The State Assembly was on the floor for an extraordinary
session Thursday to take up key pieces of legislation amended by the State
Senate.
As part of the extraordinary session, the Assembly concurred
in changes made to Assembly Bill 773 by the Senate. AB 773, which limits the
Department of Revenue’s ability to conduct third-party audits of the unclaimed
property program, can now be signed into law.
The Assembly also 78-8 to pass a school safety proposal
approved by the Senate earlier this week. This bill now goes to the Governor
for his signature. It does the following:
·
Creates an Office of School Safety to be led by
an appointee of the Attorney General. The Office is charged with developing
model practices for school safety in consultation with the Department of Public
Instruction. The Office must also compile blueprints and GIS maps for all
schools, and offer training to school staff on school safety.
·
Provides $100 million in state funding to the Department
of Justice for school safety grants. Eligible expenditures will include any
costs related to complying with the model school safety standards developed by
the Office of School Safety, safety-related upgrades to school buildings, and
costs associated with providing blueprints to law enforcement.
·
Requires mandatory reporters of child abuse to
also report threats related of school violence made by individuals seen in the
course of their professional duties. Authorizes health care providers to disclose
information to law enforcement if they believe the individual poses a
substantial threat. Individuals who intentionally violate the requirement to
report could be fined up to $1,000.
·
Requires schools to work with local law
enforcement to conduct an on-site safety assessment of each school building or
facility before updating their school safety plan.
·
Requires school safety plans to include
individualized safety plans for each school building and facility that is
regularly occupied by students, and guidelines for addressing school violence
and threats of school violence, bomb threats, fire, weather-related
emergencies, intruders, parent-student reunification, and threats to
non-classroom events.
·
Requires schools to submit a copy of the most
recent blueprints of each school building and facility in the district to local
law enforcement and the office of school safety.
·
Requires schools to hold annual drills related
to school violence in each building regularly occupied by pupils.
·
Requires schools to review and approve their
school safety plan at least once every three years and file a copy of their
safety plan with the Office of School Safety.
The Assembly also passed two of their own bills related to
sharing school safety camera footage with law enforcement, developing a school
safety hotline, requiring parents of students involved in a bullying incident
to be notified within 48 hours, and background checks for firearms.
However, the Senate would need to meet again in order for these bills to
become law and that appears unlikely to happen at this time.
