| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 12, 2007 |
CONTACT: Darci Sears
(916) 319-2019 |
|
SACRAMENTO -- With the October 14th deadline looming, Assembly Member Gene Mullin (D-South San Francisco), reports that the Governor has signed four of his bills into law this past week. October 14th is the last day for the Governor to sign or veto bills passed by the legislature. Assembly Member Mullin said that he was especially pleased that two of these bills were initiated by his constituents.
Following are the six bills that were signed into law this week:
AB 1368 (Mullin) sponsored by the Hillsborough City School District, AB 1368 will save school districts administrative costs in the process of securing funds for the construction and modernization of school facilities.
"This new law allows K-12 and community college districts to issue the original BAN for up to five years and eliminates the annual renewal requirement. This will ensure that bond funds are used for school facilities and not administrative fees. K-12 and community college districts throughout the state will save millions of dollars. The Hillsborough City School District alone has estimated savings of almost $2 million," said Assemblymember Mullin.
AB 622 (Mullin) initiated by Each One Reach One an organization in South San Francisco, will allow incarcerated students, with little or no chance to achieve the high school diploma, to choose to work toward passage of the General Educational Development (GED) test and receipt of the California high school equivalency certificate as part of their regular course of study, rather than doing so in addition to following a course of study focused on the degree. “Passage of the GED will open future employment opportunities that would not be available to a young person that failed to receive a high school diploma, and will reduce the chances of these individuals returning to the juvenile or adult justice system,” said Mullin.
AB 597 (Committee on Education) requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to select an elementary or secondary career technical education (CTE) program to develop comprehensive Web site pages with information about opportunities and programs available in the state on CTE in elementary and secondary schools.
This bill is the product of the Assembly Education Committee's Career Technical Education Working Group. The group met for six weeks and heard from a variety of business, industry, labor and education stakeholders about the state of career technical education in K-12 schools. At the end of the six weeks, the Working Group members agreed to focus on two bills, both of which are authored by the Assembly Committee on Education, chaired by Assembly Member Gene Mullin.
AB 1061 (Mullin) repeals specified items from the list of information that schools are required to include on the School Accountability Report Card (SARC). This bill simplifies the SARC, makes it more understandable, and improves its readability in order to make the information more accessible to parents. AB 1061 was sponsored by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
AB 1080 (Mullin) provides some clarity to the Governor’s Targeted State Preschool program called the Prekindergarten and Family Literacy Programs (PKFLP). Clarification is needed to resolve some of the issues that have come to light since the enactment of the program in January 2007.
AB 1317 (Mullin) secures the authority of the CalPERS and CalSTRS Boards to set the compensation and the terms and conditions of employment, including performance standards and conflict of interest provisions to the position of general counsel. This new amendment to current law ensures that CalPERS and CalSTRS will have a competitive and responsive compensation structure that enables the retirement systems to attract and retain the most qualified general counsel staff.
Assembly Member Mullin is hopeful that the remaining two remaining bills on the Governor’s desk will be met with the same success.