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Ch.725 —2— The people of the State of California do enact as follows: SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following: (a) Skilled nursing facilities and intermediate care facilities for the developmentally disabled are licensed by the State Department of Public Health and are subject to annual licensing inspections and federal certification surveys by the licensing and certification division of the State Department of Public Health. These long-term care providers pay annual licensing fees to the State Department of Public Health to pay for these inspections,at a cost of approximately$25,000 per year for a typical 100-bed skilled nursing facility and $3,300 for a typical intermediate care facility for the developmentally disabled. (b) The State Department of Public Health is responsible for measuring a facility's compliance with all aspects of patient care,including overseeing the food safety,preparation,storage,and sanitation requirements prescribed by federal and state law. (c) The physical infrastructure and related systems of single-story, wood-frame, and light steel frame construction or major renovations for skilled nursing facilities are governed by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development(OSHPD). (d) Any new construction or major alteration of an existing structure must conform to the latest edition of the California Building Standards Code, and providers are required to go through a building application and plan check process under the jurisdiction of OSHPD. (e) In 2006, the California Retail Food Code was changed to include licensed health facilities within the definition of"retail food facility."This change subjected skilled nursing and intermediate care facilities for the developmentally disabled to an additional level of inspections,enforcement remedies,and permit fees enforced by the county health departments. (f) Sixty-four percent of California nursing facility residents and 99 percent of intermediate care facility for the developmentally disabled residents have their care paid for by Medi-Cal.The additional permit fees, facility staff time spent on the new county inspections, and conflicting building code enforcement have resulted in an increase in facility costs and will increase the cost to the Medi-Cal system, and the General Fund, as Medi-Cal is required to pay its portion of any new state-mandated cost. (g) It is, therefore, the intent of the Legislature to enact legislation to decrease the cost to the state and to eliminate duplicative inspections of these specific types of long-term care facilities for compliance with the California Retail Food Code. SEC. 2. Section 113789 of the Health and Safety Code is amended to read: 113789. (a) "Food facility" means an operation that stores, prepares, packages,serves,vends,or otherwise provides food for human consumption at the retail level, including,but not limited to,the following: (1) An operation where food is consumed on or off the premises, regardless of whether there is a charge for the food. 93