AB 2474: Office of Emergency Services: public alert and early warning software: master contract.

Existing law, the California Emergency Services Act, establishes the Office of Emergency Services (OES) within the office of the Governor, and sets forth its powers and duties, including responsibility for addressing natural, technological, or manmade disasters and emergencies, including activities necessary to prevent, respond to, recover from, and mitigate the effects of emergencies and disasters to people and property.

Existing law requires OES, in coordination with all interested state agencies with designated response roles in the state emergency plan and interested local emergency management agencies, to jointly establish by regulation a standardized emergency management system for use by all emergency response agencies, as specified. The act requires each local agency, in order to be eligible for any funding of response-related costs under disaster assistance programs, to use the standardized emergency management system to coordinate multiple-jurisdiction or multiple-agency operations, except that a local agency is eligible for repair, renovation, or any other nonpersonnel costs resulting from an emergency.

This bill would require OES, on or before July 1, 2027, to enter in consultation with certain entities, to develop an implementation plan for entering into a statewide master contract for the creation of a public alert and early warning software that is capable of supporting interoperable public safety alerting across state, regional, and local governmental entities. The bill would require the public alert and early warning software, implementation plan, among other requirements, to be include a draft request for proposal under which the public alert and early warning software, among other things, is interoperable across state, regional, and local governmental entities, and to be created and ready for use by January 1, 2028. entities. The bill would require the office, upon completion of the implementation plan, to send the plan to the Assembly Committee on Emergency Management and the Senate Committee on Emergency Management.

The bill would make the implementation of the plan to enter into a statewide master contract for the creation of a public alert and early warning software subject to approval by the Legislature. If the public alert and early warning software is implemented, the bill would require a city or county that issues public safety alerts, on and after January 1, 2028, alerts to utilize the public alert and early warning software. The bill would specify, among other things, that it is the primary responsibility of the public emergency warning system operator in each city or county to send out emergency alerts to their residents. By imposing new duties on local officials, this bill would create a state-mandated local program. The bill would repeal its provisions on January 1, 2030.

The bill would include findings and declarations relating to its provisions.

The bill would include findings that changes proposed by this bill address a matter of statewide concern rather than a municipal affair and, therefore, apply to all cities, including charter cities.