June 4, 2010
Like budget crises past, the governor and legislature are again considering suspension of the reimbursable state mandate that requires local governmental bodies under the Brown Act to post a descriptive meeting agenda 72 hours before a regular meeting and stick to it. The Senate Budget Subcommittee #4 with jurisdiction over general government recently informally decided to suspend the agenda posting requirement and adopted a Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) plan (yet to be drafted) that would make agenda posting a non-reimbursable “best practice.”
The Assembly Sub #4 Committee heard the issue the next week, and, at CNPA’s urging, voted to fully fund the Brown Act. The effect of the split between the Senate and Assembly Subcommittees is to push the issue to a Joint Budget Conference Committee, which could consider the issue as early as next week.
CNPA governmental affairs staff urges member newspapers to dust off and update their 2004 or 1997 editorials in support of requiring full funding of the Brown Act, and to do so quickly.
Here is CNPA’s letter, to be sent today to the Assembly and Senate Budget conferees. http://www.cnpa.com/files/misc/BAmandate.pdf
Background
Pursuant to the state constitution, whenever the legislature creates a law that requires local agencies to perform a new task or duty (a state-mandated local program), the state is generally required to reimburse the local agency for the cost of the new task or duty. An independent entity called the Commission on State Mandates both determines whether a new duty creates a reimbursable mandate and the value of the mandate. Many years ago, the Brown Act’s requirement that agencies post a descriptive agenda was found to be a reimbursable state mandate. The annual cost to the state is roughly $20 million.
CNPA, the LAO and legislature thought they found a creative solution during the last crisis in 2005, when the legislature asked (in a budget trailer bill) the Commission to revisit the mandate in light of Prop 59, the Constitutional Sunshine Amendment. The Commission did revisit it, and found that the state no longer had a reimbursement obligation. Unfortunately, the trailer bill language was involved in litigation, resulting in the Court ordering reinstatement of the reimbursements on process issues.
While the Assembly Sub #4 Committee voted to fully fund the Brown Act, the Senate Sub #4 Committee adopted the Legislative Analysts Office (LAO) recommendation, briefly described by the committee below:
LAO Recommendation: The Analyst recommends another approach to remove the state’s reimbursement obligation by using the provisions of Proposition 59. Specifically, the LAO recommends the Legislature modify current law to make provisions “best practices” for compliance with Proposition 59 (2004).
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