DIR: Amendments to AB 5 Increase Implementation Costs

Amendments made to Assembly Bill 5 in the closing days of the 2019 legislative session that added new exemptions for specified industries increased, by nearly 700%, first-year implementation costs for the California Department of Industrial Relations. The difference between earlier versions of the bill and the enrolled measure explains why Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed 2020 budget would allocate $17.5 million and 103.5 positions for the DIR to implement AB 5 when the agency earlier said it needed only $2.2 million to implement the measure. An analysis prepared by the Senate Ap...