Assembly Public Employment And Retirement Committee

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Good morning and welcome to the public and members in the Assembly Committee on Public Employment and Retirement. Before we begin, I have several announcements. The following bills are proposed for consent. file item 1, SB 1024, Menjavar, file item 4, SB 1207, Laird, and file item 5, SB 1444, Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment, and Retirement. For this hearing, we're limiting substantive testimony to two primary witnesses on each side of the bill, and each will have two minutes. All others will be able to come up and state their name, organization, and position. As a reminder, primary witnesses and support must be those accompanying the author or who have otherwise have registered a support position with the committee. Primary witnesses and opposition must have their opposition registered with the committee. All other support and opposition can be stated at the standing mic and when called upon to simply state your name, organization, and position. for committee members. Because our hearings are public and some travel far to be heard, in respect of them and the author, please wait until the debate has concluded before making your motion. For authors, you'll note that our hearing is publicly noticed as file order. Your staff should be monitoring this hearing to assist you with coming at the appropriate time. And so, Senator Perez will be waiting for you. We have one more after Senator Allgame. And finally, the Assembly has experienced a number of disruptions on the committee and in committee and on the floor proceedings in the last few years because we seek to protect the rights of all who participate in the legislative process and can effectively deliberate on critical issues facing California. So has every so everyone is absolutely clear conduct that disrupts, disturbs or impedes the orderly conduct of this hearing is prohibited. We will not accept such behavior or behavior that incites or threaten violence. To address any such conduct, I will direct the individual to stop and warn them if they continue, they will be removed from participating in the hearing or from the Capitol and will temporarily recess the hearing if necessary so that the sergeants who are sworn officers can restore order. Hopefully that won't happen. Thank you in advance for your cooperation. In the absence of a quorum, we'll start as a subcommittee. So we'll start with item number three, SB 1166, Senator Arrogan.

Thank you, Senator. We'll take a second to establish a quorum. Thank you. McKenna.

Lackey.

Alanis present. Berner, Garcia, Nguyen, Nguyen present, Rodriguez, Rodriguez present. You may proceed.

Janice O'Malley, AFSCME California. We are proud co-sponsors and I'm here to just answer any technical questions you may have. Thank you. Are there anyone else in the audience would like to

Good morning, Madam Chair and members. Martin Vindial on behalf of the California State Association of Electrical Workers, the California State Pipe Trades Council, and the Western States Council of Sheet Metal Workers in support. Thank you.

Hi, good morning. Kayla Jones with IBEW 1245. We are in strong support. Thank you.

Good morning. Al Austin with AFSCME Council 57 in full support. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, for being patient.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members. SB 1083 builds on the Safe Learning Environments Act, SB 848, which is enacted last year and established a statewide data system to track egregious misconduct by school employees. That law was an important step forward in improving transparency, strengthening accountability, and helping ensure that individuals with serious allegations cannot quietly move between school sites without scrutiny. But as implementation has moved forward, additional refinements are needed to ensure the system operates with consistency, fairness, and fully protects students. First, classified employees do not currently have a clearly defined impartial review process comparable to what is provided to certificated employees Existing law ensures that teachers receive due process including a hearing and the ability to an administrative law judge through the Office of Administrative Hearings. Without equivalent due process protections, investigations against them involving egregious misconduct can result in professional and personal consequences. SB 1083 addresses this by requiring an administrative law judge to determine whether a classified employee should be added to the statewide data system to ensure that only appropriate cases are included. The bill also requires the statewide system to immediately notify a current employer when an employee leaves a local education agency or private school before or during an investigation. This notification alerts the employer that a preliminary report has been filed and that an investigation is pending to help prevent and resolve concerns from going unnoticed by future employers. SB 1083 further enhances hiring safeguards by requiring schools to obtain and review substantiated misconduct records and the supporting evidence from prior employers before making hiring decisions. At the same time, it protects privacy and the integrity of investigations by limiting access to the statewide data system. The bill also clarifies the Commission on Teacher Credentialing's authority to review substantiated misconduct reports, access relevant records, and take appropriate action when necessary. In addition, SB 1083 extends critical protections to contracted employees who interact with students. These individuals may have regular, unsupervised access to children, but are not always held to the same standards as school employees. The bill ensures they are subject to fingerprint-based background checks, disclosure requirements, and appropriate vetting measures to safeguard student safety. Together, these reforms strengthen the statewide system, promote fairness, and ensure that all individuals working with students are held to consistent, rigorous standards because student safety remains our highest priority. Joining me to testify in support of the bill is Navneet Perrier with the California School Employees Association and Tristan Brown with the California Federation of Teachers. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair and members. Tristan Brown with CFT. We are a union of educators and classified professionals and happy to be here today to build on the amazing work that the senator brought to you last year with SB 848 and building more protections and more transparency and oversight into the workforce at our public education work sites and now also our private schools as well. This is a very important measure to help close any gaps that might exist for us to keep track of folks who have no business working on a campus. What we're proud to present to you today is a bill that requires investigations to be completed so that those who are falsely accused can be exonerated. Those who have substantiated findings are going to be tracked and that we can no longer so-called pass the trash of individuals that go from campus to campus and may commit further harm to students. We're also making sure that the due process rights are enshrined as we believe is consistent with current law, especially in cases, as I'm sure you're all well aware of, the Skelly case that provides for a due process hearing for individuals to clear their name and have all of the evidence presented against them so that they can better ensure that the truth is found. And I think at the root of what we're doing here in this bill is make sure that we have the actual accounting of what may or may not happen on campus and be able to track these incidents with greater accuracy and working with the CTC to keep a database where we can cut through some of the inefficiencies that exist currently that are also being highlighted in news reports lately. This is going to make sure that schools are able to have faster access to data as well. And thus, at the end of the day, child safety is priority number one. So we're happy to be here as a co-sponsor and happy to answer any questions. And ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Members. Elmer Lizardo with the California Federation of Labor Unions in support.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members. Sandra Barrero on behalf of SEIU California in support.

Good morning, Madam Chair members. Dorothy Johnson, on behalf of the Association for California School Administrators, respectfully opposed to Senate Bill 183 because of the potential risks created for student safety as well as liability exposure for the potential to create a risk of childhood sexual assault by a school employee. We have a shared responsibility to stop these incidents from happening once and for all, and we believe a statewide database could make strides in preventing abuse in school settings We are classified positions are essential and they serve in trusted positions with students And we understand the intent to create additional rules around when records are created and maintained. And while we truly appreciate the author's efforts and the legislature to pass SB 848 last year, we believe 1083 is the move in the wrong direction and runs counter to the goals of SB 848. It will limit disclosure of egregious misconduct to prospective school employers. It creates gaps in employment records that are otherwise fully available through different means. It allows a third-party ALG to wipe out a record of substantiated investigations for misconduct, and it creates a higher evidence standard to place a substantiated report into the database than it takes to make a claim of assault against a public agency's employee. SB 1083 would also make new standards for the investigation process by requiring the noticing of an employee for specific allegations, before an investigation can start, limiting the amount of time that can be taken to complete this investigation. And frankly, this does not create parity with teaching positions. To be clear, classified employees do have due process for discipline expressly when misconduct is the basis for that discipline. Teaching positions are also not subject to a binding decision by the ALJ. It is a non-binding decision. So there again, we do not see how this bill creates parity. What it does is adds up to making it harder for schools to place those trusted adults in school settings. It also exposes us to extensive liability for creating the risk of childhood sexual assault. Regrettably, this bill would not offer a resource or tool that we need to weed out bad actors, and therefore, ACSA is respectfully opposed to SB 1083.

Good morning. Leilani Aguinaldo on behalf of the school's Access Liability Fund. Last year, we were very pleased to work with Senator Perez for the passage of last year's SB48. So we definitely have hated the process this year of having to be on opposite sides for SB1083. School agencies have been paying billions of dollars to resolve claims that allege that they have failed to address the risk of harm and protect students. We believe that SB 1083 is a step backward from important laws that were enacted last year as part of SB 848 to provide potential employers with better information to improve their decision-making in hiring trusted adults who will be working with students in our care. For example, SB 848 required all potential employers to inquire with previous employers regarding potential employees for classified positions. Previous law already required this for certificated employees. SB 1083 changes this requirement to provide for more limited information for classified positions. And in doing so, it changes the information that is required to be exchanged between certificated and classified applicants, which we believe is critical information in making hiring decisions. In addition, we believe that SB 1083 would expand potential liability because of the ALJ process that the bill brings in for substantiated investigations that are reported to the CTC for inclusion in the database. Because of the ALJ process that is instituted in SB 1083, we believe that any subsequent employer would have a gap in applicants' employment history when conducting the background checks for egregious misconduct via the database, making the database incomplete and therefore an unreliable tool to fulfill employers' duties. For these reasons, SELF remains opposed to SB 1083. And if we could also just add for the record, a Me Too in opposition also for the California County Superintendents as well as the

organization, and your position. Good morning. Faith Borges on behalf of the California Association of Joint Powers Authorities, respectfully opposed for the liability concerns outlaid

Association of California, in respectful opposition.

Lucy Salcido-Carter with the Alameda County Office of Education in respectful opposition and also expressing opposition on behalf of Riverside County Office of Education.

Good morning, Marcia Fismar on behalf of the California School Boards Association respectfully in opposition.

Yeah certainly And have appreciated to the opposition in my office have been having lots of conversation and have certainly been working through this not just your committee and your committee staff but also as we head into assembly education and have been discussing some amendments that we can take to resolve some of these challenges. This is an especially important issue to me. It's the reason why I moved forward SB 848 last year, which was really landmark legislation to create this database system. Now, what we're seeking to do here is to create an ALJ process that will allow for independent review when an employee feels like they have been unfairly accused of egregious misconduct, that there can be an independent administrative law judge that can review the case. What we've done with the database system is we've created pending status. This is a critical component of my bill from last year to make sure that when somebody is under investigation by a school district, that they are not able to leave to another school district and avoid accountability. It was very important to have that kind of oversight and to protect students. As I've shared before, I was a victim of child grooming when I was in high school, and so I understand just what a critical issue this is. At the same time, what we're trying to do here is balance some of the needs, the due process needs and due process rights that school employees should have access to. So we're gonna continue to work at this. It something very important I expect to continue working on legislation in this space for years to come because it an important one I respectfully ask you all for your aye vote Thank you We had a motion and a second