Existing law establishes the California Conservation Corps in the Natural Resources Agency. Existing law requires the Governor to appoint the director of the corps to act as the administrative officer of the corps and assigns specified responsibilities to the director. Existing law makes various findings and declarations relating to the corps.

This bill would revise those findings and declarations relating to the corps, as provided. The bill would eliminate the director’s authority to use services, materials, or property of state agencies, to make agreements with state agencies, or to establish a training program for members of county or city conservation corps, as provided.

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 include projects supporting wildfire and forest resiliency, among other projects, to that list, as specified. This bill would require the projects to also provide those opportunities to tribal entities 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.

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.