AB 339 presents a significant operational challenge for California cities and counties: for every new contract an agency enters into, they must assess whether the work overlaps with any existing class specification and, if so, notify the relevant union. For a large agency like San Luis Obispo County — which manages over 1,000 contracts and 600+ class specifications annually — the theoretical scope of review reaches into the millions of possible combinations. In practice, agencies across the state have been left to choose between two imperfect responses: noticing every union on every contract (triggering 45-day delays that can bottleneck critical projects) or conducting exhaustive manual reviews that strain already lean HR teams. Neither approach is sustainable, and the legal stakes of getting it wrong — potentially having to undo a contract and set back a project significantly — make the pressure even more acute.
‍
San Luis Obispo County, in partnership with Holly, has developed a novel methodology for systematically reviewing class specifications to identify meaningful overlap and dramatically reduce the time and manual effort required per contract. This webinar will bring that solution to life from three vantage points: Mark Zeltmann, Michael Hobbs, and Lindsey Cora will walk through the strategic priorities for the department, their opportunities for further development, and analyst-level learnings from reviewing contracts. For peer agencies still working through their own AB 339 response, this is a rare opportunity to hear from a forward-thinking team that has already built a repeatable, defensible process — and to learn from what they’ve figured out.