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 97 percent of the proceeds of the bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.30, after allocation of bond proceeds to purposes described in paragraphs (4) and (5) of subdivision (a) of Section 125291.20, shall be used for grants and grant oversight as provided in this chapter.

(B) Not less than 90 percent of the amount used for grants shall be used for research grants, with no more than the following amounts as stipulated below to be committed during the first 10 years of grant making by the institute, with each year’s 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 as follows: Year 1, 5.6 percent; Year 2, 9.4 percent; Year 3, 9.4 percent; Year 4, 11.3 percent; Year 5, 11.3 percent; Year 6, 11.3 percent; Year 7, 11.3 percent; Year 8, 11.3 percent; Year 9, 11.3 percent; and Year 10, 7.5 percent.

(C) Not more than 3 percent of the proceeds of bonds authorized by Section 125291.30 may be used by the institute for research and research facilities implementation costs, including the development, administration, and oversight of the grant making process and the operations of the working groups.

(2) Not more than 3 percent of the proceeds of the bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.30 shall be used for the costs of general administration of the institute.

(3) In any single year any new research funding to any single grantee for any program year is limited to no more than 2 percent of the total bond authorization under this chapter. 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) Recognizing the priority of immediately building facilities that ensure the independence of the scientific and medical research of the institute, up to 10 percent of the proceeds of the bonds authorized pursuant to Section 125291.30, net of costs described in paragraphs (2), (4), and (5) of subdivision (a) of Section 125291.20 shall be allocated for grants to build scientific and medical research facilities of nonprofit entities which are intended to be constructed in the first five years.

(5) The institute shall limit indirect costs to 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) To enable the institute to commence operating during the first six months following the adoption of the measure adding this chapter, there is hereby appropriated from the General Fund as a temporary start-up loan to the institute three million dollars ($3,000,000) for initial administrative and implementation costs. All loans to the institute pursuant to this appropriation shall be repaid to the General Fund within 12 months of each loan draw from the proceeds of bonds sold pursuant to Section 125291.30.

(c) The institute’s funding schedule is designed to create a positive tax revenue stream for the State of California during the institute’s first five calendar years of operations, without drawing funds from the General Fund for principal and interest payments for those first five calendar years.

(Added November 2, 2004, by initiative Proposition 71, Sec. 5.)