Date: November 17, 2025 (Monday) – Evening meeting. Committee: Board of Supervisors Procurement and Contracting Committee. Present: Supervisor Marquez, Supervisor Nate Miley. Quorum achieved.
The committee met four to five times annually, with this being the last meeting of the calendar year. The agenda covered General Services Agency (GSA) items, an Auditor-Controller procurement report, and an update on the disparity study. Key decisions included advancing a wage-theft mitigation policy to the full board and directing further research on collective bargaining requirements for certain contract categories.
Next Meeting: Scheduled for late January or early February 2026 (date to be set by the clerk).
Everyone. It's Monday, November 17th, 2025. Um, procurement and contracting committee, policy committee for the board supervisors. If the clerk could take the roll. Supervisor Marquez present. Supervisor Nate Miley. We have a quorum. Thank you. Alright. So this committee meets about four or five times annually. And we I know I committed to having one meeting in the evening. And we usually have that as our last meeting of the calendar year. So this is our evening meeting. We have a pretty pretty full agenda this evening. And so we'll start off with our General Services Agency with their various items A, B, C, and D. Good afternoon, Supervisors. Kimberly Gassaway, Director of the General Services Agency. So today at the request of the board, there's been a few presentations as it relates to the Labor Code 238.5 that was amended in 2023 via an assembly bill 520. Next slide. So we're going to go over the background of the labor code and the amendment and some share some definitions, the impacts of this amendment, what other jurisdictions have been doing, and proposed property services and long-term care services contracting policy. Next slide. So labor code 238.5 was amended and signed into law on October 10, 2023. That was the amendment, and it was effective January 1st, 2024. What AB 520 did was extended the labor code to public agencies, making them jointly and severely liable for wage theft by contractors providing property services or long-term care staffing. This law mirrors existing requirements for private entities and includes an exemption where contracts with contractors covered by a collective bargaining agreement that expressly waives this liability. So in essence, unless the collective bargaining agreement has that waiver, then the county will not receive that exemption. Currently, there are no collective bargaining agreements that we could find that expressively waive this liability. Next slide. So a public entity is defined as a city county, city and county, district, public authority, public agency, or any other political subdivision or public corporation in the state. Property services or janitorials, security guard, valet parking, landscaping, and gardening services. Long-term care is defined as operation of a skilled nursing facility, intermediate care facility, congregate living health facility, hospice facility, and the list goes on as you can see there. Next slide. So the impacts, this legislation does not require the public entity to act. The legislation imposes joint and several liability on public entities for unpaid wages if a supplier contracting with a public entity for a specific specified service has been determined liable for unpaid wages by the labor commissioner. So GSA, after quite a bit of research and some consulting with county council, we came to propose the county board adopt a procurement policy to mitigate the risk. Santa Clara County does, however, they have an office of countywide contracting management that launched a program in 2020 before this law. It screens contracts for unsatisfied wage theft judgments and can disqualify bidders suspend or terminate contracts or withhold payment until the contractor remedies the violation. In Alameda County here, here our landscaping contractors are required to submit certified payroll records in adation for submission to the Department of Industrial Relations. This may have some risk mitigation for landscaping work, but it is a self-reported wages and doesn't cover all contract services in the law. Next slide. So then we took a look at all the contracts inventory. I will before I jump into that. We um also note that the labor commission picked these specific services because they're the highest risk for wage theft. That doesn't mean uh any other contract could have wage theft, but the law specifically relating to long-term care facilities, behavioral health manages 40 of those contracts, and they run those procurements independent of GSA. The GSA building maintenance division and the public works agency manage seven landscaping contracts, and there is a countywide master contract that includes two security guard service contracts. I will point out that there before Chief moves, there are no janitorial service contracts because by code, all janitorial services in county-owned buildings are provided by county staff. So what we're proposing is a long uh property service and long-term care contracting policy, and this ensures workers contracted count for county work are fully compensated, ensuring in Santa Clara. This is sim uh similar to what they claim is the model for this and it aligns with what they have proposed. So it ensures that white workers are uh for county work are fully compensated, preventing the county from inadvertently financially supporting employers with outstanding wage theft judgments and preventing the county from creating a race to the bottom among bidders for contracts. So if they're bidding low, you know, these are low-cost bids, and um so often they'll put a low cost, and some of the way they can mitigate that is possibly by not paying their wages.