts to give fentanyl dealers the same notice given to those convicted of driving under the influence: Do it again and you could face murder charges. This is also known as Alexandra’s law. The ballot proposal would also set a new 10-to-12-year prison sentence for dealers who sell the drug if it ends up killing someone.

Capelouto, Didier, the young daughter of late rapper DMX and numerous other parents and advocates helped for a committee called Stop Fentanyl Dealers. The group will likely be cleared within the next two months to start gathering signatures. They’ll need to collect more than half a million signatures within a certain time frame to land it on the 2024 ballot.

“Passing this law is the right thing to do,” said 11-year-old Sonovah Hillman Jr, who lost her father, DMX, to a drug overdose in 2021. “I’ve taken it upon myself to be the voice for kids, I want my peers to have a shot at life.”

The filing comes months after California lawmakers blocked Alexandra’s Law in the early stages of the law-making process this year despite having support from both Democrats and Republicans. Some Democrats have argued that increasing punishment would return California to the failed war on drugs, which inflated prison populations and devastated Black and brown communities. Others have argued the drug is unlike any other, with the state’s latest statistics showing an average of 110 Californians die of fentanyl every week.

Hours after the unveiling of the proposed ballot initiative, Republican lawmakers in the Assembly attempted to force a vote on a measure that would put Alexandra’s Law in the California constitution. Democratic leaders defeated the attempt to suspend certain legislative rules to do so in a 42-18 vote, with several Democrats not voting.

“Isn’t it true there are several bills related to the sale, distribution, accountability, and network around fentanyl still to be dealt with on this floor by September 14 and in fact, this body has passed more legislation on fentanyl than any other legislative body in California’s history?” Assemblyman and Democratic Majority Leader Isaac Bryan asked the Speaker Pro Tempore, Assemblymember Cecilia Aguiar-Curry ahead of the vote.

“That is correct,” she replied from the dais.

The group of parents and Stop Fentanyl Dealer supporters said they’re prepared to raise the millions of dollars and spend the serious time commitment required to run a successful ballot campaign.

“What’s said about it is this money could be spent in other areas,” said Mareka Cole, who lost her son, Marek to fentanyl poisoning. “We don’t know why it’s gotten this far, but here we are, fighting every day.”

A statement from Cynthia Moreno, press secretary for California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, reads:

“Speaker Rivas takes the issue of fentanyl seriously and recognizes we are experiencing a staggering and truly heartbreaking crisis. He is working closely with his colleagues to increase penalties for high-level fentanyl dealers and dismantle criminal networks. He is focused on saving lives, by increasing access to naloxone, which rapidly reverses overdoses, and test strips that detect fentanyl. And he knows that the courts are securing homicide convictions for those responsible for fentanyl deaths. The Speaker and his colleagues are taking action, and they’re doing it this session.”

Click here to read the full article at KCRA 3

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: ballot intiative, California Politics, fentanyl

High-tech California struggles to use technology managing state government

September 6, 2023 By Dan Walters 1 Comment

California may be the global capital of high technology, but its government is chronically unable to utilize that technology effectively.

That woeful reality is evident in State Auditor Grant Parks’ annual update of state programs and agencies that he considers to be “high risk” due to their deficiencies.

The report, issued late last month, identifies some aspects of government previously designated as highly risky that are now functioning satisfactorily, such as transportation infrastructure, prison inmate health care and the teachers’ pension system.

However, the list of poorly performing functions contains some long-term occupants, such as the implementation of technology.

The state’s technology failings, moreover, are an aspect of the Employment Development Department’s chronic problem with managing unemployment insurance benefits, another high risk activity, and contribute to the state’s equally chronic inability to produce timely financial reports.

The tardiness and incomplete nature of the state’s financial reporting processes are deemed high risk issues unto themselves, and are directly connected to technological shortcomings.

Although the state created the California Department of Technology, or CDT, and instituted new procedures in response to previous criticism about its lagging ability to design and build cost-effective information technology systems, Parks’ new report continues to question how projects are managed.

“CDT’s oversight of IT projects has yet to demonstrate significant improvement and will therefore remain on the state high-risk list,” Parks says, pointing out that earlier this year “we noted that CDT’s oversight of IT projects has been ineffective at addressing risks on complex projects. During that audit, we reviewed CDT’s oversight of four IT projects and found that although CDT identified deficiencies in three which required immediate corrective action, it had not used its authority to ensure that the problems were resolved.”

Parks zeroes in on what has become a poster child for IT failings, the Financial Information System for California. That awkward name was adopted to justify a catchy acronym: FI$Cal. But state officials are apparently more adept at naming the program than in making it work.

“The scope, schedule, and budget of this nearly $1 billion information technology project has undergone numerous revisions since it began in 2005,” Parks notes. “However, despite nearly two decades of continued effort, many state entities have historically struggled to use the system to submit timely data for the ACFR.”

ACFR is an acronym for the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report and is supposed to give officialdom, entities that do business with the state, and the larger public a reliable guide to the hundreds of billions of dollars that the state collects, spends and invests each year.

The ACFR, Parks points out, “provides an important resource for stakeholders, such as the state’s creditors, to use when making decisions about the state’s ability to borrow money affordably. Further, billions of dollars in federal grants are contingent on the state’s timely filing of the ACFR for federal review.”

The 2020-21 report was 12 months late, Parks notes, and the 2021-22 reporting “is already past due.”

“The state’s late financial reporting could also negatively affect its credit rating, which could increase the cost associated with borrowing,” Parks says. “According to the state treasurer, the state borrowed $5.6 billion in general obligation bonds in fiscal years 2021–22. Thus, even a small increase in the interest rate, as might happen with a downgraded bond rating, could cost the State millions annually in increased borrowing costs.”

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Legislature, parks

Does the EDD Owe the Feds Another $18 Billion Dollars?

September 4, 2023 By Thomas Buckley 1 Comment

Seems That Way…

Buried in a state Controller’s Office financial report, there is a rather odd entry: a $17.9 billion dollar “current liability” owed to “other governments.”

The Controller’s Office said the $17.9 billion line item refers to “amounts due to the Federal Government, primarily associated with federal grant expenditures for which the State was not able to verify eligibility of claimants under federal program guidelines.”

This does not refer to the $18.5 billion dollars the Employment Development Department owes the federal government for its fraud-filled disastrous pandemic unemployment benefit system response.

It’s in addition to that figure, meaning the total unemployment-related federal debt could be more than $36 billion dollars.

While neither the Controller’s Office nor the EDD would explicitly confirm it, the debt is almost certainly related to the state not being able to prove that that $17.9 billion dollars was sent to actual eligible unemployment claimants.

The language used by the Controller specifically parallels federal unemployment benefit program reporting guidelines.

Whether or not that is part of the $32-to-$40-billion-dollar overall fraud loss the EDD was fleeced for during the pandemic is not clear.

Either way, again – the unemployment-related debt to the feds appears to actually be more than $36 billion dollars (it is theoretically possible the debt is related to another program but that doesn’t remove the debt itself.)

It is unknown if that debt can be added to the existing unemployment trust fund debt or has to be treated – and paid back – separately. If it can be lumped together, that could extend out the surcharge every business is already paying per employee. The rate increases each year – this year it’s $21 and it will increase by $21 per year (plus additional increases starting in a few years) until it hits $420 per year per employee, which the surcharge is already expected to do. Originally, the EDD had estimated it would take only seven years to pay the debt; if the other debt is added it could be more than 25.

The “trust fund” part of the debt is growing because the EDD cannot cover its day-to-day bills now and is borrowing another $18 million a day, or $214 a second, or $25 bucks literally in the blink of an eye. Whether or not the “eligibility” debt is growing is unknown.

The EDD did not respond to multiple requests for comment/explanation; the Controller’s Office did provide requested information but did not directly comment further.

Indirectly, though, the Controller’s Office – like the Legislative Analyst’s Office and the State Auditor blasted the EDD’s gross incompetence. In the report – the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report for fiscal year ending June, 2021 (the latest available) – the office stated it was unable to perform a proper audit of the EDD because it has “inadequate internal control over its financial reporting for unemployment benefits.”

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, EDD, Gavin Newsom

Will CA Legislature Pass SB 14 to Make Sex Trafficking a Felony Once Again?

September 3, 2023 By Katy Grimes 2 Comments

Sen. Grove’s bill will make ‘non-serious’ sex trafficking children a felony and a strike

A bill to make sex trafficking a felony once again in California was blocked in the Assembly Public Safety Committee by Democrats in July, after passing unanimously in the Senate. Eventually and two days later, the committee was pressured by the public and lawmakers to reconsider their vote, and passed SB 14.

What should have been an easy vote for the safety and security of children should not have taken public outrage for passage. When and how did California’s Democrat lawmakers become so indifferent and callous to the people?

As Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) said in July in an op ed, “the grim reality is that California is one of the largest sites of human trafficking in the United States.”

As the Globe reported in July, Currently human trafficking is defined as a “non-serious” crime which means the act of human trafficking cannot be considered a strike under California’s Three Strikes law.

While most people do not encounter the sex trafficking industry, the horrific stories of survivors are out there for anyone willing to listen. “Trafficking victims must meet daily sex or labor quotas before they’re permitted to sleep, eat or rest. In many instances, traffickers will brand their victims with facial or body tattoos to signify their ownership over the victim and the victim’s status as mere property,” Grove said.

The California Attorney General explains the magnitude of sex trafficking:

Human trafficking is among the world’s fastest growing criminal enterprises and is estimated to be a $150 billion-a-year global industry. It is a form of modern day slavery that profits from the exploitation of our most vulnerable populations. One common misperception is that human trafficking requires movement across borders. In reality, it involves controlling a person or group through force, fraud, or coercion to exploit the victims for forced labor, sexual exploitation, or both. This can occur entirely within a single country or it can cross borders.

The International Labor Organization estimates that there are more than 24.9 million human trafficking victims worldwide at any time. This includes 16 million victims of labor exploitation, 4.8 million victims of sexual exploitation, and 4.1 million victims of state imposed forced labor. The victims of human trafficking are often young girls and women. Young girls and women are 57.6% of forced labor victims and 99.4% of sex trafficking victims.

In the past, the U.S. Department of State has estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 victims are trafficked into the United States each year.

Six proposed bills in 2018-19 would have corrected unclear language and serious flaws in Proposition 57, passed in 2016 by voters, which reclassified many serious heinous crimes as “non-serious.” The initiative specified early parole for persons who committed non-violent offenses. However, the initiative never specified what is considered a non-violent felony.

But all 6 bills were killed by Democrats. Ironically, most of the bills were killed in Assembly or Senate Public Safety committees, just as SB 14 was.

Human trafficking involving a minor, assault with a deadly weapon, solicitation of murder, rape under various specified circumstances, grand theft of a firearm, elder and dependent adult abuse, were considered “non-violent” crimes under Prop. 57.

Senate Bill 14 by Senator Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) was voted down in the Assembly Public Safety Committee with 6 Democrats abstaining and 2 Republicans voting “aye”… that means Democrats wouldn’t even commit to a “no” vote lest it look bad during reelection time.

SB 14 will included sex trafficking of minors in the lists of crimes that are defined as serious under California law, making the crime a strike under the Three Strikes law, and would help strengthen protections for the millions of victims of sex trafficking.

As of today, Senator Grove says she has 64 co-authors which is more than half of the California State Legislature, including 46 Assembly members and 9 members of the Assembly Appropriations Committee who have signed on as co-authors. She has done a monumental job winning supporters and co-authors of SB 14,, and it’s taken a lot of heavy lifting.

Click here to read the full article in the California Globe

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: Crime, SB 14, sex trafficking

California’s COVID Comeback Intensifies, But Officials Say There’s No Cause for Alarm

September 2, 2023 By Rong-Gong Lin III 2 Comments

Outbreak investigations. Disrupted work schedules. Canceled vacations. Wearing masks.

Sound familiar?

COVID-19 is making a comeback in California. Coronavirus levels in wastewater are on the rise in the state’s most populated areas, and hospitalizations continue to tick upward as residents return from trips and head back to school.

The latest rebound, seen both in public health data and at-home tests, has led some to question what — if any — new measures they should consider taking to protect themselves. With Labor Day weekend right around the corner, some may wonder whether they should scale back or alter their plans.

While residents should be aware of current trends, and the steps they can take to reduce their risk of infection, the higher transmission rates aren’t “a cause for alarm,” Los Angeles County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said.

“We want everyone to enjoy this last weekend of the summer, and we think this can be easily done with some simple basic safety measures,” she said.

Such steps are taking on increasing importance given the first sustained COVID flare-up in months.

Coronavirus levels have more than doubled in Los Angeles’ wastewater since the start of summer, state data show, although they remain less than half of last winter’s peak. The rate at which reported test results are coming back positive is also up, now at 13.2% across California; at the start of summer, it was around 4%.

“These higher rates of transmission, while they’re not a cause for alarm, they do translate to more outbreaks in L.A. County, across schools, work sites and healthcare facilities,” Ferrer said. “Unfortunately, this often means missed days of work, missed learning and increased risk for those who are most susceptible to severe illness.”

In L.A. County, as of Thursday, there were 128 outbreak investigations in which new cases have appeared in the last four weeks. Eighty-six were in healthcare or community care settings, 20 in workplace settings, 12 in educational settings — including the L.A. Unified School District headquarters — five at sites serving people experiencing homelessness and five at correctional/detention facilities.

A number of work sites in the entertainment industry have experienced outbreaks recently, including the Directors Guild of America in Los Angeles, “The Masked Singer” studio at Red Studios Hollywood, Lionsgate Entertainment in Santa Monica and Walt Disney Feature Animation in Burbank, according to the county’s public health department.

People with COVID-19 are asked to stay home for at least five days after their first symptoms or their first positive test, whichever comes first.

The California Department of Public Health calculates that for every 100 people with the coronavirus in the state, 118 others are being infected by them, the highest transmission rate all summer.

During a news conference, the first held in months after what she acknowledged has been a “relatively calm summer,” Ferrer struck a largely calming tone. Coronavirus spread, though increasing, is nowhere near as far-reaching or disruptive as during the pandemic’s earlier phases.

Over the last week, Ferrer said, L.A. County has reported an average of about 571 new coronavirus cases a day — essentially double the figure from a month ago.

“Case numbers are relatively low compared to many other points this past year,” she said. “I also want to note that it’s a bit unfair to make those comparisons because there’s less reportable testing.”

Official case tallies have long been an undercount because of the prevalence of at-home testing, and that gap has only widened as public health departments wind down their screening efforts.

Though the rise in infections is also accompanied by an increase in hospitalizations, the latter does not appear to be climbing at a rate comparable to past surges.

New weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations in California have doubled since the beginning of summer but remain less than half of last summer’s peak — possibly because of enduring immunity from past vaccinations or infections.

Nationally, new weekly COVID-19 hospitalizations are more than double since the start of the summer, but only one-third of last summer’s peak.

The dramatic decrease in severe illness and hospitalization explains why there is little appetite for tactics such as universal mask-wearing orders, the last of which ended in Los Angeles County 18 months ago. Even mask-wearing requirements for healthcare workers have ended in recent months; most California counties dropped the requirement in April, and L.A. County ended its order on Aug. 11.

Masking orders at certain sites, such as workplaces, have been ordered specifically to quell an outbreak. Some hospitals have returned to mask mandates; Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa recently imposed one for hospital employees in response to the latest increase in coronavirus infections.

“The immunity is stronger today than at any other point in the outbreak,” Dr. Mandy Cohen, the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a recent video briefing. “That means we’re moving toward COVID-19 being a more manageable illness with less severe illness.”

Compared to last summer, “we’re in a much different and better place in August of 2023,” Cohen said. “We have stronger immunity and tools to protect ourselves: We have vaccines, at-home tests, effective treatments and common-sense strategies like washing your hands and staying away from people when you’re sick.”

She added: “However, COVID-19 remains riskier if you’re unvaccinated, and riskier still if you are unvaccinated and [have] not had COVID as a prior infection. Your age and your underlying health conditions also matter.”

The rise in infections illustrates the importance of getting the newly updated COVID-19 vaccine as soon as it becomes available, possibly by mid-September if authorized as expected by federal authorities. The vaccine will be especially important for older people.

About 70% of COVID-19 hospitalizations are among those 65 and older, Cohen said. Those most at risk continue to be older people who are not current on their vaccinations. At least 45,000 COVID-19 deaths have been recorded nationally this year.

Immune protection from COVID-19 “does decrease over time. And we have to remember that the COVID virus continues to change,” Cohen said. And with mutations constantly keeping scientists watchful, “people need to make sure that they’re staying up to date on their COVID vaccines.”

For people who have never been vaccinated, and for some older residents and those at higher risk, it might be better to get the existing vaccine now and not wait for the newer version, Cohen said.

Still, getting the older shot now could delay a person’s ability to get the new shot. Patients should talk to their healthcare providers for individual advice.

People can get a COVID-19 vaccination and a flu shot at the same time. Generally, everyone 6 months and older should get an annual flu shot, officials say; the best time is in September and October.

This year’s COVID-19 vaccine, which will be reviewed at a CDC advisory committee meeting on Sept. 12, is designed against the Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5, unofficially known as Kraken.

Officials have been closely watching another upstart Omicron subvariant, BA.2.86, nicknamed Pirola. Not many cases have been identified in the U.S., but there is concern it could be more capable of causing infection in people who previously have had COVID-19. More study is needed.

Studies are still underway to evaluate the effectiveness of the forthcoming vaccine, according to a risk assessment by the CDC, although it is expected to remain “effective at reducing severe disease and hospitalization.”

Health experts continue to advise taking reasonable precautions to avoid COVID-19 infection. Though most people no longer wear masks routinely, some officials say that masking up in the highest-risk settings, such as on public transit and while boarding and exiting an airplane, can make a difference.

Click here to read the full article in the LA Times

Filed Under: Trending News Tagged With: California Politics, Covid-19, Los Angeles

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