Appropriation and Allocation of Funding
(a) Moneys in the California Stem Cell Research and Cures Fund shall be allocated as follows:
(1) (A) No less than 95.5 percent of the proceeds of the bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.110, net of bond proceeds allocated to purposes described in paragraphs (4) and (5) of subdivision (a) of Section 125291.100, shall be used for grants and grant oversight as provided in this chapter.
(B) Not less than 98 percent of the proceeds of bonds used for grants shall be used for research, therapy development, and therapy delivery grants, with no more than the following amounts, as stipulated below, to be committed during the first 10 years following the effective date of the initiative adding this subparagraph, with each year’s funding commitments to be advanced over a period of one to seven years, except that any such funds that are not committed may be carried over to one or more following years. The maximum amount of research funding to be allocated annually is as follows: year 1, 11 percent; year 2, 11 percent; years 3 through 10, 9 percent; and year 11 and each year thereafter, 6 percent cumulatively. To accomplish the goals of Section 125290.75, up to 2 percent of the amount available for grants may be used for research consulting in support of access to, and the affordability of, treatments and cures arising from institute-funded research and therapy development and delivery, as determined by the governing board of the institute based on the recommendations of the Treatments and Cures Accessibility and Affordability Working Group and the president.
(C) Not more than 3 percent of the proceeds of bonds authorized by Section 125291.110 may be used by the institute for research and research facilities implementation costs, including the development, administration, and oversight of the grant-making process.
(2) (A) Not more than 3.5 percent of the proceeds of the bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.110 shall be used for the costs of general administration of the institute.
(B) Not more than 1 percent of the proceeds of the bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.110 may be used by the institute to pay for the costs of up to 15 full-time employees over 10 to 15 or more years, including, but not limited to, administrative support, facilities costs, salary, benefits, travel reimbursement, and meeting costs, to support the work of the institute to develop policies and programs to help Californians obtain access to human clinical trials, therapies, mitigating treatments, and cures arising from institute-funded research and to promote the accessibility and affordability of human clinical trials, treatments, and cures for Californians.
(3) In any single year, any new research funding to any single grantee for any program year is limited to no more than 1 percent of the total bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.110. This limitation shall be considered separately for each new proposal without aggregating any prior year approvals that may fund research activities. This requirement shall be determinative, unless 65 percent of a quorum of the ICOC approves a higher limit for that grantee.
(4) Up to 1.5 percent of the proceeds of the bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.110, net of costs described in paragraphs (2), (4), and (5) of subdivision (a) of Section 125291.100, shall be allocated for grants to build, equip, or fund operations of Community Care Centers of Excellence and up to one-half of 1 percent shall be allocated to build or equip shared labs, which are intended to be operational in the first five years following the effective date of the initiative adding this section. Funding received by a grantee from an institute award for construction shall be subject to prevailing wage laws.
(5) The institute shall limit indirect costs to no more than 25 percent of a research award, excluding amounts included in a facilities award, except that the indirect cost limitation may be increased by that amount by which the grantee provides matching funds in excess of 20 percent of the grant amount.
(b) The institute’s funding schedule is designed to create a positive tax revenue stream for the State of California during the first five calendar years following the voters’ approval of the initiative adding this section, without drawing funds from the state General Fund for principal and interest payments for those first five calendar years.
(c) The institute shall allocate at least one billion five hundred million dollars ($1,500,000,000) of the proceeds of the bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.110 to make grants for research, therapy development, and therapy delivery involving diseases and conditions of the brain and central nervous system, including, but not limited to, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, stroke, dementia, epilepsy, schizophrenia, depression, traumatic brain injury, brain cancer, and autism, and for grant oversight and general administration costs associated with these grants and loans, subject to the limits in subparagraph (C) of paragraph (1) and subparagraph (A) of paragraph (2) of subdivision (a).
(d) The allocation of the proceeds of bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.30 shall continue to be governed by Section 125290.70.
(Added November 3, 2020, by initiative Proposition 14, Sec. 17. Effective on December 16, 2020.)