Senate Budget Sub5 — 2026-05-20

Senator Richardson?

Present. Senator Sayardo?

Thank you. Thank you. Today's hearing will cover the Governor's May revision proposals across corrections, public safety, judiciary, labor, and transportation. We will be joined by representatives from the Department of Finance, Legislative Analyst's Office, and departments and agencies covered by the subcommittee number five. This is an informational hearing, and we will not be taking any votes today. This hearing will have three parts. Part A is labor, Part B is public safety, and Judiciary is, I'm sorry, Part B is public safety and the judiciary, and Part C is transportation. We will take public comments after each part of the agenda. So normally this committee, we don't take public comments until the very end. We will be taking public comments in each section. And we're looking forward to hearing everyone's perspective on the issues before us today. To ensure we have time for everything on today's agenda, we're asking presenters to keep their testimony under five minutes. And I would also like to ask my fellow committee members that we want to make sure our questions and rebuttals are concise as well. Do any members have anything they'd like to add before we begin?

Can we do two and a half minutes?

How does that sound for an answer? So for that, we're going to begin on Part A, which is labor. issue number one covers the governor's May revision proposals as I stated regarding labor and public employment first we will hear from the various departments and please come forward we have with us today the employment development department the public employment relations board the department of industrial relations department of human resources we might need some extra chairs here. The California Public Employees Retirement System, CalPERS, and also California Teachers Retirement System, CalSTRS. With that, why don't we start with

LAO and Department of Finance, do you have any objection if we go through the four areas and then you give all your comments, or would you rather do each one their section?

What are you prepared to do?

Is there any objection to us going through them all? No, that's fine. That's your preference. Okay. Yeah, so what we're going to do is we're going to go through all of your testimonies first, and then we'll give LAO and Department of Finance a chance to recap. You don't think it'll be too much? You're okay with that?

Okay, sounds good. Well, with that, we'll move to the Public Employment Relations Board. Okay. Good afternoon.

Thank you. Department of Industrial Relations. Sir, you can stay. I think it is, looking at it, it might be a little much, so we'll do these three and then we'll pause for comments. I was ambitious in thought with our time. Yes, go ahead.

Move the mic closer. We can't hear you.

Thank you. So we'll go for, do we normally, we do LAL or Department of Finance first?

Okay. So we'll start with the Department of Finance, and we're going to start with the Employment Development Department, Public Employment Relations, and Department of Industrial Relations. I'm sorry, my eyes were bigger than my belly. I just thought we could knock it all out. But as I started looking through it and hearing you, I'm like, it's probably not going to be feasible. So if you would take on these three and then the subsequent ones, we'll do one each.

Thank you. LAO?

Durazo were you yeah thank you madam chair thank you to everyone just a couple

process the paper claim applications faster and in giving benefits to the to those claimants so you talked about people who are not proficient in english so this this this document management system project is replacing a legacy technology implemented 25 years ago. And with this new technology, we will be able to scan the documents coming in any language and read the text written on that document quickly, efficiently, with very high accuracy.

Thank you.

Oh, sorry. Cynthia Elmore, Department of Finance. There's no plan included at May revise for paying down the debt. But we expect

Yeah, there's nothing specific in the budget, but the Labor and Workforce Development Agency has been made aware that they will be assessing different options for paying down the loan and dealing with the imbalance in the fund.

Yeah, thank you for the question, Senator DeRazzo. We definitely appreciate that question, and we are actively working on pulling that demographic data. I think what has been previously shared is due to some of our existing system limitations. That does create quite a bit of workload to do that. But we are actively working on it and expect to be able to produce that. I think our hope is by fall.

We hoping with the addition of this position that we requesting it will assist in some of those processing and intakes So we're anticipating that it will provide some relief. We do have alternative plans in place to address some of the caseloads. But as you said, there has been a natural uptick in the last couple of years in terms of filings and requests for services. And so we do have some additional relief coming through another AB position to hopefully absorb some of those caseload processing. But we do recognize the concern that you bring to our attention.

The plan is to use all resources available as is. If we do find ourselves in a position where we do need additional resources We will reevaluate at that point in time if if a request is needed to Put in for additional positions related to it at this time We think that in our initial analysis that the position we're asking should be sufficient for the regulations associated with this But it's hard to estimate what the actual impact will be once the the statue is implemented

Give us a moment. We will have somebody respond to your question. Hello.

Allison, too, at Department of Finance. Senator Arza, if you don't mind repeating your question.

Yes. So thank you for the question. Yes, so this unit is intended to address these emerging issues through having people who have expertise in this area and can assist us with drafting appropriate regulations that help protect workers and allow employers to utilize this technology. So it's both. It's to enable employers to use this new technology and also to make sure that they do so in a safe way through both doing regulations and also during the pendency of the process of the regulation, assisting employers with obtaining temporary variances from our regulation so that they can safely use the new technology.

I'm not certain if the BCP touches on that aspect. However, there was envisioned a person who would be at the top of this unit who would be engaging with stakeholders. That was part of the vision. So that others who are busy within Cal OSHA are not taking on that role. We asked for a specific higher level position that would be the person doing the engagement.

So I assume that means the union's included as well. Yes.

Thank you all very much.

I do. Hi, Jamie Mather, Division of Apprenticeship Standards within the Department of Industrial Relations. There have been three rounds of COIA so far. Round one has a performance period through December of this year, round two through December of next year, 2027, and round three through March of 2028. I apologize. we're just just finishing up around one it'll end in December so these are preliminary numbers but at this point there's been 816 opportunity youth served to date for round one round two is currently in flight and 67 opportunity youth have been served to date though we have 950 participants projected to be served and round three we're just announced on April 30th so So we're doing all the contracting for that, but we have 1,424 participants projected to be served through that grant.

We're currently collecting data on the effectiveness of the grant program, and we're happy to share that data when we have it, finalized data.

We didn't get to PERS, right?

Okay. Thank you all. Thank you all very much. Senator Ciardo. Thank you very much. Let's go back to UI debt. One of my favorite topics. And thank you to Senator Durazzo for clarifying that we don't have a plan. Last year, I think we had the same hearing and we asked for a plan and we still don't have one.

off that pot of money I'm Allison Hewitt Department of Finance and I'm not in a position to speak to kind of the broader budget architecture. There have there has been projected deficits going out. There are still projected deficits in the out year, so there's some initial actions the administration is taking to shore up our reserves in the meantime. There is, as my colleague shared, there is a, the Labor and Workforce Development Agency will be looking at options to pay down the UI principle and address kind of the ongoing structural deficit that continues to exacerbate the outstanding loan balance. So that would flag that as well. In terms of what the impact to employers is, so if we look at tax year 2026, based on the outstanding debt, or sorry, based on the kind of federal unemployment tax act impact of that, it's estimated at $105 per employee, and that is anticipated to generate revenues of roughly $2 billion dollars and that would be collected next year that's for this the

related to that, or do we wait? You can ask. Go ahead.

There several factors structural several issues but isn one right now the historic payments at the very low end compared to other states Senator Durazo Chaz Alamo with the LAO The state has long held a UI tax system that was insufficiently calibrated to generate the level of payroll taxes from employers that are needed to build up a reserve so that the state can withstand a downturn. Yes, that's how I would characterize it, but I think we are speaking the same thing. About a year and a half ago, our office released a plan to pay off the UI outstanding loan and, importantly, to address that long-term imbalance in the tax system. One of the key points that we put forward in the plan is that we could take steps to pay off the $20 billion loan today. We could do that through a mechanism as Senator Sayardo has mentioned or another. But the problem with that single step is that tomorrow we would have an outstanding balance with the federal government because of that structural imbalance in our tax system. So it is imperative that when the state endeavors to reform the system, that it takes both actions, that it refinances or pays down the outstanding federal loan, and it also fixes its own tax system at the same time. Otherwise, we find ourselves 18 months or three years from now in a situation where the fund is again underwater, and we are again borrowing from the federal government. in a program that is important to have and that we don't want to avoid in all cases, but we just like to do so less frequently and only under the most extreme circumstances.

Mr. Ciardo, reclaiming your time.

Senator, the report is now aging, but I think the specific language we used was that the reform as we put forward would represent a large tax increase to the employer community. And that's in recognition of how stark the imbalance is. For two decades now, the state's tax system has not generated sufficient receipts to pay for the state's UI system. And that's just the reality, and the contrast is that the employer community would contribute more. The one caveat to that is under the federal repayment plan, the employer community contributes more one way or another. They can either do so under the state system up front to build a reserve, or they can do so afterward, as we are now with the $2 billion assessment. There is no free lunch in this system. We think for the state's perspective, it'd be best to be in the driver's seat and manage a reserve ahead of recessions rather than following a federal repayment plan that is pretty inflexible and shows dramatic increases in the employer community contributions. So it is that balancing. We'd prefer that the state be sort of in charge, so to speak. And when we talking about managing the overall budget of the state when we have billion but with in general revenue our general fund revenue you know those are policy choices that we make whether we make this a business area and we absorb some of that through the taxes that we already pay so that we not in that situation where we having to charge businesses because the businesses did not create the unemployment problem And so the more we do that to them the less businesses there are which creates an even bigger burden on the ones that are left

Let's see, I think some of this was already covered. I'm a little bit confused here. It says the May revise on the unfair labor practices for the AB 288. It says it includes a decrease of $5 million, one-time general fund. And is there a decrease of 22 positions this year? Is that what that means?

is that another reduction or is that an increase for the following year it's a

good let's see next one the aim system I think we're so now we were 71.7 million dollars in prior years and we need 44.1 million more and this I think has to be money well spent otherwise we're going to lose the system for documentation right for the workers comp system adjudication management system grace Henry Department of Finance can you please repeat the question

44.1 million in one time increase from the labor workforce development so but the project has also received 71.7 in the past so is this Is this the number that's going to help us get this thing up and running to what it needs to be for the future, or are we going to be doing more of these in the future?

To the end.

Okay. So that's probably money well spent. Okay, I think the rest of these were pretty much covered. the one trailer bill language, the assessment payment via electronic funds transfer. I remember this was something of an option for tax paying, and then all of a sudden it became a mandatory, and then there was a fee attached to it if you didn't. So what percentage of our employers are already doing this, remitting via the ETF? I believe it's about 80 to 90 percent.

So we just have a little bit, a few more people left. Correct. Okay. Because that will be more efficient, I would imagine, and save time and also some money. I just hate to see people who can't do that because their technology doesn't allow for it yet to be punished with fines. So.

right yeah yeah and it you know makes makes us a little nervous dropping it off at the bank too. All right I'll give the microphone back to the chair so she can ask her questions and I'll be finished for now thank you. Thank you very much let me apologize to those of you here in the members present I thought I had such a great idea but when I saw the musical chairs going around I'm like wow that was not smart so so much for for good thinking but it's always worth trying new ideas. So I'm going to start with my questions to avoid the musical chairs on EDD. Yeah, I was afraid of that. Yeah, it's my fault. We'll do better in the next three. We'll stick to the script as Diego had for me here. My first question with EDD is about EDD next. So do I have the right people here? Okay, so just for members of the public who aren't privy and remembering all this information, how much approximately, I realize you may not have it you know down to the dollars, but how much approximately have we spent on EDD next?

allocated if any do you have do you have everything at this point as of right now

So the annual portions are how much?

And then from there, you're going to need how much to do the remaining portion?

So based upon that, do you anticipate, and this is probably a question for one of you to hear in the front, do you anticipate that this will be set funds that will be in the governor's normal budget? I realize we have a new governor that will be coming in in eight months. Or do you anticipate every year you're going to be asking for an additional $30 to $80 billion or $165 million? What I'm trying to get at is at some point in the budget are we going to have what the true costs are? And then when we're adding these additional requests, they're an anomaly as opposed to an every year request.

the question and then I'll refer to you mr. Alamo if you wanted to chime in at some point I think we need to get a grips on how much are we spending and what happens is right now we're having more and more initiatives that are coming forward and the pie of available dollars that we have is shrinking and shrinking and shrinking and at some point someone needs to be looking at this ball and saying this may be a great initiative but we don't have enough money to be able to do you know whatever it is for this next thing that is also equally important so I would just like to respectfully request and I'll I'll make sure to share this of course with the president pro tem but maybe in future presentations you could say okay we need 165 you know million for these following reasons we anticipate needing X amount more over the next five years which will continue to so hopefully we too would have some continuity and then that way we know okay this is coming this is coming this is coming so at some point when we a part of those bigger discussions of how much money do we really have to spend we can speak intelligently Because if it's always, you know, we have no idea how much more additionally is going to be asked than the basic budget that you have, it makes it very difficult for us to plan and know what's available.

Okay, I'm just saying when you do the May revise at this point It would be helpful to kind of just tie us in with that big picture so we know what we spent and what? additional is coming so then when you come again next year we'll be like okay yeah I remember that okay mr. Alamo did you have anything you want to chime in

I'm glad to hear it's not just me because it just seems like at some point we're going to need more and more programs and we might as well just budget for that and plan for it versus this one-off kind of thing. Okay, time for musical chairs again. Unemployment insurance is my next question. All right, okay. So I recall one of the biggest causes of this additional loan payment that we're making had to do with the pandemic and the additional amount of funds that were required to help people. Isn't that correct that a large portion that caused this loan was due to that, right?

Okay. And it's also correct that right now we're only paying on interest. We're not paying any principal. I have seen earlier in the year the L.A. report that gave us recommendations. One of my jobs today is going to be where I suspect to be adding additional language next week to at least advise you of it now, and I'm advising the public and also my colleagues when these items come forward. So one of the things I'm going to be requesting with, I support the unemployment insurance, obviously payments and what we're talking about, but I'm also going to be requesting and building on my colleagues' comments that I think we really need to begin to address a plan of how we going to pay for this because it actually costing us more money than if we were to come up with some sort of scenario I know that not popular I know how are we going to pay for it and all that But the way we're doing this is just not, I think, in the best advice. So just be aware that I will be bringing something forward that says I support this. However, I'm hoping next year that we'll be able to come to this committee with a better solution than just paying interest payments, but actually come to us in the January budget or in the May revised or something to say, okay, here's how we're going to deal with this versus continually doing these interest-only payments, which is not getting us where we need to be. Is that fair?

Okay, perfect. All right, and then my last question which had to do with DIR, this emerging technologies unit my last musical chairs of this group my question is relating to the emergencies technologies unit can the department expand on what it foresees as the impacts of AI in the context of the workplace safety and future building of jobs and so on I heard briefly what you said but a big question a few months ago I I took a tour up in Silicon Valley I went to Nvidia applied materials and trying to think what the third company was and it became very evident to me that it wasn't a fight to keep back AI AI is already here it's already here involved in our workplace. CEOs have admitted we can anticipate losing 50% of our jobs. So could you just give us a little more information on what your intentions are with having a technology unit? Because to me, I can see that just being another program that then you're going to come back next year and say, I need 10 more employees and more and more. and it's like, what's the point if it's not going to be substantive in terms of how we can preserve a future workforce? So what are really your thoughts of how do you envision this emerging technologies unit operating?

Are you aware of any other departments that you partner with, whether it's EDD or human resources or whatever, that's also considering an emergency technologies unit? Because what we don't want to do is duplicate emergency technology units throughout all of employment related workforce and we're just having four and five departments all kind of similar but in different sections instead of one department looking at all of this. I'm not aware that any departments that are focused on workers are doing this.

Okay. Mr. Alamo.

Okay, thank you. All right, with that, it's time for musical chairs. We're going to hear from the Department of Human Resources. And this time we'll just do one at a time, so you won't have to go through that. My apologies. Okay, who's our lead presenter?

Thank you. No one else to present from the Department of HR?

Okay, thank you. Senator Sigardo, you're batting first. Any questions?

Uh-oh. All right, Senator DeRazzo?

Yes, it is the basic services for the rest of our state employees including these critical incident services. Okay, and they already had access to these

departments individually had their own contracts instead of going through one statewide contract, which currently our contract does not provide those services.

this over to my colleague thank you for the question Nicole Griffith Cal HR benefits so specifically we are happy to bring enhancements to the EAP services specifically for the first responders and employees they will have increased utilization and access to more clinicians so currently right now in our model they have access to like call center representatives so now when they call in they will have options to speak directly to clinicians that will be answering the phone They'll have trauma peer support tailored to first responder departments, trauma-informed clinician networks, emergency access to services. So there's a two-day appointment guarantee, and there's a financial penalty that will back that, that if they don't meet it, they will reimburse the state financials. In addition to that, the training staff that will be supporting the departments are clinicians as well, and family members will have access to the same numbers of sessions as the employees do.

No further questions from members? All right. Thank you very much. We'll now turn to CalPERS, California Public Employees Retirement System. Is anyone presenting for CalPERS? Please.

Is anyone else going to be presenting on behalf of CalPERS?

Okay. That was a quick presentation for $459 million.

Yeah, no problem.

No problem. Department of Finance, anything you'd like to add?

And LAO's office?

Okay. Senator Durazo, your first step on this one?

Thank you for the question. Rob Patterson, CalPERS Investment Office. I lead the Investment Performance Group as well as the Investment Technology Function. Maybe before responding to the specific question, give a little bit of context in terms of the strategy itself, because I think that that's important. When we look at the expenses, we very much look at those as a byproduct of the strategy, the strategy being a higher allocation to private markets like you were referencing, as well as a higher allocation to active managers. The impact of those is when we're looking at the asset classes, the second part of your question, our highest expected return net of fees from an asset class perspective is private equity. And so whenever we're talking about any of the investment results, they're net of the fees that we're paying here. So net of those fees, highest returning asset class. When we're looking at deploying the strategy, there's a couple of drivers. The drivers being the strategy composition like we're talking about. We are moving more and more into private markets. We are moving more and more into active strategies. Like you were saying, the two reasons we're doing that are so that we can ultimately pay member benefits and to improve our funding ratio, which we've demonstrated that we've increased significantly over the past couple of years. When we're looking at the changes, again, mostly driven out of increased allocation to private markets, which is part of the board approved strategy. And then also when we're looking at private markets relative to public markets and dollar terms. Again, there's going to be higher dollars. But whenever we're looking at these, it's that of those fees. And there's a couple of things that we need to be looking at in terms of the context or considerations. One, when we're looking at the increase here, it is large in dollar terms fully agree on that. We also have to look at the size of the PERF, the Public Employee Retirement Fund, which is, as of a year ago would have been approximately billion We are now well north of billion So when we looking at these changes it not only further moving into private markets It's not only further moving into active strategies. It's also the growth of the PERF itself is driving its higher AUM is going to result in net increase in fees. When we look at these, it's important that we look at these not only in dollar terms, but in percentage terms. And so on a percentage term basis, we're looking at anywhere from one quarter to one third of a percentage point or 25 to 30 basis points, as we would describe it. And that's relatively stable over time. The reason we're able to help keep that relatively stable over time is while we're legging into private markets, we are also looking at co-investments. Co-investments allow us to sit alongside funds where we have low or no fees associated with that. Again, less fees means more money to be able to pay our member benefits. And I'll pause there to see if there's any questions as a follow-up.

So, again, it comes down to the higher return expectations of that asset class and then also the amount of transparency that we have, where we do have quite a bit of transparency related to those investments, which we make publicly available on our website. And then also we report fees on a lot of our private asset managers in our 2833 report. So quite a bit of transparency related to the underlying investments as well as the fees associated.

I believe there's a bit of a trade-off in terms of sufficient level of information to which we can make informed investment decisions while meeting our fiduciary responsibility to be able to generate returns and fund benefits.

I believe at present we're meeting all state requirements in terms of reporting obligations. I think there was recent discussion around additional transparency that I don't have any additional comments on at this point.

I don't have any additional comments on that at this point.

person CalSTRS so I can speak specifically to CalPERS I don't want to represent CalSERS in any way. In terms of what we're speaking about here, I wouldn't get into any specific managers or strategy level discussions beyond looking at the asset class itself, which is a very large portfolio, highly diversified, and where there are challenges with specific managers over time, taking that in consideration in terms of the capital that we decide to deploy into the future.

Senator Sayardo, did you have anything to add?

Yeah I think it really important This is not about whether or not we choose private equity or public markets This is about getting the information That the issue It about having access to the information transparency in the process And what I hear from you is that you don't care about the transparency. You don't care about getting access to the information. You want the result, and that's that. And there's no reason why you have to In my opinion, you have to pick between one or the other. There's no reason why we can't have full information and be able to pick between private equity and public markets whenever it's best to pick one or the other rather than have them decided. So I just want to make that clear here. This is not about choosing better results or return for the benefits, for the pension benefits. It's about having more information so that then it's a fuller decision. Thank you Madam Chair.

Why don't we take that back and see how we can accommodate that then?

Yes, ma'am. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Kayla Landman, Department of Finance. Today I will be presenting the May revision items that are related to CalSTRS. So to start, May revision includes $6.5 million of ongoing general fund to reflect an increase in the state's contributions to CalSTRS as actual creditable compensation growth exceeded the estimated growth. The state's contributions to CalSTRS are calculated using the creditable compensation amount provided by the Teachers' Retirement Board for the fiscal year immediately preceding June 30th. So the state's contribution for 2026-27 is calculated using the actual creditable compensation amount from 2024-25. Finance received the updated final creditable compensation amount from CalSTRS on April 15th, revise the state contribution amount accordingly. The second item, for the second item, May revision also includes just over a million dollars general fund in 2026-27 to reflect the state share of benefit overpayments identified by CalSTRS from the prior fiscal year as required by statute. Thank you and I'm available for any other questions. I think you're up first on this one. Okay

Thank you. Along the lines of my previous questions, CalSTRS, how were you convinced, you made a response to a legislative bill that was before us, Your response was that transparency would have been more damaging to your investment strategy. Could you explain that?

So we again didn prepare to bring the investment staff to this hearing given what on the agenda but we can come back to you with that Okay And that the basic question is how were you convinced that transparency was going to be more damaging than not having more transparency with private equity Okay. Thank you.

I think what they're talking about is if they're doing the investment strategy that they plan is to maximize our profits on our investments. And what they're afraid of, maybe they don't want to say it, is that we turn their investment strategy into a political football. And there are things that I think we all agree that we probably shouldn't invest in, but they probably already don't because they're smart people. I am not an investment strategist, especially for a high dollar stuff like this. Pretty good with finances, but not that good. And that's why those folks are being paid the big bucks to do what they do. And I think if they're getting out the information that you're requesting that they put out, then the next thing we do is we have 10 bills saying we need to divest in this because it's not green energy and we want more investment in something that gets 2% than 10%. That's what I think they need to try to avoid. They don't want to be a political football. And we are a political football. Okay. So that's...

No. So with that. If you would like me not to talk, then I'll go ahead and excuse myself from the hearing.

Liz Blum-Guterres on behalf of Vera California in strong support of the jails to jobs proposal submitted by Senator Smallwood Cuevas and appreciate the support of this committee. Jails to jobs will create real pathways to employment for people at the pre-trial stage of the criminal legal process. This investment strengthens public safety. This section or the next section, jails?

California thank you thank you hello chair and members my name is Joanna Vega Garcia with next in California on behalf of next in California a workforce priority that was not included in the May revise is a renewal of the Apprenticeship Innovation Fund. AIF is a pioneering formula funding model driving scalable and sustainable apprenticeships across California and it is set to expire this fiscal year. We urge the legislature to prioritize the AIF renewal proposal submitted by Senator Becker. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, good afternoon. This is Maria. I'm with the California Network for Immigrant worker justice and I know we're not on the agenda today but this does have to do with labor so we're here to share why our immigrant immigration and enforcement emergency fund needs to be included in this year's budget this is a proposed relief fund offering support to those Californians who are the backbone of our economy but who are impacted by violent immigration enforcement without any aid and losing income their work and in some cases their life but I'd like you to please hear from an impacted member and I'll be handling translation I'm Diana Freeman. I'm from San Francisco, supporting the coalition. A month and a half ago, my friend was deported, and we didn't find her anywhere. Her children were alone. They called me to the school to get them to collect. She is a mother of a family. and we were worried about her, we didn't find her. We were looking for her, and when she communicated with us, she told me that she didn't have access to a call. She was in a place where she didn't have beds, she didn't have medicine, and apart from that she was in that situation, There were many more women. I was going through the same situation. I was in the night because they didn't find how to communicate with their children. That's why we ask that they support that proposal. Because we are also immigrants in this country. Thank you.

Hello, Chair and Members. Elmer Lizardo with the California Federation of Labor Unions. We are urging the legislature and the administration to provide PERB with $2 million to provide adequate staff for mediation and conciliation services, as well as to implement the right to organize for drivers for TNC companies and workers who cannot access National Labor Relations Board adjudication. Since March 15 to 2025 to April of 2026, PERB has done over 500 private sector mediations for unions and employers across industries. They're doing great work, and we would like to see that sustained. In addition to mediation, AB 1340 and AB 288 gave PERB new responsibilities to adjudicate private sector labor disputes in absence of federal options. And it is critical that the budget include funding to implement these statutes in the absence of other recourse for workers to exercise their rights to unionize, collectively bargain, and to strike. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Leticia and I am part of the Coalition for the Relief Fund for the impacted immigrant families. Hello, my name is Laura. I'm part of the Immigrant Coalition, and I am here in support for you to approve in support for the approval of the relief fund. As an immigrant community, this is affecting us, so we're asking you for your approval of the fund. Thank you. No venimos a hacerles daño a nadie. Lo único que hacemos es pagar impuestos, vivir de nuestro trabajo, y las familias requieren apoyo de ustedes. Muchas gracias, de verdad, por su tiempo, y gracias por escucharnos. Hello, good afternoon. And thank you. My name is Elizabeth. I am also here in favor of the proposal for the relief fund for immigrants. They are the ones who need it, those who have been detained and practically have been affected along with their families. As humans, we're here to work, not to harm others. We just pay our taxes, live off of work, and the families need your help. Thank you for your time. Hello, good afternoon. My name is Cristina. I am here in support for the Economic Relief Fund for the workers. And thank you for listening to us. And I hope to hear a favorable answer from you all regarding this. Thank you. Hola, buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Teresa y estoy aquí también para apoyar el fondo de alivio para las personas to immigrants who basically have been detained or deported so that their families can survive. And thank you very much for being attentive to what we are saying. We would like to support you. Good afternoon. My name is Teresa. I'm here in support of the Relief Fund for Immigrant Workers who have been detained or deported so that their families can survive and thank you very much for listening to us and we ask you for your support a la comunidad emigrante en California. Gracias por su tiempo. Hello, good afternoon. My name is Marta and I'm part of the coalition. And I'm here in support of the relief fund for those workers who have been affected by the raids here in California. Thank you. for the immigrants and workers. And I'm asking you to put your hands on your conscience, that they have compassion with the children, which are the most affected when there are separations of families. So we ask you in the name of the coalition, please support these funds for these families, which, as we know, who has the worst part are the children, and that are the future of our country. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Elma Delgado, and I'm here part of the Home Workers Coalition. And I'm here asking you to have compassion for the children of those families who have been affected by family separation. And in the same we asking you for your support and to think on those families and the kids who suffer and are the future of our country Thank you Excuse me When I first opened up for public comment I said to ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard

Hello, my name is Maria Rosa Rodriguez. I'm here supporting the Coalition for Migrantes and Workday. I know that it doesn't matter what I'm saying. I just want to know why they didn't support us to get these funds for us. I want to explain why they didn't do it. Hello, my name is Maria Rosa Rodriguez and I am supportive of the California Coalition for Workers. And I know that you don't care what we have to say, but what I do want to ask is why haven't you, you help us to get the fund why didn't you do it thank you my name is Pedro Vargas I'm from Oakland California I'm going to support the

here and we certainly don't want people to feel disrespected that's not our

I'm here in support of the relief fund that has been proposed. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Mary Medellin Myers, part of the California Network for Immigrant Worker Justice. I'm here to ask you to include the Immigration Enforcement Emergency Fund in this year's budget. Thank you. Buenas tardes. Mi nombre es Berta Mbriz. Yo soy miembro de la red de California para la justicia de trabajadores y migrantes. Yo estoy aquí para apoyar el fondo de alivio de emergencia para familias y personas. Gracias. Hello. My name is Berta Mu from California and a worker of California Worker Justice and i here in support of the Relief Fund for Families Good afternoon honorable members and leaders and I glad here representing the California Network Coalition of California Worker Justice. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Esmeralda Iglesias. I'm here with the California Network for Immigrant and Worker Justice and I'm here in support of the relief fund for families affected by the ICE raid. Thank you. Preservar el presupuesto de fondo de alivio de emergencia por redadas de inmigración. Gracias. Hello, my name is Lorena with the Network of California Worker Justice, and I'm here in support of the preservation of the Emergency Relief Fund. Thank you. Hola, buenas tardes. I come from San Francisco, California, and I'm supporting the group of this, because California does not deserve this, but we hope you will solve it so we have the best position. Hello, I come from California in support of this group. I know that Californians don't deserve this treatment, and I hope that it can be solved. Thank you. Hello, my name is Beatriz and I'm also in support of the economic support for those affected by these changes. Thank you. Hello, my name is Thomas and I'm here in support of the coalition because we see much injustice happening to immigrant people and we want your support. Thank you. Hello, good afternoon. My name is Roberto Ruiz and I'm here in support for the immigrants who have been treated inhumanely, 500 million. We're asking, thank you. Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Lourdes Dovarganes, y vengo en apoyo al alivio económico para los emigrantes, ya que estamos sufriendo de terror, de abuso y de separación familiar. Hello, my name is Luders and I'm here in support of the Economic Relief Fund for Immigrants because we're suffering from abuse and separation. Thank you. Buenas tardes mi nombre es Isabel Hern apoyo el alivio de los inmigrantes Hello my name is Isabela Hernandez I support the help of immigrants Thank you. Hello, my name is Isabela Hernandez, and I'm here in support for the Economic Relief for Immigrants. Thank you. Hello, my name is Esther. I'm part of the California network for the justice of immigrants and workers. Hello, my name is Esther and I'm here part of the Network of California Worker Justice and I'm here in support of the Relief Fund. Thank you. para todas las comunidades afectadas. Gracias. Hello, my name is Teresa, I'm a member of the California Coalition for California Workers, and I'm here in support, and we ask you for your support for the emergency fund. Thank you. Hello, my name is Liliana Esparza, and I support the fund of relief for immigrant families with the coalition. Thank you. I will be reading it for her. She can't talk. My name is Marisol, and I'm part of the Coalition for California Workers' Justice and Immigrants, and I'm here in support of the emergency relief fund for the families who have been affected by the raids. Hello, my name is Marlene Salvatierra and I'm here in support of the relief fund. Thank you. Buenas tardes, mi nombre es Adriana y también estoy aquí con la red de California pidiendo que seamos incluidos en el presupuesto para las familias siendo impactadas por inmigración. Gracias. Hello, my name is Adriana and I'm here with the California Network and we're asking to be added to the budget for the families who have been impacted by the rates. Thank you. when I started as my number is Martha yes to ya keep our apoyar a phone body alivio de emergencia para las familias impactadas for las redadas gracias hello my name is Martin I'm here in support of the emergency relief fund for the families who have been impacted by the rates thank you hello I'm under a from San Francisco and I wanted to share that symbolic actions and words do not feed impact do not feed families or workers we need to back it up with a material support and in that it's emergency relief there's a lot of families and workers who are being affected by these kidnappings that are happening on the ground thank you hi my name is Paola I'm also with CNIWJ and I I also support the Emergency Relief Fund. Hello. My name is Lucas Olorzano. I'm an Oakland resident. And I'm asking for the support for 500 million for the impacted communities, those impacted by the violent kidnappings. These emergency relief funds are needed now. Thank you. Hello, my name is Cynthia Salazar. I am an Alameda County resident and part of the California Network for Immigrant Worker Justice. And I am here in support of the emergency relief funds for those affected and kidnapped by ICE. Thank you. Hello, my name is Angela Rojas and I am here representing those people who have been affected by the raids and here in support of the funds. Thank you. that they can approve the emergency help for the immigrants who have been detained by ICE. Hello, my name is Mayra and I'm here so you can approve the emergency relief fund for those people who have been affected and detained by ICE. Thank you. How are you doing? Henry Ortiz with Community Healers in support of the relief funds. Fuck ICE and God bless immigrants. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm part of the coalition as well. You know, it's interesting to think about that we don't forget when we're hungry, but we forget about the people that grow our food. It's really important for y'all to really, really take into consideration what's happening in this country. And I fully, wholeheartedly support for us to put our money in the state of California to support the people that are impacted and are vulnerable right now. And we're really seeing who's paying attention and just appreciate Senator Durazo for really like hearing our communities. Please, our people need y'all now and what's happening in the country is not okay. Thank you.

Senator Durazo, I know there's been a couple bills about assisting immigrants similar to this. Are you familiar with what committee those bills are going to or because I mean

are you one of the organizers of the group the California Network for a network of California worker justice yes okay so first of all if you would

I don't know if this is a request within labor, frankly, but I'm certainly committed to finding out. So please let them know that we will. I think most of these bills are falling within judiciary is one of the questions that I asked one of my colleagues. But frankly, I'm not aware of where specifically this budget request would go to. But I will certainly ask the question. I'm glad that they came and expressed their concerns, and we will certainly follow up. And if you leave your contact information, the committee will follow up with you.

Okay. Thank you. Having heard from all members of the public, members, are there any additional questions or comments? So we're going to move on to Part B of the hearing, starting with an overview from the judicial branch and the Department of Justice. Thank you.

This is the house of the people, and that's why we're here. So, but thank you for also know that we respect your time and know you have many meetings and things to be concerned with. It's my understanding that we're going to start off with the Department of Finance and the LAO's office of giving us an overview. And then from there, we'll see what specific questions we have. Thank you. Good afternoon, Henry, Department of Finance. I will be highlighting a few of the notable inclusions in the May revise to the Judicial Council's budget on the support side. And with me is Amanda Garcia, a colleague of mine at the Department of Finance. She'll be covering issues on the capital alley side. So the May revision includes $20 million child court trust fund annually over the next two years to address the demand for language access and the rising costs for court interpreter services. There is also 1.6 million appellate court trust fund annually over the next four years to maintain the already existing security coverage at the appellate courts There is provisional language changes to increase the administrative workload cost cap This is to address the workload needs of the judicial council and the state bar in support of the Equal Access Fund. We also have trader bill language to extend the implementation date of the lactation rooms by three more years. And this will provide the judicial council with more time to build out the lactation rooms and gives us time to assess the needs of the remaining facilities. And then finally, there is a backfill reduction of $10 million over the next two years to the state court facility construction fund. And this is due to improving revenues and provides the general fund with some relief. With that being said, I'll now turn it over to Amanda Garcia. Good afternoon, Amanda Garcia, Department of Finance. I'm going to be speaking on the capital outlay side. So in governor's budget, Judicial Council requested two re-appropriations of the performance criteria phase for the Solano Courthouse. That was $5,159,000. And then the Fresno Courthouse for $18,145,000 for a total of $23,304,000. The May revision requests six additional reappropriations of the acquisition phase for courthouse projects in the counties of Solano, so $12.1 million. Fresno for $11.2 million. Plumas for $1.5 million. Los Angeles for $34.1 million. San Luis Obispo for $22.8 million. $22.9 million for a total of $81,837,000. There is also a request for a reappropriation of the acquisition phase for the courthouse project in Nevada County for $4,550,000. The May revision also requests a reappropriation of the performance criteria phase for San Luis Obispo for a total of $7,853,000. The total requested amount of re-appropriations in the revision is 94,240,000. That combined with the governor's budget request of re-appropriation gets to the approximately 118 million general fund identified in the agenda. Additionally control section 20 re-appropriated lease revenue bond authority of the construction phase for courthouse projects in Stanislaus county in the amount of 23,512,000 dollars And then Riverside County for $14,676 for a combined total of $38,188. These 13 reappropriation requests are due to a variety of compounding delays, including complex negotiation processes, existing tenant issues, collaboration with local government, and contractor disputes. And then just to point out this morning, as was mentioned in the agenda, we did approve an augmentation request of $3.125 million in leased revenue bond authority for the construction page of the Riverside County Courthouse, of course contingent on the expiration of the 20-day legislative review period. I'm happy to answer any questions. I'm going to start my remarks with a few brief comments on the overall status of the governor's May revision. While the budget is balanced for 26-27 and 27-28, planned expenditures for each year exceed revenues. And the budget is only balanced due to reliance on one-time resources like reserves. It's of concern that at this time of robust revenue growth that the budget would need to rely on things like reserves in order to be balanced. And so our office has put together a few recommendations to put the budget on more firm footing. Specifically, we're recommending maintaining the amount of ongoing solutions proposed by the governor, making a billion discretionary reserve into the budget stabilization account and setting aside billion to pay for new borrowing TAKEN together these recommendations would require the state to identify billion in additional solutions, and the upshot of that is that there would be very little left for new discretionary spending. However, if the legislature does identify discretionary spending that's of particularly high priority or pressing nature we'd recommend that you identify dollar dot for dollar solutions elsewhere in the budget in order to make room for that new spending several on several different items in today's hearing will be recommending that you weigh the item against your other general fund priorities and that's just because in recognition of the need to find general fund solutions to make room for those items now with respect to the judicial branch, we do have comments on a couple issues. First, on the language access in the California courts. We recommend that you approve this proposal but require the judicial branch to provide a report by January 10, 2028 on strategies to reduce the growth in court interpreter costs. The branch indicates that a key driver of growth in costs is a lack of civil servant court interpreters. And as a result of this, we're recommending that this report identify ways to recruit and retain civil servant court interpreters and any other solutions that the judicial branch could identify to contain costs. Finally, with respect to the state court facilities construction fund based on the updated fund condition statement provided by the judicial branch, we think that you can reduce the general fund backfill by $10 million on an ongoing basis, Which would create a general fund solution with that. I'm happy to take any questions We know Patricia could Department of Finance. I'm going to be providing an overview for me revision proposals included in departments of justice budget the main revision I think we'll do if we Did you suggest we do them all or break them up? Okay? Okay, sure. Yes, go ahead The May revision includes proposed investments of 6.1 million general fund and 46.2 million special funds. For the purposes of this presentation, I'm going to focus on the following requests. Antitrust litigation funding requests for limited-term funding of 14.2 million special funds in 26-27 and declining to 10.5 million in 29-30 to address the anticipated increase in antitrust workload in response to the federal government's retreat from enforcing antitrust laws. Completing organized retail criminal investigations requests for one-time $2.2 million general fund to provide resources to resolve 27 existing cases stemming from the original funding provided in 22-23 with encumbrance and expenditure availability through June 30th of 2028. Medical fraud and elder abuse requests for 46 positions and 16.2 million special funds ongoing to accept a federal grant award from the Office of Inspector General to support expanded investigations, enforcement activities, and prosecutions related to medical fraud and elder abuse. and continuous appropriation for the victims of consumer fraud restitution fund request for statutory changes to make the victims of consumer fraud restitution fund continuously appropriated and this fund is limited to victim restitution only and cannot be used for any other purpose. We are available for questions and we have Department of Justice representatives also joining us available for questions. Thank you. Drew Soderbergh legislative analyst office. We have comments on just a handful of items under the Department of Justice to begin with with with respect to the antitrust litigation funding We don't have any concerns with the proposed expenditure of 7.1 million from the antitrust fund as it has sufficient resources to support the work. We are concerned about a 7.1 million expenditure from the unfair competition law fund as that fund was projected to have a fund balance of only $1.9 million at the end of 2627 in January. Now the Department of Finance has provided an updated fund condition that shows that the fund is in healthier shape than that, but that's really due to an assumed repayment of $130 million in loans that were made from the fund to the general fund. Because that would further constrain general fund dollars, we are recommending that the legislature reject funding from the UCL without prejudice unless DOJ is able to demonstrate that the proposal could be supported without repayment of the general fund loan. comments related to this the deceptive practices service members and veterans this is the funding for SB 694 which would also come out of the unfair competition law fund similarly with respect to that we would only recommend approving it if again DOJ can demonstrate that the UCL has the funds necessary to support it without repayment of the general fund loan with With respect to the completing organized retail criminal enterprise investigations proposal, this is one of those proposals that I mentioned that we would recommend that you weigh against your other general fund priorities. Finally, with respect to the continuous appropriation from the victims of consumer fraud restitution fund, continuous appropriations really reduce legislative oversight of the fund, And so we would recommend that you either reject this proposal or approve provisional language that would allow DOJ to increase appropriations from the fund, but only with notification to the legislature, which would provide them some flexibility while still preserving legislative oversight. Those are all of our comments on DOJ. So we're happy to take questions. Thank you. Just those two. Department of Finance, did you have any response to LAO that you wanted to chime in? Alina Patryshko, Department of Finance. To address LAO's comments, we want to note that the unfair competition law fund is solvent in the budget year and ongoing even with the approval of antitrust requests and SB 694 requests. This is based on updated revenues and expenditures since governor's budget and the existing schedule of loan repayments. For the competing organized retail criminal investigations proposal, we want to note that the resources are one time and the administration is now proposing to address any new workload. And lastly, for the continuous appropriation for the victims of consumer fraud restitution requests, the statutory changes will provide operational flexibility to administer the payments and avoid delays. And we also wanted to note that similar funds with other departments are structured in a similar way and are continuously appropriated. Thank you. Members let's start with Senator Durazo. We'll let you bat first today. Thank you Madam Chair. With regards to the judicial branch, a question for the Judicial Council. Does the Judicial Council believe the 20 million in the May revise is sufficient to address both the cost increase and the vacancy crisis it been communicated from the California Federation of Interpreters that there is approximately 100 court interpreter vacancies just in L alone So if you could address that, thank you. Thank you, Zlatko Theodorovich from the judicial branch. We believe that the $20 million is a wonderful start, and we will be assessing our need as we go forward, as we always do. While there has been increases in costs, those have been funded through the redirection of our own funds, and these $20 million will put us, I think, in a good place. And to the extent that there's additional resources needed, we will work with the Department of Finance and the legislature to address those costs. So you're saying that that would be sufficient to address the vacancy? It's going to provide courts more resources. whether or not there's still an issue of shortage of, as the LAO has mentioned, of full-time staff interpreters, but we are working to improve those numbers as best we can. And there's also a request authorizing the Department of Finance to augment the court interpreter appropriation mid-year. Are you familiar with that? Is that something that the Judicial Council will support? Henry, in the Department of Finance, yes, we do have a current year request from the Digital Council for a mid-year, current year augmentation. That's still currently under review. That would be forwarded to the JLBC when it's ready. Okay, thank you. And then, concern about the Equal Access Fund administrative rate increases. If you double the administrative cost cap, doesn't that mean fewer dollars reaching the legal aid organizations? especially of course concerned because of the low-income Californians who could be impacted. So how will the Judicial Council ensure the increase does not impact those direct services? Henry and Department of Finance. So yes, while the rate increase would result in reduced grant awards across the board, we believe that impact to any individual program will be minimal, given that the decrease is going to be distributed across a large number of grantees. Okay. And with regards to Department of Justice, the antitrust litigation, California stepping in as the federal antitrust work weakens what sectors is the AG's office prioritizing? for example, health care consolidation or grocery or tech or housing, just to make sure that we're aiming at consumers and workers for monopoly pricing. Jesse Romine, Department of Finance, deferring that question to the Department of Justice. Hi, Senator Raza. This is Danielle Bannon, the chief of the public rights division. In regards to prioritization, it really depends on what issues are coming up. There have been a number of industries lately in regards to antitrust matters that we're addressing. So as they come up, we've been addressing them. So currently we have a couple different type of mergers that have been taking place that have significant concerns and impacts in California. And those are the ones that we currently focusing on And we listed the five types of cases that we currently addressing now Previously in 2023 it was more about big tech companies Now, and it was some grocery store mergers. Currently, we're having live entertainment spaces that have significant concerns. We're having other types of entertainment like the news outlets where there's potential of anti-competitive conducts occurring that is fact in California. Also, things like Life Nation and Ticketmaster, where consumers are spending their funds in these places. And so it's hard to predict, but usually as they arise. And so those are the areas that we're currently focusing on now. Thank you, and I appreciate you having to step up and do a lot more. On the Medi-Cal fraud and elder abuse, I just want to make sure that in doing those investigations that we distinguish between bad actor providers and beneficiaries who just are making enrollment mistakes and that they not be confused into the same category, which some people might try to do. So how would you make sure that that happens? Good afternoon. Jennifer Euler, Department of Justice, Division of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse. Division of Medi-Cal Fraud and Elder Abuse does not investigate or prosecute beneficiary fraud. We only investigate and prosecute fraud perpetrated by providers of Medi-Cal services. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. And then with regards to the backlog of arrest disposition reports, can someone tell me what the current backlog is and what do you expect to clear with the $2 million? dollars. The backlog of arrested. Yeah, with regards to the reappropriations to process a backlog of arrest disposition reports? Okay. Good afternoon, Senator. I think you are referring to the LA Superior Court Disposition Records reappropriation request. There are approximately 421,000 records. That's the backlog? Yes. And how? And the two million will address some of it most of it what are you expecting to do with the 2.1 million the requested resources would fully address the the backlog oh okay good I do hear that thank you very much that's it manager senator regarding the judicial branch and the Department of Justice. I have a question on the felony murder and resentencing. They need $3.9 million in the general fund. One of the issues that we're having with our court system is that we have placed upon them the burden of resentencing sentencing and some other items, but we did not increase the number of judges. And is this to cover some additional judges that will help offset the costs for this mandate on our court systems or what what the 3 million for the requested 3.9 million is for DOJ staff resources primarily attorney resources who are continuing to work these cases there are no judges included in this ask it's a DOJ ask. Because you guys can do a lot of processing at that level, at the DOJ level, but if there's no capacity in the judicial part of it, it doesn't do a whole lot of good. I think we're just spinning our wheels. So that's all. I don't have any more questions. Thank you, Senator Sayardo. I'm going to start off with all of these items are certainly very important and worthy of support. I do want to point out a couple in particular that I've gotten a lot of questions on. Within the judicial branch, I want to support and applaud the effort to put more resources towards language access, as we are certainly a very diverse state, and we need to make sure people are able to understand the justice that's being applied. Regarding the appellant court security, we've seen across the country attacks on elected officials and people, and so certainly we want to make sure people who are doing the work are protected. So I suspect in years that number will increase. and regarding Department of Justice, the efforts, comments have been made for weeks and even today talking about the Medi-Cal potential fraud and elder abuse. I want to highlight that that's one of the items here to cover and we're grateful for your focus in that area and any additional focus that we need to do to make sure Medi-Cal fraud is not occurring and we're addressing it in the state. It's very important. With that, I do have a few questions regarding the judicial branch. The May revision contains numerous reappropriations for courthouse construction projects, meaning that even though when money is available, progress is not being made. The Senate's budget plan contains $3 billion in potential lease revenue bonds because we know new courthouses and improved space areas are desperately required because we have many judgeships that we're not able to fill because we don't have this space. What is happening and what can we do differently to make headway on this issue? Because just to move from one project to another, we're not really frankly addressing the problem, which is that we do need new courthouses, new courtrooms, new space so we can have new judges. And it's my understanding we can't have new judges unless we have new space to support them. So what's being done to address this that we can do differently? So as we prioritize funding, which I intend upon doing in this session, that we can know that we're going to make headway with these projects, that you have the systems in place to get the contractors. Is it CEQA exemptions that are required? what what is needed for us to make headway in this area? Amanda Garcia Department of Finance. I can give a brief overview and I'm sure the department can have a more detailed answer but I think Right now, we did not put forth any additional new courthouses in May revision, and the priority is there are several courthouses in the pipeline that Judicial is working diligently to finish. They have seen some delays, and we want to make sure that we've addressed these in-progress buildings, and then we are getting them completed as quickly as possible before we add any new buildings. is right now if we were to add additional courthouse buildings there just isn't the bandwidth for us to be able to nimbly build them and it would really just result in a delay of all of the projects. So we really want to focus on the projects that we have currently in place and then going forward you know we're happy to work together to come up with a plan to aggressively address the need. Okay so I'll defer to the department but my comment is if we're waiting meanwhile justice is not being served. We have counties in San Bernardino and Riverside where they are deficient minimum 12 to 20 judges. And it must be addressed. And when we're saying we're going to wait until we can get on track with what we have, understanding that these kinds of projects, just the planning stage alone, permitting and so on, is years. So when we wait a year to finally, or two years, to begin to address these locations, meanwhile, people are not being served in communities. And when we had our hearing earlier in the year talking about the capability, I very specifically asked the question, do you have the capacity that if we were to provide additional funding that these additional spaces can be built? And the answer I thought I got at that time was yes. So let me defer to the department to get clarification, because I intend upon pushing for additional funding for judgeships and additional funding for a lease revenue bond to deal with new construction and potentially to look at dealing with our outstanding maintenance that we have. So how are you going to get your department to the point that you can handle potentially additional resources? Because it's a rare time that we're actually asking this question. We're saying, if you were to have more money, how are you going to be able to handle it when what we're seeing, we're not handling what we have? And I think it's in short, you know, we are looking for, you know, the ability for the branch to move its projects forward. We also have to recognize the budget as a whole and the part that we play in that. And the chief has been, you know, confidently saying that we need to be part of the overall budget strategy. And that includes, you know, any contributions like the reduction that we have in the fund for facilities this year. But we also, again, understand that there are limitations and it takes resources to be able to move our projects forward. And so that is a collaboration with all of you as far as what that takes. But as it stands right now, the projects that we have are what we are working on and focused on. But it's my understanding the issue with these projects, you have the resources, but the projects aren't getting done. So I've been told they weren't getting done because there were property acquisition issues, on and on and on of issues. So to me, what I've heard, and I've been working pretty diligently, as you know, on this piece, I hearing that it not I not hearing that the issue with this of the reapportionment of varying courthouse construction projects is due to you don't have the money. It's due to these other circumstances that are happening. And so I'm asking, is that correct? And if so, can we clarify what those other circumstances are? So if we're then going to direct more money, we need to make sure that we're not going to have that money fall into the same problem. So my question is, is it a problem of permitting and CEQA requirements? Is it a problem of local governments not supporting? what are the problems that we're running into that's precluding us from completing the projects as you originally desired in the order that you desired and now we're reapportioning we're moving around and meanwhile those projects aren't done and then we have more projects that need to be done for example in San Bernardino and Riverside that I'm hearing we're saying we don't even want to begin talking about that until we finish what we have. And we'll have Mr. Ahmed speak to the specifics but it is there all the topics that you described in terms of our challenges are real and these are our existing projects that we are trying to complete the acquisition phase of and for all the reasons that you've described they exist but again we can have Mr. Ahmed speak more specifically to some of the local government challenges the the the acquisition of the land and the changing nature and landscape of local governments in which we have three years ago local government saying we're good and then new folks come in and they change their approach on the siding. Tamara Ahmed, Facilities Director for the Judicial Council. We currently have five projects that are in acquisition. We've had challenges meeting the schedule as far as acquisition for several reasons, Including in some projects there weren't any landowners that were willing to sell to us. After several negotiations and getting into CEQA, the landowner on one of the projects decided not to sell to us. So we had to shift to another site and start our environmental due diligence and our CEQA process on that piece of land. property because we had to go a mile away from where we wanted to go and there were three sites that were there and two of them really had challenges regarding the topography. And the third site that we landed on, it's a private property that has the U.S. Forest service occupy a building and they cannot vacate it before 2028. So we have locked up the place at least by doing a purchase option that allows the state of California to buy the property when they move out. So that got delayed because of that. Other two properties, they had to do with historical evaluations that had to be done as part of CEQA, and there were also some delays due to internal and external stakeholders that had to do some reviews, and there were some delays there. We are very, I mean, we are closer regarding a lot of those acquisitions than we were a year ago, and we hoping to push them over the finish line in this coming budget year So given that your need is broader than these five projects if we were to provide additional funding, how would you handle it? You know, interesting, Senator Richardson, I think when we had the hearing, you gave us a homework of, you know, if we authorize a certain amount of money, can you be able to get it done? And we turned in a budget that what we need in order to get it done. But one of the things that we also identified was is that we need additional resources in order to get it done. And at this time, we're not able to quantify because we didn't have enough time to really figure out exactly what are the resources, both internal and external. For example, when we get additional funds or if we get additional funds to do projects, There are impacts to the Department of General Services, which handles part of our acquisition. The State Farm Marshal and the plan reviews, these are all external stakeholders that would be impacted that we haven't studied. How would they be impacted and what would our program affect and how would it affect them? So when did we have our last hearing to talk about this? I'm sorry, I didn't catch that. When did we have our hearing to talk about this, approximately? Oh, was it February? Yeah, and we provided at the time the responses within the time frame that we were given, and we noted these were all challenges that were unknown and that we couldn't speak on behalf of these other stakeholders, but acknowledging that they need resources to be able to help support us in the process. And it was also, again, it was based on the scope. So if you were to give us some specific projects, then we might be able to scope specific costing and what our partners would need to support those. Okay, so I'm going to be doing some homework between tonight and the weekend, and I need to put together coherently what I think, at least from my perspective and hoping to have committee support, of additional work that some of these projects that you have on your list that need to be done. And my concern is that we provide the resources and you can't meet the challenge. That's my concern. And so we need to have an honest discussion of how do we get there because the current pace is not working. the current system of how you do it is not working. And we got to get something better. We just can't keep spending years and years and years, and then we're not getting to our goal, which is to actually, you know, building courthouses. I know we just opened one here in Sacramento, great excitement and all of that, but it's not going to be sufficient to build one courthouse every 10 years or however long that took from start to finish. We've got to do better because, again, we have communities where justice, for all intents and purposes, is being denied because they don't have the facilities and the judges to handle the load. And so who's bearing the burden? The actual Californians who are trying to go all over varying counties to actually get judicial support. So I'm going to do my part. of fighting and advocating for the additional resources What I need for you guys to really get a handle on is how to get this done And I just not convinced that the current makeup of how you do this is sufficient that you have sufficient enough people to make the right determinations, to advance to get the right property acquisitions, to do all the things that are needed to be done. And so, you know, if we're successful in getting additional resources, I really need for you to take the time necessary to determine how to get this done because there are a lot of competing interests for these very few dollars that we have, and the last thing we want is to allocate a significant amount of money, and you come back and go, well, you know, we want to reappropriate, you know, a billion of this because we're not able to make the proper acquisitions. And that's not fair, frankly, to Californians. So I think you really have to serious evaluate, do you have the sufficient team and capabilities to do what's outstanding that's required? And what I heard from Department of Finance is you don't. They're basically saying, we want you to focus on these dollars we have here to finish what we have. And they're not convincing me that you have the bandwidth. That's the word I'm searching for. That you have the bandwidth to handle what you have that's on the line and to handle additional. And there's only going to be so many times that you're going to have agreement with members to say, we want to help fund for you to do more, you've got, I think, a unique group of people that are prepared to be helpful, but you've got to be ready to pick up the ball and run. I've got to have someone, a running back, to pass it to. And right now I'm concerned that by allocating these resources that you're going to be able to run with the ball. So I'm going to do my part and figure out how to get you additional resources that can be dispersed to these varying entities that you would utilize to help. But you've got to be able to be thinking about where would these dollars need to go for you to pick up the pace and get this done. So I don't know, is that development teams you bring on? I don't know, but it's got to be more than our current system because our current system would only be handling three or four projects, five projects that we have. And we need double minimum. We're going to need double that to be able to start getting at making sure people can have access to justice. so we need to see more is what I'm saying and I'm concerned that you can do it the second thing so that has to do with courthouse construction reappropriations you know it's just alarming the last question that I want to ask is the Supreme Court Justice made a case for judges salaries and I received several letters and documents documents, Excel sheets showing that other entities within the judicial system are making more than actually our judges are. So, LAO and Department of Finance, I noticed there wasn't, I don't believe, a recommendation about additional judges or additional judges and salaries in the May revise. I WANTED TO SEE IF YOU HAD COMMENTS ABOUT THAT. THAT IS SOMETHING SPECIFICALLY THE JUDGE MENTIONED. HENRY IN DEPART OF FINANCE.

Okay. So, if I heard you correctly, you said that the salary is actually dictated by prior statute.

So if we could work on understanding what that statue is and maybe we need to write different language, that would be more appropriate to the judgeships and actually tie it to the other groups that they work with as opposed to whatever state employees they're currently being compared to. And then if you could get to me, and maybe you've already provided it, but again, I used to be a staffer, and one of the things we do is when electives would ask questions, just give them more paper, and maybe they'll go away. But if you could give us more information or give it to us again on SB 75, what has been funded, the 23 judges, what is proposed to be funded, up to 48 judges. If you could give us, and I'm sure Nora has it, but if you could give it to us again, that information so I can look at what do we need to do to activate that funding to get these additional judges. And then on our end, we're going to have to make a decision about making the commitment for the facilities to house these judges. Because as I understand, the problem isn't that we don't know we have a need for judges. The problem is we don't have the facilities and the courtrooms for the judges. So we've got to figure out what we've got to get for you to be able to support everyone who wants to do better. But, you know, we need the rooms to actually put people in. So let's please get this information in. And we probably need to talk between now and the weekend. So I may be calling.

there's some things that we can incorporate. But thank you for your work. And it's always good to hear what are some possible solutions that could fix the problem. So thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions for the judicial branch or for the Department of Justice? Okay. Seeing none, Thank you very much. We have next as a part of Part B, emergency management and also corrections. And then we'll take, and I guess Board of State Community Corrections, which is a part of corrections. And then we'll take public comment on this Part B. So we will start off with emergency management. So we again have emergency management that we're doing and corrections in this B section of Part B. Okay, who's going to present?

Yes.

I'm happy to answer questions. Well, you dropped a bomb, didn't you? Any other comments? Before we get into our questions, would you mind commenting on her first comment, which stated that the department operated without the authority from the legislature?

I think the question was, did you have the authority and did the legislature give you the authority to make the change, not whether you said, hey, we're thinking about making the following change. Am I correct?

So that's the central part of the concern is that you are in the process. Two bills just got off suspense in both houses last week that would impact the project or if enacted. You also have budgetary action that you've been considering. So you were in the process of reflecting on what your changes might be. And yet movement went ahead before you came to the conclusion of that. So if you could answer that.

Senator Durazo? Yeah. I think there's a really important point to be made about the timing and not wasting the timing. I mean, I don't know. I appreciate making sure that the legislature is not shut out of the process, but there's a really urgent issue around the Olympics and the Paralympics that I just want to make sure. I mean, we just can't afford to not take that into account. That's, I guess, my only point.

Yes. To Senator Durazo, to your comments, I would also like to just also stress that we don't oppose the transitional contract, which does have the L.A. The place where we're suggesting we should pause is on moving beyond that to the permanent, making the commitment to the permanent, making a permanent commitment to the system. versus bolstering the existing system and providing some additional services to Los Angeles. That's where we hit the limit.

Yeah. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think they're quick answers. What is the timeline for the LA region dispatch centers to be live on the NG 9-11? So I can answer that.

That's correct, yes.

All right. On the other, on the security grant? On the security grant?

Hi, good afternoon. I'm Ricky Hammett, Assistant Director of Grants Management at Cal OAS. And so we would follow the process that we have done. And so since we've received funding for this since 2015, and we have a it's a competitive process. So nonprofit organizations that apply for the funding applications or proposals are received and read and rated and they're scored. And that's how we allocate the funding. We're currently in the process about to make awards for the fiscal year 2025 funding. and we anticipate making awards to 343 organizations with the 2025 funds, which is $80 million. So we expect with the fiscal year 26 allocation of $40 million, if that happens, we would be able to make awards to around 150 to 160 nonprofit organizations.

Matthew Perkey with the Department of Finance. One of the problems with VOCA funding is that it's derived from fees and penalties weighed against white-collar crime and as such is relatively volatile. Now, one of the things that happened in the past, the administration and legislature did put a significant investment into VOCA funds in the prior years, And what that has caused, it has caused some federal carryover this year. So we were estimating about, I think last year, about 100 million shortfall. We have 50 million in federal carryover, plus another 25 million that's been proposed in this May revision. That's 75 million should maintain core services and programs that we've had in prior years.

Yes. So in prior years the administration and the legislature provided some state funding that state funding was utilized And we still had our federal allocation That federal allocation is on a different timeline and also allows us to carry it over to the next year So we have about 50 million in federal carryover that we can use in this year

There's no normal.

I'm sorry, for a state.

So in 2018, we received $396 million. In 2024, we received $87 million in federal funds. And so that federal funding is we pass through to some recipients for various victim service programs, and we keep 5% of that for administrative purposes. And so the state has backfilled the last few years with about $100 million. dollars. We expect that this year to fund the programs at the current level will need 218 million dollars. We have a reserve of 31 million dollars from previous years and then with this 25 million that would help with this but we anticipate that we will need 50 million to keep programs at

because the federal award for 25 went up from 24 to about 143 million and we We expect about the same for 26. However, for next year, I anticipate if we do receive the similar level at the federal level, we're not gonna have a lot of reserves with the 25 or 50 million. And so we will probably need to ask, we will probably need more than 50 million next year. I know it's kind of complicated, but just because we've had to reduce, We've reduced programs over the last few years because of the reduction in federal funds. Even with the state backfill, we're funding programs at about over $40 million less than we were in 23.

The average budget right now is $218 million.

Well, we've reduced programs. In 2023, the amount of funding we needed was $262 million.

Okay.

We have relied on, so for the federal funds we have three years to allocate it once we receive the funding. And because in the past when we had a lot more of the federal funds, we had a lot more in reserves. With the state funding, we allocate all of the state funding right away because otherwise we'd be supplanting federal funding, which would violate that. We did receive about $20 million more last year with the state backfill, and so that's why we had some reserves. We get some reverted funding from subrecipients. We don't know what that is until the end of the grant cycle. But this year, the $50 million is pretty much right at what we need to keep the current programs funded at the $218 million. And so, and of that $50 million, we're currently, we're being asked to authorize half of that $25 million?

Okay.

What are you hearing from a federal award perspective, the ranges? So for fiscal year 2026, we anticipate it's about $144.7 million. So about a little less than $2 million more than $25 million.

Senator DeRozzo, I'm sorry I jumped in, but you spurred my questions and I couldn't resist.

Okay. All right. So I've just now asked the VOCA funding question. the nonprofit security grant.

Yes. I think you said you started the program in 2015.

Let's see. So just the basics of the program are, let me see. So this program provides physical security enhancements to nonprofits that include educational, medical, ideology-based, spiritual, religious organizations. and nonprofits can apply for $250,000 per site for up to two sites for security enhancements. We also have a separate part of this where we fund a nonprofit organization that would provide support services to the nonprofits that need to enhance security around their facilities. And so I can give you some information on, if I'm answering your question, the past few years of how much has been requested or how many applications.

Do you want the data provided to you after the hearing of the specifics from 2020 to current?

That's fine. Yeah, I don't expect you to necessarily that would be amazing if you had it, but

Okay.

OK. OK. Yes, we can get that information to you. OK.

I am aware that they're working on you know those discussions are happening. I don't have the detailed information I'm sorry. I don't have the detailed information, but we'll take your questions down and have our Hazard Mitigation Office reply for that.

Yes, I am.

Yes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That was a very, very special and very thoughtful. Thank you so much.

Yeah. CDCR and BSCC.

Good afternoon, Chair Durazo and members. My name is Anthony Fransiway, Principal Program Budget Analyst with the Department of Finance. And I'll be providing an overview of some of the issues listed in the agenda for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, CDCR, and the Board of State and Community Corrections, BSEC. After my overview in the LAO's presentations, my colleagues from Department of Finance, CDCR, and BSEC are available for questions. So starting with operational improvements with the Boston consulting group the 2025 budget act included estimated savings targets as a result of the anticipated contract with the external consultant the Boston Consulting Group or BCG CDCR was selected to participate in this review and as part of the initial high-level analysis the administration identified savings estimates of $125 million general fund in 25-26 480 million in 26-27 growing to 635 million in 2029 and ongoing. These savings targets were revised in the 26-27 governor's budget and again at the mayor vision before you to reflect the near completed work between the consultant and CDCR. The revised savings are reflected in three areas. Those are workforce optimization, workers' compensation, and regional return to work staffing model, and third-party procurement. And I'll talk about each of those a little bit. So first, with workforce optimization, this analysis focused on headquarters programs for CDCR, the Division of Adult Parole Operations, or DAPO, as you'll hear it, the Division of Adult institutions or DAI and human resources. For CCHCS on the medical side, the focus was on business services, medical services, and nursing services. CD-SAR reviewed the role of HQ based on evolving needs and streamlined managerial capacity to reduce both layer depth and improve span of control. The result of this was the reclassification of certain positions in the elimination of approximately 137 positions across these programs. The majority of these positions are currently vacant and the remainder will be eliminated through attrition. Moving on to workers compensation, this analysis resulted in the proposal that I will discuss in a minute, which recognized inefficiencies with a decentralized process and higher than standard caseloads. The request provides resources to implement the first phase of the regionalization of workers compensation staffing and caseload processing. Savings are anticipated to be generated through a more focused case processing and return to work planning, which will reduce the annual fees charged by the state compensation insurance fund and payments to individuals. Moving on to third-party procurement, CDCR purchases hundreds of thousands of items every year, the majority of which are through the California Correctional Training and Rehabilitation Authority, also known as CalCITRA, formerly known as CalPIA. This analysis reviewed purchasing across the entire department, identified targeted areas that were the most valued for success. The consultant completed a detailed analysis and specification review of these items from other vendors and compared them to those produced by Calcitra. For the categories reviewed, which were food, laundry, clothing, furniture, a like-for-like item may be less expensive than Calcitra. In other cases, the manufacturing specifications from Calcitra were different, which affects the price. CDCR and Calcitra will work to retool specifications of like items to reduce the overall cost of goods purchased where applicable. Additionally, the consultant reviewed the current contract for health facility maintenance performed by CalCETR staff and compared the scope of work to required mandates. The analysis determined that the frequency and type of cleaning could be adjusted, which resulted in a reduction of the total number of staff needed to complete the cleaning. So the savings amount reflects a reduction in the total contract costs. Moving on to workers' compensation, it's kind of a two-part issue. The major vision includes $100 million ongoing for CDCR to keep with workers compensation costs. And this is just a recognition of kind of baseline cost pressures that the department is faced with. The second part of that, as I alluded to earlier, the mayor vision includes a BCP for $7.2 million general fund and 34 positions in budget year, decreasing to 5.6 million in 30, 31 and ongoing to regionalize and augment the department's return to work for understaffing, which will reduce industrial workers compensation caseloads and costs. The goal here is to help CDCR get workers back to work more quickly and there are three levers to reduce caseloads and costs. Number one is reassigning the return to work coordinators from the institutions themselves to regional DAI offices, adding entry level intake support, and adding additional return to work coordinators. Moving on to Corcoran State Prison Honor Housing, the mayor vision includes $9.7 million general fund and about 49 positions in 2627 and 12.6 million dollars and about 65 positions in 2728 and ongoing to transform facility at 3C at Corcoran State Prison into an honor housing unit. Participation is voluntary but people accepted into the unit will be single-celled and have higher expectations of personal responsibility. The overall goal is to create a safer environment which will allow the incarcerated folks at 3C to commit to rehabilitation and ranchery and to provide a more normalized environment for both the incarcerated population and the staff. And upon full implementation in early 2027, once the second housing opens, there will be 200 individuals in the program. I would note that the costs for the honor housing are offset by some adjustments in the housing to conversion adjustment, which is one of CDCR's biannual population adjustments. So the net impact of the Corcoran request plus housing and conversion is savings of $2.4 million in 2627 and then costs about $600,000 in 2728 and ongoing. Moving on to the mental health receivership, the May revision includes three proposals tied to this. These proposals will, number one, expand internships and improve hiring and retention of mental health clinicians. Number two, increase the use of resource teams at institutions with psychiatric inpatient programs to optimize patients' ability to advance under psychiatric care. And number three, pilot the use of crisis intervention teams at three institutions to address concerns closer to the source of the stressor, which would otherwise lead to self-harm or suicidal behavior. And lastly, Procedure to give a quick overview of the adult population. The mayor vision reflects a projected average daily population of about 90,100 individuals in 25-26 and about 87,600 individuals in 26-27. For the current year, this is an increase of 964 from the fall projection, and for budget year, it represents a decrease of two individuals. Overall, CDCR projects the adult population to decrease in the long term, reaching about 85,200 people in June of 2030. I just note these figures are inclusive of Prop 36 impacts, which are estimated at 592 in 2526, and about 1,550 people upon full implementation in 2930. For current year, this represents an increase of about 30 from the fall projection. For budget year, it's an increase of 48. And in the out years, it's an increase of 365 people. So that concludes CDCR. Now I'll move on to BSCC. For Prop 47, the mayor revision includes $89.1 million general fund for Prop 47. Of that amount, 65%, about $57.6 million goes to BSCC. In general, Prop 47 requires these funds to be awarded to public agencies to provide mental health services, substance use disorder treatment, or diversion programs for those in the criminal justice system. The funds are awarded through a competitive grant process and can serve both adults and juveniles. Moving on to the human trafficking grant. This is $10 million one time for BSEC to create a competitive grant program for district attorney's offices to prosecute human trafficking crimes. AND THE INTENTIVE OF THIS REQUEST IS SIMILAR TO THE ORGANIZED RETAIL THEFT VERTICAL PROSECUTION GRANT FROM THE 2022 BUDGET ACT AND lastly for BSEC and for my presentation the administration also proposes million one time for BSEC to continue the progress of previous MMIP investments And these are resources to help tribes for missing and murdered indigenous persons investigations. There's a clear demand for future investments, given the interest in prior MMIP grant cohorts. This proposal is simply a recognition of that demand. There have been three cohorts this far with approximately $35.4 million in total grant awards. So that concludes my presentation and, again, happy to answer questions.

Which item were you referring to?

Okay, I see it.

Orlando Sanchez, Zavala with the Legislative Analyst's Office. As part of the Boston Consulting Group contract, they identified savings in parole, specifically workload associated with the parole services associates classification. They identified that the majority of the existing workload for this classification is obsolete, meaning that they no longer need to complete it or it can be absorbed within existing resources. Accordingly, the administration is proposing to eliminate 65 of these positions and reassign the remaining 44 to workload related to reentry support services. Under this proposal, each parole office would retain about one position, and this would reduce about $9 million in ongoing general fund. We recommend modifying this proposal, Given that the department found that the existing workload for this classification is largely obsolete, we recommend eliminating all of those positions. The department also did not provide enough justification to reassign the remaining positions. And it's not clear what existing gap they would fill or how they would improve reentry services. So we estimate that our recommendation would create several millions of dollars in additional general fund savings. Then moving on to the proposals related to health care, specifically the medical classification model adjustment, which provides $8.9 million in ongoing for various nursing positions at facilities with high volumes of medical-related incidents. We recommend modifying that proposal by changing it to a three-year limited term basis and requiring the department to report on the outcomes resulting from this change in staffing. That report should be available by January 10th of 2029 and should include whether the department's able to fill these new positions, So the average vacancy rate of the added positions an assessment of what impact these positions are having for the relevant Healthcare metrics and this would better position the legislature to assess whether the change merits ongoing funding We moving on to the electronic health care records enhancement proposal is about 2.2 million from the administration to add artificial intelligence functionality. While it seems plausible that adding this technology will make improvements by creating efficiencies in medical records documentation, however, the department's not scoring those potential savings resulting from those improvements, accordingly, we recommend approving this on a four-year limited-term basis when this proposal reaches full implementation. And then we request that the department report on certain outcomes. And some of those include what the take up is for the department. So an estimate of how much time is saved from staffing. Also efficiencies or improvements from this deployment. This again would better help the legislature assess whether this funding is needed on an ongoing basis And in addition there a quarterly requirement to the Department of Finance We recommend directing the department to include the legislature in those reporting requirements. Moving on to the mental health receiver staffing, this provides about $12.6 million in 2627. We raised two concerns with this proposal. specifically covers various different options related to the Coleman mental health receiver case. We recommend rejecting two million of that proposal related to legal affairs positions which process advocacy inquiries. This is because the proposal indicates that such inquiries are a long-standing element of the case suggesting that this is not new workload for the department. Our second recommendation is on the proposed human resources positions. It is our understanding that as part of the receivers action plan there's a planned assessment of whether the state currently has enough human resources positions for the mental health program. However a copy of that assessment wasn't submitted with this report. Accordingly we're recommending adding provisional budget language that would require before the department can have access to these funds to fund these positions that they provide a copy of that assessment to the legislature. And moving on to the mental health resources teams, this provides 4.8 million and 2627 to fund resource teams at three prisons and six prisons at full implementation. Again we recommend modifying the proposal by changing it to a four-year limited term basis and requiring the department to report by January 10th on the outcomes resulting from this proposal. The report should include the average vacancy rate, they're able to hire all of these positions, a comparison of the change in violence rules, violations, or suicide watch hours before and after implementation. That's a key part of why the department's proposing this and collecting that information would better position the legislature to assess whether this merits ongoing funding and whether that's cost effective to continue. And moving on to the proposal, mental health crisis intervention teams. This provides 7.4 million in ongoing to pilot the use of mental health crisis intervention teams at three prisons. We recommend modifying the proposal by changing it to a three-year limited term basis and also requiring a report on this. The report should include the average vacancy rate, the number of avoided referrals to higher levels of care, which is a stated goal of this proposal, and an estimate of the savings generated. Again, this would better position the legislature to see whether this pilot is successful and whether it makes sense to expand to other prisons. And then there's one more proposal I missed is related to the incarcerated menopause program. This provides $1.1 million in one-time funding in 26-27. This is a proposal we recommend you weigh against your other general fund priorities. If the legislature approves this proposal, we recommend providing the department with more direction on how to spend these funds, given that the proposal currently contains few details and thank you

That concludes my comments. I'll pass it over to my colleague. Yes. I'll pick back up on the first proposal listed under incarcerated firefighters on page eight of your agenda. And this proposal would provide resources to CDCR to implement a bill that requires it to pay federal minimum wage to incarcerated firefighters while they're actively fighting fires. The proposal includes provisional language requiring CDCR to submit quarterly updates to the Department of Finance on its progress. in implementing the bill, and we would simply recommend that the legislature require it. It receive a copy of those updates as well, so it can stay informed on the progress in implementing this legislation. In addition, the proposal includes $5 million in the budget year and $2 million ongoing for CDCR to develop a payroll system that it needs in order to do tax withholding for these individuals now that they're earning a high enough wage to make that necessity. and so the Appropriations Committee analysis at the time that this bill was being considered identified costs of $1 million at a minimum to develop a payroll system, but from what we understand, there was some uncertainty around the details of that at the time, and so to the extent the legislature finds that the actual costs of implementing this bill are too high, it could consider reassessing the policy in light of the new information. For example, the legislature could explore providing larger release allowances instead of higher hourly pay for people who served in camps. Moving on to the food item, food cost item, which is under other adjustments and begins at the bottom of page 8. The governor is proposing an increase of $11 million for CDCR's food budget. and that the primary driver of this is implementation of a law that was passed in 2022 that requires state institutions to ensure that at least 60% of the agricultural food products that they purchase are grown in California. The Appropriations Committee analysis identified an unknown fiscal impact likely in the millions of dollars across all state-owned institutions. to the extent the legislature finds the actual cost of implementing this bill to be too high, it could consider reassessing the policy in light of this new information about costs. Moving on to our comments on the BSEC items. And we specifically have comments on the Vertical Prosecution Grant and the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Grant Program items. In both of these cases, these are issues where the legislature will want to weigh funding for the proposal against its other general fund priorities. On the vertical prosecution grant proposal specifically, while we're certainly not suggesting that human trafficking isn't a serious concern, the administration didn't provide any data or information indicating that there's a specific need for vertical prosecution resources that can only be addressed through state funding at this time. And on the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Grant Program, we would just offer that to the extent the legislature wishes to minimize general fund costs and or to provide stable ongoing funding for the program it could consider working with the administration to explore whether the Tribal Nations Grant Fund could be used for the program including whether any statutory changes would be needed. And that includes our comments, and we are happy to take questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Madeline McLean, Director, Division of Administrative Services with CDCR. So yes, while our budget has grown approximately $1 billion, that is primarily due to employee compensation costs. in excess of $700 million. A portion of that is also related to population adjustments and targeted investments in rehabilitative and medical programs through budget change proposals, another approximate $77 million. So I will say that over the last several years, our budget has been reduced by approximately $1.6 billion through various efficiencies and prison closures and housing deactivations. And so when you think in terms of, I know there have been comments in previous hearings about our budget remaining flat. And when you really look at what the core increases are, it is primarily due to employee compensation costs because the job that our staff do is incredibly difficult and they are compensated accordingly. And so absent those changes, our budget, when you pull the employee compensation piece out, has actually been reduced, again, by almost $2 billion. And so when you also look at the BCG savings, those original savings were developed again and I will defer to my administration colleagues here but in concert with BCG and the administration and it was a high-level look during a very short amount of time that was looked at some components of what they thought that they could achieve and so that's how those savings targets were identified and when we actually got into the work and started doing it it also recognized that the revised savings targets recognized that the department had actually already made steps and started to do things to reduce costs, their discretionary costs, where we could. And so this reflects what we're actually able to implement given all of the reductions that we have taken, again, through prison closures, deactivations, efficiency drills, and work that we already did by ourselves in advance of this. Understanding that cost growing in this area is of a concern given the general fiscal climate of the state.

Absolutely.

we offer the same program level of programming and items at the women's institutions there are on our housing units there at CCWF and we do have a list of all of the different rehabilitative and specialty programs are are available at the women's institution so again we acknowledge what has occurred. It is horrific and we continue to make investments in this area, specifically working with the Sister Warriors, doing increased training, working with the National Institute of Corrections, the Moss Group, and others out there to bring in that expertise to help us change the culture and move towards a new direction.

I'm not going to remember. I believe it was approximately 300 million. I'm sorry.

We will get you the list of the facility.

Yes, I understand.

Anthony Franzoi, Department of Finance. I think this, number one, is a meaningful investment in vertical prosecution for human trafficking crimes in the context of a tough general fund outlook. But I think the reason it's at BSEC, is that your question?

The reason it's a BSEC, I think, number one is because they have prior experience with vertical prosecution grants in particular. Again, going back to the organized retail theft vertical prosecution grant in the 2022 Budget Act. And in general, BSEC is, I would consider them an expert in grant making. They manage, I think, as many as 20 federal and state grants, hundreds of millions of dollars, and then as many as, you know, 400 or 500 individual grant agreements. So I think it's a recognition of a need that California is one of the kind of worst places in the U.S. for human trafficking cases, but also BSEC's expertise in issuing grants, in particular vertical prosecution grants.

Anthony Franzi, again, Department of Finance. There was never a commitment that I'm aware of that the administration made, either in the 26-27 governor's budget, especially in the current mayor's vision to close an initial prison. However, the 2025 Budget Act did implement the closure of the California Rehabilitation Center in Riverside County, and that's scheduled to close in October of this year, And that will save 150 million, a little over $150 million in 27-28 upon Fulham implementation. But at this time, there's no further prison closures contemplated.

That is the administration's recommendation at this time.

Yeah. Duane Reeder, California Correctional Health Care Services. We do concentrate, like our mental health populations, at 20 of the 31 institutions. We have institutions on the medical side that are near centers of care. We typically call them intermediate institutions. And we do concentrate a lot of our more challenged population at those institutions because they're closer to care. We also have the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, which houses many of our elderly patients. the patients, and I believe last time we spoke, we were hoping to get you out there this summer to take a look at that. So what I guess I'm missing, and we have been dealing with a lot of

Good evening. Ignacio Hernandez on behalf of the California Federation of Interpreters, Statewide Union of Court Interpreters. We support the May revision allocation of $20 million for court interpreters. We do caution though it has to be done a certain way or it may not be effective. Right now it could be considered a supplemental fund that could be accessed as opposed to an increase in the baseline that is in the budget right now the baseline is at 134 million That 20 million should just raise it to 154 million so that it a baseline as opposed to some additional money Otherwise, we're going to be here every year. Second thing is there was a question earlier about whether that 20 million would be enough to meet the needs. Projections are close, but it's unsure. So we have a request in that there be budget control language that in the event mid-year that the need outpaces the dollar amount, that there can be an adjustment within 30 days. There's similar language already for court interpreter exams. So our language mirrors that, but specifically for court interpreters. Two last things real quick. There was a question on, I think LAO mentioned that there should be a report back on what is being done and what could be done to increase the court interpreter employees.

Yeah. We think there could be a fund for that like we did for court reporters. The last thing I'll mention is that let's not forget that there's ASL interpreters that are paid out of the fund, and they are not allowed to unionize. There's a policy bill that we're working on that, but that needs to be addressed as well.

Hello. Dara Levy with Family Assistance Program. I'd like to encourage you to support the $75 million ask for the homeless youth programs. I'd love to spend 20 minutes telling you the life story of so many amazing people. have been affected by it, but I know you'll throw me out if I try. But I will really briefly talk about one young lady who came in. She was homeless. She was 16 years old. She had nowhere to go. She had no family. Her family had been deported. She had nothing. We helped her with this funding. We were able to help her get her GED, go to a community college, get an AA degree. Then she went on to UC Riverside. And last summer, I got the joy of watching her graduate. This year, I get to watch her figure out how to pay her taxes because now she's a taxpaying member of society. her life is going to be beautiful because of this funding that was five years ago. I really hope five years from now I'll be able to come back and tell you just as many wonderful stories. So please think about these young people who have nowhere else to go and nothing. Thank you.

Hi there, my name is Barb Nguyen. I would like to show support for the Wright Grant and the BOCA funding. But the reason I am here is because I am with NGA 911. We are one of the regional providers in California. As the only California-based company with many employees' offices and warehouse space in Los Angeles and across California, we respectfully request the LAO and the Senate Budget Subcommittee not approve any new contract funding ahead of an independent audit of all the efforts and investments made to date. Calabria stated the primary need for the change were operational impacts at the PSAPs. All of those issues have nothing to do with the current NG infrastructure and could be resolved by fixing the call handling equipment they mentioned new funding for. Also, the interoperability issues between the regional vendors had been worked out prior to the pause, and the NG providers are interoperable in other states. These next-gen networks are currently providing 450-plus 911 centers with critical location information, not the fragile legacy system they want to move them back to. At the time of the Cal OES pause nearly two years ago, over 130 additional 911 centers were ready to be moved to the more robust next-gen network, including 22 in the Los Angeles County area. So the project was considerably further along than suggested. The next generation infrastructure is not failing and should not be thrown out for a less resilient system to accommodate an administrative convenience for Cal OES. Doing a full audit during or after a regional model is being dismantled makes no sense. Increasing a tax of $0.41 to $0.54 is significant.

And equates the million tax burden to those residents already strapped with extreme gas food medical and housing costs Thank you Thank you Good afternoon I'm Frank Holt, Chief Executive Officer of Synergem Technologies. I agree with everything she just said. And the regional model is working. There's been a tremendous amount of investment and work for this to be turned on and modernize California's 911 system. So the contract, the interim contract should be paused. Let the independent audit be done and find out that you are on the doorstep to turning this up live and having the best 911 system there is in the country. Thank you.

Finance and Rachel Ethers with the LAO's office. Please begin. Good evening, Chair. My name is James Moore from the Department of Finance, and I, along with my colleague Matthew Macedo, will be giving you a brief overview of the transportation portion of the May revision. The May revision proposes investments that will enhance California's transportation system, including additional funding to continue the administration's work in homeless encampment and litter abatement, as well as investments in generative artificial intelligence, Gen AI, that will result in a safer and smarter transportation network. The mayor division also proposes statutory changes to support planning and preparation for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. The mayor division includes funding for a number of Caltrans priorities, including $6.2 million from the general fund for two years to continue homeless encampment coordinator workload. These coordinators help connect homeless individuals with state and local services during encampment cleanups. $27.5 million one time from the public transportation account to continue maintaining and restoring state-owned passenger rail equipment. $40 million general fund one time to continue the special program people that are abatement workload in the Clean California program. Funding will support low barrier to entry workforce development. $16.4 million one time from the state highway account to fund the Vulnerable Road Users Gen AI Project and the Traffic Mobility Insights Gen AI Project. These Gen AI projects will enable Caltrans to automate and synthesize traffic data to make evidence-based decisions that will improve traffic flow and road user safety. The mayor revision also includes two pieces of trailer bill for Caltrans. The first authorizes the use of an automated enforcement system on the state highway systems portion of the 2028 Olympics Games Route Network. This will help keep the transportation system clear and efficient during the games and will reduce enforcement workload for the California Highway Patrol. The second proposal increases the cap on the State Route 710 rehabilitation account from $1.2 million to $15 million. This increase in the cap will allow Caltrans to repair more homes at once, which will result in the homes being sold. more quickly. I have my colleagues from finance and departments with me to answer any questions you may have. And with that, I'll pass it to my colleague, Matthew Macedo. Good evening, Madam Chair. Matthew Macedo, Department of Finance. The remaining May Revision Budget Change proposals in the transportation area are the following. A couple of smaller proposals for the High Speed Rail Office of Inspector General, adding in an ongoing component totaling $169,000 from the PTA to the governor's budget request for the ongoing maintenance and operation costs of two IT projects for whistleblower complaint receipt and investigation systems and the audit and review software project. Also included is statutory changes that take into account stakeholder feedback relating to governing provisions of when the Inspector General can hold information confidential. For the Board of Pilot Commissioners, $2.4 million one time to implement an IT project to automate many of the Board's manual processes to enhance operational efficiency, streamline business processes, improve data and security. As for the motor vehicle account-funded departments, similar to the Governor's budget, the May revision projects that the MVA maintains solvency in budget year with a balance of $196 million and continues that solvency through 27-28 with a balance of $33 million driven by approximately $50 million revenue increase over the governor's budget estimates. This is largely attributable to higher than anticipated driver's license fees and vehicle registration renewals driven by vehicle sales. The May revision proposes statutory changes to support operational improvements that also create budgetary efficiencies at the DMV. Given the fund's ongoing structural constraints, it is important to prioritize operational efficiencies while maintaining fiscal discipline around new workload and costs. Given the ongoing fiscal constraints in the MVA, the May revision limits new spending to necessary augmentations for CHP and DMV that will enhance safety, continue modernization efforts, and resource the departments for operational cost increases while creating budgetary efficiencies at the DMV. Some of those proposals include the following. $3.1 million to upgrade modems and antennas that are compatible with CHP's body-worn cameras and VR systems. $40 million one time for increased operating expenses and equipment costs. $13.7 million to continue the CalCrash IT project that will automatically capture statewide crash data and send it to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. $57.5 million in reimbursements, including ongoing reimbursement authority increase. increase at DMV, $24.5 million one time for increased operating expenses and equipment, including funding facilities, operations costs, and attorney general fees. $5 million one time to expand the mobile driver's license pilot program that allow California residents to obtain a digital mobile driver's license or ID card that can be accessed through a smartphone. Also included with that are statutory changes that remove the cap on the number of participating licensed drivers so that DMV can better prepare for a statewide rollout million to relocate the San Clemente Field Office into a new lease facility $6.4 million and four positions to implement activities related to AB85. and a couple of capital outlay proposals, $3.9 million one time to provide construction phase of the Delano Field Office replacement project for DMV and the Leviathan Peak Towers CHP $9 million one time general fund for the construction phase of that project. That concludes. Thank you. Good evening. Rachel Ehlers with the Legislative Analyst's Office. I'll briefly give you our high-level comments on three of the major Caltrans proposals and then talk about the motor vehicle count. So first, as you heard from my colleagues in earlier panels, we kind of have an office-wide approach that, given the very serious budget condition that we foresee to reject with or without prejudice, depending on how you feel about the proposal, any new discretionary general fund proposals. Really, any new spending comes at the expense of existing spending in the context of a budget deficit, unless it meets very pressing immediate health and safety needs. So for the $40 million for the Clean California Litter Abatement Program, we don't find that it meets this high bar. It seems like a nice to have, not a need to have in this budget condition, so we would recommend rejecting that proposal. similarly given the budget condition the proposal for an additional 6.2 million in for two years for Caltrans homeless encampment coordinators first we would recommend deferring any action on that until you get the report that was required in January that look to look at the outcomes from that program and then if this is indeed a now a new core part of ongoing Caltrans operations we think you could look into funding that with state transportation funds rather than general fund. That's something to investigate. Regarding the Games Route Network Automated Enforcement System trailer bill, there's some significant policy choices here that we think you would want to take a careful look at and make sure you're okay with before you consider approving things like what are the penalty levels going to be for people who travel in these lanes who aren't supposed to. And I also would recommend continued oversight over the funding for this project, how much, which sources, how much should the state be paying versus other sources. Regarding the motor vehicle account, there are several proposals totaling a new $73 million from that account before you in the May revision. As we've talked about many times in this committee, that fund is already in a structural imbalance. The administration has upgraded their forecast for those revenues, but there's still a lot of uncertainty and the margin is pretty slim if those forecasts don't hold. But the proposals before you really, we haven't had time to do a deep dive in them, but they seem like pretty core operating, maybe more need to have than nice to have things like fuel and rent and insurance. So while they seem justified, this does highlight a pretty big challenge for the state moving forward. This funding is proposed on a one-time basis. This seems like really ongoing activities. So given this context, we'd recommend the state continue to take steps to look at the long-term sustainability and take actions for that fund source, including maybe looking at raising revenues or cutting expenditures. Those are kind of the choices when you got a fund out of balance I that happy to answer questions Thank you Thank you for all of your patience of waiting since 1 And now we five hours later but we trying

Senator, good to see you. This is Danny Yost. I'm legislative director at Couch Hands. And what we learned after that incident was that there was a tunnel that is a private tunnel that was permitted by the department that had debris in it that caught fire. And so what our policy is when it comes to encampment resolution is to monitor. And then when we find an encampment or other trash that needs, you know, in the area that needs to be taken care of, if there is still an active encampment, there is a priority phase one or a priority one and priority two. If it's a priority one where it rises to the level of an imminent infrastructure risk, then we take immediate action. And in this case, having seen that risk, obviously, with the fire happening, we worked with the local fire department. And then there was another tunnel where action also needed to be taken where a fire had not caught. And so we did take action there and cleared that tunnel with the use of some new technology as well. We have a robo-dog that we were able to put through the tunnel so as to make sure that, you know, we protect the lives of our workers as well. And we were able to do quicker inspections of the facility to make sure it was safe to reopen. And so going forward, you know, using that. And priority two is where we have our humanitarian approach of working together with our encampment coordinators, working with the local service providers to give notice to people where we can spare that time to see if we can coordinate shelter and services through those service providers and then provide appropriate notice. And then any belongings that are left, take those to appropriate facilities and hold those for 60 days. And so we take that approach at all of the encampments across the state and in this one we found that a need to monitor this particular location has certainly arisen for us and it will be a matter of making sure that we continue to monitor appropriately and take those actions that need to be taken to prevent something like this in the future, along with working with our permittees to make sure they're actively monitoring their installations that cross the highway.

It is on the public right-of-way, but it is a private tunnel that was permitted for a nearby oil facility that I think may be going out of use. And so what we found is there was a need there for that private use to take action, and so we had to take action in that emergency. Going forward, we need to continue to monitor that location.

Yeah, thank you for the question. So we've taken a top-to-bottom review of our policies and what all of our airspace lease lessees are doing and what is out there and to minimize that risk to make sure we're getting state fire marshal inspections and to make sure that our lessees are in compliance with those inspections. And where they are not to take appropriate action to make sure that those places come into compliance.

Trade corridor enhancement program. Yes.

Keith Duncan, Caltransit Budget Officer. There's a variety of programs that, whether it's local or the state, can apply for. It's programs such as the Trade Court or Enhancement Program that's administered to the California Transmitation Commission. There's other programs such as a local partnership program, state transportation improvement program, where local agencies can invest funding from those programs. Some of them are competitive. Some are portioned where they're able to invest those funds if awarded a grant through the commission to be able to invest in that type of infrastructure. If it's an on-ramp or off-ramp, which is on the state highway system, that's where our maintenance program is able to go in and assess the severity. if they're able to come in and do basic work such as chip sealing or overlays, they're able to do that. Or we can program a project within the State Highway Operation Protection Program, which is a major rehabilitation effort. But there are a few different programs, and we can provide a definite listing and the application eligibility for each of those programs for everybody to be able to apply for.

Yeah, we can work with the California Transportation Commission because those programs are administered through the CTC. So we can work with them to provide you that information and any follow-up information for sure.

Keep dunking Caltrans budgets. The primary reason here is that redirection is unsustainable because there's obviously tradeoffs. Our transportation funding is limited, and by redirecting that, in one year, we were able to mitigate some of the risks, but continuous redirection means less funding for pavement, road work, bridge preservation, roadside work, and other critical maintenance activities. That's why we were able to address it in a one-year redirection, but any continuation of that redirection would just mean less maintenance work. being done and that's why we're requesting this augmentation from the

Senator, this is Danny Yost. I will tell you that it's in final vetting, and if there's any additional information we can provide you, we'd be happy to. I think there's some additional information that was provided yesterday to the budget committee. And if there's any additional information that is needed, we are happy to provide that.

Yes, apologies for that.

Are you understanding what I'm saying?

Absolutely. Fair. Okay. All right. Also, are these funds to be used for this program,

We have not done a complete legal review of it. The primary notion is because it's the health and human services aspects of the workload associated with it. That's why the general fund was identified, but we have not done a complete legal review for whether it's eligible for state highway account funds.

Yes.

Yes. Keith Duncan, Caltrans Budgets. The generative AI tool, what it's been able to do, and similar to what my colleague from finance said, it's able to synthesize the vast amount of data that we have at our fingertips, whether it's traffic flows, incidents regarding vulnerable users. Right now, we do manual review of the data and make determinations on where the best possible investments for safety are. This generative AI is take that mass amount of data give our traffic engineers our analysts the opportunity to look at how the data is synthesized identify where there may be clusters and be able to try to identify where we can try to be more specific about where those investments need to be The first handful of modules we've been able to deliver, it's been able to provide all of this data, GIS, be able to map out these different clusters, and be able to do more of a direct review of where those projects could be. This investment is intended to take those modules that much further, be able to pull more data that we have within the department to be able to see where we can try to just focus more investment. We have our maintenance safety program as well as our shop, which has dedicated money for safety projects, and that's where we want to make sure those decisions are being made using that data, and that's where we're able to get much closer doing that. But we can definitely provide more data related to what the pictures and examples of what the initial investment was able to provide. And I would add that we've been able to achieve a lot of efficiencies in the data analysis. so that we could get to safety projects sooner, reducing from weeks or months to days the analysis that's needed. So then we could move to, there's reservations in the State Highway Operation Protection Program for reactive safety projects so that we can move to those projects sooner. And then also it can help us with proactive safety projects that are in the shop.

Appreciate the opportunity.

There are significant requests, one-time requests, to help meet the operational costs.

So Lee Scott, Chief Budget Officer. You're right. It's a great question. because as we monitor the motor vehicle account, we kind of have to probably go year by year and every year kind of reevaluate where the fund balance is going to look at. We've had cuts in the past that we've taken. We also have a trailer bill language where we're putting forward of efficiencies where we can look at some code sections on some shelves and kind of make them maze or turn things more digital if we can. So we're looking as a two-pronged approach to what we've submitted this year is one-time cost to help our facilities. As you know, we have around 200 locations up and down the state, and there's brick-and-mortar costs that come with it, HVAC systems, roofing issues, plumbing issues. So we have to fix those things. And it's not only for our customers, but it's also going to be for our employees too. As we know, I think it was eight years ago when DMV kind of went through an overhaul and we were looking to improve the DMV. And there's significant investments there that were around $40 million that kind of brought us up to speed to kind of provide better operations and get more digital and modernized. But we still have brick and mortar that we're going to have to address. And so no matter what, we want our employees to come to work every day and feel like they work in a nice area and not look at the roof and see leaking. And same for our customers as well. They may only visit DMV maybe once a year, but when they do, we represent California. We are the retail of California. And so it's important that we always make sure that safety is always considered up front. And so that these costs, while they help our deferred maintenance, our deferred maintenance is raised to about $40 million. This is going to help maybe cut it roughly in half. and that's going to help for critical infrastructure projects that we want to look at. So that's kind of where the bulk of our money is coming from. We have some relocations, some cap outlay projects that we're looking at, and then we're also looking to push for the mobile driver's license. That will hopefully help kind of reduce traffic in our field offices to allow folks to be identified for who they are while they're sitting at home and do their DMV. We also have seen that the mobile driver's license has been successful at the community colleges. that has really become rampant and we can get you more information on that how community colleges are now adapting the mobile driver's license instead of like an ID card for when they go to school. That helps them get access to their either state services but also get into the school system a lot faster. So it's a great question that will I be back here next year. Every few years I would need to come back regardless to kind of address a lot of our facility issues. But that's just because us, CDCR and a lot of other folks that have a lot of brick and mortar up in the state, We'd have to make sure that we come back to you to let you know where we're at and making sure that's safe for everybody. I can pass it to CHP if they can address there soon.

Ty Meeks with the California Highway Patrol, special representative to the legislature. First, I would say that we do have some gaps, and we've notified what those gaps are for this year. We are consistently working with the Department of Finance on what those gaps might look like in the following years, working with them and communicating those needs and working through those needs with them. and hopefully we can be prepared to provide those to you at a later date.

I didn't know.

And I think we'd love to work with your office on the bigger picture. We have state-owned facilities. We have leased-owned facilities. And whether you own it and you have to fix it on your own or you're going to lease it, and those costs are going to rise over time regardless. We've also can maybe work with you on a lot of different decisions, which is as more we modernize and we can get more folks to Amazon from home. That's kind of how we use it. Like, can you do your work from home? Can you do your business with DMV from home? Unpopular opinion, but we would, you know, talk about what would it be to close a field office because, you know, we have enough folks that can go to a surrounding area but still conduct business from home. We have virtual field offices that we're looking into. But, you know, we've made big strides in just the last six to seven years. But before we make a big decision like that, I think we want to know the magnitude of the bigger problem as we kind of work with you. So we don't have a problem working with your office on that.

No, we're with you.

No, nothing else for CHP. Kathy McLeod, Budget Office for the California Highway Patrol. I would be amiss if I didn't know, like, infrastructure is definitely an issue, but at CHP we have just operational. I mean, we're talking vehicles, gasoline, rent, leases. Ours go beyond just infrastructure. So I just wanted to make sure that you were aware of that.

We are, and part of that's incorporated into this one-time ask here for firearms, electronic control devices, vests, things of that nature, their safety equipment. So all that's incorporated into this one-time mask as well.

Thank you. We appreciate that. Thank you.

I was just going to underscore what CHP said. This is core operations. It's not even facilities, and it's $100 million is the requestable for you. So that gives some indication that there is a gap, and it will be really challenging with this funding source. But I think you're keying in on exactly the point we would make, which is we need to be planful and think ahead about how we're going to address this, because it's going to keep coming back based on the type of request that's before you.

Matthew Macedo, Department of Finance. I just want to iterate that these are core operations for both CHP and DMV. We've identified that these are the things that they need to get through the next budget year while maintaining the solvency in the MVA. DMV and the mayor vision has proposed efficiencies that are not built in to the MVA fund condition statement that was sent to the committee. Those items may come into fruition and may develop some kind of savings that could maybe address some of the gaps. But we have identified that this is what they need one time. And I will add that some items are purchased, yes, on an ongoing basis, but maybe once every five years. And so some of those things were included in this as well.

Yeah, so as we're looking at our TBLs, that's why we didn't score any savings, because I think we're not ready to say no more handbooks at all. Like we will not make another order That definitely not where we at And so we not eliminating services and we still having the choice be available for the customer I think I think we looking as when we look at our field offices and kind of just did a quick scan Like you're saying, we see a lot of printed handbooks that just sit on the shelf for years and years and years. And then as they kind of dwindled out a little bit, then we reorder and then they just kind of sit. And so I think what we're going to look at is, well, how many times do folks are actually taking these off the shelves? And then do we need to order that much? And I think when we were looking at the trailer bill and making sure that we're running it, am I required to only provide it in print or can I do both? And I think that's kind of like a bigger approach that we're looking at. But as you know, like reducing printing and paper and postage and administrative costs, like all those things, I think our approach here was before we come and ask for millions of dollars in front of the legislature, I think we should try to clean up our own house first and find ways to be more efficient that should then reduce the amount of BCPs that we've put forward. So we're not ready to go full boat, but having the TBL approved allows us to make a little bit more better decisions and keep folks more informed. but by no means do we want to say we no longer print. You're going to have to do it on your own, at least not today and I don't see it going forward.

We agree. Okay. All right. Well, since I don't have any other

Thank you.

Please come over to your right my left My left Madam Chair I the Chair of Reed and Associates representing the professional engineers in California government We just have a question regarding Caltrans. We haven't seen a BCP in three years regarding capital outlay support. That's concerning to us. We need to make sure we maintain the traditional 90-10 PYPYE staffing ratio for engineering work. And it's hard to do without the capital outlay support, BCP, and we haven't seen anything, any numbers on that this year or the last two years. So we'd appreciate it if they could produce something that we could look at.

Good evening, Chair. I will make my comments as quick as possible. Danny Kandokaiser here on behalf of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. As REAL ID funding has not been removed from the May revise, we are extremely concerned with the DMV's plan to share Californians' information with AAMVA pursuant to REAL ID. AAMVA is governed by the state laws of Virginia, not California. Moreover, because AAMVA is a nonprofit, it is not bound by obligations of government entities such as due process rules of law norms and transparency measures such as the public records requests. Put another way, once California provides access to driver's information, we no longer control how that information is used or who sees it. The threat of federal authorities accessing Californians' personal information must be taken seriously, given the very real harms this administration has already inflicted using such data. Our state should not be complicit in the federal administration's creation of a centralized database of all residents. The Supreme Court just gutted the Voting Rights Act. We should not contribute to a nation's ID database that could be manipulated to disenfranchised voters. Kansas has passed discriminatory laws revoking the driver's licenses of transgendered people. We should not be complicit in such harms. EFF respectfully urges the legislature to consider our current moment and seek greater clarity on how we can protect California residents before we consider embarking on a one-way journey. Thank you.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Thank you so much. I've scribbled all over this. Would it be possible to email it to your staff?

I will do so right away.

No, as I go back to my seat.

Yes. Hi, Carrie West with Townsend Public Affairs on behalf of the North County Transit San Diego Railroad, the Livermore Amador Valley Transit Authority, and the Trans Bay Joint Powers Authority, the cities of Oakland, Berkeley, and Sunnyvale, and the Nonprofit Housing Association of Northern California were concerned with the proposed amendments that would significantly cut, if not eliminate, funding for the Tier 3 programs, including ASIC, Tier CP, LCTOP, and the AB617 communities. Additionally, NCTD is deeply concerned by the May revision's admission of a scheduled appropriation of $230 million for SB 125 and urges the state to approve the scheduled appropriation.