Assembly Republican Caucus Proposes Contracting Out Bills

Assemblyman Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Minority Leader, and his Caucus recently held a press conference and stated that they would not support a package of school, infrastructure or other bonds unless they were tied to bills that would allow expanded outsourcing of public employee jobs. Their bill package includes AB 2025 (Niello) to authorize the Department of Transportation to outsource state engineer jobs through the use of “design build” procedures and AB 2024 (Benoit) to permit school and community colleges to contract out for all services customarily performed by classified school employees and to repeal safeguards against contracting out in SB 1419 (Alarcon).

California School Employees Association President Rob Feckner questioned the move to tie the bond package to contracting out of school employees' jobs. “Not only is this a wrongheaded attack on classified employees, outsourcing classified jobs has nothing to do with the bond package," President Feckner says. "There is no nexus between these issues, so this proposal is not only anti-worker, it is nonsensical.”

The newspaper article below provides more detail about this issue:

GOP proposes reform package
Assembly bills set stage for legislative fight
By Harrison Sheppard, Sacramento Bureau of the Los Angeles Daily News

SACRAMENTO - Assembly Republicans offered a package of reforms Wednesday that they hope to incorporate into Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's infrastructure package, loosening some environmental regulations while restricting the state's ability to borrow funds for big projects.

The reform proposals set the stage for a legislative battle as Democrats are expected to oppose most of the package, while some elements even conflict with Schwarzenegger's own proposal to finance his $222 billion Strategic Growth Plan.

"Assembly Republicans are introducing what we believe is the infrastructure reform package that brings accountability back to the plan in California - that will help us build now, build more and actually spend less," said Republican Assembly leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield.

School district contractors: AB 2024, by Assemblyman John Benoit, R-Riverside, would repeal an existing law authored by Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys, which restricts the ability of school and community college districts to establish personal-service contracts under certain conditions.

A spokesman for Assembly Democrats said most of the proposals represent old ideas that the Legislature has previously rejected.

"It looks like they want to be a pork chop at the bar mitzvah - just putting something there that nobody's interested in or wants," said Steve Maviglio, an aide to Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles.