Section 2881.2.

(a) In addition to the requirements of Section 2881, the commission shall design and implement a program that shall provide for publicly available telecommunications devices capable of servicing the needs of the deaf or hearing impaired in existing buildings, structures, facilities, and public accommodations of the type specified in Section 4450 of the Government Code and Sections 19955.5 and 19956 of the Health and Safety Code, making available reasonable access of all phases of public telephone service to individuals who are deaf or hearing impaired. The commission shall direct the appropriate committee under its control to determine and specify locations within existing buildings, structures, facilities, and public accommodations in need of a telecommunications device and to contract for the procurement, installation, and maintenance of these devices. In the letting of the contract, the commission shall direct the committee to ensure consideration of for-profit and nonprofit corporations, including nonprofit corporations with demonstrated service to individuals who are deaf or hearing impaired and whose boards of directors and staff are made up of a majority of those individuals. The commission shall also direct the committee to seek the cooperation of the owners, managers, and tenants of the existing buildings, structures, facilities, and public accommodations that have been determined to be in need of a telecommunications device with regard to its installation and maintenance. The commission shall phase in this program over a reasonable period of time, beginning no later than January 1, 1998, giving priority to those existing buildings, structures, facilities, and public accommodations determined by the commission, with the advice and counsel of statewide nonprofit consumer organizations for the deaf, to be of most importance and usefulness to the deaf or hearing impaired.

(b) The commission shall ensure that costs are recovered as they are incurred under this section, including any costs incurred by the owners, managers, or tenants of existing buildings, structures, facilities, and public accommodations, and shall utilize for this purpose the rate recovery mechanism established pursuant to subdivision (g) of Section 2881. The commission shall also establish a fund and require separate accounting for the program implemented under this section and, in addition, shall require that the surcharge utilized to fund the program not exceed two-hundredths of 1 percent, that it be combined with the surcharge required by subdivision (g) of Section 2881, and that it count toward the limits set by that subdivision. This surcharge shall be in effect until January 1, 2006.

(c) "Existing buildings, structures, facilities, and public accommodations," for the purposes of this section, means those buildings, structures, facilities, and public accommodations or parts thereof that were constructed or altered prior to January 26, 1993, or are otherwise not required by Section 303 of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (P.L. 101-336; 42 U.S.C. Sec. 12183) or any other section of that act and its implementing regulations and guidelines, to have a publicly available telecommunications device capable of serving the needs of the deaf or hearing impaired.

(Amended by Stats. 2012, Ch. 162, Sec. 164. Effective January 1, 2013.)