Senate Standing Committee on Rules

You.

Okay. I'm going to call the Senate Committee on Rules to order. Good afternoon, everyone. The Senate continues to welcome the public in person and still via the teleconference service. We're holding our committee hearing in the O Street Building in room 2200 for individuals wishing to provide public comment via the teleconference service. The participant toll free number and access code are posted on our committee website and it will be displayed on the screen as it is now and a couple of times throughout the hearing. Today's participant number is 877-26-8163 and the access code is 694-8930. Also, on behalf of our court reporter Ina, I would ask all speakers, colleagues and witnesses alike to speak slowly and clearly, particularly on the teleconference line. And we would appreciate that. Before we begin today's agenda, we need to establish a quorum. And as a reminder to my colleagues, you'll need to turn your microphone on.

For the roll call. And every time that we vote and. You speak, Secretary, please call the rolled.

Laird, Laird Here. Ochoa Bog, Ochoa bog here. Smallwood-Cuevas, Smallwood-Cuevas here. Grove atkins here. Atkins here.

And our vice chair is here. As you know, we have many committees going on. People are coming from committees and going to committees, and two of my colleagues here sit on health at the same time we are here. So if you see people coming and going, it really is because they're multitasking. And we want to get as much done as efficiently as we can, because I understand the Labor Committee has to come back after we are done and continue their hearings. So we will be efficient and as good as we can, and particularly to our conferees who are here today. I'm going to go ahead and I know we'll have to leave the role.

Open for the vice chair for her.

To vote, but I'm going to go ahead and dispense with some business if I can. I would take a motion on item two, which is Governor's appointees not required to appear. We have C and D. That would be an appointment for the Division of Boating and Waterways and an appointment to the Central Valley Flood Protection Board. For the benefit of my vice chair, I will say we are getting ready to vote on item two. Governor's appointees not required to appear. C and D. Do I need to split either of those?

No, ma'am.

Okay, I will take a motion.

I would move items to C and. D.

Thank you so much, Senator Laird. Madam Secretary, will you call the role?

Laird, Laird Aye. Ochoa Bog, Ochoa bog Aye. Smallwood-Quavas, Smallwood-Quavas aye. Grove, Grove Aye. Atkins, Atkins Aye.

So I would entertain a motion on item three, bill referrals.

So move.

Thank you, senator Laird.

Call the roll.

Laird, Laird Aye. Ochoa Bog, Ochoa bog Aye. Smallwood-Quavas, Smallwood-Quavas aye. Grove, Grove Aye. Atkins, Atkins Aye.

Five to zero. Thank you, Madam Secretary. I'm going a little too fast. Select Committee appointments, item number four. That would be a request by Senator Weiner to add members to his select committee I would ask for. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Call the role.

Laird, Laird Aye. Ochoa Bog, Ochoa bog Aye. Smallwood-Quavas, Smallwood-Quavas aye. Grove, Grove Aye. Atkins, Atkins Aye.

Five to zero. Five to zero. Thank you. And lastly, Floor Acknowledgments We have items five through twelve. Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Madam Secretary. Call the roll.

Laird, Laird Aye. Ochoa Bog, Ochoa bog Aye. Smallwood-Quavas, Smallwood-Quavas aye. Grove, Grove Aye. Atkins, Atkins Aye. Five to zero.

Five to zero. Thank you. And Madam Vice Chair, I already told the members of the public people will be coming and going there's multiple committees and labor will come back into this committee when we're done. So obviously, it's a busy day. Next, I want to take up item oops, wrong page. We'll return now to governor's appointees required to appear. And we're going to start with item one A, and that is the appointment of Anthony Tavares as Director of the Department of Transportation. Come on forward. And as you are coming forward to be seated, I would invite you to make any opening comments, acknowledge anyone, thank anyone that you would like. We particularly like it when you thank family members and then opening comments, and then we'll go right to questions and comments from the committee members. Thank you so much for your patience.

Thank you very much. Madam Chair, senators, thank you for considering the confirmation of my appointment as Director of Caltrans. I'm truly honored and humbled to be here before you. I'd also like to express my sincere gratitude to my wife Olivia and my daughter Gabriella, who are here with me today for always providing their unwavering support. I've been a proud Caltrans employee for almost three decades now, serving multiple leadership roles in many different parts of the States. And I'd like to just take a moment to acknowledge the tremendous efforts by our Caltrans maintenance crews and contracting industry partners who have been addressing the relentless winter storms and the potential impending aftermath of snow melts.

Our crews continue answering the call by working around the clock to keep highways open and safe and to assist local agencies and communities to recover from the storms. I salute them, and I'm extremely proud of everything that they're doing. The challenges of these unprecedented and exciting times demand creativity, collaboration, and this requires us to learn both from our own experiences and from the best practices implemented here in California and around the world. Our vision is to build a brighter future for all through a world class transportation network.

And we need a transportation network that works for every Californian on every trip. And I am committed to build that network. To achieve this, I am fostering a people focused, people first culture to help make California for all a reality. And I've also laid out four foundational principles of safety equity, climate action and economic prosperity. And with safety, it's always our top priority in everything we do and will continue to be. So equity requires connecting our hearts and our minds for our projects, our policies and contracts and services. And climate action requires reducing greenhouse gas emissions and providing historic investments in infrastructure resiliency.

Economic prosperity requires providing high road jobs through projects and contracts, particularly for those left behind by our economy. And achieving all these priorities depends so much on the historic investments of Senate Bill One of 2017, the Federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the General Fund Appropriations. Caltrans is committed to putting these historic transportation investments to work to rebuild California, to meet the Fixit first targets set by SB One and to achieve our people first vision. In this work, I find it vital to engage our partners across the state and here in California, in the California state legislature. Increasing this engagement as director is a particular goal of mine and an opportunity of a lifetime. Madam Chair, Senators, thank you again for your time and consideration and I'm happy to answer any of your questions.

Thank you so much. Let me welcome Olivia and Gabriella. It's great that you were able to be here today. I'm going to go ahead and start senator Laird, do you want to kick us off?

Thank you very much and appreciated the chance to meet with you. And in talking about a road project that just had these embedded supporters in Caltrans, I discovered that he is a graduate of Pacific Grove High School and therefore the mascot are the breakers. So he is a breaker. I was glad to find that out. And it's unique. It's not an electric switch. It's about the waves that are for the record.

And I thought it would be good to sort of continue the conversation we had about two different things. And one is, is exactly the culture in Caltrans. And the thing that brought that story up was that there had been a freeway project that people had been trying to build for 25 or 30 years. And once the public moved on and there was this solution to resolve it without building the freeway, the staff at Caltrans never quite moved on and there have been these cultural issues. Now you're on the top of the heap. How do you deal with continuing the work on the culture at Caltrans to sort of make it more agile and more in tune with your leadership and the goals that you just outlined?

I appreciate that question, Senator Laird, thank you. We continue to work on that on a day by day basis. But I will say that Caltrans has made a pivotal change over the last several years, a change that's been a paradigm change in the way that we're looking at transportation projects. We've advanced from just being a car centric organization to really being a true transportation agency that looks at multimodal transportation options. My goal is to provide choices to people, whether that's walking, biking, rolling, taking transit, commuter rail, or driving. I want to provide choices. I want to give people those opportunities to make choices. Going forward.

We continue to develop trainings. I meet with my executive team, continue to have an executive team that is very much in alignment with my vision of Caltrans, where I want to take Caltrans. And on top of that, I was part of the development of our strategic plan, which has these new goals and vision going forward. So it's a continual process. We're a very large organization, 22,000 person organization, but continuing to talk and explain the benefits of why we are transitioning, why we are shifting, why are we becoming more of a multimodal transportation agency?

And then a quick follow up before I get to the other one. And that is, historically, and we talked about this historically, you almost had to be an engineer to be a regional director of Caltrans. And then in our region, there was that time that a landscape architect was appointed who rode his bicycle to the office, and he was just much better at conflict resolution. Do you believe in sort of promotional opportunities for everybody? And I'm looking at the person that represents the professional and engineers who's agape in the crowd right now. He's completely agape. He can't hide his expression. He and I are clearly going to have a conversation he's going to initiate later.

Thank you for that follow up. I believe finding the right leader is the most appropriate way to put these individuals into these leadership roles. That leader could be a planner. That leader could be a landscape architect as our friend, or could be an engineer or another classification. I'm proud to say our two largest districts district Four the Bay Area and District Seven los Angeles. I have personally promoted two women to those positions, one in the Bay Area and one in Los Angeles. And I'm very proud. And they're both women of color, and so I'm very proud of that accomplishment. The woman in Los Angeles, she's not an engineer, but she's a phenomenal leader, and that's why I put her in that role. And I also have planners and other classifications as district directors around the state and other roles as well.

And that was very diplomatic because you implied all engineers are phenomenal leaders. And I think that was a move for the previous conversation. Then the other thing I wanted to ask you about is sort of rebuilding for resiliency, and you referred to the storms, and you referred to climate change. And in our conversation, and I'm just coming from the public works director of San Luis Obispo County, and I was telling them that we were going into this hearing and that I'd had a conversation with you about the bridges, the Caltran bridges that led to flooding in the northern part of the district because they hadn't been raised.

Municipal bridges had been, but they hadn't, and it led to push back into neighborhoods. And he said, oh, well, that's the problem we have in a royal grandy. And yet right now, if you were to lift a bridge to deal with this, it competes in the funding against a widening project, or how are you going to, over time, have incentives for locals to sort of build for resiliency in a way that they're not having to choose between the capacity or the other improvement issues and that resilience?

Yeah, great question as well. I would say as we move along through the project delivery, delivery of projects, we will be including resiliency into those projects. We're already including them in some cases, but raising a bridge is a different scenario. We are doing studies right now and identifying those locations that can be impacted by sea level rise and how do we address those areas? As well as wildfires, there are areas in our rural areas and mountainous areas that have been inundated by wildfires and ensuring that they may have a two lane rural road that leads into a town. How do we ensure that people can evacuate if necessary?

So climate action really encompasses many different facets of that. With that project there in the Santa Cruz area, our team has identified from an asset management standpoint, it's in good condition. And so that's why funding hasn't been placed to raise it at this time. But as we move forward, looking at how are we going to continue to ensure our infrastructure is resilient, that is where we're going to be placing new criteria going forward. And we are in the process of releasing our ten year State Highway System Management Plan, which shows right now we have about $15 billion worth of needs to provide for resiliency, sea level rise and issues of the such.

And in the first five years of our plan, we plan on investing a billion dollars of that into resiliency. So raising bridges, increasing the size of drainage systems, culverts, raising the elevation profile of roadways and things of that nature. Going forward,

I appreciate it. And just so I can survive when I go home, it might be structurally sound, but it caught all the debris that flooded the neighborhood behind it, even though it's structurally sound. And in Capitola, the bridge is now a little less structurally sound as a product of it catching all that and flooding back into the neighborhood. That is not a Caltrans bridge, but it might compete against it in what the local transportation commission does in allocating money. Anyway, I really appreciate your response. I look forward to working together on that.

Thank you very much.

I appreciate you being here.

And your experience.

Thank you. Let me go to the other end of the dias and ask Senator Smallwood-Cuevas to go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And good to see you again, Mr. Tavares. We had a great discussion earlier this week. My office. I feel like my mic is very loud. Is that just me? Okay, it might be my cold, my hearing.

I was really struck by something you said in my office that stuck with me, that your views on equity and your vision for CalTrans would probably not make you a very popular candidate for this position if it were 40, 30 years ago. And that you are bringing, you feel, a really intentional lens of equity to the department.

And I just am really glad to hear that and to hear about the recent appointments that you made. For me, the intersectionality of race and class and sustainable transit access is critical.

And with the resources that CalTrans has in terms of the actual staff that you oversee and those that you contract with, there is an incredible opportunity to dismantle institutional deep historic barriers for so many communities, really eradicating some of the systemic racism that we see and economic inequity that we see in so many communities as it relates to transit.

And so I wanted to follow up on a series of conversations that we had specifically about the IJA resources and the mechanisms that CalTrans utilizes to oversee the whole issue of equity, of diversity, of inclusion, particularly on contracts that CalTrans administers and those that CalTrans as grantees administers as part of the federal contracts and compliance programs.

Even at the IG and the IOA, there's this effort to make sure that Caltrans really owns a mechanism for how we ensure that our projects are done in compliance and particularly around diversity rules. Are there conversations, though, within CalTrans about using the capacity of Equity Coordinators to actually be on the ground in the variety of projects and overseeing the civil rights and diversity and inclusion requirements?

Before coming to the state legislature, I spent a lot of time in communities advocating for workers to gain access to quality careers, particularly in the infrastructure sector. And it's wonderful to have policies and principal statements.

But the only way I've ever seen a remarkable change in the representation of women and black worker on public infrastructure projects is if there's enforcement and meaning, someone whose sole capacity is to ensure that it is being enforced. So just are there conversations about the use of Equity Coordinators which are now becoming Jobs Coordinators, Equity Coordinators, which are becoming part of the norm in the infrastructure sector?

Thank you. Senator Smallwood-Cuevas. Yeah, excellent question. And I'll say Caltrans has made some big strides in the space of equity. And as we were speaking about yesterday, some of the programs as far as the term Equity Coordinator, we haven't used that term specifically, but I will say we have just kicked off a multi-agency equity advisory council which is comprised of about two dozen individuals from communities. They live in the communities and they're bringing their lived experience and expertise to the table so their voices are heard.

They're part of guiding our process and driving our processes so that's our policies, our procedures, our projects as well. This may be a great opportunity to engage with them on the concept of an Equity Coordinator. And I love that idea of how we can incorporate that into our projects to ensure that we're meeting the intended goals that we set out, especially our Disadvantaged Business Enterprise goals, our small business goals, our labor local hire goals that we want to implement as well. I think it would be a great suggestion and would love to take that back to my team.

Thank you for that and looking forward to our office working with you on that.

Thank you.

And I have a couple of other questions, and I know we're short on time, so I'm going to keep them fairly short. You mentioned a number of pilot programs, which I was excited to hear about, but many of them are just starting and some haven't actually started.

I think the majority of them hadn't started yet, which is what I learned this afternoon. So as you think about your pilot programs, particularly around local hire, for me, local hire, when connected to project labor agreements, have a maximum opportunity to transform lives for generations.

I have seen workers go from sleeping in their cars to buying homes, completely changing the conditions of their families for generations. I know the local hire is one of those pilot programs, and there was a work group that was put together to help design that, and that work group has sort of come to a close.

But do you think that there are enough resources that are dedicated to really building out across what we expect now, $43 billion just in climate resiliency funds coming to California alone to build out sufficient project, labor agreement and local higher agreements and partnerships to ensure that we have a pathway for underrepresented populations to get access to those jobs and not just the ones that CalTrans oversees directly and employs directly.

But I'm talking about the contractors and the subcontractors who are brought in to help CalTrans with the projects that they're doing. We've seen a lot of cuts in workforce development funds. So just curious, how do you expect for there to be sufficient resources to ensure that those pathways for local hire are there?

Yes. Thank you. I'll say across the industry, both on the professional side and when you look at the trades, there has been a shortage on labor forces out there, and CalTrans has been working very closely with a lot of our partners, federal Highway Administration as well as the California Black Chamber, to set up, we've just finished one program, the Heavy Equipment Operator Academy, which really it had 20 graduates from it.

The graduates all were representative of what California looks like. They were from disadvantaged communities and provided them that training, a five week course. And many of them have been hired by contractors, and I'll say three were hired by CalTrans to work for us also. So I'm looking at expanding that program. How do we take that statewide?

We did it. We had one program there, but we were looking at could we provide a dozen a year and grow that program? We're working very closely also with labor unions on how do we partner together on training and bringing in people from our communities to get these skills, get these trades so that they can be successful in the construction industry and have a career.

Because I think these construction industry jobs, they're more than just a job for that one particular moment in time, as we were discussing. These are careers that can lead to advancement, to foreman, to superintendent, to much higher levels. And so I'm extremely supportive of growing these programs, and we're putting more funding into these types of programs.

I appreciate that. There was a woman that I helped to recruit to build a Crenshaw/LAX line, and she went on to build SoFi Stadium, and now she's overbuilding the Clipper Stadium. So I absolutely know the value of PLA apprenticeship pathways through local hire.

My last question, because you talked about working with unions and certainly working with contractors in this past budget, there were significant cuts to the workforce development investments in a number of sectors. And I wonder, how do those cuts impact the goal of really scaling the workforce development pathways for Caltrans?

Is there a need for more investment there to make sure that these kinds of programs are scaled, particularly given the work that Caltrans does? But certainly as we look at federal investments, so much more work will need to be done, and we'll need more folks to come into the system in order to reach those goals. And certainly communities need access to good jobs.

So as far as the work that Caltrans does, our funding has not been cut, other than a portion of being proposed, a portion of the general fund appropriations. But our federal funding, our state highway account funding, has not been cut. So we're not seeing a cut in the workforce and apprenticeship type programs.

Right. So you're saying that there are sufficient resources to really scale these pilot projects and to find ways to make sure that they're institutionalized so that more community members can have access to construction careers.

I would say at this time that they're scaled, that we have sufficient funding to be able to do that. Obviously, as we grow these programs, expand them further, look at other trades that are needed. Also, we may have the need for additional resources at that point.

Great. Well, thank you for that. And I'm glad to hear that the capacity is there to grow and look forward to working with you on that and to your confirmation today.

Thank you very much, Senator.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Ochoa Bogh.

So it's interesting because my colleague here is talking about specific plas and specific people contractors being allowed to be contracted to work for these state projects. And in my mind, I'm thinking about my constituency where we have a variety of privately owned, not necessarily union or not specific union contractors who have the ability to bid on these projects or would like to have the opportunity to bid on these projects.

And in my mind, I'm thinking as we build out the infrastructure that we need for different modalities of transportation in the state of California, we talk about opportunity for all. I'm thinking in my mind, shouldn't we make sure that everyone has the ability to that has the capacity to build, able to build in the state of California?

So, very different mindset on who should or should not work in the state of California, especially if you've been licensed and trained to work and own a business or will be owning a business in the state of California.

So I just thought I'd put that on there because I do have a lot of constituents who have construction ability, who could do the job and who are prevailing wage and meet those state standards of construction code, which is the same everywhere. And all inspectors who inspect these jobs have to make sure that they meet those requirements made by the state.

So I just thought I'd put that on there, because, I'm just thinking of everybody who would not be able to work on these projects because they don't meet those requirements set by my colleague. Thank you for meeting with me yesterday. I really appreciated our conversation.

I have to say from various departments, this is one that is of great importance for me because I live in the Inland Empire. Riverside in San Bernardino County is growing exponentially because of the land availability and the lower cost of living for many areas, which as I often share with my colleagues here in the Senate, we welcome your people from Orange County, San Diego County, LA County.

But we do need help with the infrastructure. As we discussed, the past area corridor, which is the 10 Freeway, we have a combination of growing residential areas and growing warehouses. And so there's a great concern about meeting the infrastructure needs that we haven't done a lot.

Well, we have done some work, but we continue to have projects in place that we need to truly look into building out to accommodate the freight and goods movement and people, of course, as well with the commutes that are going on through all of that. So I was wondering, when you look at these projects, many of my cities are expressing a lot of concern about the infrastructure needs or the impediments in getting projects completed.

In your capacity, what would you say to my cities and to my constituents as we move forward in making sure that we have these projects approved and funded, collaborating regionally, so that we can make sure that the region actually meets the needs of its growth?

Yes, thank you for that question, Senator. It all starts with partnerships and collaboration, as you mentioned. Sitting down with the cities, Beaumont, Banning, the communities there along that corridor, sitting down with the regional transportation partners as well. And then transportation, I always say, it's not singular, it's not linear, it's very complex.

There's a lot of facets to it, and it includes impacts from land use as well. So working with the land use leaders on where are we placing these warehouses, where is the development taking place, and how can transportation continue to collaborate and partner in those areas where that necessary infrastructure is needed?

So it's working with those communities, working very closely with them, understanding what the needs are, and then delivering those transportation solutions that will help them.

Perfect. How would you address meeting the financial requirements for these projects?

Through the Federal Highway Fund, the bipartisan infrastructure law that was just passed in 2021. There's close to $1.2 trillion worth of funding for highways, for transit, for all types of transportation. California is slated to receive in the neighborhood of $42 billion of that, plus up to potentially another $16 billion of discretionary funding.

It's those discretionary funding pots that we have opportunities to put applications in for specific infrastructure projects. So that's one site on the federal with SB 1, we have our trade corridor enhancement program which is also discretionary application grant program that we could work very closely with those communities of Beaumont and Banning and others to put application packages together to compete for those fundings so that we could move forward with some of these infrastructure improvements. So I think we have several options ahead of us.

Wonderful, that's very optimistic. And one last question. You had mentioned that you well, let me just put it this way. What is your vision as far as building out, a, I'm trying to think of the word that was used, a cohort of stakeholders coming together or partnership to oversee the needs of the areas.

Would you be able to expand a little bit on that? As far as your view? I'm not sure if you understand what I'm referring to because I don't want to put words in your mouth. I just want you to explain because you did a really wonderful job yesterday in explaining some of your visions and plans that you had in this capacity.

Absolutely, I appreciate that. Thank you. I look at it as convening a task force, if you will. And it's not just the Inland Empire. You're being impacted by a lot of the freight that is moving from one portion of Southern California into the Inland Empire.

So bringing all those stakeholders, the ports of Long Beach, LA together with Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority, together with SCAG, which is the regional MPO, and the regional partners SBCTA and RCTC in the Inland Empire, along with the cities to develop some strategies.

How can we move the freight more efficiently, safely, through the existing system? What are the needs moving forward? Can we move freight, more freight by rail to enhance the, I call it the livability, for your constituents who live in the Inland Empire right now.

As I mentioned to you, I have friends in the Inland Empire. When I was living in Los Angeles, I would visit them on the weekends and take the 60, and many times every single lane was just back to back trucks and people who live alongside those freeways, what's their quality of life in that situation?

And so how do we improve their quality of life? Also potentially reduce those air emissions that are coming from all of that traffic as well. And so finding the right solutions, and it may be a multitude of different types of solutions that we implement, but I think bringing that brain trust together would definitely help us find some better solutions than working alone on our own.

Thank you so much. I truly appreciate your 60,000 foot level perspective and the insights that you're coming in. And I love the fact that you're very open to collaboration and having the input of the different stakeholders in addressing the issues that impact not just local, but also regionally when it comes to infrastructure. And I truly, truly wish you the very best and I look forward to working with you moving forward.

Thank you very much, Senator.

Thank you, Senator. I'm going to go back to Senator Smallwood-Cuevas for a redirect.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair. And I just wanted to clarify, my colleague, I think, misunderstood my line of questioning in terms of quality high road jobs and project labor agreements with targeted local hire. My point was not that community and workers don't qualify.

I think that's the way you described it. Local hire and project labor agreements reach into the most disadvantaged communities and it provides a pathway and it doesn't limit any worker from anywhere from getting access to quality jobs. In my work at the Worker Center, we've done efforts in the Inland Empire where you have 30% of black populations who are highly unemployed and underemployed and worked with them to gain access to those local hire and project labor agreement opportunities.

So I just wanted to clarify that I'm well aware that those projects are available to any worker and any worker from your district or my district would qualify for those opportunities. Certainly we have had experiences. And why it's so important for us to prioritize high road training is because I've been with workers and I've had to help workers who are on construction projects who worked full time, did not get paid.

So there's a difference between a high road project and targeted local hire that's tied to those project labor agreements and community's access to them. So I wanted to make sure that we are on the same page, that this does not limit any community from having access to good jobs and construction careers.

And I will be happy to have further conversations on with the limitations that actually happen unintentionally with PLAs and construction companies that don't necessarily have, are part of those PLAs. And so I'll be more than happy to talk to you privately on that and to say that I explain to you the actual setbacks that they have because they are limited.

I just wanted to clarify the point that I made.

Okay, I will let you two continue that conversation offline, and I will go to our Vice Chair who's been patiently waiting. Go ahead, Madam Vice Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, sir, very much for meeting with me yesterday, Mr. Tavares. I really appreciate it and I appreciate your heart and I appreciate your family being here. I appreciate the conversations we had about inland ports. I'm glad that you even know what they are.

I talked to a lot of people and they're like, what's that? And so I'm really glad that we had a conversation at inland ports. You know, we have one that we are very excited about in the Mojave Space Port right next to rail, very convenient. Also in the Tulare County area, inland ports in the Visalia area next to Pixley right next to rail very convenient, would eliminate emissions truck traffic on the road.

So, number one, I appreciate that you understood that. I also appreciated the fact that you understood that oftentimes my district in the Central Valley is overlooked.

Slow down.

Is overlooked. I love you Ina. I also appreciate the fact that you understand that in the Central Valley, a lot of my district is overlooked. One of those oversights that we didn't have an opportunity to talk about, but I was contacted after our conversation was Highway 58.

Highway 58 going over the Grapevine. So basically two districts, District 7 and District 9. District 7 out of Fresno and District 9 out of Bishop come down. So Fresno through the Central Valley over to Tehachapi and ends at Cal City and then Bishop coming down the 395 ends on 58 at Tehachapi and Tehachapi and the 58 and that over that east west corridor are like the end of the cul-de-sac, the stepchild.

So everybody gets taken care of in the front part of the cul-de-sac, but not the very end. And it's the third largest truck route traveled in the state of California. And when 99 is closed because of snow or weather or rain or water or flooding or anything like that, the truck traffic is tremendously a lot higher. I think it doubles.

If you look at the climbing lanes that have been requested and safety issues and the poor. Our state highway a 58 that is in such poor condition that trucks and vehicles always travel in the fast lane because it's almost impossible to travel in the slow lane due to all the potholes and damage.

So that would be another east-west corridor that truck traffic and transportation traffic could accommodate. But we're a direct line to Vegas, just a direct line across the state. So I would like you to think about maybe investing a few resources into our 58, Highway 58 area.

Definitely, Senator, thank you for that and bringing that to my attention. I will say I'm very familiar with State Route 58. Coming prior to this position, I was a Los Angeles Director. And so, as you mentioned, when the Grapevine gets closed, 58 is the detour to highway 14 and then back down into the LA basin.

So, yes, it is a very important route to us. It's the east-west, one of the east-west corridors that takes our freight, our agriculture from the Central Valley across the country. And so it is very important. So I will go back and look at that and identify some opportunities. What we can move some projects much quicker than 18 to 23 years.

And I appreciate that because with the inland port that we're looking at... I want to say it's well on its way. It's not, but the process is in there to make it well on its way. It will increase some truck traffic and the climbing lanes that were requested from CalTrans via the area.

And if you go up 395, where Bishop on District 9 is for CalTrans, it's pristine, bright colors on the road, not an ounce of trash. Four lanes all the way to Bishop to go skiing. And I get that. But we definitely need some assistance on 58. So I wanted to bring that to your attention.

And then I wanted to talk to you a little bit about and I know my colleague, former Secretary of Natural Resources can't go home unless he gets a commitment from you to fix a bridge. But I'm interested in the State of California's access to east-west corridor. That's just a personal thing we have. We have to dig each other at every committee. I think we sit in our offices and try to come up with something that we could bring up.

The other issue that we have is that we have some projects in and I'm not trying to nail you down on specific projects. Tulare's the top, the second most agricultural producing county in the world, Kern being first, has some top projects that are federally funded, matched, and with emergency FEMA dollars. With all the damage in Tulare County, with the Tulare Lake exposure with the debris that came down, with all the flooding that blocked the, what do they call those type pipes that are underground under bridges that are...

The culverts.

The culverts? All the culverts are blocked with the debris and it went over the top of the bridges. There's a lot of damage in the Tulare County area. Appreciate your assistance with the one I just randomly threw out at you yesterday. They called and said, he's coming or they're coming Tuesday. I'm like, wow, that was kind of cool.

So having said that, Tulare County has two federally sponsored projects by Congressman Costa and Congressman Valadao, and those projects allow us to access federal resources so the state doesn't have to pay for all of it. I think it's a portion from the locals, the state, and the federal government.

Is there some type of system or tier that puts matched projects above others or how are those things determined? I'm trying to say shovel ready, but it's not shovel ready, but it has funding attached to it.

Yeah. Typically the project lifecycle can be lengthy at times because you have to go through a planning process, then you go through the environmental process and then the design, and then finally get to construction. I know with our CalTrans projects that can take four to ten years depending on the complexity of the issues we're dealing with. Most of our projects are also federally reimbursed.

So what makes a project more competitive is getting it to that point where it's almost shovel ready, but also bringing some state dollars or local dollars that can leverage those federal dollars to get it to construction. And that's what we try to do with our partners. So we have an entire group called our local assistance group in Caltrans that works specifically with all of the counties and cities throughout the state to help them find those opportunities and those funding opportunities to move those projects along.

Okay. And having talking about funding and opportunities is there only one funding formula. And the reason why I asked that is because the state is a very diverse state. Los Angeles County, for instance, has a huge population with not minimal miles of road, but minimal miles of road. Take Tulare or Kern. Kern county is 8000 sq mi, and it's a small population with large amounts of road.

The same with Tulare and Fresno County. But if you divide money up or use resources in a pro rata share versus population, we have a larger amount of road construction in my district, but a fewer number of people. So do you always allocate resources based on people or miles of road?

So our formula based allocations are based on population. And I'm not sure if, I don't know this 100%, if CalTrans came up with that policy or if someone else, the legislature or someone else came up with that, but that's the formula based. There's always discretionary money and those were some of the grant fundings that I had mentioned previously.

Those are a lot of opportunities where our local partners I know Kern COG. Is very savvy in competing for those funds and very successful many times. And so working with our partners, providing them the technical assistance they need to apply, we're more than willing to help them on those discretionary funds.

Okay. And not to get in my colleagues conversation that was going on down there earlier, I think my colleague from Riverside was trying to make the point that there are a lot of qualified contractors out there that are not signatory companies that provide excellent service. And I think her point was to see if those contracts could be open to them as long as they provide a certified payroll and check all the boxes for making sure that hiring practices are supposed to be the way they should be.

It's not just signatory companies and contractors that have qualified workers. It's also those contractors that are not signatory but that will pay prevailing wage as required when you take state dollars that can also provide, like I said, a certified payroll so that there's no issue with someone not getting paid.

And then the last question that I have and I'm just trying to clear up that for my colleague the last question I have is I have a lot of small contractors. I think the Senate Pro Tem does too. So somebody that just puts the stripe down the center of the road and they're 100% women owned business or a disadvantaged business in the real world. I'm a certified woman owned business under CalTrans, right?

So we get a 10% differential on bidding processes and things like that because of our status. United States military veteran as well. So a lot of women owned businesses, I'll focus on them, are small businesses. My business could never bond for the full amount of the project and neither could a small business that I've heard about that just puts the stripe down the road.

Very qualified woman owned, employs excellent people, provides them with a living wage, gives them benefits the same as my company provides them with the rate that's set by you guys for the project. But there's no way that business could participate or compete because they can't bond for the entire multibillion dollar project. And I'm not advocating my business. I'm just using an example. Are you looking at different ways to allow small businesses to participate in projects without bonding for the entire project, just their portion?

That's a great question. In fact, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas and I were discussing something very similar yesterday. One of the areas we were working on at CalTrans, partnering with a lot of agencies and organizations out there right now, like the LA Chamber of Commerce. How do we remove those barriers to small contractors being able to bid, but not just bid, but be awarded a contract with CalTrans?

And we found that bonding is one of the biggest barriers to them. Also prompt payment because most small contractors cannot carry that payroll for more than a month or so. They need to be paid promptly.

Much less a year.

Much less a year, absolutely. And then also looking at how can we work with financial institutions on the upfront capital that's needed? Because many times as a small business, you have to procure materials. Right. Your equipment has to be up and running. And that takes money, it takes capital to do that. So we're looking at opportunity.

How do we remove some of those barriers on some types of projects and try to put together a portfolio of projects that we could put out just for small businesses? And in fact, we have what's, a program called our Minor B program, which are contracts about, I think the max is $388,000. It can be anything from one dollars to $388,000.

These are dedicated 100% to small businesses to give them opportunities to get in the door, but it doesn't remove the requirement of bonding, upfront capital, and the prompt payment. So those are issues we're trying to find solutions to right now as we speak.

I have a lot of small business contractors, disabled veterans, DVBA, right? DVBE. And also woman owned business contractors that have been cleared at the clearinghouse by CalTrans to be able to participate in these projects. But there are barriers, like you just said, and one of them is bonding. The second one I'm glad you brought up because had we not had a great relationship with Wells Fargo back in 2012, waiting eleven months from a check from you guys would have really hurt us.

And so I know other individuals, a lot of contractors face that. I also know that with the bonding process, it's not that we want to I say we, but the contractors want to get out of bonding in their project. They just want to bond for their portion and not on the whole construction project. And when you go to the bank to secure a project so that they can do that, CalTrans doesn't allow liens because if I'm doing business with the Senate Pro Tem as a contractor, I might lien the job and say, you're not going to get paid from whoever's paying for the job unless I get paid.

But you guys don't allow that. And so that also puts a disadvantage to small businesses that want to secure funding in order to be able to work with CalTrans. And I think all of us on this dais are interested in making sure that small contractors have the opportunity to bid, not just a billion dollar corporation that comes in from out of state to do work.

Thank you. I agree with you.

Thank you, sir. And I look forward to your confirmation and I really enjoyed your input yesterday. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair. Most everything has been covered and I really appreciate you covering that issue because I have a longtime business owner who actually is well, she may be now retired, but the whole time I've been in the legislature, she has brought this issue up, and she serves on a small business council, helps other small businesses.

And that has been a real sore point, especially when we pass SB 1 and we get real money, and all of a sudden, with IIJA, there's real money. It feels like some of our businesses are not able to compete and take advantage of the fact that taxpayer dollars coming to do infrastructure. They're not able to compete.

And many of the small businesses are,, I guess we still say the phrase, I don't know if we've changed it, minority businesses. So when we talk about equity and diversity and a chance to help small businesses grow, they're cut out of that. So we keep bringing this up, and I'm glad it's one of the four headers that you started your comments with, because we haven't seen it.

We bring it up year after year after year, and we just haven't seen it. I'll be interested in your vision of how to make that a reality for these businesses that exist. So that was more of a comment.

The second thing I would just put on your radar screen, particularly given the IIJA money and additional resources. I know a lot of that goes for transportation infrastructure, active transportation, and then maybe 40% of it goes for another category. I was reading some of the LAO information I want to put on your radar screen, as I have previous Directors of Transportation.

You are quite aware of the LOSSAN issue in San Diego County leading into Orange County all the way to San Luis Obispo. I'm going to do what my colleague, my Vice Chair, does when she talks about Kern and Tulare. It is the second busiest rail line in the nation, and it carries passengers. It's a goods movement, and it is a military mission rail line.

Obviously, and unfortunately, the climate change and the shoreline and all of that has put that region in a much fast paced situation where we need a focus, and the state did, based on our resources and the ability to have the additional money that we had, put $300 million. That is real money. I don't think we've ever gotten that kind of money all at once in San Diego County. So we appreciate that. But it's a drop in the bucket compared to what these projects cost when you have to move that line, the rail line back from the cliffs.

So I just want to put it on your radar screen. I know you're quite aware of it, but throwing my project out there along with the others because it impacts so many people, not just people in San Diego County.

Right.

What's the biggest one, since you're the second.

It is the Boston area. The area that, obviously, the President of the United States has great interest in. I'm just hoping he remembers there's a second line.

One comment, just to add. Because my colleague did. There's five of us on this dias that are requesting project information. There's 40 on the Senate floor.

There's 35 more. At any rate, thank you.

Yes.

I appreciate your vision and your approach very much and that you led with what your vision was, and I look forward to working with you. It's not an easy job, but we certainly appreciate the role that you play and your experience, your decades of experience. I always like experience. I consider that real and tangible and something that I can really fall back on. So thank you for being willing to do this.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We are going to, as the Vice Chair has to go to another committee. Don't worry, we'll hold the roll open for her add on when we get to that point. But we do have to go to members of the public, which I think is good. And we're going to start right here in room 2200 to let folks weigh in.

We'll start in support and as people come forward, your name, organization, if any, and your very brief support, because we've taken up too much time and the Labor Committee Chair is going to be very upset with me at some point if we don't move more expeditiously, but welcome. Name?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Keith Dunn. I don't want to upset the Labor Chair. I'm here on behalf of the Self Help Counties, of which all of you represent one of the 25 funding partners with CalTrans. I also represent the District Council of Iron Workers of the State of California, here in strong support of this nomination.

I can tell the members here that Director Tavares has reached out and met with each of our local agencies on a call and promised to work with us as they develop those funding opportunities with the regions. He's a great partner, and we look forward to continuing that relationship that he's built with us through his time at the districts. I also would tell you that from a workforce, from an iron workers perspective, we've worked to not only recruit and put members of the public through our training programs in disadvantaged communities, but also to partner.

And I'm sure you're going to hear from some contractors as well, to make sure that there's most that they're competitive so that everyone can compete. But we believe our workers who go through our programs, our apprenticeship programs, are in a unique position to not only build up their own communities, to have that local relationship, public benefit relationship with the workers in the communities that are being built, but to train them to get the hand up. So we're committed to that. I know the director is committed to that. We look forward to working with him, and we hope that you would support his nomination. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Members. Ted Toppin for the Professional Engineers in California Government, strongly in support of confirmation of Director Tavares. We've enjoyed a productive, long working relationship with him and look forward to it continuing for years to come. We urge your I vote.

Thank you. Welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good afternoon. Gus Corey on behalf of the eight councils of governments in the San Joaquin Valley. San Joaquin down to Kern and the central coast, which is Santa Cruz down to Santa Barbara and then the San Mateo County Transportation Authority. In strong support of Director Tavares' confirmation.

Very much appreciate his responsiveness, his solutions oriented thinking, his availability, and touring some of the project sites that have been battered, given the latest storms, the flooding in Montecito, the Grapevine closures, all of that. That has an impact on goods movement, on tourism, on disaster response, his extensive work on middle mile service to implement broadband, which is a vehicle miles traveled mitigation strategy. And so we look forward to working with him and appreciate your support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Pro Tem, Members. Todd Bloomstine on behalf of the Southern California Contractors Association, proudly in support of the confirmation. I should be noted his outstanding willingness to partner as well as the department's willingness to partner with the department and have great conversations. We look forward to your support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair members. Tim Kremens, the other engineers at CalTrans. The operating engineers. We've known Mr. Tavares both as capacity as Director of Maintenance, also as District Director, and now his role as Director. And he's been straightforward, honest, even when we didn't want to hear it, but he's been very rational. We wholeheartedly endorse him for Director. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Hello, everyone. My name is Paul Pendergast. I'm a small business owner, but I'm here today representing and the president of BuildOUT California, which is the world's largest industry association dedicated to LGBTQ and allied businesses in architecture, engineering, construction, and real estate development.

Long before Mr. Tavares was sitting here at this desk, he was actually talking to us, the LGBTQ community in construction, in his role as CalTrans District Four Director. And that carried forth when he was in Los Angeles. It's very historic that you have here me representing our organization, because this is conversation that's not happening anywhere in the United States.

The LGBTQ people in construction have been left out, but not in California. And that's many times thanks to Mr. Tavares for his leadership and his communication. We are talking about contracting, but we also talk about alternative delivery processes. We talk about the movement of goods and people, and we talk about different ways to create efficiencies, bonding.

And I believe it was Rebecca Luell and I have always talked about the issues with bonding in regards to striping and so forth. So the LGBT business community of California wholeheartedly supports Director Tavares. And we're so grateful that for the leadership you're experiencing here today, and we look forward to workforce development programs specifically geared towards including LGBT people in construction and creating jobs in California. Thank you very much.

Thank you. And it was Rebecca. I wasn't going to call her out. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and distinguished members. My name is Carrie Bowen, and I'm the Chair of the California Transportation Foundation, 501C3 nonprofit dedicated to supporting transportation workers and their families and students looking to become transportation professionals. And I speak today before you in support of the appointment of Tony Tavares. To confirm his appointment today. Tony's tenure as District Director of the two largest districts in transportation sorry. Support. We support his appointment. So with that, I just want to support his appointment.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Chair Atkins. Members of the Rules Committee. Chris Lee here today on behalf of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments in support of the confirmation of Tony Tavares for CalTrans. SACOG shares his vision for addressing climate issues in transportation through a safe, equitable, and multimodal transportation system and are happy to support his nomination. Thank you.

Thank you. And if you would like to comment on this, please press one, then zero at this time. We'll start with line 280. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much. We will now move to members of the public who may be here in opposition. Anyone in opposition? Okay, seeing no one in opposition, I'm going to turn to our teleconference line, and I don't have that number in front of me, but maybe we can put it back up on the screen, if we could. Thank you. We're going to go to our teleconference moderator. Welcome moderator.

Thank you. And if you would like to ask. A question. Oop. Sorry.

I was just going to say to those who, this is for anyone who wants to register support or opposition. We are taking both at the same time, support or opposition. And all I need from you is your name, organization, if any, and your support or opposition. No additional comments, just support or opposition. Go ahead, Mr. Moderator.

Thank you. Madam Chair. This is Matt Robinson with Shaw Yoder Antwih Schmelzer and Lang. Sorry for not being there in person. It's one of those days. But on behalf of the Fresno County Transportation Authority, CalTrain, the San Mateo County Transit District and the Solano Transportation Authority, we wholly support the confirmation of Mr. Tavares to the Director role at CalTrans. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Next witness.

Next we'll go to Line 277. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and honorable Members of the Rules Committee. My name is Kome Ajise. I just am the Executive Director of the Southern California Association of Government. It is my distinct pleasure to strongly support, on behalf of SCAG, the Governor's appointment of Tony Tavares as director of CalTrans.

Thank you. Thank you very much. We're just taking name, organization, and support or opposition. Thank you so much for calling in. Mr. Moderator. Next witness.

Next. We're going to line 272. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Madam program and members. This is Victoria Rodriguez with Nielsen Merksamer on behalf of the American Council of Engineering Companies in strong support of the confirmation of Director Tavares. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Next witness.

Next. We go to line 275. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. This is Lee Ann Eager. Excuse me. I'm the Chair of the California Transportation Commission. I'm calling in support of the confirmation of Director Tavares. I hope you just give me one second to be able to talk a little bit about the relationship.

I thank you very much. I thank you very much. You're calling in support, and I am really sorry, but I have to vacate this chamber very shortly. So it's noted. And I want to thank you for your service to the CTC, particularly as chair. Mr. Moderator next. Witness.

Madam Chair, we have no one else in queue at this time wish you to speak.

Thank you so much. We will call on you in a little while for our next appointee, but I'm going to bring it back to the committee for a motion. I've already gotten a movement. Was that Senator Ochoa Bogh? Okay, we have a motion. And Madam Secretary, will you please call the roll?

Laird? Aye. Laird, aye, Ochoa Bogh? Aye. Ochoa Bog, aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas, aye. Grove? Atkins? Aye. Atkins on call.

And this will be on call so the Vice Chair can add on when she comes back, as clearly she indicated she would do. So congratulations. Thank you for your service and thank you for taking time to answer all of our questions today. We will move this appointment on to the full Senate for confirmation.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you. And again, thanks to your family for being here. We are going to take a very short five minute hiatus and come back ready prepared for the next appointment.

Move forward with our second governor's appointment. So I am going to welcome our Deputy Director, and that would be Tyler Sadwith, everyone. I'm calling us back to order up. Thank you. With a reminder that we do have other committees. And so I do anticipate our Vice Chair will be back as soon as she can.

But with that, I want to welcome you and thank you for your patience and invite you to acknowledge anyone you would like to thank, make opening comments, and then, as you saw, we will go right to our colleagues for comments and questions. So welcome.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good afternoon, members. I'm honored to be here today to be considered as the Deputy Director for Behavioral Health at the California Department of Healthcare Services. I am very proud to be joined virtually by my partner Anna and my father Jim, and I want to thank them for their love and support. I also want to thank the Governor and the Secretary for this appointment and for the opportunity to serve the people of California.

My goal is to make it easier for Californians struggling with mental health and substance use to receive the care they need so they can begin their recovery journey and rekindle their bonds with their family and with their community. And of course, to provide upstream supports and resources to prevent behavioral health conditions from progressing.

My professional trajectory has prepared me to succeed in this important role. I served for eight years in the federal government, including as Technical Director, where I focused on developing national policy guidance for behavioral health in the Medicaid program and provided technical assistance to states, including California, to innovate their behavioral health systems. As a consultant, I provided strategic advice and technical support to state leaders with implementing behavioral health reforms.

And for the past two years, I have served in a leadership capacity at the Department of Healthcare Services. Since being appointed Deputy Director for Behavioral Health by Governor Newsom last June, I have led the Department's ambitious agenda to ensure accessible and high quality mental health and substance use care.

And like many of you, I have been impacted by mental illness and substance use disorder in my personal life. My lived experience shapes my dedication to this position more so than any professional credential. Currently, I serve as power of attorney for a parent who is unable to manage their affairs or live independently because of an untreated substance use disorder. I also have a family member who lives with serious mental illness. My experience is no different from countless others. Involuntary holds and crisis services are not just policy concepts for me. They have been my reality.

And despite the hardship that individuals with behavioral health needs and their families endure, I know that recovery is possible. I know how having access to the full continuum of care can help people reclaim their life. That is why I am grateful to be considered for this role. And that concludes my opening remarks. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much and albeit remotely, let me thank your partner Anna and your father for tuning in. I'm going to go ahead and start Senator Smallwood-Cuevas. You go ahead and start us off today, this afternoon.

Thank you so much for being with us and for that moving introduction. Lived experience is so important in the positions that we're in to bring the resilience and the deeper understanding for what our communities need. So I just want to say thank you for sharing that.

In my community in South LA, and parts of Skid Row are in my district, we have a serious behavioral health crises. And it increasingly looks like folks like you and I, in terms of people of color and particularly in Black communities, where there's just been a lack of access to behavioral health and a lot of cultural and historic stigma related to behavioral health. And despite that, there have been many, many community members who have stepped up and created individual small groups or individual practices to try to address those needs.

One of the things that I heard from those very important members of our community is the challenges of being able to stay in business as independent operators or as small groups. There's just a limited capacity for them to go after MediCal and the programs that CalAIM offers. And given the need, given the lack of practitioners of color, to have to spend the lion's share of your time trying to dig through these complex rules, trying to hire attorneys to help with the paperwork it takes away from the needed care that we need. So it diminishes the capacity that we have to treat our people even more because of the barriers.

So I wonder what sort of focus, technical assistance that you are providing for some of the smaller community based trusted partners who want to help reduce the trauma and how should someone who wants to serve this community be able to navigate all of the morass of what it takes to become a medical provider?

Thank you, Senator, for the question. I think it's a really important one. I'm happy to talk a little bit about grant funding and other resources that my team has provided and prioritized for community based organizations that specialize in serving communities of color and underserved populations with a special mission focused on health equity, and then talk about some of the resources and supports to help those organizations with expertise participate in medical and avail themselves of that opportunity.

Through federal funding provided by the Federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, we've implemented several programs really designed in collaboration with local small community based organizations to really use sort of like a grassroots bottom up approach as opposed to top down, really focused on, for the purposes of this grant, substance use disorder.

We implemented an Opioid Use Disorder Prevention and Education in Communities of Color grant funding opportunity really designed to provide sort of hassle free grants to community based organizations so they can focus their time and their energy on serving as trusted messengers, partnering with the community, increasing community awareness of substance use disorder and the risks, and establishing linkages to local service providers and treatment within their community.

We implemented an ethnic media campaign, which is really a public health communication strategy where we collaborated with community specific media experts on messaging, imagery, language, and developing distinct and specific narratives for different racial and ethnic communities in California. We partnered with California Black Media, which is a nonprofit of 21 Black media outlets, Crossings TV, which is a television program serving seven distinct Asian communities across the state and Radio Bilingue, which is a nonprofit Spanish language public radio network.

We've implemented the Tribal Medication Assisted Treatment project in close collaboration with California's tribal and urban Indian stakeholders. They describe it as a unified response to the opioid crisis in California Indian country providing prevention, treatment, harm reduction, and overdose recovery resources with specific consideration for California's Tribal and Urban Indian values and traditions and customs.

We recognize, though, that participating in MediCal means more funding, more sustainable funding opportunities and through CalAIM, the Department is providing funding resources through PATH, which is part of our CalAIM waiver. In total, I believe there are over $1 billion in funding available to support the implementation of CalAIM, with a key focus on funding grant opportunities, technical assistance, especially to support community based organizations that might provide enhanced care management, which is a new service in CalAIM, as well as Community Supports, which are designed to address social drivers of health, particularly for those smaller, more sort of nimble organizations that are on the ground doing this work today.

They've been in the communities, they've been doing the work. We know contracting with the MediCal Managed Care Plan is hard, participating in a medical insurance model where clinical documentation and claims billing is hard. So, we're providing significant grant funding and targeted technical assistance opportunities to support that.

For behavioral health providers specifically, we are partnering with the Office of Health Equity at the California Department of Public Health through the Community Mental Health Equity project, which is designed to support our county behavioral health agencies, who are really the leaders of California's local behavioral health systems with updating their cultural competency plans to better serve the diverse communities in their region and to support the counties with improving and expanding contracting opportunities with smaller community based organizations that have a track record and expertise in serving communities and reducing disparities.

So I think we recognize those challenges and we're investing policy, funding, and a lot of technical assistance to support opportunities to participate in MediCal to providers that would add a lot of value to the program.

Thank you.

Senator Ochoa Bogh?

I just want to appreciate your words in expressing your personal experience with behavioral health and mental health. I think, as with many Californians, I think we all have had, or the majority of Californians, I would say probably have had an opportunity to have--not opportunity, circumstance, I guess--to have a family member, or friends ,an acquaintance, going through and having behavioral health, and I know I'm on the same boat as you are per se, so I appreciate that perspective that you're coming into an area where we need many people with just expertise, but also with the empathy and the compassion to be able to direct policy and oversight into the issues that we have right now.

As you know, we do have quite a bit of a problem here in the state of California. In your capacity, in your purview moving forward, what do you think that as a legislature, we can do a little more efficient, a little better, and be able to meet the behavior and mental health aspect in our society? And then, on a cultural basis, I think this would be more anecdotal from your perspective and your experience, but what counsel would you give us to ensure that we create a culture that is able to be mindful in the mental behavioral health--what's the word I'm looking for?--capacity that we're in as a society.

Thank you, Senator, for the question. Taking a step back, having worked when I was in federal service, working with the state of California, looking back sort of the past decade or so, I think the amount of investment, financial investment, investment in energy and focus, and expectations for our publicly funded behavioral health system in the state, it's unprecedented.

This is really a once in a generation opportunity that this administration is partnering with the legislature on to champion new funding, new bills that provide funding for infrastructure for behavioral health facilities, implementing the Care Act to ensure resources are available to individuals who need it, to implement CalAIM, to implement a new proposed waiver that I've had the privilege of help leading out, the California Behavioral Health Community based Continuum Demonstration. This is really just really unprecedented. The amount of funding and attention that behavioral health is experiencing right now, I think it's incredible.

I think the legislature, we deeply appreciate it in the field, so I would say continue prioritizing behavioral health, I think, continuing to normalize behavioral health. I think the COVID pandemic has illuminated a lot of stress and anxiety and social isolation and has really revealed that many of us do struggle with mental health. I think stigma is starting to erode. We are investing resources and projects to really help with eroding and tackling stigma. I think stigma keeps people from reaching out, from asking for help and for trying to get the resources that are available to help them.

So I think to the extent that legislature can continue prioritizing behavioral health as an area of focus, partnering with the administration on these bold new initiatives and continuing to talk about behavioral health can take the power away from shame and stigma, and I think that's what we need.

Wonderful. And then I'm kind of curious. I had a conversation this afternoon with members of my district. In your experience, where is the best place for the funding to percolate to in order to initiate and maintain behavioral health? Is it best to do it at a county level or a city level?

Thank you, Senator. That's a really good question. So, currently the . . . California's publicly funded behavioral health system is really anchored in the state-county partnership through what's called realignment. In 1991 and then again in 2011, the legislature realigned the responsibility and the funding for behavioral health care from the state to counties.

So, in my capacity, I work closely with county behavioral health agencies. They are our key partners. We provide funding to them. We also oversee and regulate them. So they're really the key sort of framework for service delivery. We also recognize that local communities, local municipalities, and cities play a key role as well. So I think it's not necessarily either-or.

I think when we have grant funding opportunities, we recognize cities are closer to the ground, a little more flexible, maybe are able or interested in doing innovation in a way that a county government just may not be proposing to do at that moment. And so we do provide grant funding opportunities for cities as well, recognizing that they play a crucial role in meeting the behavioral health needs of their residents.

And one last question: Are we fully utilizing those grant funds on the city level to be able to have the cities be able to provide some of these service? And I'm not sure what capacity could be, but are there any examples that you can think of that I can look into? Or if not, we can follow up on that. I don't want to take too much time.

Yeah, I would be happy to follow up and provide more concrete examples. I think under the Behavioral Health Continuum Infrastructure Program, we had grant funding opportunities particularly focused on developing or enhancing mobile crisis teams. And we know cities were eligible applicants for that. And there were some cities that did avail themselves of that opportunity, submit applications. So we'd be happy to loop back and provide more specifics about that and others as well.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator. Senator Laird?

Thank you very much, and sorry we didn't get a chance to meet beforehand. I had a couple of questions based on materials you submitted. And the first one is: there was a question that somebody asked, I think, during your previous interview about whether rural counties have the necessary workforce to address the program needs, and you'd indicated you were working on that issue with every county. How are you working with them and what tools do you think you have to address those needs? And do you need something you don't have to deal with the recruitment issues in rural county.

Thank you, Senator, for the question. We are very aware and continue to hear from our key stakeholders that workforce is one of, if not the top, challenges facing the behavioral health field. We know that providers and our county behavioral health agencies struggle with recruiting, as well as retaining, the clinical workforce, as well as administrative workforce to be able to sort of operate at full capacity.

So we have collaborated with the Department of Healthcare Access and Information, which is sort of the principal department designated within the administration for implementing behavioral health and healthcare workforce initiatives in general. I'd be happy to talk about the ways we're collaborating with that department. We've also taken steps to provide $200 million in grant funding to support the behavioral health workforce. We've expanded MediCal--

When you say that, what does that mean? 200 million to do what?

Sure. So, the $200 million was federal funding that we received that went to eligible entities to support hiring, recruiting, training, and retaining the workforce, with a key focus on peers, peer support services, individuals with lived experience. And this grant program had a key focus on equity and reducing disparities for each grantee.

I think that the thing is, we and other confirmations and other committees we're on, for example, not your purview, but nursing. And so there's all these different ways that there might be specific efforts to develop more nurses. And I know when I was a community college trustee, we got the hospitals to give extra money, we got them to give extra training space. We could expand what we were doing over just what the facilities were on campus.

And I'm just wondering if there are creative ways to do that. Because even though I led with what was here about it being a rural county, and Senator Smallwood-Cuevas and I had a rather lively hour and a half bill discussion this morning in this room about health worker and whether they're enough, there might be a rural problem, but there's a very urban problem in high cost areas.

And so maybe that's a false distinction, but it's sort of we're looking for specifically what you do. And that's what I was listening for: Is there things that, maybe it's an agency you're partnering with within the health agency? What's doing and what you might need from us?

Understood. Thank you. Thank you, Senator, for further highlighting. So, through MediCal, we are expanding certain types of service coverage and practitioners with the goal of infusing more federal funding into the local programs, including community health workers and peer support services. We know these are practitioners that are on the ground today. They're delivering vital care, and, as of July 2022, these are now covered services in the MediCal program.

Through discussions with our rural county partners through the California Behavioral Health Community based Continuum Demonstration, they've highlighted a need for technical assistance on implementing some new services through the waiver--

So, the goal being providing more funding and more reimbursement, maximizing and increasing resources, allowing more hiring to occur. With rural counties in particular, we have developed a rate methodology for behavioral health payment reform, which is part of CalAIM that includes an aspect focused on county vacancy rates. So, counties such as rural counties that are experiencing disproportionate rates of vacant positions would have sort of an ability within the rate setting process to try to address those needs.

And I sort of said ,I was a mayor. I wouldn't have known. He says, well, somebody said, we'll go to the website. How do you know to go to the website? And I think that's just rather than make that a question that would just be more of a comment, is that there are all those things available, but how are people going to know they're available? And people are hungry for resources right now. And the fact that CalAIM might pay for some things that it didn't before, when people at the local level are the front line for a lot of those issues, it's really about reaching out and making sure they're aware of the services and they're aware of how to come in.

Sorry to interrupt, but we had a budget oversight hearing on homelessness with Secretary Ghaly, and he highlighted the fact that, through CalAIM. that could fund street teams of related workers on outreach, which are really mental health issues substantially with the homeless population, and that he was surprised that he wasn't hearing from more cities.

He offered to actually set up meetings. If I set up meetings with local mayors in my district--I have 21 cities in my district--he would meet with them. And I think that's great, but there's 40 districts. There's 480 mayors. Whatever it is, how do we more systematically try to figure out that people are aware of these programs and are able to use them because it is such a positive development to restructure it, to include some of these things?

The Senate President is about to tell me that normally a question has an inflection at the end. And so I would just say thank you for this exchange, even though I'm as much a part of the exchange as anything and look forward to the vote. Thank you. Madam Chair?

I would never presume to put words in your mouth, Senator. Thank you. I wanted to ask, because I know that you're responsible for overseeing development and administration of training and technical assistance around CARE Court, so do you have any, maybe give us any status update on that, or from the challenge you see in maybe one of the cohorts--San Diego is one of them--any reflections on that so far?

Thank you. Thank you, Senator. My team is tasked with leading out technical assistance to support the implementation of CARE Court. We are working intensively with the California Health and Human Services Agency, working intensively through a working group to hear from diverse perspectives from a number of stakeholders, and working intensively with the seven counties part of Cohort One, including San Diego, who are slated to go live in October. Seven counties plus one. I think Los Angeles is eager to get started as well.

The counties and other key stakeholders have provided insights into their needs and their interests. With technical assistance, we've procured a vendor. We've developed sort of an initial training curriculum consistent with Senate Bill 1338, which specified a number of concrete topics that we're supposed to provide technical assistance on for a few specific audiences or customers. We're developing that, and then really engaging in a robust dialogue with our Cohort One counties to see what is it in addition to this that would truly be helpful. So we're in active discussion, iterating and expanding the types of technical assistance that they're interested in.

Just to give some examples that we're sort of reviewing and considering right now. We've received expressions of interest in technical assistance related to billing commercial or private insurance plans for care delivered to Care Act respondents who are enrolled in commercial or private insurance. We've received requests related to data reporting and data collection and a few other sort of implementation approaches that aren't established as required topics in the statute.

Thank you. I'm going to go ahead, if there are no further comments or questions, and I am sorry, the vice chair is obviously stuck at committee or presenting a bill, but we will make sure to leave the role open if she is not back before we get through public comment. But right now, we're going to go to members of the public, and we will start right here in 2200. For people who wish to speak in support, please feel free to come up. I know you got a team of supporters with you. Please, your name, your organization, if any, and your brief comments. Welcome.

Good afternoon.

Is the mic on?

There you go.

Good afternoon. Paige Clark, on behalf of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services. The alliance represents 160 nonprofit, community based organizations throughout the state. We proudly support Deputy Director Sadwith's confirmation today. We have worked with Deputy Director Sadwith since he joined the department in 2021. We are deeply appreciative of his leadership and the urgency with which he addresses the most pressing issues in the field. So thank you, and we hope to continue working together. We look forward to it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else in public here for support? Okay, we will go to anyone who might be in opposition.

Okay. With that, I'll come back to. You in a moment. I'll go ahead and take the teleconference, and then if you have comments and questions, we'll come back to you. Madam Vice Chair, Mr. Moderator, if you are there, we are ready to go to the teleconference line for those who wish to speak in support and opposition. And again, to let folks know your name, organization, if any, and your position of support or opposition without further comments. So, Mr. Moderator.

Thank you. Madam Chair, if you wish to speak on this issue, please press one then zero at this time. We'll go to line 278. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members of the committee. Johan Cardenas, on behalf of California Pan-Ethnic Health Network in strong support.

Thank you so much. Next witness.

Madam Chair, we have no one else wishing to speak at this time.

Thank you very much, and thank you so much for your help and assistance today. We greatly appreciate it. Madam Vice Chair, do you have comments or questions?

I do, I apologize. I am bouncing back and forth between committees, and so I thank the chair for letting me jump right back in, and I have to go back to Health. But I do have a couple of questions. Obviously, fentanyl being in the news as much as it is, and the small, very small amount that causes death, especially the colored pills that are getting distributed to our children. I know the governor is invested in his master plan. He said he's already invested about a billion dollars to track down on the opioid use. Is there any way that resources can be distributed, like to fentanyl use and fentanyl education?

Because just this last week in Public Safety, we've watched bills that are introduced, and one of my colleagues had a bag of Smarties. It was like a quart bag of smarties, just like you would put a lunch to go in and those little smarties, but she took them out of the package so it looked like pills and that bag could kill 500,000 people. I mean, this is a very serious drug that we're dealing with. What's your solutions on dealing with this fentanyl crisis that we have in California?

Thank you. Thank you, Senator. Fentanyl is sort of the leading contributor, in conjunction with the combined use of fentanyl and stimulants, contributing to California's ever increasing, record-setting rates of overdose deaths. And as you mentioned, fentanyl is also an incredibly important problem for schools and for youth. I think rainbow fentanyl is the term used, or fenta pills as well, to describe counterfeit pills laced or contaminated with fentanyl that we know is leading to the deaths of children and youth and adolescents.

We have distributed Naloxone, which is an overdose reversal agent. We've distributed over 2 million units of Naloxone through the Naloxone distribution project, resulting in over 140,000 reported overdose reversals. We partnered with the California Department of Public Health that sent an informational bulletin to school superintendents, alerting them--bless you--last summer about the dangers and the risks of rainbow fentanyl.

As a result, we were able to send 45,000 kits of Naloxone to over 700 unique K through twelve entities. I think based on the results of the demand and the interest in ensuring Naloxone is just as available as EpiPens, the Governor's budget includes a proposal for the California Department of Education to be able to continue the distribution of Naloxone to K-12 schools.

We have developed many grant programs focused on youth prevention and awareness related to the dangers of fentanyl. We have leveraged federal funding for our Youth Opioid Response Program, which has engaged over 16,000 youth. 7000 youth have received sort of indicated early intervention services, and over 3000 youth have received intensive substance use disorder, treatment for opioid use disorder, and stimulant use disorder through that project.

We're partnering with nonprofits like Song for Charlie, which is a family run nonprofit organization, singularly focused on raising awareness about fenta pills for youth, partnering with youth organizations and with faith based organizations to prevent fentanyl associated overdose with youth. I think we are implementing a number of interventions to address the fentanyl issue for adults as well. California, under my leadership, was the first state in the nation to receive federal approval to cover contingency management as a covered benefit in the Medicaid program.

It's the only intervention with the strong evidence based for reducing stimulant use and retention and treatment for stimulant use disorder. And so this is particularly important because of the rising rates of overdoses involving both stimulants and fentanyl. Fentanyl can be sort of in stimulants; people die from it unwittingly. So, treating stimulant use disorder is actually a key step to addressing the fentanyl crisis as well. And that's mostly, it's impacting the African American and American Indian communities in California at the greatest rates as well. So it's key to reducing disparities.

Thank you, I appreciate that very much. And I appreciate the Naloxone, how you pronounce it? Naloxone. Naloxone distribution program that you guys have started, is that a grant program? How do schools get involved with that? Or faith based organizations get involved with that so they can provide that to their community that they serve, or their surrounding community.

So the Naloxone Distribution Project started in 2017 with federal grant funds focused on the opioid crisis. Until March, Naloxone was prescription medication only, so we partnered with the California Department of Health to have used their standing order for Naloxone. The Naloxone Distribution Project is really targeted for organizations that can't procure Naloxone through insurance, because medical covers it, commercial insurance covers it, and so it was really for organizations such as K-12 faith based organizations, harm reduction organizations, law enforcement, and others that really serve individuals at the highest risk that aren't able to prescribe it like a medication.

The FDA approved Naloxone to be sold over the counter earlier this year, and so we think that will be a critical resource for communities and organizations to be able to expand their access to Naloxone. Nevertheless, we do continue to administer the Naloxone Distribution Project, and the Governor's budget includes a proposal to use opioid settlement funds to effectively sort of meet the continued demand that is increasing every single year.

I appreciate that very much. The big fear to me, after we watch some of the hearings and some of the videos and everything that we saw, is that it's just such a small amount that has the ability to take somebody's life on a single use. Like a single use, where heroin is larger or PCP or all those things are larger, and there's a path that you go down for addiction and there's always, I'm not saying you can't die from the first use, but it's very rare. But it's almost certain with fentanyl, so that's the big scary piece and because it is coming to our communities.

I represent one of the most diverse communities in the state when it comes to, especially Latino community, heavy farm labor community heavy. I just have a very diverse population and we've had--we were in the news, badly in the news. A fifth grader brought some fentanyl to school--a fifth grader. We found out the older brother was the one that asked him to do it. Had, the teacher who grabbed the package passed out, and they had to administer, I don't know if it was this medication or another reactive medication that is part of it, but it is a very concerning issue, and it's on the news almost every single day.

And not only our children, but adults, but our children are dying because they're exposed to this. So thank you for that. I know that you're also over mental health issues. I met with one of our doctors that knew they follow you and they knew you were going to be up for confirmation. One of the things is they provide a tremendous amount of mental health coverage in our community. It's actually good. Samaritan hospital. Dr. Minty.

They provide exceptional mental health wraparound services, get them off the streets into facilities that they have purchased so that there is housing and there is a path forward to being productive members of society. They're actually an incredible Punjabi or an Indian family. They could be Telugu, I don't know if they're Punjabi or Telugu, but just an incredible family that is really concerned with mental health issues in our community.

But one of the issues that she explained to me is that a lot of the people that come in are homeless, some that are referred from the Mary K. Sheller ,the county facility, into their facility. And one of the issues that they have is that there is a difference in billing and treatment for mental health versus wound care. So if you're treating a mental health issue on a homeless person but their arm is gaping open from infection, she's not allowed to treat that infection because of some differential in the code section.

And what I would like to do, all of that to say, I would like you to provide me some type of contact off this dais, if possible, so that we could try to address whatever code section that is. Because even though you're a mental health doctor, you've gone through medical training and you can address, it's hard to take care of somebody's mental health capacity when their arm is being eaten off with an infectious bacteria, their feet are exposed in the homeless population where they have wounds on their feet, and these mental health providers are not allowed to treat the wound care.

They should be able to treat the whole person is what I'm saying. And it shouldn't be separate, and it shouldn't be that difficult to get approval. And I would just like you to think about addressing some of those issues in this capacity that you have. I read your bio. I've read your information. I've looked at some articles that they've read printed on you regarding your addressing the Fentanyl issue. And I appreciate all you're doing to try to make sure that we have a healthier California, and I look forward to your confirmation.

Thank you, Senator.

Thank you. With that, I'm happy to entertain a motion. Madam Vice Chair made the motion. Madam Secretary, we please call the role.

Laird? Laird, aye. Ochoa Bog? Aye. Ochoa Bogh, aye. Smallwood-Cuevas? Aye. Smallwood-Cuevas. aye. Grove? Aye. Grove, aye. Atkins? Aye. Atkins, aye. Five to zero.

Five to zero. Congratulations. And we will forward this on to the full Senate for confirmation.

Thank you so much.

Thank you for your service.

Okay, that concludes the call. Oh, lift the call. Thank you. I'm so appreciative of your help and support. Madam Secretary, I think we're lifting the call on item 1a.

Thank you.

On item 1a, Grove? Aye. Grove, aye. Five to zero.

Five to zero. Thank you. And with that, the public portion of the Rules Committee is complete. Let me invite anyone who was not able to testify fully to go onto our website. We certainly want to hear from you, and feel free to get that into the record. And with that, we will adjourn into executive session.