California Conservation Corps.

This bill would revise those findings and declarations relating to the corps, as provided. The bill would eliminate the director's authority to establish a training program for members of county or city conservation corps, as provided. The bill would also repeal a redundant statute.

Existing law requires young adults participating in the corps program to generally be engaged in projects that do a list of specified things, including assisting in fire prevention and suppression. Existing law requires those projects to provide opportunities to the public for their education or other specified purposes.

This bill would instead require those projects to assist in wildfire prevention and suppression, and would include forest resiliency, among other projects, to that list, as specified. This bill would require the projects to also provide those opportunities to California Native American tribes and corpsmembers.

Existing law authorizes the corps to enter into a contract with an individual or a collective of community conservation corps for a project or program, as provided.

This bill would authorize the corps to also enter into a contract with a conservation corps established by California Native American tribes for a project or program, as specified.

Existing law requires the corps to report to specified committees of the Legislature by December 31 of each year the number of corpsmembers in the cohort who received an associate or bachelor's degree while serving in the corps or in the 12-month period following final separation from the corps and, among other things, to the extent feasible, the number of corpsmembers who enrolled in postsecondary education in the 12-month period following final separation from the corps.

This bill would delete that requirement to report on the number of corpsmembers who received an associate or bachelor's degree. The bill would revise the requirement to report on the number of corpsmembers who enrolled in postsecondary education to have that data reported and disaggregated as the number enrolled at a California Community College, California State University, University of California, or private postsecondary educational institution.

(2) The Public Employees' Retirement Law creates the Public Employees' Retirement System (PERS), which is administered by the Board of Administration of the Public Employees' Retirement System. PERS provides defined benefits to its members based on their final compensation, credited service, and age at retirement, subject to certain variations. Existing law establishes the Public Employees' Retirement Fund, which is a trust fund that is appropriated continuously for specified purposes, into which certain moneys are deposited, including employee contributions.

Existing law authorizes a member of PERS to elect to receive service credit for certain public service outside the system, including time served as a volunteer in the Peace Corps or AmeriCorps, by making specified contributions to the system.

This bill would also authorize a member to elect to receive service credit for service as a corpsmember or special corpsmember with the corps, subject to making the required contributions for that service. By increasing the amount of employee contributions to the Public Employees' Retirement Fund, the bill would make an appropriation.

(3) Existing law regulates the wages, hours, and working conditions of employees with specified exceptions. Under existing law, these provisions apply to and include employees in any occupation, trade, or industry, except for any individual employed as an outside salesperson or any individual participating in a national service program carried out using assistance, as provided.

This bill would additionally exempt corpsmembers from those provisions.