On March 15-16, 2023, CSAC’s Government Finance and
Administration team attended the 2023 Liebert Cassidy Whitmore
Public Sector Employment Law Annual Conference in San Diego. The
Conference is geared towards Public Agency Management and
included a variety of informative and engaging presentations, as
a resource to stay up-to-date with legal developments, gain
insights into current legislative implementation challenges and
future reform opportunities, and to network with public
employment agencies. Here are takeaways from several sessions:
In the “Strike! Practical Guidance for How Public Employers
Should Prepare for and Respond to Work Stoppages” session,
Presenters discussed three types of strikes: Economic Strike (to
obtain from employers some economic concession), Unfair Practice
Strike (to protest an action by the employer that possibly
constitutes a violation of labor laws), and a Sympathy Strike (to
demonstrate solidarity with other employees by refusing to cross
a lawful picket). They reminded employers that it is unlawful for
public employees to strike if the strike would threaten public
health or public safety, if they are providing essential services
or are essential employees, and that determining which employees
can be deemed essential is a matter within California’s Public
Employment Relations Board’s (PERB) jurisdiction. Presenters
shared steps that a public employer can take to prevent a lawful
strike and setting up a strike operations plan.
In the “What’s a Public Record? Requirements and Strategies for
Responding to Public Record Act Requests” session, an attendee
shared a pain point that her public agency is constantly
receiving PRA requests and they don’t have the capacity to handle
the high volume and large scopes of the broad requests. The
Presenter responded by suggesting the agency reply in writing to
the requestor, asking them to whittle down the request and narrow
the scope. If the requestor fails to respond, the Presenter
reminded the audience that “there is some reasonableness in the
Public Records Act” and advised that agencies should always keep
a paper trail of correspondence with the requestor. While the
agency typically has 10 days to respond to a request, reaching
out with a supplemental response to ask the requestor for an
extension of time can buy additional time, but extensions allow
no more than 14 days for the response to be provided from the
agency. They also noted that only a response is required during
that window, and not the production of records at that time. The
Presenter also discussed the recodification of CPRA, which became
effective on 1/1/23. There were no substantive changes, only
recodification, with the previous Government Code 6254(c)
becoming 7927.700.
