This week brought some welcomed updates for county employers, as
the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) issued a new
guidance on quarantining. The guidance shortens the time
necessary for asymptomatic close contacts (e.g., potential
workplace exposures) to quarantine, from 14 to 10 days, with or
without testing. All individuals permitted to reduce the
quarantine period to less than 14 days must:
This week, Legislators began introducing bills for the 2021-22
session and they included a handful of elections-related bills.
As county officials are aware, a number of changes were made to
California election procedures this year in response to the
COVID-19 pandemic and the Legislature is looking to extend those
provisions beyond the confines of the current emergency.
As the Governor pointed out last week in a letter to counties,
cities, and school districts, December 31 marks the deadline for
spending federal dollars allocated through the Coronavirus Relief
Fund (CRF), passed as part of the CARES Act. Fifteen counties
received direct CRF allocations from the federal
government and all counties received a sub-allocation from
the state. The funds must be spent on costs associated with
responding to the COVID-19 pandemic incurred by December 31,
2020. Unspent funds must be returned to the US government.
With the news this week of a multi-billion dollar one-time
windfall in 2020-21, interest groups and legislators immediately
began positioning their preferred programs for a share of the
money, estimated to be between $12 billion and $40 billion. Less
attention has been given to the other major projection of the
LAO’s
Fiscal Forecast, that the state is structurally out of
balance, leading to sizeable and growing deficits over the next
four fiscal years.
Governor Newsom met the September 30 deadline to take action on
measures approved by the Legislature and delivered to his desk.
To keep counties informed of new laws that impact them, CSAC will
be publishing a series of articles to spotlight those laws in
each policy area. This week, the Government, Finance &
Administration policy area provides information on new laws
impaction California’s counties.
Counties will recall that the state budget passed this summer
relied on further federal aid to avoid significant cuts and
deferrals. Today, October 15, is the deadline for receiving those
federal funds and with negotiations in Washington D.C. still
stalled, the $11.14 billion of cuts and deferrals now go
into effect.
This year, a new law went into effect, SB 234 (Chapter 244,
Statutes of 2019), that aims to increase the availability of
family child care homes. The sponsor of the legislation, the
Child Care Law Center, reached out to CSAC to share resources
with counties regarding the implementation of this law.
SB 234 makes various changes regarding licensing and zoning for
family child care homes, including several that directly impact
county regulations. These include:
At their November meeting, the CalPERS Board will consider
adopting rule changes for retired annuitants who return to work.
Retirees collecting a pension may return to work, so long as the
meet specific requirements, which include limits on the amount of
pay they may receive and the number of hours an annuitant may
work in a 12-month period.
The California Department of Finance (DOF) has published
additional information regarding first quarter expenditures and
obligations for the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF), including
information from counties, cities, schools, and the state. The
main content is on
the DOF COVID-19 webpage.
Last week, the California Supreme Court declined to review a
state appellate court decision that allows local government
special taxes to be increased by a simple majority, rather than
two-thirds, if the tax increase is placed on the ballot by
initiative petitions and not the governments themselves. This
comes as a victory for those in favor of making tax increases
easier to pass, as well as groups who might not seek taxes to
benefit their causes via local initiative.
