By Shane LaVigne, Capitol Advocacy

Despite passing a placeholder budget to meet the constitutional deadline by June 15, the legislature and the administration have a long way to go before coming to agreement on how to bridge California’s budgetary shortfall.  Budget committees and subcommittees in both houses have been meeting for the past several weeks and months to develop a proposal, which seeks to address the significant budget deficit facing the state, which, according to Governor Gavin Newsom’s Office, amounts to $27.6 billion.  The legislature has largely rejected most of the Governor’s budget cuts.  The legislature and Governor will continue to negotiate in the coming weeks.

Legislative Update

AB 1839 (Alanis) Peace officers: education and hiring grants – Support

This bill would establish the Law Enforcement Officer Grant Program to provide grants for individuals enrolled in a modern policing degree program at a California community college who commit to work as peace officers at a law enforcement agency for four years. The bill would also award grants to significantly understaffed local law enforcement agencies to provide hiring bonuses to newly employed peace officers. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, the bill did not pass out of the Assembly Appropriations Committee and is considered dead.

AB 1941 (Quirk-Silva) Local public employee organizations – Support

This bill would authorize a recognized employee organization to charge an employee covered by the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act for the reasonable cost of representation when the employee holds a conscientious objection or declines membership in the organization and requests individual representation in a discipline, grievance, arbitration, or hearing from the organization. The bill is currently on the Senate Floor.

AB 2042 (Jackson) Police canines: standards and training – Oppose Unless Amended

This bill is a reintroduction of AB 742 (Jackson) from 2023’s legislative session that aims to address the use of canines in policing. The bill would require the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to develop guidelines for the use of canines by law enforcement. The bill would require law enforcement agencies with a canine unit, on or before July 1, 2027, to adopt a policy for the use of canines that, at a minimum, complies with the guidelines developed by POST. This bill, along with Assemblymember Blanca Pacheco’s AB 3241 will ultimately both move through the process and pass this session. While this bill is in a much better place than it was when originally introduced, and after multiple conversations with the author and key members on this issue, we continue to be at the table and actively engaged to ensure any standards and training for police canines are workable for peace officers in the state. This bill is currently in the Senate Rules Committee.

AB 2421 (Low) Employer-employee relations: confidential communications – Support

This bill would prohibit a local public agency employer, a state employer, a public-school employer, a higher education employer, or the district from questioning any employee or employee representative regarding communications made in confidence between an employee and an employee representative in connection with representation relating to any matters within the scope of the recognized employee organization’s representation. This bill is currently in the Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee.

AB 2872 (Calderon) Department of Insurance: sworn members: compensation – Oppose Unless Amended

This bill would require that sworn members of the Department of Insurance who are rank-and-file members of State Bargaining Unit 7 be paid the same compensation as the corresponding rank-and-file sworn peace officer employees of the Department of Justice. While we are always supportive of efforts to enhance the pay and benefits of Unit 7 classifications, we are not supportive of the bill’s efforts to tie compensation between classifications via a parity requirement. We would be supportive of this bill if the Legislature either studied the potential pay disparity for DOI Investigators or provided the DOI Investigators a one-time pay increase. This bill is currently in the Senate Labor, Public Employment and Retirement Committee.

AB 3241 (Pacheco) Law enforcement: police canines – Support

This bill would require the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) to, on or before January 1, 2026, adopt uniform, minimum guidelines regarding the use of canines by law enforcement, including legal standards established by the bill, and on or before July 1, 2026, to certify courses of training for all law enforcement canine handlers and those enforcement supervisors directly overseeing canine programs. By July 1, 2027, each law enforcement agency with a canine unit would be required to maintain a policy for the use of canines that, at a minimum, complies with the guidelines adopted by POST, and would require law enforcement agencies to establish a training regimen that includes a course certified by POST. Each law enforcement agency with a canine unit would be required to publish an annual report of the use of canines on its internet website. This bill is currently in the Senate Rules Committee.  

SB 905 (Wiener) Unlawful entry of a vehicle – Support

This bill would make forcibly entering a vehicle with the intent to commit a theft or a felony therein a crime punishable by imprisonment in a county jail for a period of up to three years. This bill is currently in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.