CAJPA Legislative Action Day 2022 - Talking Points

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2022 CAJPA

LEGISLATIVE ACTION DAY TALKING POINTS

Talkings Points

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Workers’ Compensation This year there are several bills which deal with presumptive injuries in the workers’ compensation system. Presumptive injuries deem specific types of work, such as active law enforcement or firefighting, to be the presumed cause of TWELVE conditions and illnesses: heart; pneumonia; tuberculosis; cancer; low-back; blood borne diseases; meningitis; biochemical exposure; lyme disease, MRSA, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and COVID-19. All presumptions – even rebuttable – establish a nearly impossible bar for employers to “prove a negative” that illness is not work-related.

CAJPA opposes the following bills which extend presumptive injuries to thousands of individuals based solely on their job-title and not their actual exposure to industrial injury and also thwarts review of related claims while threatening litigation and excessive taxpayer funded penalties.

• SB 1127 (Atkins) Workers’ compensation: liability presumptions.

Would dramatically decrease statutory timeframes for an employer to obtain necessary information to approve workers’ compensation claims. Without necessary medical records and medical evaluations, employers may be forced to deny claims which halts employer funded medical care and will increase systemic friction and litigation. This bill changes the rules for all claims but the provisions as they apply to public employers are especially problematic.

Among other issues, SB 1127 also hamstrings employer investigations of both appropriate and questionable workers’ compensation claims – all but guaranteeing legally insufficient evidence to approve legitimate claims or deny invalid or fraudulent claims – and then penalizes employers up to $100,000 for not doing a good job on the investigation. Threatening litigation and penalties for doing the work of appropriate claims investigation amounts to coercion and bad faith claims administration.

• SB 213 (Cortese) Workers’ compensation: hospital employees.

Extends presumptive injuries including cancer, musculoskeletal injuries, PTSD, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, MRSA, meningitis, bloodborne diseases and COVID-19 to ALL hospital employees who provide direct patient care in an acute care hospital.

Do you need a presumption to access medical treatment or worker’s compensation benefits? No. Under existing law, employees that believe they have an illness or injury that is related to their work, can file a claim for workers’ compensation medical and indemnity (financial) benefits. Most employee claims are accepted (>90%).

Is Medical Care Denied without a Presumption? No. Even if a claim is ultimately denied, an employee is entitled to up to $10,000 worth of medical services paid for by the employer, while the claim is being reviewed.

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Joint Powers Authorities (Tort Liability) Risk sharing pools are a common way for public schools, colleges, cities, and counties to join together to self-insure through risk sharing pools using public funds to purchase liability and excess liability coverage at higher levels using economies of scale, effectively “self-funding” public risk. This method saves tax dollars and provides a higher level of service to employees and the public. The California Association of Joint Powers Authorities (CAJPA) opposes bills that would further restrict limited public resources and force taxpayer dollars to be spent on increased litigation costs. Conversely, CAJPA supports legislation that provides immunities for public improvement when safe and appropriate.

AB 2591 (Valladares) Homeless services: nonprofit charitable organizations: immunity from civil liability.

This bill would extend legal protections to nonprofit charities that provide temporary shelter and other services to the homeless, by providing that such entities may not be held legally responsible for injuries caused to or by homeless persons in their care, unless the entity was grossly negligent or intentionally caused the harm.

Homelessness is a concern throughout all communities. CAJPA members have seen dramatically increased direct costs and increased liability exposures to local governments and community partners attempting to respond to the homeless crisis. Local governments are not financially equipped to accommodate the overwhelming demands posed by this epidemic, or the demands of related legislation. This bill extends to nonprofits the same legal protections that are currently provided to food banks which will incentivize more local governments to work with nonprofit organizations to provide shelter and services to homeless individuals without fearing frivolous and expensive litigation.

SB 1107 (Dodd) Vehicles: insurance.

This bill increases minimum financial responsibility requirements for individual auto insurance policies and uninsured motorist coverage. The current minimum limits in California are insufficient to keep up with the increased cost of claims. Public entities are often a damaged party when members of the public crash into public infrastructure or vehicles owned and operated by public employees. When a member of the public is at fault for an auto accident, a JPA may seek to recover costs for damaged property or injury to our employees. Unfortunately, public entities often can only recover a portion of the costs incurred by the entity, as the individual’s insurance carriers are only obligated to pay their low policy limits.

Public entities are also frequently brought into lawsuits on a theory of dangerous condition when one of the parties in an auto accident has insufficient insurance coverage to pay all the damages. Public entities may have to expend less taxpayer money to settle these cases if the minimum policy limits are sufficient for responsible parties. By increasing the minimum required coverage, public entities will be able to recover more of the public funds currently expended for repairs to public infrastructure and treatment of injured public employees.

AB-2705 (Quirk-Silva) Housing: fire safety standards.

This bill requires improved standards for home building in very high-risk hazard wildfire zones. Having better fire safety standards will assist in home hardening properties within a public entities’ jurisdiction and will make limited fire-suppression resources during a wildfire more effective.

Mitigating risk with fire resistant buildings will also improve the property insurance market that has seen triple digit increases over the last several years.

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Talkings Points

Joint Powers Authorities (JPAs) and Safety/Loss Control Risk-pooling Joint Powers Authorities (JPAs) are a common way for public schools, colleges, special districts, cities, and counties to join together to purchase general/auto liability, excess liability, workers’ compensation, employee benefits, and cyber coverage through the use of economies of scale. JPAs are not insurance, but self-fund many of the obligations that people assume are covered by insurance. JPAs were born in the 1970s at a time when insurance companies refused to provide coverage to public agencies because they were “too risky.”

Schools and local governments were faced with extremely expensive private sector insurance costs that provided little essential coverage.

JPAs provided a way to offset the higher costs of the insurance marketplace which include profit for carriers and which reacts to global catastrophes that are unrelated to the local agencies. Generally, instead of purchasing insurance, these JPAs are effectively “self-funded”, allowing the risk pool to set rates according to their members’ claims experience and risk exposures. In doing so, risk pools are able to opt out of traditional insurance markets, thereby saving tax dollars and providing a higher level of service to all involved.

The California Association of Joint Powers Authorities (CAJPA) is a statewide association of over 100 public entity risk management JPAs (or risk pools) that has served almost every local public agency in California for over forty years. Risk pools enable schools, special districts, and local governments to partner together and self-fund a portion of their liabilities in a not-for-profit JPA that provides a layer of protection for schools and local governments, between them and the volatile and generally more expensive insurance market.

Traditional Insurance: More exposure to the volatile insurance market.

Insurance Policy Deductible

Today, public agencies are being threatened with escalating claims costs, high dollar jury awards, and higher exposures to risks like cyber/ ransomware, wildfire, abuse/misconduct and COVID-19.

This is why CAJPA advocacy is vital. CAJPA’s public agency JPA members understand the need to monitor legislative issues that impact the ability of members to have access to affordable coverage, as well as legislation that facilitates public agencies’ providing safer environments for their communities. The Loss Control Subcommittee in particular reviews legislation that can help or hurt public agencies’ efforts regarding Cal/OSHA compliance, wildfire preparedness, abuse/ misconduct prevention, and public health and safety in general.

In addition to funding obligations after they occur, JPA’s endeavor to prevent liabilities through improving and maintaining health standards and safety regulations that protect the health and welfare of public employees and the public. Loss control programs within JPAs provide continuous engagement on emerging issues, such as COVID-19 and wildfire prevention. CAJPA’s Loss Control Subcommittee evaluates and promotes effective approaches to address safety and improve loss control programs for public agency JPA members. We look for opportunities to collaborate with legislators and related advocacy groups to provide education and feedback aligned with our goals.

We look forward to future interactions and partnerships forged through our collective efforts. We stand prepared to assist, please let us know how we can help.

Excess or Reinsurance Risk Pool Coverage Member Retention

Risk pools create a layer in between, reducing exposure to the market.

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Joint Powers Authorities (JPAs) Risk sharing pools are a common way for public schools, colleges, cities, and counties to join together to purchase liability, excess liability, workers’ compensation and health benefits coverage through the use of economies of scale, effectively “self funding” thereby saving tax dollars and providing a higher level of service to all involved. The California Association of Joint Powers Authorities (CAJPA) supports legislation that broadens the abilities of JPAs to prudently invest funds and purchase goods and services that benefit the public they serve. It opposes legislation that would directly or indirectly increase costs to JPAs and their members or lessen a JPAs’ authority to provide services to their members.

CAJPA supports the following bills that improve the ability of JPAs to safely and swiftly provide public services and school environments that are safe and supportive in which children can learn and thrive.

AB 1944 (Lee) Local government: Open and public meetings.

This bill would allow members of a local legislative body, upon majority vote, to waive the Brown Act requirements of publishing their residential addresses on the meeting agenda and making this address open to members of the public. The bill also ensures public participation by requiring a remote participation option for members of the public to address the body.

Circumstances may arise where virtual participation of elected leaders is necessary to guarantee that public business and services are able to be provided safely and swiftly. While AB 361 Chaptered in 2021 will ensure that remote participation coupled with public access is an option during a state-proclaimed state of emergency, there may be other appropriate instances such as health or local emergencies like wildfires, or COVID-19 exposure when these provisions should remain in place.

AB 2879 (Low) Online content: Students: cyberbullying.

This bill would require an owner/operator of internet sites and applications to establish a mechanism that allows users to submit a cyberbullying report within its internet website, online service, online application, or mobile application that is used by, designed for, or marketed to elementary and high school aged children, and to resolve all cyberbullying reports to determine whether cyberbullying, as defined, has occurred or not. The bill would provide that an operator who violates these provisions shall be subject to specified civil penalties, would require those penalties to be deposited in the Anti-Cyberbullying Fund, and would make those funds available upon appropriation by the Legislature. The bill would authorize the enforcement of these provisions by the Attorney General or by any district attorney.

CAJPA members value safe and supportive school environments for all students. Increasingly school aged children are targeted by technology platforms and accordingly there has been an uptick in instances of cyberbullying both in and out of school environments. Regardless of the location, cyberbullying negatively impacts a student’s mental health and hinders their ability to learn. Cyberbullying has also been linked to suicide, alcoholism, and depression in young people. This bill provides a critical component to curbing this epidemic by ensuring platforms that profit from high levels of minor participation remain engaged in restricting this harmful and even deadly behavior.