Careers
Controller's Legislative Program
Controller John Chiang, working with members of the State Legislature, is sponsoring the following bills during the 2013 legislative session:
AB 122: (Rendon) This bill would create the statewide Building the Economy Through Energy Retrofits (BETER) program, making energy efficiency upgrades cost-effective for commercial property owners while putting California’s construction labor workforce back to work.
AB 212: (Lowenthal) This bill would increase the speed, ease and success with which the Controller is able to reunite owners with their unclaimed property. It would require holders of unclaimed property, such as banking institutions, to report owner information on all unclaimed properties with a value of $25 or more. Under current law, businesses must only submit information when a property has a value of at least $50.
AB 392: (Jones-Sawyer) This bill would make the State more efficient by allowing the State Controller’s Office to determine the most cost-efficient method for paying local agencies when $1,000 or less is appropriated for a state-mandated program. It would also eliminate the duplicative reporting requirement for prorated claims, saving the State money.
AB 691: (Muratsuchi) This bill would ensure that a local trustee takes reasonable steps to protect granted public trust lands from sea level rise. The trustee would be required to prepare and submit an assessment to the State Lands Commission on the impacts of sea level rise on its granted lands by July 1, 2019.
AB 941: (Rendon) This bill would extend the Controller’s authority to identify fiscal mismanagement in a more timely way, create meaningful consequences for local agencies that fail to provide proper fiscal stewardship, and establish support mechanisms for local agencies to use before they reach a crisis.
AB 1011: (Salas) This bill would restore the ability of the State Controller’s Office to pay interest to the rightful owners of unclaimed properties when a claimant is reunited with his or her property.
AB 1012: (Gomez) This bill would delete an obsolete requirement stipulating that counties must include a notice about the suspended Property Tax Postponement Program on all tax bills, thus preventing unnecessary frustration and disappointment experienced by disabled people and senior citizens when they discover they are responding to an obsolete notice about a program that was suspended several years ago.
AB 1237: (Garcia) This bill would improve the reliability, transparency and quality of financial reporting and management in California’s cities. It would establish an Advisory Committee on City Accounting Procedures to work with the State Controller’s Office to develop uniform accounting procedures for cities.
AB 1248: (Cooley) This bill would give the State Controller’s Office the authority to establish guidelines for local governments to assist them in implementing and maintaining proper internal controls, which are critical to the prevention of errors, fraud, waste, and abuse.
AB 1275: (Chau) This bill would clarify the definition of “owner” and who has the legal authority to file a claim for unclaimed property, thus reducing frivolous lawsuits filed by parties that are not eligible to file a claim.