The Senate Appropriations Committee on Friday held back AB 1546, which would have required the California Department of Technology to develop a system to assess the performances of IT vendors beginning in 2019.
Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed similar legislation two years ago by Assemblywoman Autumn Burke, D-Inglewood, saying the Technology Department was already working on plans to evaluate contractors. However, that scorecard hasn’t yet been implemented.
Burke told her fellow lawmakers that this year’s bill was a reminder to the administration to get the scorecard finished.
In an interview earlier this year with Techwire, Department Deputy Director Chris Cruz said CDT has been vetting a scorecard system and plans to release it sometime this fiscal year. Nevertheless, an analysis of the bill by the Senate Appropriations Committee noted that the bill’s 2019 deadline would require “additional resources” for the department. And it estimated that an assessment system would cost $350,000 for staff to maintain and oversee.
The scorecard legislation was among dozens of bills rejected last week by lawmakers who sit on the Assembly and Senate fiscal committees, which had a Friday deadline to send bills to the floor for the final two weeks of session before the Legislature adjourns for the year on Sept. 15.
Here is a look at other tech bills that failed to move forward:
- A bill that would have tasked the Government Operations Agency with creating a government innovation fellows pilot program failed to move out of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Assemblyman Ian Calderon, D-Whittier, had said AB 86 would bring volunteers who have advanced skill sets into state agencies. But the measure carried a $300,000 price tag, in addition to the tens of thousands of dollars agencies might spend to house volunteers, according to a Senate Appropriations analysis of the bill.
- For a second time, the Senate Appropriations Committee blocked legislation that would require the California Environmental Protection Agency to live-stream all of its on-site public meetings. AB 816 by Kevin Kiley, R-Roseville, would have required webcasts where listeners and viewers could ask questions and the public could provide comment. An analysis by the Senate Appropriations Committee estimated it would cost $1.9 million in one-time costs to provide the webcasting, as well as another $2 million in operating costs.
- AB 684 would have required the California Coastal Commission to develop, implement and maintain a publicly searchable database of ex parte communications online. The Senate Appropriations Committee shelved the bill, which it said would cost up to $600,000 to build a database by July 1, 2018, as well as $125,000 a year to maintain. The measure by Assemblyman Mark Stone, D-Monterey Bay, was an effort to record so-called ex parte communications (correspondence or conversations between commissioners and vested interests). Such communications are often disclosed orally at commission meetings with little detail.
- In the Assembly, the Appropriations Committee blocked legislation that would have required the state Board of Education to update instruction materials and curriculum frameworks to include media literacy. Sen. Bill Dodd, D-Napa, contended that SB 135 would improve students’ access to technology, but it came with a high price tag. The Assembly Appropriations Committee estimated it would cost $788,000 for the state Board of Education to develop a model curriculum by March 2019.
