BILL ANALYSIS 1
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SENATE ENERGY, UTILITIES AND COMMUNICATIONS COMMITTEE
DEBRA BOWEN, CHAIRWOMAN
AB 2757 - Utilities & Commerce
Hearing Date: June 27, 2000 A
As Amended: June 21, 2000 FISCAL B
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DESCRIPTION
Current law authorizes the California Public Utilities
Commission (CPUC) to impose a surcharge of up to 0.5% on
each telephone bill to fund the Deaf and Disabled
Telecommunications Program (DDTP), which sunsets on
January 1, 2001. The surcharge set by the CPUC is
currently at 0.28%.
This bill extends the sunset on the DDTP surcharge to
January 1, 2005.
Current law establishes a DDTP Administrative Committee to
advise the CPUC on telecommunications services and programs
to provide telecommunications equipment for the deaf and
disabled. This committee also carries out
telecommunications programs approved and controlled by the
CPUC.
This bill expands the definition of programs handled by the
committee to extend to "print disabled" persons who are
unable to read due to visual impairments and dyslexia, but
also orthopedic disabilities that prevent them from
handling books, turning pages, etc.
This bill establishes the Kevin Starr Access to Information
Act and authorizes up to 20% of the total telephone
surcharge funds collected under the DDTP to be used to
develop a program to provide toll-free access to telephonic
reading centers by people with visual impairments, dyslexia
and orthopedic disabilities which prevent them from
handling or manipulating reading materials. This program
must be implemented by the CPUC by July 1, 2001.
This bill defines "telephonic reading system" to mean a
system operated by or under the control or sponsorship of
the State of California, or by any nonprofit corporation
doing business in this state whereby the caller can hear
the reading of materials such as newspapers, periodicals,
broadcast media schedules, transit route and schedule
information, and other time sensitive materials as
determined by the operator of the system.
This bill requires the committee to review the guidelines
and administration of existing telephone reading systems
that serve the print disabled, and issue recommendations to
the CPUC regarding new protocols and guidelines.
This bill requires the CPUC to establish new protocols and
guidelines for telephonic reading systems based on those
recommendations. These protocols should take into account
the cost-effectiveness of a telephonic reading center and
whether the publications meet local, regional, and foreign
language needs of all Californians.
This bill authorizes any state or local agency or any
nonprofit organization doing business with the state to
apply to establish and operate a telephone reading system.
This bill requires the CPUC to reimburse any authorized
operational expenses paid or incurred by a telephonic
reading system established between January 1, 2001 and July
1, 2002, excluding any operating costs covered by grants or
donations.
This bill states Legislative intent that $185,000 of an
amount appropriated in the Budget Act of 2000 be used by
the California State Library to fund the operations of
telephonic reading centers in San Diego, Fresno, San
Francisco, and Sacramento from October 1, 2000 to September
30, 2001. (This money is currently in the budget bill
that's pending before the Governor).
BACKGROUND
Sponsored by San Francisco Lighthouse for the Blind, this
bill proposes to add a program to the existing DDTP fund
whereby a single toll-free telephone number would provide
access to the statewide telephonic reading system. The
bill also proposes to create more telephonic reading
centers, complete with telephone equipment and services.
The California State Library is California's agency for the
National Library Service of the Library of Congress, which
provides recorded library materials to people with reading
disabilities in the United States. Today, six California
centers - two in Sacramento, and one each in Los Angeles,
San Diego, San Francisco and Fresno - serve an estimated
47,819 print disabled Californians. These programs are
currently funded by a federal grants which expire this year
and this bill proposes to fund them with state money from
an existing telephone surcharge.
The system lets people listen to a newspaper of their
choice read either by a recorded voice or a computerized
synthesized voice, depending on the system. A person has a
password and access code, allowing them to enter a
computerized system and select from a number of choices.
Under the existing federally-funded program, there are two
different types of telephonic reading systems in California
- Newsline for the Blind (which is used in five California
locations) and Telephone Reader (which is used at one of
the Sacramento sites).
The Newsline for the Blind system allows callers to have
any newspaper they choose read to them by a synthesized
computer voice. Newsline is a 24-line system and is
accessible 24 hours a day. Costs associated with operating
a Newsline site include $30,000 for the central computer, a
$5,000 start-up fee (paid to Newsline), a $2,000 annual
fee, along with general phone line installation charges.
The total start-up costs are estimated by the sponsor to be
$39,000, with annual ongoing costs for fees, maintenance,
and personnel running about $39,000.
The Telephone Reader system uses human voice recordings and
local newspapers provide digital files of the entire
contents of current day (or in the case of the Sacramento
Bee , the previous day) that are computer-ready for
application to the system. The Telephone Reader system is
under the full control of the telephonic reading site
operator who determines what material will be recorded
manually and the centers rely on volunteer readers to
record these materials.
Expenses for the Telephone Reader system include the
one-time cost of a 24-line computer system at approximately
$28,000, software modules, phone line installation and
recording equipment. Total start-up costs are estimated at
$74,200, with ongoing annual expenses estimated at $93,500.
Questions
1.Should a portion of the existing telephone surcharge be
used to fund toll-free access to telephonic reading
centers?
2.Will this program take away funds from other services?
Comments
1)Toll-Free Access . The six telephonic reading centers in
California are located in densely populated areas which
make these materials readily available to many users who
live in the estimated 12-mile local calling area radius.
People who use these systems are literally being read a
newspaper over the telephone, meaning calls can last up
to an hour.
For those who live outside the local calling area, the
long-distance telephone costs to have a newspaper read to
them could be prohibitive - even at 7 cents per minute,
an hour-long call would cost a person $4.20. For this
reason, the current system isn't used often by people who
would have to make a long-distance call in order to have
a newspaper read to them.
Estimated costs for establishing and operating a
toll-free line for this purpose range from $500,000 to
$1.5 million, depending on how much this line is used.
Page 10, Lines 21-28 of the bill requires the CPUC to
consider the cost-effectiveness of supporting a
telephonic reading center and the value of its service to
Californians before establishing such a center. The
author and Committee may wish to consider whether this
cost-effectiveness test should also be applied to the
toll-free line.
2)Expanding The Use of The Surcharge . Current law allows
the CPUC to place a surcharge of up to 0.5% on each
California phone bill in order to fund the existing DDTP.
Right now, the surcharge is at 0.28% and raises about
$57.3 million to fund the existing programs.
The DDTP surcharge is also limited under current law to
paying for things that make the telephone usable for the
deaf and disabled, such as the telephone relay service
and equipment for the deaf and handicapped. It doesn't
pay for the items which the deaf and disabled use the
telephone to gain access to, such as having a book,
newspaper, or transit schedule read to them over the
phone.
This bill expands the items that the money raised from
the surcharge can be used to pay for to include the
operation of a toll-free access line, the operational
costs of existing telephone reading centers, creating new
telephonic reading centers, and to have the items that
the deaf and disabled will have access to (such as a
telephonic newspaper reading system). The author and
Committee may wish to consider whether this expansion is
appropriate.
3)Increasing The Amount of The Surcharge . As noted above,
current law allows the CPUC to place a surcharge of up to
0.5% on each California phone bill in order to fund the
existing DDTP. Right now, the surcharge is at 0.28% and
raises about $57.3 million to fund the existing programs.
This bill permits the CPUC to use 20% - or 0.1% of the
0.5% authorized under current law - of the DDTP fund to
pay for the programs under this bill (these programs are
currently paid for by federal grants). If a telephone
surcharge of 0.28% raises $57.3 million, that means the
full 0.5% surcharge would raise about $102 million -
meaning a maximum about $20.4 million could be diverted
to fund the programs authorized under this bill. If the
maximum amount is diverted, it would reduce the funding
level for the existing programs to about $37 million,
which could require the CPUC to raise the surcharge from
the existing 0.28% level if it determines it needs to
recoup that lost money to pay for existing programs.
ASSEMBLY VOTES
Assembly Utilities & Commerce Committee(9-0)
Assembly Appropriations Committee (21-0)
Assembly Floor (77-0)
POSITIONS
Sponsor:
Lighthouse for the Blind
Support:
California Council of the Blind
California Oppometric Association
Californians for Disability Rights, Inc.
Independent Living Resource Center San Francisco
National Federation of the Blind of California, Inc.
Office of Ratepayer Advocates
Protection and Advocacy, Inc.
Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic
Oppose:
None on file.
Anna Ferrera
AB 2757 Analysis
Hearing Date: June 27, 2000