BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Senator Ricardo Lara, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular Session
AB 2164 (O'Donnell) - Public postsecondary education: tuition
and fees
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|Version: June 27, 2016 |Policy Vote: ED. 9 - 0 |
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|Urgency: No |Mandate: Yes |
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|Hearing Date: August 1, 2016 |Consultant: Jillian Kissee |
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This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File.
Bill
Summary: This bill expands fee waiver requirements for
survivors of deceased law enforcement officers or firefighters
at California's public postsecondary education institutions to
include mandatory campus-based fees, and expands eligibility for
the waiver to include survivors of a law enforcement officer or
firefighter who died as the result of an industrial injury or
illness related to their job duties.
Fiscal
Impact:
Unknown, but potentially significant revenue loss to the
University of California (UC), California State University
AB 2164 (O'Donnell) Page 1 of
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(CSU), and the California Community Colleges (CCC). UC
indicates less than 20 current students are receiving the
current waiver; for CSU 36 students; and for the CCC about 350
students received the waiver in 2014-15. The number of
additional students that would receive fee waivers as a result
of this bill is unknown. Assuming the number of additional
students is half of the existing recipients, revenue loss due
to systemwide and campus-based fee waivers would be about
$136,000 at the UC; $123,000 at the CSU; and $160,000 at the
CCC.
Staff notes that because eligibility for this award requires
income and asset levels of no more than those allowed to be
eligible for a Cal Grant B award, it is possible that a
portion of these recipients may have otherwise received a Cal
Grant or a Board of Governor's fee waiver at the CCC, without
this bill.
Background: Existing law requires that mandatory systemwide fees be waived
by the University of California (UC) Regents, the Board of
Directors of Hastings College of Law, or California State
University (CSU) Trustees, for any surviving spouse or child, of
a deceased person, who met all of the following requirements:
Was a California resident.
Was employed by a public agency, or was a contractor, or an
employee of a contractor, performing services for a public
agency.
The person's principal duties consisted of active law
enforcement service or active fire suppression and prevention.
Was killed in the performance of active law enforcement or
active fire suppression and prevention duties, or died as a
result of an accident or an injury caused by external violence
or physical force, incurred in the performance of his or her
active law enforcement or active fire suppression and
prevention duties. (Education Code § 68120)
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Existing law requires that enrollment fees at the California
Community Colleges be waived for any student who meets the
requirements outlined above. (EC § 76300(i)).
Existing law requires that any determination of eligibility for
these fee waiver requirements to be consistent with any findings
of the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board, using the same
procedures as in workers' compensation hearings, as to whether
the death of the person, as specified, was industrial. (EC §
68120.5)
Existing law also provides various workers' compensation
benefits for firefighters, police officers, sheriffs, and their
survivors in case of death for injuries and illness caused by
the long term exposures they face in their line of work,
including, but not limited to cancer and leukemia, tuberculosis,
and blood-borne infectious diseases or skin infections, as
specified. (Labor Code § 3212.1, § 3212.6, and § 3212.8)
According to the sponsor, the fee waiver requirements in
existing law were enacted before many of the existing public
safety job-caused illnesses were deemed compensable under the
state worker's compensation system. This bill clarifies that the
fee waiver eligibility would be consistent with any findings of
the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board and ensures that fee
waiver benefits would extend to survivors of first responders
whose death resulted from occupational illnesses.
Proposed Law:
This bill expands the fee waiver requirements applicable to
the survivors of deceased law enforcement or firefighters at
California's public postsecondary education institutions, as
follows:
Expands the waiver beyond systemwide fees to also include
mandatory campus-based fees.
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Expands eligibility for the waiver to include the survivors of
a law enforcement officer or a firefighter who died as the
result of an industrial injury or illness related to their job
duties.
Staff Comments: It is difficult to isolate the effect of this
bill as it would be limited to fire fighter and law enforcement
officers that died as a result of an industrial injury or
illness arising out of and in the course of active law
enforcement or fire suppression and prevention duties.
According to Firefighter Fatalities in the United States - 2015
by the National Fire Protection Association Fire Analysis and
Research (June 2016), a total of 68 firefighters died while
on-duty in the United States in 2015. Of these deaths, 24
occurred at fire scenes. These are the deaths that are likely
covered under current law. Of the 68 deaths, 40 were by cause
of fatal injury or illness (35 of which were classified as
sudden cardiac deaths). Using 2015 as an example it could be
generally assumed, though with caution, in order to account for
duplicated counts, that 16 additional deaths (or 33 percent
more) could be included under this bill for a particular year;
for firefighters only. This cost estimate assumes an increase
of 50 percent of current recipients.
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