June 29, 2026 · Budget · 22,803 words · 10 speakers · 26 segments
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Thank you Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everybody. Welcome to our Assembly Budget Committee hearing. Today is a beautiful day in the city of Sacramento, made even more beautiful by the fact that our back-to-back world champion Los Angeles Dodgers are in town, with apologies to our Padres fans. So it is going to be a great day in Sacramento, but even more important than Dodgers, today is the day that we will vote on our final three-party agreement for our 2026 budget. And I want to begin just, of course, by thanking all of those who have been so helpful in this process the extraordinary work of our budget subcommittee chairs of the members of this committee of our incredibly dedicated staff both our Democratic staff and our Republican staff And a special thank you to Christian Griffiths and Jason Sisney the speaker budget director for their exceptional hard work as well as their Republican counterparts. And I also wanted to thank our partners in the administration, our partners in the Senate for the thoughtful conversations, and then, of course, the folks at the Legislative Analyst Office whose wisdom and guidance and warnings very much informed this budget process. So thank you to everybody who has helped to bring us to this moment. We are today we're going to hear about the overall three party agreement and 19 bills 19 budget trailer bills that we hope and expect to adopt later today to implement this agreement. And then we also have some related policy bills which will be adopted outside of the budget process. For today's hearing the committee staff have worked very diligently over the weekend to provide a floor report that outlines the contents of the budget bill, so thank you for that. And I also want to welcome Jessica Holmes from the Department of Finance, who is going to be here on behalf of the administration, Carolyn Chu from the Legislative Analyst's Office, and then Aaron Gabel, who is here with the Assembly Budget Committee to answer questions. So I'm going to deliver some opening remarks. I'm going to turn it over to our Vice Chair. We'll hear from our witnesses, and then we will open open it up to members of the committee and public comment. I do want to just acknowledge the fact that we are here after 63 hearings, and we are landing in much of the same place that we have been discussing throughout the budget process, which is how do we balance compassion and fiscal responsibility, and how do we address the state's fiscal issues in a thoughtful and a prudent manner, in a responsible manner in the way that we know taxpayers would want us to manage their money, while at the same time protecting the key programs and services that California families rely upon, that working families rely upon, that middle-class families rely upon, that seniors and veterans and families with children. And so our committee has done the hard work to try to make the changes, to make the surgical adjustments, to make the thoughtful adjustments, to try to implement that vision. And I'm very proud that the product that we are delivering today is going to make significant progress on our structural deficit. We obviously have more work to do there, but I think we have heard our friends at the LAO that this is important. We have worked closely with the governor to make some difficult choices, to implement some surgical budget actions, and proud that we are going to make real progress on those out-year structural deficits. At the same time, I think we need to be thoughtful about the fact that there continues to be real challenges in front of us, and much of that is driven by H.R. 1 and what we're seeing in Washington and the impacts that may have, particularly on health and human services programs. And I know that that was a key focus for our budget subcommittee chairs to try to navigate those waters, some really difficult decisions, but I'm grateful for their hard work because I do believe, even though we're not in a position to fully backfill those federal cuts, that we have done a lot of work to mitigate harm, to protect vulnerable communities, and to make sure that we are making investments in those programs and services, including health care and nutrition and other things that I know are essential to our vulnerable communities. And so much of the changes that we have seen, the conversation that we've had between the governor's May revision and now has really focused on those core areas of protecting our vulnerable communities. We won't say all of the thank you quite yet, but I do want to just acknowledge the work that is done on housing in the three-party agreement. Thank you to the incredible leadership of our budget subcommittee. chair. I'm really, really proud of the funding for affordable housing that is included in this budget, the housing bond that we have put on the ballot in connection with this budget. So, Ms. Cork-Silva, your fingerprints are all over this, and we are very, very grateful for your hard work. We have also done the hard work to try to make sure that we are maintaining our state's commitment to wildfire prevention, to providing funding to Cal Fire, to protect all of us. We have made real investments in public safety to backfill money for VOCA, for the victims of crime masks, to protect, to provide funding to CASA advocates, to fund Prop 36, to fund programs that help victims of human trafficking. So that has been a focus for this committee as well. And then also, with respect to education, I am exceptionally proud that this budget provides the highest pu-purple funding level in state history. And that is an accomplishment that I think we should all be proud of. A 4.31% supercola for our school districts, over $5 billion in discretionary block grants for schools, paid family leave for educators, which is an important, and I would argue a historic policy achievement that has been part of this. And then also thank you to to our colleague, Mr. Alvarez, who's not there, but to our two dear friends at the end of this dais for exceptional work in higher ed to continue to fund UC and CSU. And, you know, we all believe that those universities are the gem of our world-class higher education institutions. So we're glad to be able to provide them with resources. Finally, a few other things. The budget plan has more than 22,000 new child care slots above the May revision. So, or 25,000 over the May revision, 22,000 new child care slots. So continuing the investments and the extraordinary work of the Women's Caucus in that field. So still more work to do. The budget is truly, it's a conversation that continues always. It's never really over. But I think we are landing today with a three-party agreement that everybody can feel good about understanding the incredible challenges that were presented to us at the beginning of this year, the challenges we are facing with the broader macro economy, with global instability, with political instability in Washington. I think taking all of that as our starting point, where we were able to land is something that I am very proud of. And again, just a huge thank you to all of the staff for the hours and hours of countless hard work to make this possible. And with that, I will turn it over to our vice chair. Thank you.
Well, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I just want to echo very quickly the thank yous to a lot of the staff that have been in place. Again, over 60 meetings and budget deliberations happened to bring us to where we're at today. I also recognize how monumentally important it is to see that this is a budget of over $350 billion, something that all other states aren't even relatively close to. and the importance, and not only that, the dedication it takes from all staff in place to help make this come to fruition is something that needs to really be heralded. I want to take this moment also to thank the chair and also all of the subcommittee chairs as well for the candor and the negotiations on that. While I understand that there are times where we disagree when it comes to where the money is going, how it going and how it being spent I appreciate the dialogue You know we were elected to be representatives of our districts not to be in total agreement all the time And that type of sharp debate is actually something that makes everything better in our decisions you know to leave those echo chambers So first and foremost, again, want to thank all the subcommittee chairs. I truly want to thank the vice chair, as this is the first time for me understanding the California budget as a vice chair. You know, I've really got to learn a lot in this process as we go. And I don't think there could be somebody that I could respect more for a lot of the respect and debate that we've seen. Again, with everybody here, looking forward to getting the budget process done as we move forward. So thank you.
Thank you very much to our vice chair. We will now turn it over to our partners in the administration. And we have Jessica Holmes from the Department of Finance.
Good morning, Mr. Chair, Mr. Vice Chair, and members of the Budget Committee. My name is Jessica Holmes. I'm here with the Department of Finance. I'm going to provide an overview of the 2026-27 budget, which includes 19 bills, as the chair mentioned, of which two are budget bill juniors and 17 are trailer bills. The final budget is similar to the architecture of the governor's May revision and the legislature's two-party plan. It balances through two fiscal years with a positive state fund for economic uncertainty balance of $4.5 billion in the budget year, 26-27, and $403 million in 27-28. In addition, the budget reduces the out-year structural deficits that were identified in the governor's budget more than having them. The budget does not include the assumed additional $5 billion in higher revenues that was included in the legislature's plan for the current year. And it reduces a significant amount of the additional spending that was included in the legislature's plan. These were two issues that we formally identified as being of concern. instead this budget represents a balance of program reductions and increased revenues to address both near-term budget deficits and longer-term structural deficits the 2026 budget includes total expenditures of 351.7 billion of which 251 is general fund the budget also includes total reserves of 28.8 billion this is slightly down from 29.9 billion at may revision of this total 4.5 billion is in the SF EU just same as May revision 15.1 billion is in the budget stabilization account and this is also the same as May revision and 9.2 billion is in the prop 98 rainy day fund this is about 1.1 billion less than it may revision so very strong robust reserves additionally there is 6.4 billion set aside in the surplus holding account this compares to 9.7 billion that was in the account at May revision and these are anticipated revenues that will be set aside for allocation in next year's budget in total there are over 35 billion in funds set aside that build fiscal resiliency for the state with these remarks I will begin the presentation of the bills starting with SB 111 a budget bill junior that amends AB 109 and reflects the final budget agreement So SB 111 is the budget bill junior to the 2026 budget act. This budget provides changes to AB 109, the legislature's budget adopted earlier this month. Most notably, changes to that agreement include 1.3 billion general fund in 2026-27 for Medi-Cal to implement HR1 requirements. 300 million ongoing healthcare affordability reserve fund to expand the state premium subsidy to enrollees at covered California. million one general fund to support public hospitals million one general fund for grants to distressed hospitals and authority to allow for an additional million general fund augmentation for this purpose And the budget also includes $15.5 million one-time for CalRx to support low-cost epinephrine and tuberculosis drugs. The bill also includes fiscally neutral funding shifts related to the education governance proposal included in Assembly Bill 181. Moving on to our next bill this is our other budget bill junior this is SB 112 current year budget bill junior this bill makes various technical corrections to pass budget acts namely the 2022 2023 2024 and 2025 budget acts and provides a 4.2 billion general fund augmentation in 2025 26 for the Medi-Cal program to cover the current year deficiency and reappropriates $99.3 million general fund from 2023-24 to resolve a current year deficiency for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The next bill is SB 126. This is the TK-12 education trailer bill. This bill provides several significant ongoing Prop 98 general fund investments, including $2.2 billion in an increase to the local control funding formula to reflect a 2.87% cost of living adjustment and $1.1 billion to further augment this COLA to provide a super COLA for school districts, charter schools and county offices of education through the local control funding formula. In addition to addressing ongoing cost pressures for schools, these funds will also offset costs for local educational agencies to provide employees with up to 14 weeks of paid pregnancy disability leave. This bill also provides several significant one-time Prop 98 general fund investments including $5 billion for the Student Support and Professional Development Discretionary Block Grant which provides discretionary funding to local educational agencies to manage rising costs, $757.3 million one-time Prop 98 general fund to support the Learning Recovery Emergency Block Grant which provides funds to local educational agencies to establish learning recovery initiatives through the 2027 28 school year and 428 million for educator workforce investments to support the student teacher stipend program the classified school employee teacher credentialing program and the pathways to bilingual teaching program the next bill is SB 130 135 this is the higher education trailer bill this bill provides funding and policy direction for various community college programs and activities, expands the availability of financial aid and makes various other technical and clarifying changes, including providing a framework for the state's implementation of the new federal workforce Pell Grant program to make Pell Grants available to eligible students in short-term workforce training programs in high-skill, high-wage, or in-demand industry sectors or occupations. This includes changes to align with the state's Cal Grant C awards. the state Cal Grant Transfer Entitlement Program to students aged 29 and 30 for new and renewable financial aid awards. Newly eligible students would also be able to renew their award for five years. The bill requires the office of the chancellor of the California State University annually to develop enrollment targets for each campus. Campuses unable to meet those targets or experiencing an unusual enrollment decline may be required to complete a turnaround plan describing how their budget may be adjusted to reflect actual enrollment. It includes changing the calculation of funded credit full equivalent students incorporated into the community college student funding formula from the three rolling average to the greater of the three rolling average or the current year full equivalent enrollment And finally, it requires community colleges to provide employments with up to 14 weeks of paid pregnancy disability leave beginning January 1st, 2027, with costs supported by a portion of the discretionary cost of living adjustment provided to community colleges. The next bill is SB 150, the Early Learning and Child Care Omnibus Trailer Bill. This bill implements the following significant early childhood education related proposals, including setting the child care cost of living adjustment at 2.01 percent, providing authority to the Department of Social Services to administer a grant program for child care centers and family child care homes for infrastructure funding related to natural disasters and appropriates 25.7 million federal funds for this purpose. It also authorizes the Department of Social Services to transfer funding between child care contractors within child care programs to maximize the number of children served. The next bill is SB 152. This is the Human Services Omnibus Trailer Bill. This bill implements several significant human services proposals, including increasing the CalWORKs monthly maximum aid payment by 1.8%, effective October 1, 2026. • Implementing the new CalFresh County Data Reporting Policies to increase transparency • Waiving the increased county share of CalFresh administrative costs due to HR 1 for three years • Extending the CalFresh Fruit and Vegetable Electronic Benefit Transfer Pilot until June 30, 2028 to accompany a $20 million budget act appropriation for the program • Clarifying the use of Adoption Assistance program funds for in-state out-of-home placement and wraparound services effective January 1st, 2028. And finally, requiring the Department of Social Services to make transition support services available to adoptive families with youth returning from out-of-state placements and report to the legislature as specified. The next trailer bill is SB 163, the Developmental Services Omnibus Trailer Bill. This bill implements several significant developmental services proposals including strengthening regional center governance oversight and administrative efficient efficiencies by professionalizing boards and streamlining funding allocations preserving overtime protections for providers of supported living services reducing administrative barriers for individuals seeking employment services and establishing a new federally mandated process for individuals to submit grievances related to individual rights and service delivery with an emphasis on accessibility and transparency The next trailer bill is SB 164. This is the health omnibus trailer bill. This bill implements several significant health proposals, including transitioning individuals with unsatisfactory immigration status to the fee-for-service delivery system, effective January 1, 2027, implementing $50 monthly premiums for adults age 19 to 59 with unsatisfactory immigration status, effective July 1, 2027, subject to determination and the 2027-28 May revision. Reinstating the Medi-Cal asset limit at 21,000 for individuals and 31,000 for couples, effective July 1, 2027. Delaying various Medi-Cal general fund solutions by one year to July 1, 2027, including elimination of prospective pay system reimbursement to clinics for state-only funded services and elimination of dental benefits for adults 19 and older with unsatisfactory immigration status. And finally, the bill also appropriates up to $576 million over $4,000. years from the AIDS Drug Assistance Program Rebate Fund to support services for those living with and at risk of HIV. The next bill is SB 165. This is the Skilled Nursing Facilities Trailer Bill. This bill provides a one-year extension of the Skilled Nursing Facility Quality Assurance Fee and Long-Term Care Reimbursement Act to December 31st, 2027. Next is SB 166. This is the Resources Trailer Bill. This is a Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Trailer Bill that extends the Plastic Market Development Payment Program to 2029 and provides clarification, technical cleanup, and necessary updates to the California Fire Service Training and Education Program, the California Fire and Arson Training Act, and the Generation and Handling Fee. SB 168 is the Energy Trailer Bill. This bill makes several changes, including establishing a new incentive program for first-time buyers of light-duty, zero-emission vehicles. The budget includes $135.5 million one-time special funds for this purpose. The bill authorizes funds previously provided for the Distributed Energy Backup Assets Program to be used for the Demand Side Grid Support Program. It also adjusts the annual salary of the vice chair of the California Energy Commission and clarifies that contracts with the Western Climate Initiative to operate the cap and invest auctions are part of a membership agreement. And finally, it makes clarifying and technical changes to the Wildfire Fund. The next trailer bill is SB 169, the transportation trailer bill. This bill supports modernization efforts at the Department of Motor Vehicles through efficiencies as well as an increase in the number of Californians that can receive a mobile driver's license through DMV's pilot program. It also includes enabling statutory changes and accompanying safeguards for DMV to meet the federal real ID requirements and authorizes automated enforcement for the games route network that Caltrans will stand up on the state highway system for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. SB 170 is the first of two housing and homelessness bills. This bill codifies the governor's reorganization plan, which dissolves the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency and creates two standalone cabinet-level agencies, the California Housing and Homelessness Agency and Business and Consumer Services Agency. Both became, sorry, and the Business, Consumer Services Agency that became operational on July 1, 2026. SB 171 is the labor trailer bill. This bill adopts comprehensive reforms to the subsequent injuries, Benefits Trust Fund, I'm sorry, to the subsequent Injuries Benefits Trust Fund program to refocus the program on its original intent and protect the viability of the program and the benefits it provides to injured workers. It also includes $3 billion in Prop 2 funding for the CalPERS supplemental pension payment in 2026-27. Additionally, it includes $1 million general fund for administrative costs to implement the Fair Share Act if it is enacted by SB 177 and also makes various other changes. The next bill is SB 172, the General Government Trailer Bill. This bill increases fees for the California State Athletic Commission. It authorizes the Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation to establish and collect fees for the submission of California Environmental Quality Act documents to support the costs of operating maintaining and enhancing the state clearinghouse database It codifies the farm to school program at the Department of Food and Agriculture It shifts clerical responsibility for the State Racetrack Leasing Commission from the Department of Finance to the Department of Food and Agriculture And it authorizes certain expenditures from the Food and Agriculture Fund to be exempt from the cap on administrative costs for this fund. SB 174 is the Courts Trailer Bill. This bill extends the deadline for superior courts to provide court users access to lactation rooms from July 1, 2026 to July 1, 2027. And it also extends the authority for courts to conduct remote court proceedings and specified cases to January 1, 2032. SB 177 is the Fair Share Act. This bill requires the Department of Finance to present the legislature with options assessing large corporations for the cost of their employees enrolled in Medi-Cal on or before March 1, 2027. At least one option must include an employer-paid program to offset the state cost for their employees who receive Medi-Cal for companies with at least 250 employees. All options must include proposed statutory changes, specified data, and analysis of cost and timelines. SB 179 is the second housing and homelessness trailer bill. Most notably, this bill aligns local policies to lower costs for state-funded housing programs by directing state dollars towards building affordable housing rather than offsetting locally imposed costs. It establishes the Disaster Rebuilding Fund, which is aimed at supporting residential rebuilding in disaster-impacted areas, and has funding included in the budget bill. It further integrates and strengthens the state affordable housing finance system by improving the alignment of affordable housing programs to better coordinate state housing resources. It makes programmatic changes to the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Program to streamline administration and better leverage complementary housing subsidies. And finally, it includes the enhanced accountability and performance measures for the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program, better known as HAP. Finally, SB 180 is the taxation trailer bill. This bill replaces the 1% cap of the property tax postponement program with a fixed annual allocation of up to $300,000 for manufactured home postponements. It extends the California Competes tax credit program for five years, providing certainty for California businesses regarding this economic development incentive. And it excludes contributions to the new federal savings accounts for children, often referred to as Trump accounts, from state taxable income conforming with federal law. Thank you very much and happy to answer any questions.
Thank you very much. We will now turn to Carolyn Chu with the LAL.
Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair, and members. Carolyn Chu from the Legislative Analyst's Office, and we're just here and happy to answer questions.
All right, and I know we also have Aaron Gable with the Assembly Budget Committee, who's here, also available to answer questions. With that, I will bring it back to the committee. Do we have any questions, comments? Mr. Assemblymember Rogers.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I actually had a question about one of the provisions in SB 135 related to higher education. So specifically where it calls out that the chancellor's office will set enrollment targets. And if somebody doesn't hit the enrollment targets, then they have to come up with their plan on how they're going to either right size the university or increase enrollment. We just went through this last year with Sonoma State University. And one of the things that we found and acknowledged was that especially in rural communities that are struggling to find people to be able to afford to live there that the underinvestment in universities has a cyclical effect where as you are right what is happening on the campus, that actually is taking away incentives for people to go to those campuses, which then drives additional underinvestment or disenrollment from those campuses. So can you just talk a little bit about that process, what that looks like, and how, especially in rural communities, our universities will get assistance when they're under-enrolled, not just the hammer approach of having to cut services?
Hello. Good morning. Jennifer Louis with the Department of Finance. The trailer bill that you're referring to, it's very generalized so that it collects data. So the purpose is for the Chancellor's Office to collect data and the trailer is specific that the Chancellor's Office may require a turnaround plan, but the specifics on the turnaround plan is left up to the data that will be collected by the Chancellor's Office. So it's not specific to targeting one particular campus within the CSU system, rather it's It's a very general holistic approach to collecting data as a system when specifying struggles with enrollment targets for each campus.
So the turnaround plan is for the entire system?
No, the turnaround plan is applied to the system in a sense that if there is identifiable struggles on enrollments for a specific campus, then the Chancellor's Office may require a turnaround plan, but it's not required. It will depend on the data that will be collected over a period of time.
Okay.
Christian Griffith with the Assembly Budget Committee. The subcommittee three had a series of hearings about enrollment, both over-enrolled and under-enrolled campuses and with the challenges that those faced. And part of the intent of the trailer bill is to have standardized reporting that would be annual by campus because a lot of the reporting we were getting from the system was system-wide. And so that way we could continue to have the oversight, and that's the main thrust of what's in that trailer bill so that the conversation can continue because it does impact both over-enrolled campuses, which have basically more students and funding, and then under-enrolled campuses where we're trying to figure out the stabilization plan. And that does tie into the turnaround plans that were adopted this year by CSU, and I think what we're looking to do is make that more systematic and more predictable so as we look to drill down into that in future years.
No, I really appreciate that that clarification is really helpful. And as I said, just one of the things that I'll be keeping an eye on for the next couple of years is particularly how these disenrolled or under-enrolled areas really impact rural communities that are struggling and making sure that the system that we establish doesn't lead towards the inevitable of closures of schools or lack of opportunity and lack of programs in areas that have fewer people to begin with. and rather leaning in and supporting these universities so that they have an opportunity to pull more people to them. But I appreciate the clarification.
Let's just go down and start at the end.
Dr. Patel. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to staff who has helped form this budget. It has been an incredibly tough budget year. I would be remiss as Education Chair if I didn't ask a question on the Prop 98 withholding. So the question basically is can you explain what the withholding amount is and what is the settle up mechanism when revenues come in higher than projections Certainly So the current settle up amount is billion That is equal to where it was at at May revision and in the two-party agreement. So currently, we actually recalculate Prop 98 twice a year at Governor's budget and at May revision. And we do that on a three-year
basis. So when we have our current fiscal year, 25-26, next year that becomes current year, we'll update that twice. And then the next year will become the prior year and we'll update that twice again at that time. We don't finalize the calculation of Prop 98 until the spring of the year in which the fiscal year is the prior year. Sorry, it's a little complicated. So for purposes of 25-26 that will be finalized in spring of 2028. And at that point, we will go through a process called certification, which is statutorily defined, and it is an open, public, and transparent process. And at that point in time, statute requires that any unpaid settle-up at that point must either be repaid or the legislature must put out a statutory payment plan on the timing of which they'll make those payments. So we will know for sure, and I'm sorry, I think I've been 2526 is the current year. So I'm sorry, it's spring of 2027. Apologies, it's Monday morning. So next spring, we will be finalizing the 2526. We will know how much the Prop 98 guarantee is. So that settle-up amount could go up. It could go down. It just really depends on what the factors are showing. I will say that the budget includes language that says that the first 33% of any new revenues that come in past, so when we calculate next spring at 2027 May revision, 33% of revenues that are above the amounts that are required to be paid towards Prop 2 and Prop 98 will go towards further paying down the settle up.
So that statute is included in this budget package to provide some additional certainty around how and when those funds will be repaid. Perfect. Thank you. I think that was that last part was what I wanted to give some sunshine on. So appreciate that. And I want to provide a statement. California is facing an unprecedented fiscal moment. Our federal policies are straining our health systems and threatening our safety nets and creating uncertainty for families across the state. and our local governments as we grapple with how to address, how to best address all of these uncertainties. And yet this budget that our three-party agreement has come to is proof that we can meet this moment with both discipline and clear purpose. The 2026-27 three-party agreement is a responsible, balanced, and prudent plan. The $351.7 billion that protects the most vulnerable among us while making smart, targeted investments in our shared future is a wonderful thing, and it wasn't easy to build. I wanna be clear-eyed though about my one significant concern. I have as chair of the Assembly Education Committee, it doesn't fully fund Prop 98 guarantee. And this does concern me, and I'll be watching revenues closely in the coming years to make sure the Settle Up can be accelerated if possible. Our schools and our students can't go without the funding that they need to have that bright, beautiful future. that we assure them of. But on education specifically, we are delivering the highest per pupil funding in the state's history. It's estimated at 28,207 on average per pupil. Of course, that means that those that are base funded get significantly less and those that are concentration funded get significantly more per pupil, but that is an unprecedented amount. And we certainly hope that our children can get the resources and supports that they need. Additionally, we've secured an ongoing 1.8 billion increase for special education base rates. That is remarkable. And it will help ensure that students with disabilities receive the support that they need and that schools have the resources they need to provide it, including educator training and professional development. We are expanding child care access by 25,000 new slots. Again, remarkable. Prioritizing our youngest children and fully funding our commitments to the UC and CSU systems For the first time, we are funding paid pregnancy leave for teachers and school staff. So we're looking at the whole pipeline. We talk about cradle to career quite a lot and here we see it happening in this budget and it reflects our values and that's very impressive. I also wanna share a specific area of concern that was brought to my attention through community members was accessing quality supports from our regional centers. And this budget and trailers includes requirements for DDS to issue guidance for quality assistance for those seeking services. Amazing. Thank you for doing that. That's really, really going to help the people in my community. On housing, we have protected over $1.6 billion in affordable housing and homelessness prevention, including that $900 million you just talked about for HAP. That's $400 million more than what was originally proposed. Our communities desperately need that. So thank you for making sure through this three-party agreement that we get there. On health care, we rejected those immediate cuts to Medi-Cal. securing 300 million to lower the covered California premiums and we stood firm on reproductive health and gender affirming care again our budget is reflecting our values here in California on economic stability we're delivering targeted tax relief for new businesses extending Cal compete credits to keep jobs here in California we want our Californians to have access to that brighter future and this budget is supporting those values and we're allocating a hundred and million to help keep our food banks stocked as federal support grows less reliable. We know that people need food to survive, and we're showing that we can do that and meet them where they are. Many small businesses in my community have been asking for relief. Entrepreneurs have been asking for relief, and we're able to deliver that with this budget as well, reducing the annual minimum franchise tax for LLCs from $800 to $400 for their first taxable year. Even these small things our wins for our local communities. And I understand that this was a far from easy budget to build, but I believe it does reflect our values and our resolve to make sure that Californians get the supports and services that they need. Even under pressure, California is continuing to invest in its people. Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the subchairs for building this budget and making sure that we deliver for Californians and their future.
Thank you very much, Dr. Bertel, and it is truly an honor to have you on this committee and very grateful for your deep engagement and thoughtful work on this budget. So thank you. With that, I think we will go to Mr. Bennett, and then I know we had Ms. Quirk-Silva.
Thank you very much, Chair. I have one question about the Plastics Market Development Payment Program. So while somebody is coming up regarding that I would just I make my very brief comments and that is my appreciation for the fact that this budget has funding for HFIP and also has funding for Clean Cars for All I also very much appreciate the fact that the Assembly in particular made as one of its values addressing the structural budget deficit that we have and beginning that process. That's going to be a multi-year process for us to get there. But it is absolutely essential for the well-being of everybody in California that we make progress each year in terms of the structural budget deficit because we will be able to serve the most disadvantaged people in our state most appropriately when we have good fiscal health here in California. So I appreciate all that. And my question regarding the plastics market development payment program, the payments dropped down $5 million for each of the three years in the cycle. And can you explain why I think I have an understanding as to why that's the case, but I'd like to hear from you. What's your analysis in terms of why we need $25 million in 28-29 and we're at $35 million now? Is it because as these things start to develop, they don't need as much funding?
Nate Williams, Department of Finance. Yes, Chair Bennett, that's probably the easiest way to explain kind of the decrease. It's a very small decrease over the years, so it starts at $35 million and then drops down $5 million each year for the first three years. But yes, essentially there's kind of more participation and then it would gradually slow down.
You anticipate it continuing to drop each year subsequent after this three-year cycle also?
Well, after the three years. So we've just included three years' worth of budget. So after that, we would have to reconsider whether we want to extend the program further.
But if we decided to extend the program, would you anticipate we would need less money each year as participation has grown?
Well, I don't know that I could speculate for what it would be after that.
That's fine. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Appreciate it. Thank you very much, Mr. Bennett. Again, just thank you for your tremendous leadership over the past several months. We will go to Assemblymember Cork Silva and then Assemblymember Solache. Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. Yes, it's been a privilege to work on this budget committee, particularly budget sub five and with all of the expert individuals who work on this committee alongside me, the consultants. Thank you for your hard work. Of course, I wanted to kind of go back to some of the housing. No surprise here. But if you look at page 67 particularly, this talks about the housing HAP dollars, which there has been a lot of commentary over the last handful of years, positive, negative, all the in-betweens. But certainly for the last three years we have fought hard to bring additional dollars not only into the AHAP program but other housing programs that we have seen work the multifamily housing program low tax credits And of course just this last week there was support for a housing bond. That being said, one of the fine-tuning of all of this discussion with housing dollars has been, are they effective? Are they transparent? Is there accountability? Who gets the dollars, who doesn't get the dollars, can we improve? So if you look on page 67, we're very happy to see the $900 million that has been put in there with an additional $400 million since January. What I know is a concern, and I'm seeing my colleague over here looking at me where he's channeling what I know he'll say in the future, which is the large cities get these funds, 97% of them. And there are many cities that surround these large cities. And that is the concern for them is how do they adjust when many of these cities, in fact, do have homeless that often aren't receiving the services or the local municipalities themselves are having to find ways to fund these services. An example being I live in Fullerton and we have what we call the North Spa Area service provider area. So 10 cities put their dollars together to try to hold up a shelter as they're not the large cities, the big city in our area is Anaheim or Irvine or Los Angeles. So just calling that out in the sense that there definitely has to be some type of reprieve in the future for these smaller cities to be able to continue the services we know they're going to need. Secondly, if you go down to 25, this addresses the accountability. We've heard loud and clear from our Republican colleagues and Democrats, we need to make sure when these funds are allocated, there's accountability and transparency. There's also the fine balance of how much do you put on where the requirements become so stringent that we, in fact, slow down the process of getting the dollars out. again another red flag for in the future. We want to make sure the funds are used wisely, that there is no fraud, that the dollars are getting out, but we also want to make sure they're out in a timely way. So with all of my colleagues here, I know you'll continue to work in that area as far as making sure we don't become so onerous on the accountability that we simply can't get these dollars out. With that, there are a lot of wins in here. I know that you will continue talking about housing and homelessness for many years to come. As we know, we still have many steps before we can say that we are doing everything we can. But I'm proud to see what's been instituted in this budget, and I know this will go directly to people who need these services. Thank you. Thank you very much, Assemblymember. And I just wanted to, again, thank you for your extraordinary service over the past couple years. You have so enriched the conversation of this committee You have really fundamentally helped to shape the architecture of our budgets to help to provide some incredible levels of investment in our vulnerable populations. And sometimes you see things work out exactly the way they should in life. And I think your prior journey of chairing other committees and serving on other committees and now the impact you have made on this budget for veterans, for the arts, for the film tax credit, for housing and homelessness. It's just very, it's just been tremendous to watch you in action. So I just, on behalf of the whole committee, I know we're going to have to say goodbye to you at some point in the near future, but I just want to say thank you and just congratulate you on some extraordinary public service. So thank you very much, Assemblymember. All right, we are going to go to Mr. Solace, who's at the beginning of his journey, but I'm sure we'll say similar things about him. And then I know we had Assemblymember Addis and the pride of Burbank, Assemblymember Schultz. The pride of who? Oh, sorry. I don't know. I've heard that correctly. Mr. Chair, thank you so much. Before I start, I want to say thank you to all the amazing staff. I always say that as coming from local government, I got to work with great city managers, superintendents, and just amazing staff that made things happen. And we take the credit and not the credit when things happen, good or bad. So for that matter, I just want to say thank you again to all our amazing staff there. I can say that because I have a great staff in my office that they're all watching right now. So I want to give them a shout out because I know they also do hard work, including coming early. Well, most of them come early and then some stay late. With that, I want to thank you all. Mr. Chair, I know that our subchairs have done a great job. And before I give my own chair a shout out, I want to thank my good colleague, my neighboring colleague, Sherry Quicksirva, who has been a champion these many years. And I think she might have read some of my thoughts that were happening in my head as she was speaking. That's one of the questions I want to just formalize. I want to formalize this question to staff here. I know that the H-HAP was highlighted, and I know the amount. But if you could just highlight that for us one more time, because I want to respond to that real quick. So just the dollar amount and what the objective is with the funding on this area. Thank you. Hi, good morning. Teresa Calvert, Department of Finance. As was mentioned, the HAP funding had a $500 million planned at January 10 in May revision, and through the budgetary process, that was increased by $400 million for a total of $900 million in 2016-2017, which will be there for the round seven of HAP. Along with that, there was May revision proposed language on accountability measures surrounding that allocation, and that was a follow-up from last year's agreement for the $500 million. So the trailer bill that you have in language in SB 179 reflects those discussions and reflects a compromise language regarding the accountability measures while balancing the workload on the local entities receiving that funding as well. um jenny morelos assembly budget committee just wanted to add a couple highlights in there the base of 900 million is an increase from last year the the base had always been at 800 million for cities counties and cocs so there'll be more money going out to the districts i think one of the things that we learned in the sub-seven hearing that we had was that a lot of the money for the smaller cities go through the cocs and also the county so there is funding that gets out to them there. So those are like two of the big things. We have a streamlined application process that I think will really help get these dollars out a lot quicker in this round. Thank you for the response. I just wanted to formulate the answer for the public to understand how these dollars are provided. And again, our chair has done a great job advocating for all cities. I happen represent all small cities in my district. And so for me, the frustration comes from, again, a very lived experience of being a former mayor and city council member where a lot of our big cities, as they should, receive funding. Small cities don't get the same attention, if I could call it that. I know the administration has done a great job at supporting funding for our house communities, but I think the state needs to do more to help fund some of these small cities. And I just came from local experience. In my district, I have the 710 Freeway, the 91 Freeway, 605. And so for us, the in-house community is a very prevalent issue in these Caltrans area. That's one area of concern. Bellflower, where I was born specifically, has a shelter. They put dollars from their own general fund dollars into dealing with this. So it's not that these cities are not doing their part. We just need to do our part to help them as well. So I just want to amplify the continuous concern that what else can we do as a state? And again, coming from local government, we hear that. How does the state, how does our federal government help us more when we are doing our part to help? So I just want to uplift that. And yes, Mr. Chair, you acknowledged Ms. Quicksilver's great work on this. I plan to continue the conversation and uplift this conversation for years to come. I know we have a new governor as well. And so hopefully with that attention, hopefully the attention of small cities, again, Governor Newsom has done great in supporting the conversation. But I just want to hopefully spotlight more of the small cities. And I can tell you firsthand that I carried some legislation this last year where it just brought some attention to the issue. And so I just want to uplift that. And I know that all of us in the Assembly and the legislature and the Senate, we present small cities throughout California that need our attention. So I just want to thank the staff for highlighting that, and I look forward to working with you all in bringing not only dollars but humanity to the conversation of how we deal with it across the state. With that, I want to continue with some of my comments. Again, I represent eight communities in southeast Los Angeles, communities that have been under attack by the Trump administration, and there are life-threatening cuts. These federal government forces to weigh in difficult decisions, and I am grateful for this budget. negotiations reject many of most harmful cuts in order to protect our safety programs. Grateful for the opportunity to serve on Assembly Budget One with our great Sub-1 Chair, Ms. Addis, who has been not only a champion but has really brought a lot of heart to the conversation and to deal with these proposed cuts that happen at the national level. In this committee, we were able to stabilize medical to save access to lifelong life-saving health care. We were able to push back to delay cuts to clinics, lower premiums, protect access to dental, and safeguard vulnerable populations for undocumented communities and seniors. Communities that I represent proudly every day. I'm especially proud to have advocated against the PACE elder programs and ensure investments in additional program capacity. When it comes to Sacramento, we bring those live experiences. And I always talk about the example real quick, again, that my father actually attends a PACE program. And when you have someone that is now a widowed and lives on his own and the PACE program brings something as simple as oatmeal that they make, just like my mom would make it, to him or him exercising or getting a haircut at a PACE program, it just brings that socialization that we all need. And I remember saying that my grandpa would always tell me that we're all going to get there one day. And so if we here today in this room and throughout California legislators, we're all going to get to this age where we call senior age. and so we do our part to take care of our seniors today. I hope that one day they take care of us equally when I get a senior. So as someone that plans to have no kids, I hope that our system and our safety nets and our state takes care of us I know that my partner and I talked about being in a senior center one day and just you know living our best lives And we going to take care of those seniors as well But hopefully the way we taking care of our seniors today they take care of us one day. We were able to also reject cuts to home supportive services, protect child care access, provide services to foster youth, and fund Prop 36 implementation and support victims of crime through VOCA. Higher education is a space that I will always be proud to uplift in a conversation because higher ed has given me an opportunity to be here today and succeed in this place called the United States of America. As we celebrate 250 years, higher education is a point that we need to always protect. I'm happy that this agreement boosts investments in our UC and CSU systems, as well as raising the Cal Grant age. Speaking of live experiences, communities I represent are surrounded by major freeways and ports of commerce. Air pollution and environmental health is an urgent priority, and we have been advocating to ensure that we continue to invest in our AB 617 Community Air Protection Program. We fought to ensure that this program was successfully rejected in the last year's TAP and Invest Agreement, and this budget deal delivers $150 million for AB 617 Community Air Protection Program. So, Mr. Chair, congratulations on that. $150 million for our 617 communities is a staple all my cities and region that i represent are these communities that just want to breathe clean air and i think we all want to breathe clean air and have them be part of the process and engagement these 150 million dollars are key to the success of our communities having a voice to ensure that we protect community especially as in our districts we're seeing all these different um you know incidents are happening so i think these dollars are critical for that to happen and before coming to the assembly i served on the south coast aqmd board working very closely with I-617 Community Air Protection Program communities in my district and neighboring regions. This program empowers residents to lead discussions and take action to improve health and air quality. I remain committed. I know there's a lot of things in this budget that we are creating all from social networks to food banks. And so I'm committed to being part of this committee, staying engaged and working with all our awesome committee members so we can continue advocating to bring not only dollars again, but humanity to our work. With that, thank you, and thank you all for your amazing work. Gracias. Thank you very much, Assemblymember, and I do want to compliment you for your advocacy, and I think some of the examples you brought up, AB617, the PACE program in particular, your voice, your advocacy, your lived experience has really helped to inform our budget conversations, and so thank you. There's a lot of folks around this state who are going to benefit from your good work, so I want to thank you for that. Thank you. Don't forget the small cities, too. Small cities, like the ones that got helped by AB617. Exactly. So there we go. Thank you. With that, I will turn it over to our dear friend and subcommittee chair, Assemblymember Addison. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And I'll say to our colleague from Southern California, I think I may have the smallest city of the two of us with under 300 people and very robust city council elections. So thank you for your advocacy. Thank you for your advocacy for our small cities. I really want to thank Mr. Speaker and thank you, Mr. Budget Chair, for your advocacy and for your strong fight in health care in specific in this budget, but also for your focus on affordability. And I'll talk about that in a moment. But I also want to say thank you to the entire budget team, particularly the staff who worked hours upon hours, often overnight. I think in these last few weeks our staff has been up all night more than one night trying to put this three deal together And it really matters to Californians Most Californians don see this They don know what happening when the California state budget is put together for the fourth largest economy in the world And it really takes, in many cases, I hope not tears, but certainly blood and sweat to get this done. So I appreciate the staff for that. But I also want to thank my committee members for the budget subcommittee health and subcommittee number one on health, Assemblymember Bonta and Solace and Schiaivo and Stephanie and Patterson, who spent dozens of hours in hearings, hearing from hundreds and hundreds of people, largely coming to tell us that if any of their programs are cut, they could likely lose their lives and certainly would not be in good shape, would certainly be enduring incredible, incredible suffering. And that's hard stuff to sit through, as our committee members and our staff know. And so I want to thank them for coming to hearing after hearing to go through that. I remain concerned about future year cuts to health care. I should be transparent about that. I think we put together a very strong two-party agreement. I am proud of the three-party agreement, but I do remain concerned in the out years. Particularly, I remain concerned about H.R.1 being the largest attacks that we've seen in modern history or in living memory, the largest attacks on healthcare, the largest attacks on human services, and the largest attacks on education than any of us have experienced in our lifetimes and what that could do to this budget in future years and hard decisions that may be coming in future years. But I remain incredibly thankful and incredibly proud of the way that we are preserving health care right now for California's people, of the way that we have put our weight behind continuing to provide food, continuing to provide IHSS, and making new investments that I think are really going to affect affordability in a positive way for Californians while lowering our structural deficit issues and increasing our rainy day fund. But I want to talk a little bit about how we're preserving affordability in this budget, because I also think it's something that we don't talk about enough across our state, is how does California's budget interplay with money that regular Californians have in their pockets to spend on the things that they need to spend on? Healthcare, I would say, is one of the biggest effects on affordability. If you cannot afford to go to the doctor, if you cannot afford to pay your hospital bills, you probably cannot afford your regular day-to-day expenses. And so So our investments in increasing physician access, increasing coverage for things like menopause, putting money behind reproductive care and gender affirming care, putting money into care for seniors and dental care and covered California subsidies. All of this is California's way of attacking affordability issues that our residents face. I also want to talk about affordability for the 72 percent or almost three quarters of the teacher workforce, K-12 teacher workforce, when it comes to maternity leave. And I was a teacher for 21 years. I was in the school district. And many people have no idea what happens to teachers after they have a child or before and when they need maternity leave And the way that it looked before this budget is that teachers don pay into a disability right? So they have to take out private disability if they're able to. So when you need to take maternity leave, first you use every single one of your sick days. Then if you are fortunate enough to be able to pay into private disability, you may have private disability to help fund that maternity leave. And then you pay the difference of your sub out of your own salary. So your salary is then reduced to pay for the substitute in your public school classroom. But that's all about to change for about 200,000 people who can have children across our state who are working in the K-12 school system because of this budget. With that 14 weeks of paid maternity leave, and I think our education chair and our education budget sub-chair and our education staff that's here today, that is a huge, huge piece of affordability for California's new families. Our investments in child care, I would describe the same way, a way to help affordability for California's families. And, of course, our diapers and our diaper banks. And we worked very closely with the diaper bank out of Santa Cruz County that serves the Central Coast. And after the floods of 2023, the atmospheric rivers of 2023, our diaper bank came to us and said the single most important thing for the flood victims, the single thing that was breaking their budget was access to diapers and an inability to pay for diapers. And so the money we've put into diaper banks is a huge piece of affordability. I also want to mention clean cars and the money that we have put into clean cars, I know, as mentioned already. There's a lot of talk about gas prices and oil and what do we do and how do we navigate this and why is it so expensive and how are people going to meet their daily expenses? One of the best things we can do is transition. And I think our assembly budget sub chair on natural resources understands that deeply. One of the very best things we can do for affordability around gas prices is to keep moving our transition forward. And this money that we have in clean cars is going to help with that. I'm also very proud that we're delivering on housing, on mental health supports, on public education, and for easing life for small business owners, which really make up a lot of the backbone of California's economy. We talk a lot about the big players and the tax dollars they bring in, and they are very important. But our small business owners are the people that make up our local communities. So the people that we know and we love and we spend dollars in their shops and in their businesses every single day, and they do deserve a break. And I'm proud that we're easing life for them. So while I remain concerned, I remain concerned about H.R.1. I remain concerned about the way that health care has been attacked over these last two years. I'm very optimistic. I'm very proud. I'm very grateful to our budget team and to all the staff for this three-party deal. So thank you so much, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Assemblymember. And I do also just want to compliment you for just the incredibly thoughtful work that you have done in probably the most challenging assignment this year. And just the way you have led with your heart has just been awesome to watch. So thank you for everything you've done for our communities. With that, I believe we will go to Mr. Schultz, Assemblymember. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I want to just say right out the gate to echo, I want to uplift many of the comments that my colleagues have shared, especially that by Assemblymember Patel as it relates to Proposition 98. But for the sake of time, I'm not going to repeat any of that. I do want to thank everyone. It takes a lot of work to land a budget, and I think it's a good sign when everyone can walk away saying there's some pieces that we really like and there's some pieces we disagree with. That's a sign of a very fair compromise. So I will be supporting the whole package when it comes to the floor that we're discussing today. With that said, I would be remiss if I do have a question, and I also had a couple comments. First of all, I just have to say in the context of public safety, I do think this administration is missing an opportunity. The two houses of the legislature came together and proposed another prison closure. I think this is a – it's a missed opportunity. And I only say that to say that this is what I talk about when I say there will be points of disagreement, and I look forward to raising this point with the next administration when they take office. The other thing I want to mention, and this is again, both for this administration and for the incoming administration, I think that while some good work has been done, there is much more work that we're going to need to do to address the issue of violence in our facilities, especially in our women's institutions. We've had two years of hearings now, hearing some terrible stories about how some of the inmates have been treated. And in this budget, notwithstanding that there is some forward progress, I don't think we have done enough to really curb that culture of violence that can exist. So I look forward to seeing more progress made on that as we start preparing for next year's budget. But I did have one question. Another point of conversation in budget sub six was next gen 911 and some of the obstacles that have been raised with rollout differences in approach, taking more of a regional subsystem to a statewide approach. As I understand it, it looks like the intent now is to audit the progress that has been made. I was just wondering if you could speak a little bit more to what is in this budget as it relates to next gen 911. Sure. Good morning, members. Bernie Orozco with the Assembly Budget Committee. So the NextGen 911, we are starting refreshing the program, starting new. So in this budget, we have appropriated, the legislature has appropriated $141 million one-time funding, special funds from the Setna funds. In this budget, there's multiple pieces in there. So there are there's funds in there. Primarily, the biggest portion is for funds to update the public safety answering points. These are the 911 call centers. A lot of them are outdated and need to be replaced some of that equipment. In terms of oversight, what the legislature has done a number of things here. So one big piece that the committee has looked at was quarterly reports. So we now will be asking for quarterly reports of the progress being made on updating our 911 system to NextGen 911. We have included funds in there for a technical evaluation to be done by an independent third party who will come in immediately and prepare a report to say, is this actually technically capable? So that report will be a preliminary report in December and then a final report coming out the following new year. We have included some funds for the state auditor to come in and do an audit of the previous work that was done. And so that will be work that they will start, not sure. They should start right about the end of December, early January, looking at their schedule. And then it will be a matter of time before that report is finalized. All right Wonderful I saw a few more folks came up Did anyone else have anything to add Okay Good positive progress Glad to hear it And again I don love everything about the deal but there some really good things in this budget so I look forward to supporting it on the floor Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chair, could I follow up just on? Of course, Assemblymember. And that is on the 911, being on the Emergency Management Committee, I would just like to point out that over and over again at the state, we have had difficulty implementing new technology software. And this is just another example. And I think it speaks to something that I hope that we might consider budget wise. And that is we should have experts that simply help every department actually with the procurement process and what are the pitfalls. Because in the committee hearings, I heard some of the same things, you know. Well, we didn't write the contract properly. And so therefore, we couldn't hold people's feet to the fire and make them accountable, et cetera. So long term, I think that's a solution, but not just here, but across the board and so many things. Thank you very much for the interruption. Of course. Thank you, Assemblymember. I now I'm going to turn it over to our vice chair. Thank you, Mr. Chair. And the two areas that I want to talk about are veteran services and Medi-Cal. So if there's anybody who wants to come up for that. Good to go. As I was reviewing this budget over the weekend, there were a few things that were actually very interesting to me that I think we should bring up, as we've often shared that the budget is a reflection of our priorities. From the general fund, it appears that we're spending less than $500 million on CalVet services. Is that an accurate statement? With the Department of Finance, I don't have the exact figure in front of me, but we could get back to you on that. Well, reviewing the budget, if you look into the general fund, the appropriation is under $500 million. And now if we look at when it comes to providing full scope Medi-Cal for illegal immigrants, it appears that we're spending about $3.4 billion to about $4.1 billion. Is that an accurate number? Mr. Weiss, I'm not exactly sure of the dollar amount, but a lot of the Department of Veterans Affairs upfront costs are general fund, but they are eventually reimbursed by the federal government. So it is a, we cover the cost initially, and then these costs are reimbursed by the federal government. But I don't know about the actual dollar amount. I'm not sure where you're going. Well, while reviewing the general fund and the allocations in itself, I completely understand that the federal government actually does take care of a lot. But the main reason why I bring this up is because when we are talking about a priority and the budget reflecting our values, I think it's interesting to say that we spend now eight to ten times more on illegal immigrant services than we do for the veterans and the men and women who have fought and died for this country and this state. And I think that really needs to be highlighted when we're talking about this budget. It also seems like under the Medi-Cal and the asset changes that we have right now, we are shifting that from $130,000 for an individual and $195,000 on the asset test to $21,000 and $31,000. That is correct as we had heard earlier correct Yes that is correct So I highlight these areas as we talked about this budget and what has been stated over and over again that we entering into hard times And it's honestly interesting to say that we have a record budget, to say that right now we are the richest state in the richest country in the history of the world. And for us to say that we don't have any money I think is completely wrong. I think that this budget in some areas is actually proving that we are spending now eight to ten times more on illegal immigrant services than we are appropriating from the general fund for our veterans. And I think we're also balancing the budget on the backs of the disabled and the elderly. And that's an area that needs to be highlighted. That's something that we actually need to say, that this is the numbers. It's not a racist thing to say. It's not something that is mean. It is a dollar figure amount that really needs to be highlighted as an issue that we have here. And I hope that the people of California actually see that. And so thank you. Mr. Vice, can I respond a little bit? So just for your comparison of dollar amounts spent on veterans versus other populations, the dollar amount that is spent in this budget for veterans is only for those veterans who are housed within the state veterans homes or receiving medical services there. Many veterans go to federal facilities and or they will receive funds directly from the federal government. What California does to help those veterans ensure they get their earned benefits is that we have county offices of veteran services that help those veterans who are not housed within the institution or state housing units, but help them get their benefits. So I think you should see the activities that the counties do to ensure that those federal funds come back to California and provide services to California veterans. Just for your comparison. And I appreciate that. You know, would you imply that we do enough for our veterans here in this state with the amount that we're appropriating? I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to jump in here. And I think with all due respect, Mr. Vice Chair, I understand the talking points that you're trying to hit, but it's just a complete apples and oranges comparison. Taking care of our veterans is an extraordinary priority, I think, for everyone on this dais. All of us have incredible respect for the members of the men and women who have served our nation in uniform. Many of us count them as family members, people in our communities, dear friends. We have actually as a legislature added in additional money to invest in our veterans to support them and uplift them. And I want to thank Assemblymember Schiavo in particular, the chair of that committee, who has done work to build on those investments. But that's a core area of federal responsibility. That is something that the federal government is supposed to do. That's why we have the Department of Veterans Affairs. I know that there has been supplementary work that the state has done, but I think the comparison just is absolutely off base. I understand the political point you're trying to make, but the facts don't support it. And I think what's important also that as you talk about some of the other points you made about the asset test and other things, as you saw, this legislature worked very hard to protect individuals, to push back on proposals that we had from other parties in here. And while we did lower that potentially in future years we actually retained the current limit for this year so that we have an opportunity to continue to have a conversation about what level of investment we might make there to protect people in the current year and then hope that as we talk about next year budget we can work with a new administration work with our partners in the Senate to maintain the current level of the Medi asset test That has been something that has been a core priority of this House and something that Assembly Democrats have fought very hard to preserve and in a really challenging budget environment have been able to do that. But I think just taking a step back, what I'm struggling with here right now is that you are simultaneously criticizing us for spending too much, and then also criticizing us when people make adjustments to those spending levels and when people have found ways to tighten their belts. And so I think you don't get to have it both ways. You can't criticize us for spending too much and then criticize us in areas where there are reductions. And so I just want to say thank you to the members of this committee and our subchairs who have done the hard work, have done the hard work of looking at each investment, deciding where we can stretch dollars the farthest, deciding how we can help people the most, And one of the things that I so admire about the work of our subcommittee chairs and those who have actually grappled with this is that this has consistently been a people-centered budget. You have brought our communities into the room and into the conversation. And I know a lot of these things can be technical. They can sound bureaucratic. They can be abstract. But the members of this committee have looked at the stakeholders, the members of the public that have come forward. They've talked about these issues, and they've thought, how is this going to affect seniors? How is this going to affect families with children? How is this going to affect people who are going to food banks? How is this going to affect the incredible people who have served our nation in uniform? And so I understand that everybody's trying to stick to political talking points here. But the truth here, and we have seen that in practice, is that the members of this committee, working with staff, have dug in to do the work to say what is best for the people of the state of California. And that has been challenging work. That has been morally complicated work. But I am so proud of the work that the members of this committee have done. And when we push aside the politics and get through the rhetoric and the talking points, this is a budget that is centered on the people of the state of California. And I think that's something that the governor should feel proud of, that the members of the Senate should feel good and proud of, and the members of the Assembly should feel proud of. Mr. Chair, if I could respond to that as well. So when we're talking about allocating resources in our budget, I think it is just from a number standpoint that we do spend eight to ten times more on illegal immigrant services. I think that's just a hard number, $4.2 billion comparative to $500 million. And to say that it's the responsibility of the federal administration to make sure that we're prioritizing our veterans but yet we can pay for the services of individuals from another country, I think is wrong. And I think that's something that a lot of people should realize. When I sponsored my own mother's immigration, I signed a form that said I will take care of her and she won't become a burden on this state. So if we can appropriate money, billions of dollars, to citizens from another country and we can't do that and say that we could do better for our veterans, I don't think that's an apple to oranges. I think it's an appropriation issue. Mr. Chair. Shalina Narali with the Department of Finance. I would just like to add a few points here that the agreement between the administration and the legislature does include resources for veterans. For example, the three-party agreement does include $6 million of general fund available for the county veteran services office, as my colleague from the legislature mentioned. Additionally, the agreement between the administration and the legislature also includes $7 million general fund for at-risk, excuse me, for the support to self-reliance for veterans programs, which supports at-risk or homeless veterans. So I would say that there was a concerted effort between the administration and the legislature to provide funding for veterans in this budget. Thank you. $6 million, comparative to about $4.2 billion. Thank you. I'm just going to step in here because I do also want to note that I've had an incredible number of conversations with members of the legislature about things that they want in the budget. I cannot recall a single conversation with a Republican colleague who came to me asking for more money for our veterans. So I find it incredibly rich that you are standing up in this moment, at the final moment, and saying we want more money for veterans, and yet you and I never had that conversation once. You are vice chair of the assembly budget committee. You had the opportunity to come at any moment over the past several months and make this point. And you're doing it now for political purposes, but never in that. But I will say, in contrast to that, we just heard from the Department of Finance about some of these investments. Those are investments that were made because of Assemblymember Lori Wilson, because of Assemblymember Polar Schiavo, because of members of the Democratic caucus who came to the Budget Committee and said, we understand that this is a federal responsibility, but we should be doing more to support our veterans. And the members of this committee said, of course, yes, and we fully funded those requests. So I just I want to take exception to the fact I understand you're trying to score a political point. But facts matter here. And the fact is, I don't believe that there was a single Republican caucus member that came to the budget committee and asked for additional money for veterans. And if you'd like to have that conversation next year, I'm sure I'm sure that we can partner in a bipartisan fashion because all of us here revere the work that our veterans have done in defending this nation. And Mr. Chair, and I do hear you on that. And what I will say is it actually was very surprising to me as I was really reading into this. And I would love to have that conversation with you more because often the minority party is actually not even conferred. We get a budget at 1150 p.m. on a Thursday with less than 72 hours, 48 hours to do it. So I would love to be in that room and I look forward to you actually opening the door for us. Thank you. I will say, Mr. Vice Chair, just so you know, I said yes to every single Republican member of the legislature that requested a meeting. And many of them came in and they advocated for their districts. They advocated for programs that they cared of. We had those conversations. We heard them out. And we have worked with people, irrespective of their party, because this this is not a budget that's about Democrats or Republicans. It's about the people, the state of California. And we have worked with them. And I think it is, to me, just amazing that on June 29th, one day before our deadline, the day before we have to pass our budget, that you're taking the opportunity for the first time to inform yourself about what's in that budget. That is not what I would expect from someone in your position. And I will say every single one of your Republican colleagues who has come in and asked for a meeting, we have had that meeting. We have given them the same amount of time and the same amount of energy that we have given to our Democratic colleagues because we believe that we should serve all communities across the state, red, blue, purple, everything in between. We wanted to we wanted to craft a budget that is rooted in serving the people of California. Dr. Jackson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Certainly robust conversations. And I think that overall, I think that when we look at the various budget years, that this budget year is going to be a consequential budget year. As we think about what is it going to take to make sure that people of California not just survive, but have an opportunity to thrive. This budget and the additional work we did in terms of the housing bond last week as well is something that I believe is rooted in making sure that Californians have the ability to thrive and we setting up future generations for success It a common practice in the social work field to understand and come from issues from an ecological approach And all that means is that we're all connected to multiple systems and multiple programs that are essential for human well-being. human flourishing. And the fact that by the time we adjourn, we are leaving with an opportunity for Californians to be able to make sure that we're building the whole multitude of different variations of housing that is going to be necessary, making sure that we are continuing historic investments and emergency food programs, even though we are battling an administration that is trying to stop us from feeding Californians. Not only that, we are setting up our young people for success. We're continuing our investments in our early childhood education programs. Not just those programs, but those who teach them in terms of robust amount of days to making sure that our professionals are getting the training that they need. We're making sure that we are holding the line on homelessness programs, including our seniors, making sure that we stop the spigot of seniors falling into homelessness, making sure that we're providing a place for our foster population as well. And we already talked about the huge work that Assemblymember Addis has done when it comes to health. When you look at the key things that are essential for human flourishing, this budget continues to make historic investments in those things and to set up the next generation for success. And I think it's also appropriate to note, you know, I've been irked by the press conferences that our Republican colleagues have had on in-home supportive services, yet they're going to be voting against the very budget to support those things. Like you, Mr. Chair, not one Republican has come to me about in-home supportive services, but I'm already seeing the press releases of them taking credit for saving in-home supportive services. They didn't do that. We did that. And so when you look at all the things that we are being criticized for, just like anything else, you've got to take the good with the bad. We're voting on the good stuff and we're voting on the not so good stuff, but they better be able to take care of the things that they're the good stuff they're voting down. Because at the end of the day, it affirms our commitment to those with intellectual developmental disabilities that they are no longer in the back of the line. They're in the front of the line. And this budget and the sustainability of this budget confirms that when it comes to our children, historic funding for education, continued expansion of child care to making sure that they have opportunities to be able to thrive for the future, making sure that we are doubling down on our housing production, making sure that we have robust emergency food programs. And not only that while the administration is cutting back not only is he eliminating over 700 people from being able to have food access but he also reducing another a couple other hundred thousand people that will have less food assistance as well. But guess what? We saw that. And so that's why there's 20 million for the food and veggie program to make sure that their CalFresh dollars are actually going further than they would have before. So at the end of the day, while Republicans continue to make sure California is going to fail, we have found the way to leverage our moral power, our fiscal power, to ensure that not only—no matter how hard they have tried, California is setting up Californians to be able to thrive, and we should be damn proud of that, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Chair, Mr. Sub Chair. Appreciate that, and thank you both for the incredibly compassionate and thoughtful way you've approached us, but also for reminding us always to keep an eye on the future, even as we are focused on what's in front of us. And your wisdom, your wisdom about acting surgically and thoughtfully has really informed and shaped this, so thank you. With that, I will go to Assemblymember Hart. Well, first I just want to thank the budget chair for his master class in response to the vice chair's critique about the structure of the budget and the tradeoffs and values. You described the process perfectly, and I have only seen you going the extra mile and trying to get input from every member of this legislature to help make this a better budget. But what really strikes me about the vice chair's comments is that apparently there's a basic misunderstanding about how health care works in California. You know, the premise that we have been going forward for more than a decade is that everybody in California that needs health care is going to get health care. It's going to either be in an emergency room, very expensively, in a crisis, or it's going to be in a managed, efficient, thoughtful medical setting that is more cost effective, provides better care, and is less expensive to all California residents. And the reason why we have been trying to make sure that every resident of California has access to health care is because it saves taxpayers money and because it makes the health care system better for everybody. And that's what we have accomplished in an incredible way. We have more than, I think, nearly 95% of all Californians are covered by health care insurance in one form or another. Now, it's one of the highest levels in the country. And in spite of the fact that the Trump administration has put an absolute target on that and said, we don't want that value. We want to unravel health care for people in the country. And we are responding to that and trying our best with limited resources to hang on to as much of that as we possibly can. We're being criticized for that. And I think this is so basic and fundamental to the disagreement in the country and in California about how we should govern people and how we should take care of them. And I proudly stand on the side that we ought to be smart and take advantage of the fiscal reality and the basic economics that providing health care to everybody benefits everybody. And I think this budget despite the fact that we are a net donor to the federal government to the tune of billion There are 11 states in the country whose entire state budget does not combined equal the billion that the state of California sends to the federal government that we do not get back in services. So we are paying for the country. We are the goose that laid the golden egg, and we are not getting back the money from the federal government that we deserve. And in fact, we are being targeted and attacked for the policy decision that we're making to try and provide health care to all Californians. It is more than ironic. It is pathetic and hypocritical and sad. And I am super proud of what the Assembly Health Committee and the budget sub chair has done to mitigate the damage that we're experiencing. And this budget is a reflection of that work and is probably the best example in the country of how state can step back against that threat and deliver for the residents of that state. Thank you very much, Asile Member. And also, I just want to, again, acknowledge you for your very able leadership of the Budget Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability. And I think you may have heard from our colleague of Ventura of some ideas for some upcoming hearings. But again, I mean, so much of what we have done in this budget, whether it has been HAP, whether it has been the initiative that we sent to the voters around Rainy Day Fund has been informed and strengthened by the work of your subcommittee. So thank you. Okay. Anybody else that want to speak for the first time before we go back on second times? Okay. Mr. Vice Chair. Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I did just want to ask a question to some of them in heart. You know, if it seems like I have a lack of general understanding when it comes to the budget and how health care works, let me ask this. In 2021-2022, the Medi-Cal appropriation from the general fund was about $108 billion in addition with the federal match funding. Today, it's about $229 billion. Can you answer me, as you said, that we were saving more money, how that actually reflects? So with apologies, we're not in the British Parliament, so we're not going to do the back and forth thing. And I want to maintain a level of decorum here in the committee, which I think is really important. So if you have a point that you'd like to make about health care, about spending, about cuts, about the budget, you're welcome to do so. But I think we need to try to do this in the way that we usually conduct committees here in the legislature. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do just want to refer as some of my comments were referred to as moronic and despaired. I just I believe I understand at least how math works. And so when we're trying to say that we're saving taxpayer money, it's reflected that we've increased in the Medi-Cal spending 100 percent in less than three years. And we have no idea where that's gotten better. So thank you. All right. Any other members of the committee that want to weigh in? I think there are none. I want to thank everybody for the robust conversation. I will take this moment, since we talked about the British Parliament, to segue to a thank you to a departing Assembly Budget Committee staffer, Christine Miyashiro, who is brilliant and talented and is leaving us to go to the London School of Economics. So before you leave, thank you, Christine, for all of your very, very hard work. And I neglected to mention them before, but I do want to thank Abram Diaz, my chief of staff, and Alicia Isaacs-Lee on my team, who have just done an incredible amount of work and also apologies to both of their spouses for all the 6 a.m. weekend Zooms, but they also have played a huge role in crafting this budget. And finally, just again, thank you to our partners at the administration. And if he's watching, I want to shout out Joe Steppenshaw, who has so ably serves the governor and the administration and along with Erica and Christine and all of the incredibly hardworking folks at the LAO. I do think for those, you know, for the one or two people that are watching at home, it is important to me to acknowledge the work of the staff because you do see the members up here. You do see the principals, but we are none of this would happen without a lot of really thoughtful and dedicated and talented public servants who have chosen to devote their careers to serving the state. And we do need to take a moment to acknowledge that because they are a huge, huge part of this process. So just again to the staff on all parts of this, thank you for for bringing us to this moment. But with that, I will just conclude by saying that we look forward to debating and voting on these bills in the assembly later today. You know, 19 or 20 votes. So everyone ice your fingers and get ready to get ready to push that green button. It's going to be a long floor session. But again, I just I can't thank the members of this committee enough, again, for for crafting a people centered budget and for bringing your communities. whether they have been small cities or big cities or our most rural communities into the conversation about how we serve the people of California. And with that, we will look forward to a conversation on the assembly floor, and we will turn it over to public comment. Oh, I know. Good morning, Sadavachas with Children. now, thank you so much for your leadership in taking a bold and long called for step forward towards a more effective, accountable and equitable education system for our students and their families. We support AB 181 and the investments in early learning, preschool shift, paid pregnancy leave, the creation of CalNAS, and the investments in educator workforce and higher education. Thank you. Mr. Chair, Chris McKaylee here on behalf of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan and Transportation Authority. We're hopeful come August for funding for our Olympic asks for the Olympics in 2028. LA Metro also strongly supports fully funding TIRCP and LCTOP. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Always good to see you, Mr. McKaylee. And you, Mr. Brendan Tuig on behalf of Ed Voice. We're in strong support of AB 181. It makes important changes to state education governance. It strengthens accountability. and also makes improvements in coordination and implementation, which we think will benefit students. And then on behalf of CAPCOA, I'd like to extend our appreciation for the AB 617 Community Air Protection funding, program funding. And again, appreciate members doing that, and it's going to make a big difference. Thank you. Johan Cardenas with the California Panac Neck Health Network. We would like to thank the legislative champions who stood with immigrant communities to protect health coverage, helping delay the elimination of full scope medical for humanitarian immigrants, the $2,000 asset limit test, the premium increases from $30 a month to $50 a month, and the elimination of dental coverage for UIS adults. And lastly, we appreciate the attention to the fee-for-service transition, the investments in navigators and community health workers, and the outreach and transparency requirements for H.R. 1 implementation. Thank you so much. Good morning, Allison Hilliard with the Climate Center, expressing support and gratitude for SB 168 that shifts the DEBA funding to the demand side grid support program on behalf of the Climate Center Environment California and Environmental Defense Fund Also the Climate Center is in support of the ZEB funding in that provision as well Thank you so much Michael Henning California Alliance of Child and Family Services We wanna thank you for restoring the funding to the Commission for Behavioral Health Innovation Partnership Fund and Behavioral Health Advocacy Contracts for providing 900 million for round seven of the HAP program for delaying harmful Medi-Cal cuts affecting our most vulnerable communities and for preserving the statewide Medi-Cal mobile crisis benefit. We look forward to continuing work with the legislature, the administration, and CDSS to identify long-term funding solution that preserves California's foster family agencies and the placement capacity they provide for more than 6,500 foster youth. They serve, ensuring these youth continue to receive the care, stability, and the support they need to survive. Thank you. Hello, Mark Martin representing the California State University. On behalf of the 470,000 students and 65,000 employees of the CSU, I want to thank the Newsom administration and the legislature for the strong support for CSU. I want to echo the chair's comments thanking the Department of Finance and Budget Committee staff for all their work. This level of funding will allow CSU to meet its mandatory costs and address priorities we all share around student access and affordability. Thank you. Thank you. And you have some fans in red, white and blue over there. Thank you, chair members. Andrew Shane on behalf of the County Welfare Directors Association. Standing in sincere gratitude to the assembly. Thank you for your moral leadership. Dr. Jackson, Chair Addis, Mr. Rogers, Dr. Chiavo, and I'm sorry, Dr. Collins and Ms. Chiavo and others. Too many to name. You heard from county directors. You heard from eligibility workers this year. And this budget reflects that these investments are going to save lives by helping people stay connected to vital food and health care. as well as the county match waiver and maintaining the existing Medi-Cal accountability structure, which are so existential. In addition, rejecting the cuts to IHSS, to APS, the investments in child welfare, the investments in the DSS housing and homelessness prevention programs, and more. We need to sustain these investments, and we look forward to working with you on that. Thank you. Good morning, Chair and members. Michelle Warshaw on behalf of the California Teachers Association. Thank you for your leadership in including important investments in education, such as fully paid pregnancy leave and the $2.4 billion in special education funding. We are still very concerned with the underfunding of $3.9 billion and the increased fiscal pressure created by adding non-LEA state agency, or I'm sorry, non-local educational agency state preschool into Prop 98. CTA is also opposed to AB 181, which strips the authority of the state superintendent and moves it to an appointed education commissioner. It's counterproductive. It has not improved student achievement or strengthened public education. It is also ill-timed and unfair. It has not gone through full policy hearings, as was the expectation, and the public has a right to weigh in, and we urge your no vote. Thank you. Good morning, Chair. Dagny Starn on behalf of the Environmental Defense Fund, who appreciates the governor and the legislature's ongoing support for the EV industry that moves California forward towards a cleaner, healthier energy future. SB AB 168 strengthens the state's leadership by expanding access to zero emission vehicles and ensuring that first-time EV buyers can benefit from affordable point-of-sale incentives. Thank you. Christine Smith, Health Access California. We appreciate the legislature and the governor delaying the worst of the cuts for California's immigrants and for ensuring that humanitarian populations will receive full skip Medi through this budget year We will keep up the work to fully restore all the cuts that have been made and get California back to a place that truly provides health for all As one of the leaders of the Fight for a Health Coalition, we thank Governor Newsom and the legislature for reaching a final budget agreement that advances a fair share contribution to hold the largest corporations responsible for contributing to Medi-Cal when they push their workforce onto the safety net. Thank you to all the legislators and the governor for their hard work in delivering a budget this year that prevents harmful cuts, keeps California's covered, and maintains vital access to life-saving care for this budget year. Thank you. Thank you, Chair, Committee members and staff. Ryan Moore, you know, with the California State Association of Counties. We appreciate the budget deal maintains key legislative budget agreements, including HAP at $900 million, VOCA at $50 million, and then also the rejection of IHSS cost shifts. For H.R. 1, we're grateful for the recognition of the severe safety net cuts with the inclusion of funding Medi-Cal and CalFresh County eligibility in public hospitals. However, the budget does not provide funding to address the many Californians who will still lose Medi-Cal under H.R. 1. Without funding an alternative to indigent care, counties will be forced to cut core services as county indigent care is underfunded to meet this increased demand. As for Proposition 36, we appreciate the legislature for the implementation funding. However, the one-time allocation is simply not enough to meet the expectation of voters in all 58 counties. And then lastly, CSEC is grateful for the funding to help administer the November 2026 election. Look forward to working with the administration on expediting those allocations. Thank you. Good afternoon chair and members Jessica Hay with AFSCME California. We echo the comments that our colleagues from UDW will be making shortly. We echo the comments that our colleagues at CTA made regarding Prop 98 and education funding. We echo the comments of our colleagues from Health Access. We appreciate the funding of 80 million for the VLF but are disappointed that there's no ability to backfill the total amount needed for the counties who count on this funding. We look forward to working with the legislature on a solution to this important funding source for our counties. Regarding CDCR, we need assurances from the agency that it is prioritizing hiring vacant positions for civil service employees and finding ways to reduce their reliance on outsourcing this work to expensive contractors. We look forward to continued conversations with the inspector general's office, the legislature and the governor on this issue. We appreciate the suspension of the penalties for not maintaining the prescribed ratio for fair revenues to operating costs on transit operators. Lastly, we want to emphasize the importance of finding long-term revenue solutions that ensure corporations pay their fair share. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair members. Michelle Gibbons with CHIAC, representing local health departments, wanted to express our appreciation for the inclusion of public health information technology systems and also our disease intervention specialist workforce. Have to express our disappointment, however, with the lack of funding to address indigent care, whether that be funding directly to counties or the alternative that we put forward, which was more cost effective and it was a solution that would retain eligibility into emergency only Medi-Cal. The reality is that counties are going to see a returning population and we have less resources today to serve them. A lot of our dollars get redirected and our revenue source has been slowed. So we respectfully request that we have continued engagement and we revisit this issue at the earliest time so that we could find a viable solution for counties. Thank you. Good afternoon Jennifer Snyder on behalf of the California Association of Health Facilities I wanted to comment on AB 165 which extends the current skilled nursing facility reimbursement rate system for one year While the association understands and supports the need to pass the trailer bill prior to the sunset at the end of this year we very disappointed that the administration chose not to include the workforce and quality incentive program in the rate extension. The WQIP is an essential component of the Medi-Cal rate for skilled nursing facilities as it has a significant impact on the workforce stability and patient access to quality care. We appreciated the subcommittee's efforts to try to bridge some solution this year in the current budget year and really do hope can continue to work with the legislature to find a permanent funding solution in 2027. Thank you. Kelly Brooks here on behalf of several clients. First, on behalf of the California Association of Public Hospitals, the urban counties of California, the county boards of supervisors of Santa Clara, Riverside, Ventura, Los Angeles, and University of California Health, thank you for the inclusion of $250 million for public hospitals to help provide a down payment on the $3 billion in impacts that we anticipate from HR1. Second, on behalf of the urban counties of California, the rural county representatives of California, the boards of supervisors of Santa Clara, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Riverside, Ventura, Alpine, Plumas, and Calusa, thank you for your work on HR1 mitigation, especially around CalFresh and Medi-Cal eligibility. We also are very appreciative of the rejection of the IHSS and APS cuts. And finally, would align ourselves with CHIAC's comments. We're concerned about the lack of inclusion of funding for indigent care and look forward to discussions about that in the coming weeks. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair, members. Andrea Ball here today on behalf of the Orange County Department of Education. First, thank you for all the work during this difficult budget year in putting together the education package, especially. I'm here on behalf of the department and really a coalition of local educational agencies that submitted a letter in support of funding for the California multi-tiered system of support. There was a $50 million proposal in the May revision. It was approved by the Assembly and the Senate. Unfortunately, there's no funding in AB 126. We'd welcome the opportunity to work with the legislature and the administration to ensure this structure is not dismantled. It's really the infrastructure that helps all the other programs you've invested in this year, including the community schools, $1 billion ongoing, be successfully implemented and really benefit students. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Beth Malnowski of the SEO California. I want to appreciate the tremendous work that's gotten us to this point, particularly when I think the Assembly's leadership on revenue to address the structural deficit with minimal cuts and a clear pathway forward for corporate fair share revenue for Medi-Cal to further protect the programs against these H.R.1 cuts. I want to align with CWDA on their comments regarding county eligibility, IHSS, and asset test. Grateful for all of the work there. Also want to express interest in future conversations, see more we can be doing to stop individuals from falling off of SNAP benefits as a result of H.R.1 cuts. Additionally, grateful for the dedicated public hospital funding and public health IT funding. And for all that we got right, I do want you to acknowledge two areas where we look forward to future conversations. One, as my colleagues at CHIAC referenced, the need for funding for indigent care, all indigent care alternatives. And additionally, additional conversations around what you're doing for a SNF workforce. Again, disappointment not to see the WQIB continue for one year. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Dan Merwin on behalf of the California School Boards Association. There's a lot to like in this budget that we are very appreciative of. However, we are still disappointed in the treatment of Prop 98. First, the withholding of $3.9 billion. As Dr. Patel raised, that's a significant issue. Also, the CSPP shift, particularly because we anticipate that's going to grow higher than the rebench. So in the future, we're going to be crowding out other classroom resources. Finally, on the pregnancy leave proposal. We're supportive of the overall intent, but believe that really needs a robust reimbursement mechanism. If you're an ELOP or employed by nutrition funds, any kind of categorical, or if you're a small district, you won't receive enough from the increased COLA to cover those costs. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair members. Whitney Francis with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. We appreciate that the budget includes progressive revenue solutions, which delay and mitigate some of the most severe cuts, including Medi-Cal asset tests, dental, and IHSS. We look forward to critical steps to advance the fair share of revenues to not just delay but reject future Medi-Cal cuts including those targeted at immigrants. Finally, we appreciate the investments to support food banks but are very disappointed that the $5 million to set up CFAP plus food assistance for people getting cut off from CalFresh was removed from the final budget. We look forward to engaging with you all on the continued work ahead to mitigate the coverage losses from HR1 implementation and Medi-Cal and SNAP. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Yasmin Pellet on behalf of Justice and Aging. Appreciate all the work on the Medi-Cal asset limit and rejecting that $2,000 limit, and we look forward to continuing to work with the legislature next year to further reform this inequitable policy. We're also very pleased that the final budget agreement rejects all cuts to APS and IHSS, as well as delaying the most harmful cuts to California's immigrant communities. I want to specifically call out an appreciation for the new investment in HomeSafe and HDAP, which are the two most successful programs at preventing older adult homelessness. And then finally, while the Be Home Soon California proposal was not included in the final agreement, I want to appreciate that the Assembly and Senate came to agreement on this proposal and look forward to continuing to work with the legislature next year on how we can invest in our home and community-based services system. Thank you. Mr. Chair and members, Mandy Isaacsley here on behalf of the California Primary Care Association. Just wanted to express our appreciation to you and this body and your staff for the work in preserving the state's safety net, and specifically our health centers and the patients that we serve, all of the patients. Specifically, I wanted to thank you for delaying the PPS cut to the UIS population for one year, funding gender-affirming care and funding clinic navigators, which will be really critical given all the changes in health care prompted by H.R. 1. And then separately, on behalf of the AAPI Equity Alliance, wanted to express our thanks for reauthorizing Stop the Hate funding. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair and committee. My name is Katie Andrew. I'm with the local health plans of California. Preserving health coverage is a primary policy objective we all share, and we appreciate your efforts to do just that this year with this budget. We are still disappointed to see the final decision to move forward with the transition of UIS Medi-Cal members to fee-for-service instead of preserving their access to care through managed care. However, we do appreciate the legislature providing funding in the budget to support the transition, specifically the funding for care coordination. We urge your leadership in assuring that the $31 million the budget dedicates for care coordination activities be utilized to provide the same supports through the Medi-Cal managed care plans who currently provide care coordination to this population. We respectfully ask for the legislature's help in urging the department to work closely with LHPC and the Medi-Cal managed care plans on preparing for implementation of care coordination activities following the transition of UIS members in January Thank you very much Hello good day Nina Wilo ARP California Again, thanks to everyone who worked so hard on this budget. We are so appreciative of the rejection of the cut to Adult Protective Services and CalPACE. I also appreciate that the reduction of the Medi-Cal acid test to such an unrealistically low level was rejected as the legislature is exploring alternatives in the future in terms of the asset limit so that we can ensure some kind of regularity. And we also ensure that people do not lose their Medi-Cal in the future because of reductions in the asset test that perhaps an exploration of increasing the asset test by using the inflation rate might be a way to avoid that issue while not putting too much burden on the state. Thank you. Good afternoon. Californians living with sickle cell, also known as sickle cell warriors, deserve quality care and dignity, yet their disease and needs have never been equitably treated. The California budget you all are finalizing right now supports many great and necessary programs. Unfortunately, there is no funding dedicated to sustaining no-cost emergency transportation, mental health professionals, medical equipment, and site-of-care patient advocacy for warriors. To save and prolong lives, these survival services must be made available outside of clinic hours and beyond hospital walls. The federal government just stopped funding a 60-year-old sickle cell program, and health care plans are not paying for these critical services. California can and should prevent avoidable pain, crisis, emergency visits, and care denial. Please commit to joining Senator Perez and pushing for investment in survival services for warriors. My name is Carmen Nicole Cox. My client is Cayenne Wellness Center. It is a statewide organization, warrior-led, warrior-serving for the last 20 years. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Allison Ramey on behalf of Ultimate Health Services. I'll align my comments with that of CPCA that went before me, but specifically want to call out another sincere thank you to many in this room for holding the line and delaying the PPS cuts and the cuts to pace. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Courtney Padilla with United Domestic Workers. We appreciate the allocation for child care providers affected by wildfires, and we will work with the department to ensure prompt fund disbursement, recognizing providers' ongoing recovery efforts. The additional child care slots offer meaningful support to the families providers served daily. We acknowledge a 2.01% increase in provider pay, but further immediate and long-term progress is needed, especially given the new requirements in this budget. We will continue to advocate for greater financial support, and it remains essential to adopt the true cost of care. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Gabriela Chavez with United Domestic Workers, representing more than 250,000 child care providers and home care workers. We want to thank you, the speaker, budget leaders, and the administration, for working together to reject all cuts to IHSS and for strengthening the medical asset tests. We appreciate your commitment with protecting seniors, people with disabilities, and home care workers. We also appreciate the funding for your support on the adult learning demonstration projects. We look forward to continuing with you on long-term revenue solutions that ensure corporations pay the fair share and preserve the programs that strengthen California Thank you Good afternoon Chair and members Josh Wright with the California Association of Food Banks We are so grateful to the Assembly for the vital investments in food assistance and response to HR1 in this budget, including the increased funding for CalFood and the LFPA to help our food banks meet this moment of increased need, as well as funding the CalFresh Outreach Program and the county workforce to keep as many people on CalFresh as possible. We continue to be hopeful for a trailer bill for the automation to expand the CFAP program to include all Californians who were cut off from CalFresh due to HR1. Thank you so much. Afternoon. EJ Aguayo on behalf of the California PACE Association, more commonly known as CalPACE. So very happy to see and want to thank this body and the powers that be for maintaining the rejection on the initially proposed PACE rate cut. but also for the increased funding for additional level of care nurses. So obviously critical and pace organizations, being able to bring in medically frail adults 55 and older across California, a key to determining their eligibility. Would be remiss not to thank Assemblymember Solache, especially for that. Separately, on behalf of Visión y Compromiso for additional funding for Promotoras. Thank you. Good afternoon, Andrew Martinez Community College League of California. On behalf of our colleges, we want to thank the final agreement on the budget that supports our students, especially appreciative of the investments in enrollment and student equity achievement program. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Melissa Bartow on behalf of EdTrustWest. In strong support of Assembly Bill 181 to modernize California's public education governance system. measure that will strengthen the state's capacity to provide high quality support to schools towards the goal of improving outcomes for students and families. Appreciate the legislature and the administration's leadership on this measure. Also want to express appreciation for strong investments in schools and community colleges including community schools, college and career access pathways, and new proposed investments in strengthening pathways into the educator workforce. Thank you and thank you to staff working on these issues as well. Good afternoon. Carol Gonzalez with Latina Advocates here on behalf of a few clients to share appreciation and thank you. On behalf of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, Hope, we really just want to say thank you so much for all your leadership and thank you to budget staff, the administration for the funding to support their programming and for the funding for SEED, especially during the difficult conversations. On the education side, we also want to extend our appreciation for the dual enrollment trailer bill language. It includes key policies that HOPE has been advocating for for a few years, and also appreciate the Cal Grant age increase, funding for bilingual educators, and want to echo the Healthcare for All comments made before me. On behalf of Long Beach City College and Gabilan College, we align our comments with Andy, who spoke before me. On behalf of the Cal State Student Association, we want to share our appreciation for fully funding the compact and increasing the Cal Grant age and the middle class funds, all very critical to support our students. Thank you. Hello, Ana y Matias Santiago with Latina Advocates. On behalf of Inclusive Action for the City, along with our Economic Mobility for All Coalition, we'd like to share appreciation for the social entrepreneurs for economic development seed funding. We like to thank our champions Assemblymember Carrillo and Senator Becker the budget staff and leadership for this investment and the continuation of the governor investment in our community Also on behalf of our partners the Central American Research Center Carecen we like to share our great appreciation for the increasing in funding for immigration legal services and would like to uplift health care for all coalition comments. Thank you. Good afternoon. Krista Ramos with the California Immigrant Policy Center. We'd like to thank the legislator and the governor for the $100 million additional investments for immigration legal services. These funds are essential in protecting our immigrant families and communities. We also want to thank you for maintaining the planned automation for the CFAP expansion for 55-plus individuals, regardless of immigration status. However, we are disappointed to see the $5 million for the automation of CFAP Plus proposal was not included. We cannot leave our most vulnerable communities without food access and we look forward to continuing to work with you all on this important issue. Thank you. Good afternoon, Sarah Petrowski on behalf of the California Association of School Business Officials, also on behalf of my colleagues at the Association of California School Administrators and County Superintendents. I'm here today to both thank you for your work on the budget, but also to note our strong support for AB 181. We think this is a long overdue step in improving the coherence and alignment of our TK-12 governance system in California to allow schools to better support students and positive student outcomes. Thank you. Chair and members, Edgar Guetta with SEIU California. On the topic of child care, I just want to align my comments with my colleague at UDW, and thank you for prioritizing child care in this budget. There are many other child care-related trailer bills, some of which we are happy to see, and others that we are hoping to have further conversations about and hope there might be room for August cleanup. A letter from us will come in soon on that. On the topic of TK-14, we hope we can continue conversations this summer about Summer Bridge funding to prevent classified workers from losing ground during summer months. Thank you. Hello. Thank you, Chair and members. My name is Sam Wilkinson with In Child Poverty in California. We'd like to align our comments with health access, SEIU, and the Western Center on Law and Poverty in terms of health care coverage for all Californians, regardless of their immigration status, and echo their deep appreciation for the progress this budget makes to adopt revenue solutions that ensure the state's wealthiest corporations pay their fair share. We are deeply grateful to see investments to move closer to delivering the total number of child care slots that the state has promised, but are deeply disappointed to see the state deny child care providers who are predominantly women of color a full cost of living adjustment. We are also disappointed this budget fails to include a care fund, a community driven solution developed directly by those most impacted by the Eden fire. Altadena residents will continue to fight for grants, not just loans, to ensure that homeowners can rebuild their homes and renters can return to the community. Thank you very much. Yesenia Rabancho with End Child Poverty in California. We are deeply disappointed that this budget fails to include a solution for households being kicked off of CalFresh due to HR1. Our children and families will go hungry, and if the state does not act this budget year, we will continue to fight into August to ensure no child goes hungry in the fourth largest economy in the world. And on behalf of End Child Poverty California, Liberation in Generation, and EPIC, we thank Thank you for renaming Trump accounts as FiveThirtyA accounts. California is an actual real leader in investing in children's economic futures through innovative wealth-building programs, such as HOPE accounts and CalKids. With these amendments, we ensure there are real protections adopted for low-income And the name of a public program is not merely symbolic. It tells you whether you feel welcomed and accepted by participating in a program. So thank you. Adam Dorsey, California Hospital Association. I want to thank all of the administration staff and the legislature for all of the work that goes into these budget agreements. And we want to thank you for the lifeline to public and distressed hospitals. Thank you. Good afternoon, Ronald Coleman Baeza here on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, CHIRLA. We very much thank the legislature and the governor for leaning into California's longstanding values and having strong investments for immigrant communities. We thank you for the robust investment in legal services, particularly the One California program, and for acknowledgment and resources to CHIRLA's program on removal defense. Additionally, thank you for refunding the Enhanced Services for Asylees and Vulnerable Noncitizens program. This will go a long way to support those who have been granted asylum, those who have been a victim of a crime, or those who have experienced human trafficking. It will support making sure that these individuals settle and thrive and get their basic needs met. Thank you very much to Assemblymember Solace for championing that issue. Finally, especially special thanks to the legislature for holding the line and advancing AB 169. Before there were guardrails in place, we very much thank the legislature for ensuring that there are guardrails. We are disappointed that Social Security numbers will continue to be shared, but we appreciate that there will be a monitoring plan, a stakeholder process in place, and also enforcement and an audit. We do think that the audit should probably happen earlier, so we would encourage the legislature to use their audit authority as needed. There's definitely going to be more work to do to make sure that we do protect the information from Californians in the driver's license database system, and we look forward to working with the legislature on on future vehicles on that effort. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair members. Chloe Amosillo with the California Immigrant Policy Center. As co-leads of the Health for All Coalition, want to align our comments with our partners at Health Access regarding the delays to Medi-Cal. Thank you for holding the line for our immigrant communities, including the nearly 200,000 Californians who are newly excluded from full scope as a result of H.R.1. We're looking forward to working together next year to move back towards a place that truly provides health care for all. Want to also express our appreciation for the reinvestment in seed funding that will be invaluable for immigrant entrepreneurs amid ongoing attacks to their access to capital. Finally, want to echo the comments made by our partners at Shirlah regarding the guardrails for the state-to-state contract with AAMVA. Though we remain concerned about sharing sensitive information with out-of-state entities for AP60 license holders, we are appreciative of the considerations already taken to ensure accountability and oversight within this contract. Thank you. Chair and members of the committee, Brandon Garcia on behalf of Advanced Energy United. Here to express support on two items. First is the language in AB 168 to allow the DEVA funds to be used for the demand side grid support program. We think this funding is coming at a critical time to prevent the disenrollment of hundreds of megawatts in a very successful program and ahead of an uncertain summer and further reliability issues We also want to express support for AB 111 has million for geothermal exploratory wells. We think this is a really good way to not only find additional reliability energy that we can find here in California, but also a good way to prepare our economy for coming loads in the future. Thank you. Ryan Spencer on behalf of the American College of OBGYN, strategic nine, and the California Medical Association. Just a quick comment on the health budget trailer bill, AB 164, specifically the provisions pertaining to menopausal care and coverage. ACOG, the family physicians, and CMA provided amendments that we believe would approve upon portions of the bill. Unfortunately, they were not accepted in the current version, but we do hope that they will be considered in any future legislation pertaining to the trailer bill or any other bill. Thank you for your time. Hello, Ada Welder with Earthjustice here in deep gratitude for the support of the HBIT funding, investing not only in electric trucks and buses, but investing in our lungs and our economies and the green tech jobs that we have in the state. Thank you so much. Tiffany Mock on behalf of CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals. First, the thank yous. Thank you for the $2.4 billion for special education. Thank you for the augmented COLA. Thank you for the paid pregnancy leave. As for concerns, we hope to find a solution for community college districts to fund part-time office hours as they face a 79% decrease in funding this fiscal year. Additionally, we wanted to go back and thank you for the flexibility for part-time health care program that allows for dental and vision coverage. Additionally, we remain concerned about the $3.9 billion in withholding of Proposition 98, And we also oppose AB 181, the proposal to strip the authority of the state superintendent and instead move oversight to the Department of Education. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. I'm Zena Yaya with ACLU CalAction. We wanted to start by thanking the legislature for ensuring additional safeguards regarding the REAL ID implementation process with AMVA. But we also wanted to make sure that we highlighted our ongoing privacy concerns. Ultimately, the use of Social Security numbers and its potential impact on undocumented immigrants remains problematic. And we hope to work with the legislature in the coming months and in the future on hopefully legislation to address some of these outstanding issues. Thank you. Good afternoon, chair members. Monica Madreda with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. Chudla. We'd like to thank the legislature and the governor for investments in California's immigrant communities included in this year's budget, including funding for High School Dream Resource Centers championed by Assemblymember Robert Garcia and the new Immigrant Welcome Center championed by Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez and for delaying the proposed cuts affected by affecting H populations access to Medi We also want to note that CHIRLA aligns our comments with the Health for All Coalition California Immigrant Policy Center, and Health Access regarding Medi-Cal, and with the California Immigrant Policy Center regarding continued access to the CFAP program. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and members. Kat Brackman with the California School Employees Association. I would like to echo the comments of my colleague at CFT regarding the Proposition 98 withholding, the Super Cola, paid pregnancy leave, and special education funding. I'm also here in opposition to AB 181, which subverts the will of California voters and removes a vital check in statewide education governance. On three separate occasions, California voters have rejected proposals to reduce the power of the SPI, and on two occasions, one as recently as 2023, ACAs to reduce the power of the SPI have failed. Eliminating the core duties of the SPI removes the essential checks and balances intended to ensure that our schools are governed by the public interests, not a single officeholder's political agenda. Thank you. Good afternoon again, Chair and members. My name is Atalia Correo-Eres. I'm with the UC Student Association and the outgoing Disability Justice Officer, and today We'd just like to thank the legislature for including our request for one-time emergency appropriation for $20 million to address student basic needs, housing, case management, and disability services. As the UC's $8 million in disability service funding sunsets its upcoming academic year, this funding is so critical for thousands of students across the UC system who, without adequate disabled student services, will face even greater barriers to receiving a fair education in our universities. Your support directly changes the lives of students like myself to ensure that we can succeed and when our learning is accommodated, we have the support we need. Thank you so much. Hi, my name is Veda Diptaman, and I am with the University of California Student Association, as well as the Associated Students of UC Davis' Disability Justice Committee. So I'm going to be echoing a little bit off of what Natalia said. UCSA represents over 237,000 students. And regarding this specific bill, disability and basic needs services have faced significant underfunding across every single UC, resulting in students like myself struggling to get through our education due to lack of accessibility. I have personally faced barriers to succeeding in my education, and it's not just me. In UC Davis' accommodated exam center in a non-midterm week, they have received over 500 students a day on average, and this is not something they are monetarily equipped to handle in the long term. UCSA is deeply grateful to Senator Cabaldon, Pro Tem Limon and every legislature involved in the affordable housing bond And we thank the budget committees for fully funding the UC Compact to protect all students including those of us with disabilities We urge the legislature to ensure further compact agreements have student equity and attainment measures for UCs as the demand for these vital services grows. Thank you. Thank you. I'll be quick, our role chair and committee members, Nicolo DeLuca, two thank yous, one from Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee for the HAP funding and the trailer bill language, the second from the California Acupuncture Coalition for rejecting the medical cuts. Thank you very much. I'll be quick as well, Raymond Contreras with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of FOLWELL. the legislature for the prioritizing of the cow fresh fruit and vegetable ebt program that will help protect the most vulnerable communities and support our farmers thank you hello uh charles contrabecki on behalf of the california solar and storage association a part of a large coalition of environmental organizations and clean energy businesses that support the cec's demand slide grid support program we appreciate the legislature's transferring funds to DSGS from the distributed electricity backup ASICS program for use this summer. This is an important step so DSGS can grow enrollments in the hottest summer months and help avoid blackouts if there's an extreme heat event. Thank you for including this fund transfer in the June budget package. Hi, Brianna Pittman-Spencer with the California Dental Association. I just really want to thank the legislature, the assembly, and Sub 1 for really prioritizing dental cuts, protecting Medi-Cal Dental by delaying all of the cuts for one year, bringing the rates back to where they were in the early 1990s would really devastate the provider network and access to care. So really appreciate this. And while we have that 12, another 12-month delay, would just really encourage us to pursue stability in an ongoing way so that people can continue to find a dentist when they need one. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. I believe with that, we have exhausted public comments. So let me again thank everybody who made this hearing possible. Thank you again to our partners at the administration, to the wonderful folks at the LAO, to our hardworking staff. We look forward to debating and passing these bills later today on the assembly floor. And with that, this hearing is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.