AB 393 adds Government Code section 19134.2 and imposes pre‑contract and reporting requirements on the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the State Department of State Hospitals (DSH) when those agencies seek to fill budgeted State Bargaining Unit 16 (BU‑16) physician positions (including psychiatrists) or State Bargaining Unit 19 (BU‑19) psychologist positions with contractors.
The bill requires an hourly cost comparison using current civil‑service pay from the applicable collective bargaining agreements, directs departments to use an available civil‑service clinician if a contractor would cost more, and mandates an annual January 15 report to the two bargaining units and the Senate and Assembly budget committees with metrics on analyses, contractor usage and costs, and extra‑shift civil‑service usage. The statute is targeted at limiting use of higher‑cost personal services contracts in two state systems where clinical staffing affects both budgets and patient care continuity.
At a Glance
What It Does
Requires CDCR and DSH to run an hourly cost comparison before entering into a personal services contract to fill a budgeted BU‑16 physician (including psychiatrists) or BU‑19 psychologist vacancy, and to use civil‑service staff when they are available and less expensive. It also creates an annual reporting obligation on contractor use and analyses.
Who It Affects
Directly affects CDCR and DSH staffing decisions for physician and psychologist posts, BU‑16 and BU‑19 employees and their unions, and vendors and staffing agencies that supply clinicians on personal services contracts. The Senate and Assembly budget committees receive standardized data for oversight.
Why It Matters
This inserts a formal, documented cost‑comparison and a presumption in favor of civil‑service staffing into two large state health systems. For budget analysts, labor representatives, and procurement officers it raises the bar for justifying higher‑cost contractors and generates recurring data to evaluate staffing choices across facilities.
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What This Bill Actually Does
AB 393 creates a straightforward procedural hurdle before CDCR or DSH can hire a contractor to fill an established BU‑16 physician or BU‑19 psychologist post. A department must prepare an analysis that compares the contractor’s hourly rate to the cost of filling the same hours with a civil‑service clinician.
The bill specifies the civil‑service cost input: current pay levels reflected in the State’s collective bargaining agreements with BU‑16 or BU‑19. That narrows the comparison to published salary and wage terms rather than ad hoc internal estimates.
If the analysis shows the contractor would cost more per hour than a civil‑service clinician, the statute requires the department to use an available civil‑service employee before executing the contract. The bill therefore creates a default ordering: use civil‑service clinicians when they are both available and cheaper; only proceed to contracting where the contractor is the cost‑effective option or where no civil‑service staff are available.AB 393 also creates an annual transparency requirement.
By January 15 each year CDCR and DSH must report to BU‑16, BU‑19, and the Senate and Assembly budget committees how many cost comparisons they completed in the prior fiscal year, how many contractors they employed and the cost of those contractors, and how many civil‑service clinicians worked extra shifts (and the cost). The reports to the legislature must follow the formatting or submission rules set out in Section 9795.
Taken together, the analysis, hiring presumption, and reporting requirement aim to produce auditable decisions about when the state leans on personal services contractors for clinical care.
The Five Things You Need to Know
The statute applies only to CDCR and the State Department of State Hospitals when filling budgeted BU‑16 (physician, including psychiatrists) or BU‑19 (psychologist) positions with contractors.
Before contracting, the department must prepare an hourly cost comparison between the contractor and a civil‑service clinician using pay rates from the current BU‑16 or BU‑19 collective bargaining agreements.
If a contractor’s hourly cost exceeds the civil‑service clinician’s cost and a civil‑service clinician is available, the department must use the civil‑service clinician instead of hiring the contractor.
By January 15 each year CDCR and DSH must report to BU‑16, BU‑19, the Senate Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review, and the Assembly Committee on Budget: the number of analyses done, the number and cost of contractors employed, and the number and cost of extra‑shift civil‑service clinicians.
Reports to the legislative budget committees must be submitted in compliance with Government Code section 9795 (the state’s standardized reporting requirements).
Section-by-Section Breakdown
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Pre‑contract hourly cost‑comparison requirement
This subdivision compels the department to produce a cost comparison before entering into any personal services contract that would fill a budgeted BU‑16 or BU‑19 slot. Practically, agencies will need a template or form to record contractor hourly rates, projected hours, and comparable civil‑service hourly costs. Procurement staff should expect this analysis to become a required procurement file item and to be subject to audit by internal or external reviewers.
Use collective bargaining rates as the civil‑service baseline
The bill requires agencies to use current civil‑service physicians or psychologists set out in the BU‑16 or BU‑19 collective bargaining agreements when calculating the civil‑service cost. That narrows variability in methodology — departments can’t substitute lower internal pay estimates — but it also means the comparison will reflect salary schedules and not necessarily fringe or indirect costs unless agencies explicitly include those items in the analysis.
Decision rule: prefer available civil‑service clinicians when cheaper
If the contractor’s hourly cost is higher than the civil‑service cost, the department must use an available civil‑service clinician before hiring a contractor. The operative phrase is “available civil service physician or psychologist,” which will force agencies to document availability (scheduling, shifting, vacancy status) and to justify any exceptions where a contractor is used despite a higher hourly cost.
Annual reporting content and recipients
Departments must compile and send an annual report by January 15 to BU‑16, BU‑19, and the state budget committees. The required content is narrow and operational: number of cost analyses completed, number and total cost of contractors actually employed, and the number and cost of civil‑service clinicians used on extra shifts. This creates a recurring dataset that unions and budget staff can use to spot trends and challenge contracting choices.
Report submission must meet Section 9795 rules
The final paragraph ties the new reporting duty into existing state reporting procedures by requiring compliance with Section 9795. That means agencies must follow whichever formatting, electronic submission, or certification rules Section 9795 prescribes, and noncompliance could be a procedural ground for follow‑up by the committees that receive the reports.
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Who Benefits
- BU‑16 physicians (including psychiatrists): The presumption in favor of civil‑service staffing limits routine replacement of these positions with contractors and protects hours and shift opportunities that might otherwise be outsourced.
- BU‑19 psychologists: Similar protection from displacement by contractors and additional visibility into when and why agencies rely on contractors for clinical coverage.
- State budget and oversight offices: Annual standardized reports provide data to identify high contractor spending and to enforce fiscal discipline across CDCR and DSH.
- Unions (BU‑16 and BU‑19): The statute institutionalizes a bargaining‑aligned benchmark (CBA rates) for cost comparisons and gives unions a formal channel to monitor contracting practices.
Who Bears the Cost
- CDCR and DSH administrative units: They must develop and maintain cost‑comparison processes, track extra‑shift usage, and prepare annual reports in compliance with Section 9795, creating ongoing administrative work and potential system changes.
- Contracting firms and staffing agencies: The presumption in favor of cheaper civil‑service clinicians will reduce some contracting opportunities, especially where contractors are consistently more expensive than civil‑service rates.
- Operational units responsible for coverage (facility managers): If civil‑service clinicians must be used when cheaper, managers may face scheduling complexity, forced overtime, or short‑term gaps if available civil‑service staff cannot meet specialized needs, potentially increasing logistical costs.
Key Issues
The Core Tension
The bill balances two legitimate objectives — protecting civil‑service clinicians’ jobs, hours, and bargaining rights, and controlling public spending on higher‑cost contractors — against the need for operational flexibility to fill time‑sensitive, specialized clinical roles. Favoring lower hourly civil‑service costs can conserve budget dollars and protect union positions, but it may reduce the agency’s ability to respond quickly to specialized shortages or temporary surges in clinical demand.
The bill codifies a cost‑comparison requirement but leaves important methodological choices open. It ties the civil‑service comparator to collective bargaining pay lines, but it does not explicitly require whether benefits, employer payroll taxes, workers’ compensation, or administrative overhead must be included in the hourly civil‑service cost.
That omission invites divergent implementations: one department may present a narrowly defined salary‑only hourly rate while another includes a full loaded cost, producing different outcomes from comparable facts.
Another practical ambiguity is the undefined term “available civil service physician or psychologist.” Availability will require operational definitions (on‑duty, willing to work extra shifts, credentialed for the specific unit). Agencies will need to create contemporaneous documentation practices to show they attempted to use civil‑service staff before contracting.
Finally, the bill privileges hourly cost as the deciding metric and does not create a process for weighing non‑hourly factors: contractor flexibility, short‑term surge capacity, specialized skill sets, credentialing lags, or liabilities associated with overtime. Those qualitative operational realities could make a legally justified civil‑service hire more costly in care disruption or recruitment terms than the hourly comparison suggests.
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