Senior News June, 2001 Vol. 20. No.  6

 

Published by the Humboldt Senior Resource Center in Eureka, California. HSRC is a non-profit community-based organization offering services for senior citizens, multi-generational families and caregivers.

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What seniors want: CSL members follow bills in California Legislature

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What seniors want
CSL members follow bills in California Legislature
by Mary Dennison

We are pleased to report that the California Senior Legislature (CSL) Legislative Committee has been successful in getting 13 of our proposals authored. It is particularly important for all but especially important for those such as Assembly Bill (AB) 109 which is being opposed by some of the banking interests and AB 798 by some HMOs. See details of these bills below.

Senate Bill (SB) 1082 Vasconcellos "Income Taxes: Designations: Senior Citizens" is an emergency proposal to eliminate any repeal date of the Line 53 (formerly Line 49) contribution to fund the CSL. The contributions from the state income tax filing has been dropping for several years. We need to get as many letters, faxes, and personal contacts as possible in support of these bills.

Please contact:
* State Senator Wesley Chesbro, 710 E Street, Suite 150, Eureka. E-mail: senator. chesbro@senate.ca.gov.
Fax is 707-445-6511 and phone 707-445-6508.

* Assemblywoman Virginia Strom-Martin, 235 4th Street, Eureka, e-mail virginia.strom-martin@assembly.ca.gov. Fax 445-6607; phone 707-445-7014.

* Senior Senator Mary Dennison, 707-442-3164.

* Senior Assemblywoman Thea Gast, 707-822-4705.

Thank you for your support. We appreciate all of you, your interest and efforts in behalf of California's seniors, especially Humboldt and Del Norte seniors.

Editor's note: the energy crisis in California will likely influence passage of most of these bills.

AB 109, Elder and Dependent Adult Abuse
Existing law requires people characterized as mandated reporters to report physical abuse, abandonment, isolation, financial abuse, or neglect of an elder or dependent adult, and provides that any mandated reporter who does not make the report is guilty of a misdemeanor. This bill would include officers, trustees and employees of certain financial institutions within the definition of a mandated reporter, but only with regard to known or suspected incidents of financial abuse. By changing the definition of a crime, this bill would result in a state-mandated local program. The bill would also provide that the officers, trustees, and employees shall not be liable for any cause of action to a customer or any other person for disclosing information and facts as specified by this bill. This bill contains related provisions and other existing laws.

AB 798, Health Care Service Plans
Existing law requires a health care service plan to establish and implement a procedure by which an enrollee may receive a referral to a specialist and permits a plan to refer enrollees to specialists employed by or under contract to the plan to provide services to its enrollees unless there is no appropriate specialist within the plan network. A willful violation of the provisions governing health care service plans is a crime. This bill would require a health care service plan to provide an enrollee, age 60 years or older, access to the medical services of any specialist of the enrollee's choice, if the specialist is licensed by the State of California, including those specialists who are not under contract to the plan.

SB 1082, Income Taxes: Senior Citizens
The amount that was to be collected under Line 53 on the California income tax form was to be $250,000 by Jan. 1, 2001. Falling short of its goal by $20,000, this bill will eliminate any deadline for collecting the original amount until Jan. 2005. Line 53, formerly Line 49, goes to the California Fund for Senior Citizens and funds the operations of the California Senior Legislature. The CSL only gets funding in this way and through private donations, none from the California General Fund.

Other bills
AB 20, Senior Center Bond Act of 2001
The Senior Center Bond Act of 2001 would authorize bonds in the amount of $225 million for the purpose of acquiring, renovating, constructing and purchasing equipment for senior centers or funding startup costs of senior center programs. The bill would be voted on at the statewide general election March 5, 2002, and would become operative upon adoption.

AB 72, Escheated Funds: Portable Housing Elderly Persons
This bill would generally require that all unclaimed money, including unclaimed money from a deceased person's estate, that is permanently escheated to the state be deposited in the Housing Rehabilitation Loan Fund for the construction, rehabilitation, or acquisition and rehabilitation of multifamily rental housing developments for elderly people or households.

AB 233, Office of Emergency Services: Disaster Registry Program
This bill would require the OES guidelines for local disaster registry programs to recommend that, in areas where a significant proportion of the residents are not fluent in English, volunteer workers be equipped with and required to use conversation handbooks that contain important phrases in the appropriate language to aid in communication with those residents not fluent in English.

AB 305, Income Taxes
This bill would provide that taxpayers who are 65 years of age or older and whose total income is less than specified amounts shall have the option of using Form 540EZ and be subject to a tax computed by calculating total income multiplied by .025.

AB 590, Mental Health: Adults and Older Adults
This bill would require the State Department of Mental Health to employ a full-time physician with geriatric experience to oversee, monitor and provide advice to participating counties regarding services for older adults.

AB 628, Senior Housing
This bill would require the California Department of Aging to establish, no later than July 1, 2003, a demonstration project in three counties to be selected by the department to provide counseling and referral assistance to Section 8 qualified seniors, and also to provide counseling to landlords who provide housing under the Section 8 program.

AB 1196, Public Transportation
Existing law requires a transportation planning agency, prior to making any allocation not directly related to public transportation services, specialized transportation services or facilities for pedestrians or bicycles, to consult with the social services transportation advisory council, and to identify the unmet transit needs of the jurisdiction and those needs that are reasonable to meet to identify the transit needs that have been considered as part of transportation planning process.

AB 1347, Dementia Caregiver Training
This bill would establish training and education requirements for the staff of skilled nursing facilities and intermediate care facilities that advertise or promote special care, special programming, or a special environment for people with Alzheimer's or dementia-related diseases.

AB 1451, Long-Term Care Insurance
This bill would require every insurer offering long-term care insurance for sale in California on a guaranteed renewable basis to also offer for sale and actively market in this state at least one plan of long-term care insurance on a non cancelable basis.

SB 519, Military Base Conversion Housing
This bill would establish the California Temporary Military Affordable Housing Authority within the California Housing and Finance Agency to examine and select housing units on a decommissioned military base for renovation and leasing as affordable senior housing. This bill would appropriate $50,000 from the General Fund to the authority for the purposes of the bill.