2015 Session Proposals

AP 1: Senior Hunger (H)
This measure would provide additional funding for congregate nutrition services and home delivered nutrition services.
SA Purcell

AP 2: Geriatrics and Gerontology: Student Loan Assistance (F&I)
This measure would help fund student loan assistance to students studying geriatrics and gerontology by imposing a fee increase on licensing and renewal fees for physicians, nurses and social workers.
SA Krohn

AP 3: Geriatric Behavioral Health State-Level Positions(H)
This measure would establish 2 geriatric behavioral health positions to provide senior level behavioral health leadership and expert support: one with the CA Dept of Aging and the local Aging Networks, and one within the State Dept of Health Care Services. SA Krohn

AP 4: Elder Financial Abuse: Reporting: Financial Institutions (S&C)
This measure would increase the civil penalty for failure to report financial abuse to a minimum of $25,000 per each unreported transaction, require financial institutions to implement training of reporting requirements, & authorize a person that has reported suspected abuse to a financial institution and fails to take action to make a report to APS.
SA Krohn

AP 5: Financial Elder Abuse: Money Transmitters (S&LG)
This measure would include licensees in the definition of mandated reporters of suspected financial abuse of an elder or dependent adult. Thereby, requiring those licensees to report suspected instance of financial abuse of an elder as soon as possible and enact penalties that are proportional to the financial elder abuse.
SA Molnar

AP 6: Assisted Living Technology (S&C)
This measure would require the CA Commission on Aging to study the possibility of using partnerships with private businesses to make assisted living technology more available.
SA Molnar

AP 7: Hunting and Sport Fishing: Licensing Fees (S&LG)
This measure would exempt residents 68 years of age or older from hunting and fishing license fees.
SA Pereira

AP 8: Senior Hunger (S&C)
This measure would provide additional funding for congregate nutrition services and home delivered nutrition services.
SA Purcell

AP 9: Medi-Cal, Resource Limits: Motor Vehicles (H&T)
This measure would ensure that with respect to populations subject to the Medi-Cal income and resource requirements, households with 2 motor vehicles may have both of those exempt for purposes of determining their eligibility for services under Medi-Cal.
SA Purcell

AP 10: Elder Friendly Courts(S&LG)
This measure would establish and maintain at least one elder friendly court that elder abuse victims can easily access in each County of the State.
SA Rolfe

AP 11: Personal Income Tax Form: Voluntary Contributions(S&LG)
This measure would require a person that replicates the CA Personal Income Tax Form 540 in paper or electronic form to place all of the voluntary contribution funds on the 1st page of the form, allowing the taxpayer to have the opportunity to contribute without having to move to another page.
SA Rolfe

AP-12: Personal Income Tax: Voluntary Contributions: Marketing & Publicity (S&LG)

This measure would require that the FTB Board provide annually to the Governing Boards of the CA Society of CPAs, Enrolled Agents & the CA Tax Education Council, a reminder for their members to ask their clients to consider making a donation to the funds listed on the voluntary contributions page of the State Tax Form.
SA Rolfe

AP-13: Medi-Cal: Long Term Care: Personal Needs Allowance (F&I)

This measure would increase the personal needs allowance from $35 to $80 per month and annually adjust the personal needs allowance by the same percentage as the Consumer Price Index.
SA Walker

AP-14: Coordinated Care Initiative: Patient Navigators (H)
This measure would require managed care health plans to employ trained patient navigators who would provide dually eligible individuals with personalized guidance, continuity of care, and improved access to services.
SA Warren

AP-15: California Senior Legislature Funding (F&I)
This measure would appropriate $400,000 annually from the General Fund to cover CSL’s basic operating costs and continue to permit CSL to accept gifts and grants from any source to help perform its functions.
SA Kammerer

AP-16: Introductory Rate Period Contracts (S&LG)
This measure would require that one month prior to an increase of a rate imposed pursuant to a contract with an introductory period, the consumer be notified and consent in writing to the continuation of that service at the increased rate.
SA Hengst

AP-17: Labeling of Prescription Drugs (H)
This measure would require doctors to include the purpose for which the medication is prescribed on all prescriptions so that the information would be included on the label, unless the patient or doctor request that this information be omitted.
SA Gould

AP-18: Public Transit (H&T)
This measure would require the Department of Transportation to implement a Senior Public Transit Pass that would enable seniors to use the public transportation services of more than one transit operator without additional charge when traveling to locations requiring the use of more than one transit operator, and that would also require transit operators to offer free fare days to seniors each Sunday and Holiday.
SA Davis

AP-19: Senior Volunteering Programs (S&C)
This measure would require the CA Department of Aging to partner with communities to engage in a widespread information campaign regarding the opportunities and health benefits of senior volunteering.
SA Barker

AP-20: Tenancy: Extended Notice Period (H&T)
This measure would allow seniors and individual with disabilities the option to extend the notice period up to 6 months in order to relocate, provided that these persons continue to pay rent until they vacate the property and forego challenging the termination notice in court. The extended 6 month notice period would not be available to individuals living in public housing.
SA Bloch

AP-21: Medical Professionals: Health Care: Dementia Training (H)
This measure would require paramedics, emergency medical technicians, and hospital staff to receive, as part of their continuing education, dementia training from specified entities.
SA Cave

AP-22: Health Care: Emergency Medical Information Packets (H)
This measure would require a residential care facility for the elderly and a skilled nursing facility to maintain a packet with specified emergency medical information for each resident or patient. The packet would also be given to medical personnel transporting the patient to the hospital and then given to the hospital’s admitting physician.
SA Cave

AP-23: Building Standards: Elevators: Support Rails (S&LG)
This measure would require that support rails be installed in all new and existing public building elevators to protect older adults.
SA Cowlishaw

AP-24: Nursing Homes (H&T)
This measure would require an entity that has a 50 percent or greater ownership interest in one or more nursing homes that it acquires or purchases, or that it seeks to operate in the State, to secure and maintain a minimum of General Liability Insurance coverage and a professional/malpractice liability insurance coverage and impose various requirements of an entity that applies for a license to operate a nursing home in the State with regard to providing the State Dept of Public Health with information relating to ownership and management structure of the entity.
SA Witt

SP-1: Notarized Documents: Execution by Patients in a Skilled Nursing Facility (S&LG)
This measure would require a document executed by a patient in a skilled nursing facility that requires a certification or an acknowledgement taken by a notary public also be witnessed by a patient advocate or ombudsman.
SS Peabody

SP-2: Building Standards: Staircase Handrails (S&LG)
This measure would require all public staircases to be equipped with handrails, without exception.
SS Steir

SP-4: California Senior Legislature: Permanent Funding (F&I)
This measure would fund the CSL, a State Agency, as described in the Mello-Granlund Older Californians Act, in an amount not less that $500,000 annually.
SS Dahlgren

SP-5: California Fund for Senior Citizens (F&I)
This measure would eliminate the minimum funding requirement for the California Fund for Senior Citizens.
SS Dahlgren

SP-6: Insurance Policy Disclosures: Seniors (F&I)
This measure would require an insurance company to require a senior insured to sign a separate disclosure page that is a stand-alone document, without attachments, printed in 16 point bold, clearly legible typeface, stating when certain events will occur under the insurance policy contract, including, but not limited to, cancellation, increases in premiums, or the final payout of cash value life insurance policy.
SS Peabody

SP-7: Temporary Housing of Minor Relatives in Senior Citizen Communities (H&T)
This measure would create an exception to the age restrictions for a permitted temporary minor resident, to be defined as a minor for whom a Probate Court or Juvenile Court placement is pending and who is the grandchild or great-granchild of a qualifying resident or a permanent resident. It would also limit the minor’s residency to 6 months or until his or her placement is resolved, whichever is earlier, subject to an extension up to 6 months.
SS Martin

SP-8: Residential Care Facilities for the Elderly: Terminally Ill Patients (H)
This measure would allow a hospice-certified, terminally ill patient, who has been diagnosed with a prohibited health condition to remain in an RCFE, under specified circumstances. It would further authorize an RCFE’s staff to administer certain palliative care medications to a patient who is incapable of self-administering medication, under specified circumstances.
SS LePeilbet

SP-9: Traffic Safety: Vision Zero (H&T)
This measure would create a Statewide Vision Zero Initiative with the goal of eliminating all traffic related fatalities by 2025.
SS Kagan

SP-10: Public Transit: Statewide Senior Passes (H&T)
This measure would require a transit operator to honor, without additional charge, a monthly senior transit pass issued by any other transit operator in the State. It would also create a California Mobility Center, represented by one person from every City in the State that chooses to participate, to administer the above described requirement and to maximize coordination of all transportation services to seniors.
SS Kagan

SP-11: Undue Influence (S&C)
This measure would create a rebuttable presumption that the creation of, or changes to a person’s estate plan, including but not limited to, a will, trust, transfers of real or personal property, including non-probate transfers of property, power of attorney, or advanced health directive, within a year of the date of the death of a person or after a diagnosis of a terminal condition for a person, was procured by undue influence, and this presumption may be rebutted by proving, by a preponderance of the evidence, that there was no undue influence.
SS Howk

SP-12: Long-Term Services and Supports: Remote Delivery: Pilot Program (H)
This measure would create a pilot program in Kings, Tulare and other suitable counties in the State that would use remote monitoring and sensing technologies, call centers, and trained remote coordinators to supplement existing in-home health care services by remotely delivering long-term services and supports to the senior population of those counties.
SS Turner

SP-13: Veterans Housing: Affordable Rental Housing (H&T)
This measure would establish a rental housing assistance program as part of the VHHPA and require the Department of Veteran Affairs to coordinate access to affordable rental housing for Veterans with existing State and Federal Veterans services and provide fully detailed information about the rental assistance program.
SS Serrin