The Stand for Security Act reached the Governor on September 10. He has until September 30 to act. Here is what it would change for anyone who buys security in California.
The Stand for Security Act reached the Governor on September 10. He has until September 30 to act. Here is what it would change for anyone who buys security in California.
On September 10, 2026, at four in the afternoon, Senate Bill 1203 was enrolled and presented to the Governor. He has until September 30 to sign it, veto it, or let it become law without a signature. Between now and then, the training standard for every licensed security officer in California is an open question, and so is the cost structure of every security contract written after 2028.
Most of the coverage has framed this as a labor story. For anyone who buys security rather than sells it, the practical content is narrower and more useful: what changes, when, and what it means for the contract you are going to sign next year.
SB 1203, carried by Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas of Los Angeles and titled the Stand for Security Act, amends the Business and Professions Code sections that govern private security registration and training. Two provisions matter to buyers.
California currently requires a registered officer to complete 32 hours of security officer skills training within six months of registration, including 16 hours in the first 30 days. Beginning July 1, 2028, SB 1203 would raise that to 42 hours, with 18 hours required in the first 30 days. Eight of those hours would be dedicated to de-escalation practiced through in-person role playing, and the training would have to be delivered as traditional classroom instruction rather than online.
That last detail is the operationally expensive one. Online modules scale. Classroom seats do not.
The bill does not set a minimum wage for security officers. It directs the Industrial Welfare Commission to convene by July 1, 2027 to examine wages, hours, and working conditions in what the bill calls the property services industry, and to issue an industry-specific wage order by June 30, 2028. The number itself would come later, from the Commission, not from the Legislature.
For a buyer, that distinction matters less than the timeline. A wage order landing in mid-2028 means bill rates set in 2027 for multi-year terms are being set against an unknown.
The Assembly passed the bill on August 31 by 58 to 19. The Senate concurred in the Assembly amendments the same day, 29 to 10. It sat for ten days before enrollment, and it reached the Governor's desk on September 10.
Support came from SEIU and from the author, who has argued that officers now respond to mental health and substance crises before law enforcement arrives, often alone, and that training has not kept pace. Opposition came from CALSAGA, the trade association representing licensed security agencies, whose president has argued the costs will fall on the workforce the bill intends to help. The association has estimated that a one dollar hourly increase across the state's private security workforce would add roughly 750 million dollars in annual cost. California has an estimated 330,000 licensed private security personnel.
Both sides agree on the context. The state is hosting World Cup matches in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, a Super Bowl in Inglewood in 2027, and the Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2028. Security demand is going up regardless of what happens to this bill.
Three consequences are worth planning around, whether or not the bill is signed.
Rate pressure arrives before the requirement does. The training provisions become operative July 1, 2028, and the wage order is due June 30, 2028. Providers writing three-year terms in 2027 will price that exposure into the rate, or they will absorb it and discover later that they cannot. Ask any provider quoting a multi-year term how they have priced the 2028 change. A provider who has not thought about it has not read the bill.
Classroom training constrains hiring speed. If online delivery is no longer permitted for the initial skills hours, onboarding becomes dependent on physical classroom capacity. Companies that run their own structured training programs absorb that. Companies that rely on third-party online modules to convert a new hire into a deployable officer will find their pipeline slower, and a slower pipeline shows up on your property as coverage gaps and unfamiliar faces.
Watch for title substitution. The opposition has publicly warned that clients unwilling to absorb higher costs may see roles renamed: an ambassador, a greeter, a safety associate, positions structured to sit outside the licensing regime. If a proposal ever offers you an unlicensed alternative at a lower rate, understand what you are buying. An unlicensed person in a security role is not covered by the registration, training, and background requirements that make a licensed officer a defensible choice after an incident.
Valcor Group Inc. operates under California PPO license 122608. Officers are trained on a continuous schedule rather than once at onboarding, training records are maintained as part of the same documentation discipline that produces geofenced timecards and daily activity reports, and license verification is one of the checks completed before an officer reaches a post. A higher statutory training floor changes our paperwork. It does not change our model.
The companies that will struggle if this bill is signed are the ones whose training program was the legal minimum delivered as cheaply as possible. That is worth knowing about a vendor before the law forces the question, not after.
Newsom has until September 30. We will write again when he acts.
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Contact ValcorOr call (424) 244-0943