Below is OCTax's analysis of recent State Legislation:
SB 1051 (Huff): Emergency Medical Assistance: Administration of Diastat
OCTax Position: SUPPORT
SB 1051 would authorize school districts to train consenting school personnel, in the absence of credentialed school nurses, to administer Diastat (an emergency anti-seizure medication) prescribed by a physician to school children who suffer epileptic seizures. The bill would require the State Department of Public Health to approve performance standards for the procedure.
OCTax Analysis:
SB 1051 is a taxpayers' issue as well as a medical issue. Even in good economic times, it is unlikely that our school districts' budgets could support a full-time nurse at every school.
AB 1051 would be a low-cost alternative for emergency care for students prone to seizures.
The bill even provides that all materials necessary to administer Diastat would be provided by the pupils' parents or guardians.
OCTax has no expertise in medicine, but we note that the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Epilepsy Foundation of America support training of school employees to administer Diastat and belive that it can be done safely. OCTax surmises that parents and guardians of epileptic children would be grateful for the increased availability of emergency care for their children that SB 1051 would provide.
According to its manufacturer, Diastat was developed specifically to make administration of the drug simple and safe. SB 1051 would be a small yet important amendment to existing law. It would enable school personnel to help students avoid the pain and possible serious injury that can accompany epileptic seizures.
AB 2336 (Fuller): Water: Delta Stwardship Council
OCTax Position: SUPPORT
AB 2336 would require the Delta Independent Science Board to assess certain stressors (such as invasive and nonnative species, water quality impairments, predation) on populations of fish in the Delta, the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and their tributaries. It would require the Board to recommend changes in statute and actions to correct any problems found.
OCTax Analysis:
The decline of Delta smelt and salmon species appears to have been blamed solely on transfers of water from the Delta. As a result, pumping has been severely restricted. This has devastated Central California, where we grow food and other crops. It has forced farmers out of business and caused widespread joblessness. The entire State’s economy, communities and quality of life are threatened.
A policy has been forced upon us that threatens the entire State’s economy and quality of life.
Let’s at least be sure we have identified the real problems that led to the policy. It is reasonable to assume that there are stressors of the rivers other than, or in addition to, water transfers. AB 2336 would enable us to identify such stressors, and may lead to solutions that are better than the present draconian reduction in water supply to most of the state.
AB 1594 (Huber): Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta: Peripheral Canal.
OCTax Position: OPPOSE
AB 1594 would prohibit the construction of a peripheral canal that would convey water from a diversion point in the Sacramento River to a location south of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, unless authorized by the Legislature. It would require the Legislative Analyst to do an economic feasibility study prior to enactment of a statute authorizing construction of the canal, and require that the canal not diminish or negatively affect the water supplies, water rights, or quality of water for users within the Delta watershed.
OCTax Analysis:
The Bay-Delta Conservation Plan (adopted last year with safeguards inserted by the Legislature) would help ensure water supplies for the entire state by providing clear rules for ecosystem restoration, economic impacts, risk analysis and options for water conveyance. The Plan was an historic step forward after a century of regional bickering over water in California.
By requiring additional (and superfluous) Legislative approval and a duplicative economic study by the Legislative Analyst, AB 1594 would undermine the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan and re-start the bickering. Last year the Legislature wisely set aside politics in favor of sound and balanced technical solutions to the State’s water problems. AB 1594 would prolong (and possibly stop) progress toward statewide water sufficiency by re-politicizing the issue.
AB 1681 (Yamada): All-Mailed Ballot Elections: Yolo County
OCTax Position: SUPPORT
AB 1681 would authorize a pilot “all-mailed ballot” election in Yolo County to test the efficacy of an election where all balloting is done by mail (with at least one polling place in each city in the County to accommodate those who prefer to vote in person). The County will report to the Legislature and the Secretary of State the success of the election, including cost, turnout of different populations, ballots not counted and reasons they were rejected, and voter fraud.
OCTax Analysis:
OCTax supports a trial of all-mail voting because we think it would save taxpayers’ money and increase voter participation. In 2009, the Orange County Registrar of Voters studied the issue. His report (based on vote-by-mail experiences in the states of Washington and Oregon) reveals evidence of possible improvements over polling-place voting, including:
If all-mail voting were allowed in Orange County, the monetary loss in switching to vote-by-mail would be the abandonment of $47 million in voting machines. (There is no demand for voting equipment, so the machines could not be sold.) That alone would not justify continuing to use the machines if further investigation reveals that voting by mail would be cheaper and better for voters. The $47 million is “sunk” money; we cannot recover it either way.
OCTax urges you to approve the trial in Yolo County. OCTax, and presumably the County of Orange, will watch the results with great interest.
