Governor Takes Action Through Executive Order
Photo Credit: Associated Press
Executive Order on Sick Leave
Amid the pandemic, Governor Gavin Newsom continues to release state directives through executive order. On April 16, the governor announced supplemental two week paid sick leave for food sector employees who work for employers with 500 or more employees.
Under the executive order, food sector employees are provided two weeks of paid sick leave related to COVID-19 if they are subject to a medical directive, an isolation or quarantine order, or prohibited from working by the employer due to health concerns related to potential COVID-19 transmission.
According to the governor, the intent of the executive order is to focus on large employers in the food sector and is meant to fill a gap left by federal action to provide similar paid leave to those working for businesses with 500 or fewer employees.
A copy of the executive order is available HERE.
Workers’ Compensation
Ag Council continues to weigh-in with Governor Newsom’s administration and legislators regarding an anticipated workers’ compensation executive order. Given that any changes to workers’ compensation could greatly impact our members, we remain engaged with elected leaders on this important issue.
Earlier this week, Ag Council President Emily Rooney participated in a conference call with members of the governor’s administration regarding potential changes to workers’ compensation. Final, official language has not yet been provided, but concepts were shared on the call.
As outlined on the call, the executive order would require that claims be awarded only to individuals with a positive COVID-19 test. Further, the executive order would be maintained for the duration of the statewidestay-at-home order and until it is modified by the governor.
Ag Council has expressed strong concerns on specific elements of the potential executive order. Our staff is pushing back on the inclusion of a rebuttable presumption that the virus was contracted during the course of work, which is one of the most troubling provisions articulated. We are also concerned about how this affects our self-insured members and have communicated that to the governor’s administration.
This issue is fluid and is consistently being monitored. If you are an Ag Council member and would like further information, please reach out to our staff for further information. Contact: emily@agcouncil.org or tricia@agcouncil.org.
Legislative Budget Hearings
Over the past week, both the Senate and the Assembly held budget committee hearings to review executive actions taken by Governor Newsom to address the pandemic.
During the hearings, Department of Finance staff said the state plans to spend up to $7 billion on the COVID-19 response and the economic disruption. It is not yet clear how the funding is to be spent. However, the governor’s May budget revision will provide more details in the coming weeks.
The governor’s staff also said California expects the federal government to reimburse much of the expenditures due to President Trump’s major disaster declaration and given that we are in an unprecedented situation with over 2.7 million Californians filing for unemployment as of mid-April.
State Capitol
One of the motivations for the budget hearings this past week was recent administrative action by the governor on a particular expenditure of funds. Legislators questioned witnesses from the administration about the governor’s recent decision to spend nearly $1 billion for personal protective equipment (PPE), specifically hundreds of millions of face masks from a Chinese company.
Though the need for PPE is widely known and supported, details about the expenditure of funds are limited. Some legislators are frustrated by the lack of advance notice and engagement with them by the governor and his staff as decisions are made.
Assembly Budget Chair summed up the thinking when he said, “The emergency powers that were granted were with an understanding that this would be for a certain amount of discrete time. It wasn’t the sense that there was a blank check or we would just be notified after expenditures were already committed to.”
Additional budget hearings are scheduled to continue to monitor executive branch decisions, as well as develop what will be a much different budget than the one anticipated back in January.
As Governor Newsom said recently, “The January budget is no longer operable. The world has radically changed.”
Unprecedented Times at the State Capitol
With stay-at-home orders here in California, advocacy work with legislators and regulatory officials is occurring remotely with multiple daily conference calls, virtual online meetings, as well as texting taking the place of the usual in-person meetings.
Legislators are scheduled to return to the State Capitol on May 4. Extensive changes are anticipated in light of the ongoing pandemic.
On the Senate side, the message from Democrat leadership is to keep bills focused on COVID-19 policy issues. In the Assembly, many committee chairs asked legislators to reduce the number of bills they are authoring before returning to the State Capitol due to the compressed timeline and the need to address the crisis.
In a big shift from the norm, each policy committee is expected to hold just one hearing, rather than the multiple hearings typically held during the spring. Hearings are anticipated to require social distancing measures with very limited in-person public attendance and most advocates participating remotely.