DATE: March 5, 2024
TO: Board of Supervisors
SUBMITTED BY: Paul Nerland, County Administrative Officer
SUBJECT: Fresno County State Legislative Platform Update
RECOMMENDED ACTION(S):
TITLE
1. Adopt recommended changes to the Fresno County State Legislative Platform;
2. Authorize the Chairman to execute letters of support, or opposition, in accordance with the platform;
3. Authorize the County Administrative Office to work with the County’s State Legislative Delegation, Sacramento lobbyists, and/or other necessary parties to support, or oppose, legislation in accordance with the platform; and
4. Receive verbal report from Paul Yoder, State lobbyist, regarding legislative actions.
REPORT
The Legislative Platform is a statement of the goals and priorities of the Fresno County Board of Supervisors and establishes the basis for its advocacy efforts with the Legislature and State agencies. The Platform is also used as a guide for support letters related to grant applications. The last recommended action will provide your Board with an update on current State legislative activities. This item is countywide.
ALTERNATIVE ACTION(S):
1. Make changes to recommendations or language in the State Legislative Platform.
2. Postpone updates to the State Legislative Platform.
3. Choose not to make changes and continue to work off the existing State Legislative Platform, last updated and approved on March 14, 2023.
If your Board chooses to postpone or not make updates to the platform, staff will need to bring items that are not currently included in the platform to your Board to be addressed on an individual basis.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no additional Net County Cost associated with the recommended actions.
DISCUSSION:
The State Legislative Platform is used by County officials and staff as policy guidelines for legislative action and to facilitate timely responses to requests from the County’s State Legislative Delegation, the County’s State lobbyists, and interested citizens. Your Board last updated the State Legislative Platform on March 14, 2023. This is the annual update to the Legislative Platform.
For letters of support or opposition, the platform serves as a guide for departments to easily identify if State issues they are working on fall within the County’s State Platform. Consistent with Administrative Policy 21, any specific State issues falling outside of the platform and any letter requesting the signature of all five Board members would require an agenda item for presentation to your Board. It should be noted, if an individual Board member wishes to submit a letter of support or opposition that is consistent with the Platform, they may do so under their Office; however, they may also utilize your Board’s letterhead.
The proposed platform contains three sections:
I. Introduction - an explanation of the purpose of the legislative platform.
II. Major Legislative Issues - identifies significant issues for the County.
III. General Principles - provides positions that will guide County actions and advocacy efforts in specified categories of Agriculture; Child Support Services; Criminal Justice and Public Protection; Economic Development and Workforce Investment; Elections; Energy/Air Quality; Environmental Quality/Natural Resources; General Government and Finance; Labor Relations and Employee Benefits; Land Use; Library; Public Health, Mental Health, and Health Care Services; Social Services; Transportation; Water; and Specific 2023 Legislation.
The primary recommended changes to the State Legislative Platform are as follows:
Agriculture:
o Deleted bullet supporting proposals that maintain or increase funding for pesticide regulatory activities.
Criminal Justice and Public Protection:
o Added bullet to support state funding for post-conviction indigent defense services pursuant to Penal Code sections 745, 1172.1, 1172.6, 1172.7, 1172.75, 1473.7 and 3051. Post conviction relief services are needed and promote fairness within the criminal justice system, alleviates overcrowding in prisons, and directs resources towards rehabilitation efforts instead of prisons and jails.
o Added bullet for continued support for Clean Slate programs which facilitates the automatic sealing or expungement of certain criminal records, providing individuals with a second chance to reintegrate into society by removing barriers to employment and housing, ultimately promoting rehabilitation, and reducing recidivism within the community.
o Revised bullet amending the theft provisions of Proposition 47 by removing the phrase “back to its original threshold before passage of the measure in 2014”.
o Revised bullet to support state funding for any mandated improvements at jail and juvenile facilities to include “SB 823, Juvenile Justice Realignment”.
o Revised bullet supporting the continued involvement of the State Department of Justice in local task forces to combat “organized retail theft”.
o Added bullet to support a comprehensive package of legislation and funding that combats organized retail theft around three core pillars; Prevention (Identifying and treating root causes of criminal behavior), Enforcement (Addressing criminal behavior through a combination of incarceration, rehabilitation, and education), and Supervision (Instilling accountability through individualized approaches to address criminal behavior of habitual offenders).
Economic Development and Workforce Investment:
o Revised bullet supporting State/Local initiatives to provide venture capital “for local projects”.
Energy/Air Quality:
o Revised bullet to “maintain sunset of” the commercial-scale solar tax exclusion and remove “to address fiscal inequities instead of extending the current exclusion when it expires at the end of”.
o Add bullet to oppose legislation that would undermine governance of the San Joaquin Air Pollution Control District.
Environmental Quality/Natural Resources:
o Revised bullet to support legislation that allocates funding to increase waste stream recycling and waste stream diversion by adding and additional sentence to “support funding to implement SB 1383 and expanded exemptions from it for rural communities”.
General Government and Finance:
o Added bullet to support legislation and regulatory guidelines that curb the theft and subsequent recycling of commercial metals.
Labor Relations and Employee Benefits:
o Revised bullet to support fair Medi-Cal reimbursements “and state general fund appropriations for” local hospitals in financial jeopardy and removing “due to low reimbursement rates and the dependence on commercial health plans to cover the shortfall”.
Land Use:
o Revised bullet to oppose any attempt by the State to usurp the County’s authority to approve “alternative energy” projects instead of “solar photovoltaic” projects.
Public Health, Mental Health, and Health Care Services:
o Revised bullet to support allocation and reimbursement policies to reflect “behavioral” health care instead of “mental” health care and include a follow-up sentence supporting the increase the reimbursement rate paid to County Behavioral Health for Medi-Cal claimable Specialty Mental Health Services (SMHS) and Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System Services (DMC-ODS services).
o Revised supporting policies that promote tobacco-free environments to include prevention of “the reduction of the illegal tobacco sales to persons under the age of 21”.
o Revised bullet for Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) to include “and flexibility to implement changes to MHSA as result of passed legislation.”
o Added bullet support funding for the development of additional facilities to address mental health and substance use disorder treatment without a competitive grant application process required.
o Added bullet to support legislation to regulate unlicensed biological research labs and support local authorities’ powers to address labs as a nuisance or health concern.
Social Services:
o Added bullet to oppose efforts to cut CalWORKs Expanded Subsidized Employment (ESE) and Family Stabilization programs.
Transportation:
o Revised bullet to support continued State funding and assistance formulas for grade separation projects to remove “maintaining existing funding levels that ensure historical shares of current funding sources to counties for road maintenance and funding for State Traffic Congestion Relief projects.
o Added bullet to support legislation that gives maintained roads additional weight in gas tax allocations.
o Added bullet to support legislation that provides additional road maintenance fees from zero or low emission vehicles.
Approval of the recommended actions will adopt the updated State Legislative Platform, authorize the Chairman to execute letters of support or opposition in accordance with the platform, and allow the County Administrative Office to express your Board’s position on legislation in accordance with the platform.
OTHER REVIEWING AGENCIES:
The legislative platform was developed with the cooperation and input of the County’s State lobbyists.
REFERENCE MATERIAL:
BAI# 6, March 14, 2023
ATTACHMENTS INCLUDED AND/OR ON FILE:
Fresno County 2023 State Legislative Platform
Fresno County 2023 State Legislative Platform - Redline
CAO ANALYST:
Fine Nai