California Conservation Corps.

(1) 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 establish a training program for members of county or city conservation corps, as provided. The bill would also repeal a redundant statute. 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 instead require those projects to assist in wildfire prevention and suppression, and would include forest resiliency, among other projects, to that list, as specified. This bill would require the projects to also provide those opportunities to California Native American tribes 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. Existing law requires the corps to report to specified committees of the Legislature by December 31 of each year the number of corpsmembers in the cohort who received an associate or bachelor's degree while serving in the corps or in the 12-month period following final separation from the corps and, among other things, to the extent feasible, the number of corpsmembers who enr