SB 414

Bill Subjects

Abstract

Existing law, the California Safe Drinking Water Act, provides for the operation of public water systems and imposes on the State Water Resources Control Board various responsibilities and duties. The act authorizes the state board to order consolidation with a receiving water system where a public water system or a state small water system, serving a disadvantaged community, as defined, consistently fails to provide an adequate supply of safe drinking water. The act, if consolidation is either not appropriate or not technically and economically feasible, authorizes the state board to contract with an administrator to provide administrative and managerial services to designated public water systems and to order the designated public water system to accept administrative and managerial services, as specified. Existing law, the Cortese-Knox-Hertzberg Local Government Reorganization Act of 2000, provides the exclusive authority and procedure for the initiation, conduct, and completion of changes of organization and reorganization for cities and districts, except as specified. This bill would create the Small System Water Authority Act of 2019 and state legislative findings and declarations relating to authorizing the creation of small system water authorities that will have powers to absorb, improve, and competently operate noncompliant public water systems. The bill, no later than March 1, 2020, would require the state board to provide written notice to cure to all public agencies, private water companies, or mutual water companies that operate a public water system that has either less than 3,000 service connections or that serves less than 10,000 people, and are not in compliance, for the period from July 1, 2018, through December 31, 2019, with one or more state or federal primary drinking water standard maximum contaminant levels, as specified. The bill would require the state board to provide a copy of the notice, in the case of a water corporation, to the Public Utilities Commission and would require the Public Utilities Commission to be responsible with the state board for ensuring compliance with the provisions of the bill. The bill would require an entity receiving the notice to respond to the state board, and, if appropriate, the Public Utilities Commission, as to whether the violations of drinking water standards are remedied and the basis for that conclusion, as specified. The bill would require an entity reporting a continuing violation of drinking water standards to have 180 days from the date of a specified response filed with the state board to prepare and submit a plan to the state board to permanently remedy a violation of drinking water standards within a reasonable time that is not later than January 1, 2025. The bill would require the state board to review the plan and accept, accept with reasonable conditions, or reject the plan, as prescribed. The bill would require an entity with an accepted plan to provide quarterly reports to the state board on progress towards a permanent remedy for violations of drinking water standards and would require the state board to annually hold a public hearing to consider whether the progress is satisfactory. The bill would require the state board, if it rejects the plan or if a plan is not submitted by the prescribed deadline, to cause, after a certain period to allow for a petition for reconsideration, the formation of an authority by the applicable local agency formation commission to serve the customers of the public water system or to remedy the failure to meet the applicable drinking water standards, as specified. The bill would require the state board, no later than July 1, 2021, to provide written notice to each county, city, water district, private water company, or mutual water company located within a county where an entity receiving a notice to cure from the state board is located stating that the state board may consider the formation of an authority within that county and inviting other public water suppliers to consider a voluntary dissolution and subsequent inclusion into the authority that may be formed. The bill would require an entity wishing to consolidate into a proposed authority to provide a written statement opting into an authority to the administrator of the authority on or before December 31, 2021. The bill would authorize an entity wishing to join an authority after the formation of an authority to do so by a proposal or petition to the local agency formation commission and would authorize an entity's customers to petition to the state board that the entity be included in a proposed authority, as prescribed. The bill would require any county or city receiving a notice to cure from the state board to determine, not later than November 1, 2021, whether any county service areas, county waterworks districts, or other dependent special districts providing water service or water and sewer service located within the county that provide water service or water and sewer service only in the proposed area of the authority should be included within the proposed authority, as prescribed. The bill would authorize an authority to include areas that are not contiguous. The bill would require the state board, no later than 30 days after determining that an authority shall be formed, to notify a local agency formation commission of a county where the public water system that submitted the plan is located, and if appropriate, the Public Utilities Commission, that it has determined that the public water system shall be consolidated into an authority. The bill would require the state board, no later than 60 days after determining that an authority shall be formed, to notify the local agency formation commission, and if appropriate, the Public Utilities Commission, of the public water systems that will be consolidated into an authority and to appoint an administrator for each proposed authority. The bill would require an administrator to be responsible for the interim administration and management of the authority and would require the state board to bear the cost of the administrator, as specified. The bill would require the administrator, after consultation with the executive officer of the local agency formation commission, to submit to the state board a conceptual formation plan, with specified components. The bill would require the state board to provide comments on the conceptual formation plan to the administrator and applicable local agency formation commission within 60 days of its receipt. The bill would require the administrator, within 180 days after the state board provides comments on the draft conceptual formation plan, to submit an application for formation and proposed plan for service to the local agency formation commission for review and would require the commission to hold a hearing on the plan and approve or deny it, as prescribed. The bill would require an authority to file a statement, under penalty of perjury, with the executive office of the local agency formation commission certifying that the authority will take the appropriate actions to comply with an approved plan. By expanding the application of the crime of perjury, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would require the executive officer of the commission, within 30 days of the filing of a statement, to issue a notice of completion to the authority and send a copy of that notice to the state board. The bill would authorize the state board, in the event that the authority fails to timely file a statement certifying compliance with the plan, to issue an order to the authority requiring the filing of a statement certifying compliance with the plan or other remedial action as may be appropriate. The bill would require, annually for the first 3 years after the date of an authority's formation by a local agency formation commission, an authority to file a certain report with the local agency formation commission and the state board. The bill would require a local agency formation commission to hold a public hearing within 90 days of receipt of the report to review the authority's performance during the previous year and would authorize the state board to order an authority to remedy any failures to comply with conditions imposed by the state board or the plan for service. The bill would authorize the state board to impose a civil penalty on an authority of up to $500 per day for each violation if an authority fails to timely comply with a remedial order by the state board, up to a maximum of $10,000 per year for each particular violation. The bill would require the Public Utilities Commission to order the dissolution of a public water system and the transfer of all assets of a subject water corporation to an authority formed by the local agency formation commission, as prescribed. The bill would require the state board to petition a court for an order dissolving any mutual water company, water corporation, or private corporation that has been operating a public water system and transferring the assets of that company or corporation to the authority formed by the local agency formation commission. The bill would provide for an owner or shareholder of a dissolved public water system to be compensated, as specified, in accordance with a distressed business valuation issued by the state board. The bill would authorize an authority to receive financing from the state to pay all liabilities assumed from a public water system and would require an authority to issue bonds to repay the state with interest. The bill would require the Controller, following the formation of the authorities, to perform an audit of the fiscal and operational health of each authority, and to submit the results of the audits to the Legislature in the form of a report no later than January 1, 2026. The bill would require the state board, no later than January 1, 2026, to prepare and submit to the Legislature a report specifying the number of public water systems that, at any time between July 1, 2018, and January 1, 2025, were out of compliance with one or more state or federal primary drinking water standards, as specified. The bill would provide for the appointment of an initial board of an authority, and the election of subsequent boards of an authority. The bill would require a director to be a resident of the area served by the authority and, to the extent practicable, to represent a division with equal population being served by the authority. The bill would authorize a director to receive compensation in an amount not to exceed $250 per day, not to exceed a total of 10 days in any calendar month, together with any expenses incurred in the performance of the director's duties required or authorized by the board. The bill would require the board to hold meetings, exercise and perform all powers, privileges, and duties of an authority, designate a depository to have custody of the funds of the authority, appoint officers, and hire employees, as specified. The bill would require the board to file a certain certificate with the Secretary of State within 180 days of its initial meeting after formation. The bill would require a person convicted of an infraction for a violation of any local ordinance or regulation adopted by an authority to be punished upon a first conviction by a fine not exceeding $50 and for a 2nd conviction within a period of one year by a fine of not exceeding $100 and for a 3rd or any subsequent conviction within a period of one year by a fine of not exceeding $250. By creating new crimes, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would specify the powers of an authority, including that an authority is authorized to acquire, control, distribute, store, spread, sink, treat, purify, recycle, recapture, and salvage any water, including sewage and stormwater, for the beneficial use of the authority. The bill would authorize the authority to fix a water standby assessment or availability charge, as prescribed. The bill would require a board of supervisors to levy the standby charge in the amounts for the respective parcels fixed by the board of the authority. The bill would require all county officers charged with the duty of collecting taxes to collect authority standby charges with the regular tax payments to the county and would require the charges to be paid to the authority. The bill would authorize an authority to restrict the use of authority water, as specified, and would provide that it is a misdemeanor, punishable as specified, for any person to use or apply water received from the authority contrary to or in violation of any restriction or prohibition specified in the authority's ordinance. By creating a new crime, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill would authorize an authority to conduct inspections and would authorize an authority to obtain an inspection warrant. Because the willful refusal of an inspection lawfully authorized by an inspection warrant is a misdemeanor, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program by expanding the application of a crime. The bill would require an authority to notify the county or city building inspector, county health inspector, or other affected county or city employee or office, in writing, within a reasonable time if an actual violation of an authority, city, or county ordinance is discovered during the investigation. The bill would require the administrator to prepare and submit a capital improvement plan to the state board no later than one year after the date upon which an authority is formed. The bill would require the plan to bring the authority into full compliance with drinking water standards within 3 years, which time may be extended by the state board for good cause. The bill would require the state board, upon appropriation by the Legislature from the General Fund, or, to the extent funds are available from bond revenues or other sources, including federal, state, academic, or other public or private entities, to provide funding for the administrator and for formation and startup costs for up to 3 fiscal years after formation of the authority, as specified. The bill would provide for the state board, upon appropriation by the Legislature from the General Fund, or, to the extent funds are available from bond revenues or other sources, including federal, state, academic, or other public or private entities, to receive up to $7,200,000 for the preparation of distressed business valuations to determine the net fair market value of the water corporation or mutual water company. The bill would provide for the state board and the Public Utilities Commission, upon appropriation by the Legislature from the General Fund, or, to the extent funds are available from bond revenues or other sources, including federal, state, academic, or other public or private entities, to receive up to $15,500,000 and $1,150,000, respectively, for the dissolution of public water systems and water corporations pursuant to the bill's provisions. The bill would require, if those moneys are not sufficient to meet the statewide needs of the authorities, funding to be made available upon appropriation from the Safe Drinking Water State Revolving Fund. By imposing new duties or a higher level of service on cities, counties, and local agency formation commissions, this bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that with regard to certain mandates no reimbursement is required by this act for a specified reason. With regard to any other mandates, this bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs so mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.