Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation

Subcommittee Number Five on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor, and Transportation will come to order. Good morning. The Senate continues to welcome the public in person and via the teleconference service for individuals wishing to provide public comment. Today's participant number is 844-291-5491 and the access code is 7042477 we are holding our Committee hearings here in the Capitol. I ask all Members of the Subcommittee to be present so we can establish our quorum and begin our hearing.

The Subcommitee will cover transportation issues today, including California State Transportation Agency, Department of Transportation, California Transportation Commission, California Highway Patrol, and Department of Motor Vehicles. We have 25 issues on today's agenda. Before we hear presentation on the issues, let's establish the quorum. Consultant.

[Roll call].

The consultant note the quorum has been established.

Yes, quorum has been established.

Just a note. We will not be voting on any issues today, and all of the vote-only items on the agenda will be held open. We'll be discussing all the issues listed in the discussion session of the agenda. After discussion, we will have public comment on all of the items, and after public comment, that will be the end of the meeting. Okay, here we go.

Now we will start with issue 17, which is implementation and reduction of the transportation infrastructure package. First, let's hear from Mr. Carlos Quant from the California State Transportation Agency, who will present the Governor's proposal. What happened?

He's not here.

That's not good.

Maybe we can first start.

Do we? No.

And we find this particularly important, especially when we're dealing with a budget problem. The Legislature should be able to look at these out-year funds and determine freely what should be reduced, shifted around. But by creating this expectation early, it unnecessarily limits the Legislature's authority. And that's because of these premature actions.

This is. It's just going. All of us. Do we have any work? Is he walking in?

There he is.

They want me to just start now?

Just, um.

Got it. Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Carlos Quant. I'm the chief. I'm the Deputy Secretary for Budget and Fiscal Policy here at the California State Transportation Agency. Today, I'll be providing an update on the Administration's progress in implementing the 2022 Transportation Infrastructure Package and the revisions proposed in the Governor's Budget. I have several members of the Administration with me here today to assist with providing responses to any specific questions you may have.

The 2022 Transportation infrastructure package included funding for high speed rail supply chain resiliency and port infrastructure and $9.6 billion in other transportation infrastructure investments. During this presentation, I will be providing a brief update on each component of the 9.6 billion in other infrastructure investments. The first investment is approximately 7.7 billion General Fund in the Transit and Inner-City Rail Capital Program over four years for high-priority transit and rail infrastructure projects throughout the state.

The Administration is currently in the middle of the 2023 TIRCP Grant cycle, which will commit approximately 3.7 billion General Fund to TIRCP projects by the end of the fiscal year. Over two and a half billion has already been awarded to 16 existing rail and transit projects. The remaining 4 billion, which is available after 22-23 as a formula distribution to regional agencies, is not currently committed and would be committed in future TIRCP grant cycles.

The next investment is approximately 1 billion General Fund for active transportation projects. These projects encourage increased use of active modes of transportation, such as walking and biking, and increase the safety and mobility of non-motorized users. The California Transportation Commission is currently administering a four-year grant cycle of the Active Transportation Program, which totals 1.7 billion for active transportation projects. This includes the 1 billion General Fund augmentation from the Transportation Infrastructure Package along with the program's baseline funding.

The entirety of this funding will be committed by the end of the fiscal year. The next investment is 350,000,000 General Fund for high-priority grade separations. These projects support critical safety improvements at grade crossings. This funding was included in the 2023 TIRCP Grant cycle, which is expected to be completely committed by the end of the fiscal year. The next investment is 400 million for climate adaptation projects that support climate resiliency and reduce risks to infrastructure from extreme weather events.

The 400 million is comprised of the following: 200 million in federal funds being administered by Caltrans for climate adaptation projects through its State Highway Operations Protection Program, or SHOPP. Caltrans is currently programming new climate adaptation projects and adding climate adaptation components to existing SHOPP projects. Caltrans anticipates beginning to program this funding later this spring. Caltrans also received 50 million General Fund for climate adaptation planning grants. Caltrans has developed program guidelines, issued a call for projects, project applications in January, which are actually due today.

Grant awards are expected to be distributed in August. The remaining 150,000,000 in climate adaptation is being administered through the California Transportation Commission in consultation with Caltrans through the new local Transportation Climate Adaptation program. The CTC and Caltrans have engaged with stakeholders to develop program guidelines and a call for projects, both of which are anticipated to be completed in May 2023. The program of projects is expected. Excuse me.

The final investment of the Transportation Infrastructure Package is 150,000,000 General Fund to establish the Reconnecting Communities Highways to Boulevards pilot program, which will inform the future conversion of key underutilized highways into multimodal corridors that serve existing residents. Caltrans is in the process of developing guidelines for this grant program and has held several workshops with key stakeholders. Caltrans currently expects to publish a call for applications in the summer of 2023 and award the funding by the end of the calendar year.

That concludes the status updates on each portion of the Transportation Infrastructure Package. While the Administration has made significant progress in implementing the transportation infrastructure investments, the state's General Fund revenues have significantly declined, resulting in a structural budget deficit. To address this deficit, the Governor's Budget proposes several solutions, some of which impact the transportation budget. Specifically, the Governor's Budget proposes a reduction of the planned augmentations of 2.7 billion General Fund from the transportation budget, comprised of the following solutions.

The first solution is reducing the anticipated 4 billion out-year TIRCP augmentation to 2 billion. The out-year funding augmentation would be spread across three fiscal years, 1 billion in 22-23-24 and then 500 million in the subsequent two fiscal years. This solution would still leave an infusion of $5.7 billion in General Fund in the TIRCP program on top of its normal baseline funding that the Administration will use to leverage additional federal funding through the IIJA.

I would also note that this solution does not impact the current 2023 TIRCP Grant cycle. The Governor's Budget also includes language that would restore the full $4 billion augmentation should General Fund revenues be sufficient to support them in January of 2024. The next solution is to swap out 500 million General Fund in the Active Transportation Program with 300 million from the State Highway Account.

This solution would also utilize 200 million in previously reserved SHA funding out of the ATP program from out-year cycles available to offset the remainder of the $500 million General Fund reduction. This funding would also be used to leverage IIJA funds. The next solution would delay the availability of 350,000,000 in high-priority grade separation funding from 2023-24 to 2025-26. The funding for grade separations was included in the TIRCP call for projects.

However, given the multiyear nature of these types of projects, this solution is not expected to significantly impact the Administration's ability to deliver the same number of originally planned projects that improve safety for people walking, biking, and driving at rail crossings. This proposal aligns the availability of funding with the receipt of anticipated associated expenditures.

This funding is a subset, I just wanted to note, this funding is a subset of the TIRCP program, so because of the substantial availability of the front-end funding, the Administration should be able to manage the expenditures with the available cash to the extent we receive any. Lastly, the Governor's Budget proposes to replace the 200 million in General Fund for the climate adaptation programs with funding from the State Highway account. So it's a net reduction of zero to the program. That concludes my presentation.

My colleagues and I from across the Administration are available to help answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Quant. We'll move on now to the LAO. Mr. Jimenez.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Committee Members Frank Jimenez with the Legislative Analyst Office. Overall, we recommend that the Legislature adopt a package of budget solutions that aligns with its priorities. In many cases, we find the Governor's proposed solutions from the recent General Fund augmentations for transportation to be reasonable. However, we note that these proposals represents the Governor's priorities and criteria for what should be sustained or reduced.

The Legislature could identify alternative solutions that could be just as reasonable, whether that's a different mix of solutions within transportation or identifying solutions across the budget to support high-priority transportation programs. Overall, the Governor's Budget prioritizes sustaining funding for programs within the transportation infrastructure package that have already been appropriated. If you look on page 11 of your agenda, that's the amounts in 21-22.

We find that this approach to be reasonable given that many of these programs have already begun accepting applications from local agencies and have started to award funding the projects. The Governor also proposes sustaining funding for a portion of the Active Transportation Program and the full amount for the local climate adaptation programs by shifting funds from the General Fund to the State Highway Account, which is one of the state's main accounts for funding highway maintenance and rehabilitation projects.

Similarly, these fund shifts would minimize disruption to programs where local agencies are in the process of submitting applications or have already been awarded funding. We note that these fund shifts ultimately come with a trade-off of less funding for state highway maintenance and rehabilitation projects. However, the state is in a unique position to leverage the additional formula highway funding that the state is expected to receive from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, IIAJ, or also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

While these fund shifts would reduce funding for highway maintenance and rehabilitation projects, the additional funding from IIAJ would largely offset this. The largest reduction in the Transportation Infrastructure Package is for the Population-Based Transit Intercity Rail Capital Program funding agreed to in the budget year and budget year plus one. We find that these reductions are reasonable given the magnitude of the budget problem facing the state and the budget year and the out years.

The Legislature provided a significant portion of its recent General Fund surpluses on one-time and limited-term activities, which provided the state an underlying flexibility to respond to changing budget conditions. Given that these conditions have changed, we find it is reasonable to find solutions from the activities agreed to in the out years. This would prevent the Legislature to cause disruption to programs that are already underway and prevent the Legislature from finding solutions from ongoing and baseline activities.

We note that even with the proposed reduction, this still represents a significant increase in state General Fund support for transit and capital improvements when compared to recent years. In our report, we note that some transit agencies across the state are facing operational shortfalls as a result of changing commuting patterns that have sustained coming out of the pandemic. We would just note in our report that the population-based TRCP funding is for capital projects and should not be viewed necessarily as helping with this issue.

The Legislature has options of allowing more flexibility for this funding, but we would note that this would be a reprioritization of the original tent of the funds and require some statutory changes. We also recommend that the Legislature reject the Governor's proposed trigger restoration proposal. The Governor's Budget would allow funding for the population-based TIRCP in the budget year to be restored under the trigger restoration proposal, so going from 1 billion to 2 billion, which was the original agreed to amount.

This would occur in January 2024 if the Administration determines that the state has enough resources to support its baseline activities and all of the items on the trigger restoration. Currently, there is about 3.8 billion across the budget on this trigger restoration list. So if the state does not have enough funding to support all of the items on the trigger restoration list, none of them will trigger back on. So it's an all-or-nothing approach.

We believe that the likelihood of the state receiving sufficient funds to activate the trigger restoration is low and the Legislature should view this as a reduction and not something that has the potential to be restored. We also find that the proposal minimizes the Legislature's authority and flexibility to respond to changing revenues and evolving spending priorities.

Lastly, we recommend that the Legislature use the spring-the-way alternative solutions and additional cuts. Based on more recent data, our office estimates that the budget problem facing the Legislature could be larger than the one estimated in the Governor's Budget. In our report, we identify several programs where additional solutions could be reasonable. These programs either have similar efforts or funding at the federal level that have been appropriated under IIJA, have continuous appropriations that could cover out-year cost or new programs with limited outcomes.

For instance, the Clean California Local Grant program is a new program with limited reporting outcomes. The program has two years worth of projects that are still working towards completion. The Legislature could reduce funding for the program in the budget year and wait for additional reporting outcomes before deciding if additional funding is warranted. Completes my comments. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Department of Finance. Is that Mr. Wells?

Department of Finance, Steve Wells. At this point, we're here to answer any additional questions you may have regarding either the transportation infrastructure proposal or associated ideas on that.

Okay, thank you. I'll come now to my colleagues, Members of the Committee. I just want to say a couple of things before we get into more specific questions. I know since I've been on this Committee, we've been working really hard to increase over the last several years the budget for transportation and increase it. It was not where it needed to be. And I know the biggest concern that we were all engaged with was high-speed rail.

High-speed rail is a very important part of our statewide transportation needs, but it's not the only need that we have. So we have engaged in the last couple of years in increasing the amount of money that's needed in other parts of the state. As we grow, housing is only available in inland, and becomes much more difficult for people to travel back and forth to their jobs. So we're in a real historic moment here about moving forward with the things that we need.

The way I see the transportation system, it helps move people, especially working people who don't have any other way of getting around and getting to their jobs. It helps move goods. It helps create good-paying jobs, especially if we do our job in making enforceable high-road jobs and training part of the package. And, of course, it's a climate issue. And I think very rarely is transportation, public transportation identified as essential to addressing our climate issues.

So I see this as really important. I'm very concerned about a $2 billion cut here and not knowing if and when that could all be reinstated. We also know that as a result of, we think, as a result of COVID the decrease in the ridership, that we've got to do something about keeping those trains moving. We've got to keep our transit lines operating. So that's another very big concern. So I'll just pass it over. And I have questions, but I'll defer to my colleagues here. Senator Newman.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And good morning, you folks. Thanks for being here. So I want to talk generally, get your feedback generally about the prospect of shifting SHOPP monies to other purposes. I understand the intent and the expectation some of that will be offset with IIAJ funds. But I, and I'm sure others are concerned that this is effectively chipping away at a promise we made to not only the voters, but to stakeholders in passing SB 1 in 2017.

And that promise was made explicit by the passage of the voters of Prop 69 in 2018. And so SB 1 was meant to create a floor for spending. Moreover, it was fully intended to create a persistent, dedicated revenue stream. So one can make the argument that this is temporary, but if this actually takes away from funds available in the off years, that, to me, does run counter to the understanding, the intent of SB 1. I obviously have an issue with that.

So I'd like to hear, I guess, from the LAO. How can we find other savings, you've made clear that the Legislature might have other options, that don't undermine the broader intent and the value of the SB 1 revenue stream?

Yeah. Thank you for the question. As we mentioned our report, in order to find savings to support these programs, to prevent an SHA fund shift, we would have to find solutions from other areas, whether that be within the transportation infrastructure package or across the budget. We note that in other areas of the budget, the Governor has proposed additional spending proposals. So if we have additional spending proposals, those need to be found through cuts in other areas.

So that's another area the Legislature could look at, is reducing or rejecting those additional spending proposals in other areas of the budget to sustain programs in the transportation infrastructure package and prevent the fund shifts as an alternative. I will note that based on our estimates, even with the Fund shifts, SHOPP would still have funding above its historic baseline. And that's largely because the IIJA more than offsets the shift. Understand that that comes with that trade-off, and ultimately is less funding for SHOPP overall, but just wanted to point that out.

And I'd point out that given the construction of the IIJA provisions, that actually decreases the degree to which we can leverage state funds to secure IIJA funds. So Department of Finance appreciate if you'd speak to that. Right. There's a significant leverage issue, and again, we're making tough choices, but there's a cost-benefit to consider, I think, when doing that.

Certainly. I think when we looked at, we were very hesitant and judicious with what we proposed to fund shift. I think the main criteria we wanted to look at was where funding had already been. In the case of the ATP, we had already had a call for projects, and that's a historical funded out of the SHA Program. So we felt shifting 300 million to the ATP was appropriate given its historical nature.

Also, as far as the other 200 million on the climate adaptation, those are traditionally SHOPP projects. So to the degree that we're doing those projects with the focus on the climate adaptation criteria, we are accomplishing projects that would have otherwise been done in SHOPP for the most part. So in both of those cases, we tried to have as little impact as we could on the state's main rehabilitation program.

But the reality is, to the degree that we fund the programs that are outside of the SHOPP, there isn't a whole lot of other areas within the transportation funding spectrum where there's significant amounts of money available. So that gets us to where we're at now.

I appreciate that, but I guess I'd point out there's probably a lesson there. Last year, last two years, we had significant surpluses, and the administration's intent was always described as we were going to make one-time expenditures that did not commit the state later. But in effect, we've done that with the ATP funds. If we have to offset some of those monies with expected revenues that would have otherwise gone to SHOPP programs. So you don't need to respond to that.

I guess I'd also ask you about the Clean California program, and there's some good staff analysis that points out that that process has been started before the funds have been allocated. So that puts the Legislature in a very awkward position if we reduce the funds available for that, even as we've made the implicit promise to local jurisdictions for support, know applied for a program. So, LAO, if you could speak to that. How should we think about that, and what would you recommend that we do?

Yeah, in that area, we'd recommend that the Legislature direct the Administration to not solicit applications and award funding before the Legislature grants spending authority. The Legislature agreed to the out-year funds, but they haven't been officially appropriated to the departments to spend. By soliciting applications early, we create the expectation that funding is available before it has been appropriated, which we find limits the Legislature's authority to look into out-year funding and to make adjustments based on its priorities.

I appreciate it. Thank you. And thank you, Madam Chair.

Sure. I just like to follow up, if that's okay, Senator. Mr. Quant, could you respond a little bit more to that issue of why prematurely? In our opinion, prematurely, you are taking the applications.

Sure. So typically, funding for transportation, for large transportation infrastructure projects is typically awarded on a multiyear basis. If only half of the funding had been available made, excuse me, if only a portion of the funding had been made available. Without the certainty of available funding in the future, it would have likely limited the number of applications that we would have received for the funding. Additionally, it places us in a better position to leverage more federal funds consistent with statutory requirements.

I don't know if Mr. Keck has like to add anything else.

If I may Senators, Stephen Keck with Caltrans. I'm the Chief Financial Officer. Another key point in this process, which is very similar to how we do all transportation projects, is that we want to be prepared for when those funds are appropriated. So if the Legislature chooses to appropriate those funds next year, we will be able to then award the funding to local projects and begin construction very early.

Our current schedule wouldn't have us awarding to projects until August of 2023, which is after the expected appropriation time frame. So we wouldn't be committing funds to projects until after it's appropriated. And we've also made that clear to local partners not to expect the funding, but to prepare for it. And I think that gives us a good path to completing these projects quickly in the next fiscal year.

Well, that puts us in the position. Right? If you've gone that far, that then we have to pull back, and that puts the Legislature in a really bad place, because then the argument becomes, well, we've already started to go down that road. Now you want us to pull back, so you're almost creating the circumstances for us to be in a no-win.

Yeah, certainly it's not our intent to do that. Right. We're not intending to put the Legislature in a bind, but I just wanted to explain why we're doing the process we are. And, of course, we'll take any direction given.

Okay, Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. First, I want to address a little bit of our taxpayer expectations out there. When the Federal Government expands the dollars available for infrastructure and every state is awarded a certain amount, the expectation from the taxpayers is that they're going to get something more than they're getting already. And when it comes to State Highway Funds, they're expecting to get more. Not to have that backfill, not take it out of one end and put it in the other.

And when that happens, they lose confidence in the system, the government, and that translates into when local community, the local agencies are trying to do bonds and stuff to try and do that. They don't pass because nobody trusts the system anymore. So that's not a really acceptable way of taking care of that. What we need to do is prioritize. And in areas that I would call, we have a new word, insecurities.

Okay, so out in the areas that I represent is Riverside County is one of the, is anticipated to be the fastest growing region in the next 25 years in the state. And they have road insecurities out there. And there is nothing on the horizon that gives us any hope that the roads that are killing people today are going to get fixed. We have roads out there, highway roads that have needed to be improved for years, and they have higher than normal deaths.

So we've got that box checked off, but we just can't get funding out there to fix these roads so that they are adequate to handle the amount of population that is being shoved out there via housing elements and things like that to them. I understand the ATP is a state priority for the people up here, but for the people that actually live and drive roads every day, their priority is being able to get from point A to point B alive every day.

And we're sick and tired of going to people's funerals, our friends, our families, their kids, because we have inadequate roads. California has the worst road system and the worst road maintenance pretty much in the nation, arguably. We can't keep taking money out of the state highway road pot to put into bike paths, and then using money that was supposed to help us get out of that rut and putting it back into and basically keeping that pot even, because that keeps us where we're at.

People want more. They want their roads fixed. They want the infrastructure out in the areas that are expected to grow, to have the dollars allocated to it to meet the needs and the expectations that the state is setting. And so my question in there is, why do we keep taking money out of the State Highway Administration funds in the meanwhile, basically keeping the other funds whole? I know ATP got cut a little bit, but when are we going to catch up with these roads?

When are we going to provide the adequate funding, especially to areas like ours? We can't do bike paths. We can't do bike paths in the summertime they don't work. In the wintertime, they don't work, and there's too many paths in between. So when do we increase the funding for that and make that a priority? So we stop killing people. We have wildlife corridors we're funding. We're doing all this other stuff.

When are we going to stop killing the people and start getting them the roads they need so they're not sitting in traffic, creating more pollution, and they're actually able to get from point A to point B without having to schedule a funeral? So that's my kind of question on what I see in our budget. Whoever feels like answering.

Okay, who feels like answering?

Steve Wells from the Department of Finance. Again, I can't really address from an implementation standpoint, I can say from the budgeting side, we take very serious the requirements that are requirements that were put forth in SB 1, the requirements of the shop and of the SHA, and the RMRA that was created by SB 1. We have been able to increase the SHOPP, the State Highway Operation Provincial Program

We have been able to increase that by almost 50%, almost double it, from 2.6 billion a year to 4.6 billion, approximately a year for the rehabilitation of State Highway System. So from a budgeting standpoint, we've put forth the things that are going to allow us over the multiple years, over the 10-year State Highway System plan, to address the core assets of the state. It takes a while.

I understand that SB 1 is now four years in, but it is a cumulative process to sort of dig out of the hole and then start digging up from there. But the funding that is going to the main rehabilitation accounts, it is there. So in the case of ATP, the 300 million that we want to direct to that, we do look at that as a one-time thing to address a situation that we're in that's acute. But I hear what you're talking about.

I want nothing more than to see when we start looking at the 10-year plan, to start seeing us, seeing everything getting better. And I do think we've seen improvement in the overall pavement and a lot of areas have had a lot of projects done. But I understand if you're driving down the highway and your highway has a lot of ruts or bumps, then that doesn't matter.

So, like I said, I just want to say on the funding side, I believe that the funding is pretty much where it was directed to be through the, the process of SB 1 and through the upgrades we made.

Carlos.

Thank you. Let me just add to Senator Seyato's comments. So Prop 69 was put in front of the voters for precisely the reason I think you referenced, is to give them the confidence that their hard-earned funds, especially on a pay-as-you-go tax on diesel and gas, would be protected from this sort of reuse. And so to the LAO or DOF folks, I know there are provisions in Prop 69 for extraordinary circumstances. Have we met that threshold? Is this consistent?

The kind of shifting. Is this consistent with Prop 69? Has that been looked at deliberately?

It. When you say this. I'm sorry.

Well, as an example, the offsets where we take shop monies. Well, ATP says vague enough, right? But broadly speaking, I know you'll hear from folks from the industry coalition. This seems very clearly to run counter to the spirit of not only the intent of SB 1, but the assumed need for Prop 69 to give voters the assurance that we would not do in future years what we appear to be doing now, which is to use state highway funds that are the result of the SB 1 taxes to meet these fiscal circumstances. But under Prop 69, the expectation was only under extraordinary circumstances, we would do that.

And so has anybody looked at this, or is this because if this is considered kind of normal and to be expected, I think it would surprise some folks, voters and stakeholders alike.

The ATP program is an ongoing, we've had the ATP program for 10 years now, and it has a baseline funding out of the SHA. There's a coordinating federal component to it. Also.

Let's not use ATP as an example. Let's use the shift of SB 1 funds to transit as an example.

But we haven't proposed to shift the SB 1 funds to transit.

Okay, I understand. I'm sorry.

Grade separations on the grade separations, all we're doing there. So grade separations are a subset of transit spending that's generally managed through the TRCP program. We've got a nearly $4 billion appropriation that was made that we've had a call for projects on, but we're not going to spend that entire $4 billion.

So we're just calling for as far as the budgeting process to realize that at least $350 million of that 4 billion, that includes 3.7 TRCP and 350 grade steps that at least 350 million of that can be spent two years out.

Probably more, but certainly no less than that will be spent outside of the budget year and the budget year plus one window. So we're not proposing to delay the projects as much as we're proposing to align the budget map to more accurately reflect where we're likely to spend that money, the time where we're likely to spend that money.

Let me ask the LAO folks, Mr. Ellers or Mr. Hemis. So this is kind of a weird question, but how does it feel to you with respect to all of the conversations and the legislation around SB 1 funding? Does this feel like we are headed in a direction that runs counter to the expectation that we created?

Yeah. Just to clarify on the fund shifts, there's a $500 million fund shift from the General Fund to the state highway account. 300 million would be for the Active Transportation Program, which you've indicated before, and 200 million would be for two local climate adaptation programs, 150 million for a capital program and then 50 million for a planning program. You are correct. SB 1 increased the gas tax, the diesel excise tax, and created some new vehicle fees to support transportation purposes.

And Proposition 69 further dedicated transportation revenues to transportation purposes. In many cases, this infrastructure package is supporting transportation purposes, but it's ultimately up to the legislature's highest priorities. Is it sustaining funding for shop and doing more projects within shop or allowing a one time shift to cover these expenditures that have already been appropriate and in many cases already underway?

Doesn't tell me how you feel, but I appreciate your answer, so you can tell how Senator Seyarto and I feel. Thank you.

Okay, Senator, do you want to follow up questions to that or comment?

No, just my follow up is I know everybody's trying real hard and they're working with what they're given, and sometimes what we give is not what the citizens need. We think they need that. What they need is, is better roads and more roads to adequately move them around and let them get to work without being killed.

And they're not seeing it, and that's really frustrating to them. I have people in my district that are so frustrated with their new burgeoning cities, they can't keep up.

They can't keep up with the prices. They can't keep up with any of that. When we try to fill a gap with some funding that's available, that money instead gets used for rehabilitating parks. For Pete's sake, $100 million in my district would fix a few really dangerous roads, and we just can't seem to get it. And that's what we need to. We need a system, a way of budgeting that will allocate some money to get some of those things done. I don't see it in these budgets that are coming out. That's all. Thank you.

Does anybody want to respond in the sense of what is it in this budget that could be done differently to address the senator's concern?

Rachel Ehlers with the Legislative Analyst Office. Senator, I think the discussion that's happening here is the difficult and important one you all are going to have to grapple with over the next few months, which is we have less resources than we thought we were going to last year when we made these multi year plans.

And so really it comes down to what are the highest priorities and that necessarily means not funding some things that we had committed to and that people were expecting and that are important to some stakeholders.

So we're in a great position that we have federal funds to help augment our state funds. But you are right to the degree we reduce state funds because we have federal funds, it's less money overall than we thought we were going to.

So I think in answer to the chair's question, it's really, you have enough resources to fund all of these. That just means you have to make other choices elsewhere in the budget. It is a large budget. There are a lot of programs across. We would recommend you don't think about transportation in its own silo.

If you want to prioritize transportation across other areas, you will have to find solutions elsewhere, given the resources and as my colleague mentioned, we think actually a worsening forecast. But there are certainly enough General Fund and Federal Fund to fund all of these transportation priorities before you. It just means you'll have to find solutions elsewhere.

So from LAO's perspective, anybody who thought that we were going to continue to get one time funding from the Federal Government for Covid, which boosted our surplus to $97.5 billion last year, anybody who budgeted thinking that that's going to go forward and continue in various years, and we budgeting on that and counting on that, that's just foolish.

What I think is that three years ago we have about $30 to $50 billion less than we have today that we do anticipate going forward.

And so that's a budgeting priority for us, the legislature, to really get a handle on. I disagree to the degree that we probably shouldn't have been trying to carve up the whole $97.5 billion. But we still have a lot more going forward than we had three years ago, and we should be able to address some of these higher, what should be higher priority issues. And transportation is one of those high priority issues. So thank you very much.

Yeah, I think it's a really good point that we still have a lot more General Fund than we did a few years ago. And the legislature and governor worked very hard to again, craft one time spending packages and not commit what we kind of knew was going to be a short term funding for long term ongoing. So that in some ways makes things easier. But we did make some commitments for one time expenditures.

And so as a result, reducing those intended one time expenditures does feel difficult.

Thank you. And thank you all for the work.

That you guys do. I do have a few other questions. This is based on the TIRCP funds. So I think that's when I looked at the LAO's chart here. I'm bragging about your chart. So it made very clear, because I'm a chart person, the population based TIRCP. And then there's the regular TIRCP. And the regular TIRCP had no cuts to it, and the population based TIRCP had major cut to it.

So my question is the impact in terms of where in California does the impact of taking the 2 billion out of population based, like, who gets served, where does funding go between these two? And what's the impact of making the only cut to the population based TIRCP? That might be Mr. Quant or no.

I'm going to defer to my colleague, Chief Deputy Secretary for Rail and Transit, Chad Edison.

Thank you. First of all, the TIRCP, that is the $3.63 billion, is in budget year 21-22. And that money is what is already going through a process of being put out to projects, many of them existing projects, that needed more funding in order to get into construction, in order to get federal funding. So that goes out throughout the state.

It was divided roughly 60/40 between Southern California and the rest of the state in the budget, and that is going out on a geographically balanced basis throughout both of those regions. The money that's on a formula basis is population based.

And so every regional body in the state that gets population based money is getting that, for example, out of the $4 billion LA County gets around a billion of that. And that funding is for the same kinds of projects.

So it would allow the kinds of projects that are going out in this current $3.63 billion list to receive additional funding to fund additional projects that each of these transit agencies are pursuing. And so it has a similar effect. But basically, the difference between the two funding sources is that one is in a past budget year and is currently going through solicitation of applications.

The formula based money is for each regional body to receive and then for that region to make its decisions about how those funds would get distributed to projects in their jurisdictions.

I'm sorry, the last one, which one is that?

The population based money goes out to each county or a similar body within the region and is available to projects similar to the ones that are being awarded right now. So it would go into more light rail lines, it would go into more bus projects, it could go into subway extensions, et cetera.

Yeah. And when you said there was a 60/40 who gets 60 and who gets.

So in AB 180 they divided, the $3.63 billion was divided into a Southern California portion, which were the seven counties in the Skag and Sandag regions down south, Ventura County, all the way down to Imperial and San Diego counties. And then the other 40% was for the rest of the state. So there was about one and a half billion for the rest of the state, and the balance was in Southern California counties.

Okay, thank you. Appreciate that. I would really appreciate if there was some way of showing the specific projects how they ended up across the state, because sometimes all these numbers look good, but in terms of who actually gets serviced and the benefit of it isn't exactly the same as what it appears to be. So I'd appreciate something shows that. Thank you. I think it's Mr. Quant, just some questions on the issues of quality of the jobs.

If you can provide information as to the kinds of, the kinds of the way that we would make sure that we are investing in jobs, that would usually there's some sort of standard labor standards that you can attach to the contracts. And I'm not just talking about construction, I'm talking about anything that we pay for, anything that we invest in, but labor standards, what makes them enforceable within the contracts.

Sure. So the administration doesn't currently require labor standards or other enforceable job commitments in the TIRCP project guidelines.

However, the guidelines do use benefits to priority populations, which can be demonstrated through community workforce agreements or labor agreements with unions as an additional evaluation criteria on the applications reviews. So project applications that demonstrate these benefits, they score higher in the competitive application and selection process.

Also, I'll note that all projects that use federal funds already have many labor standards and workforce requirements tied to their federal grant funds, including local hired disadvantaged business enterprise and other requirements. So that's basically what we have.

And do you have a way that you sum it all up? Or you could say, as a result of all these investments, this is where and how it's resulted in good paying jobs.

Yeah, I'll go ahead and turn this over to my colleague, Chad Edison.

Yes. So, Senator, each of the applications that comes into us documents the presence of kind of labor agreements and job standards on these projects. And we do track for both carbon, our purposes, the creation of jobs, and the nature of those jobs.

To the extent that an application comes in and shows that they are going to be having high quality jobs in various ways on their project, we would hold them accountable to delivering on that and actually implementing that if they set it in their application.

In addition, they're federal partners almost always if they're using federal funds, which most of the projects do, they have many federal requirements that are in some cases more stringent than what we see in a lot of the state programs.

So I think between the two, we have both an encouragement, higher ratings on projects that demonstrate this, and then we have job reporting that happens both for carbs purposes and for our program.

And then we have the federal requirements that are coupled with many of these projects because they're being implemented by agencies that are spending federal dollars.

Okay. And is there a way of getting some report on that, on those outcomes?

Yeah, the job reporting that is automatically done by these projects is the easiest to come out with, and that will have some of the answers that you're looking for. And so for projects that are actively under construction and are starting to report these requirements, those are ones that we get on a regular basis through required reporting. For projects that haven't yet started construction and haven't started reporting to us, that would require going into specific applications and reporting out that information.

And so it can be done, but some of this would be going back to the application to pull out the information.

And is this pretty much on just the construction jobs or is it beyond the construction jobs through the procurement process? Is there anything on that front?

Yes. So there is more than just the direct construction jobs required in the reporting that we combine with carbon. There's both direct and indirect. Some of these agencies are doing workforce development activities as part of their project. And so we have that information. Again, some of this is like in standardized reports and other parts are tied to a specific project and would need that data requested of the agency.

Great. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. On the issue of transit. This is the appropriate time for that. We understand that transit operations heard from a lot of agencies about the difficulties and getting to, in some places, could be getting to a crisis mode. So we've got to figure out what to do about that. I know that less of our funds, right, a smaller percentage of our funds go to transit operations.

But I like to hear from you in terms of what flexibility do you see that's available to us to be able to address that, whether it's for a short term, I know it's not a short term problem. It's probably a long term problem. But what are your thoughts as far as how we can address that growing crisis?

So the administration is aware of the challenges that transit operators are facing in today's transit environment. As you mentioned, the funding. Well, so the funding that was appropriated for infrastructure was one time, and as you mentioned, it wasn't intended. It's a one time basis and the transit operations problem is an ongoing problem.

And so while the budget did not make any provisions to allow this funding to be used for operational expenses, we do hope to continue working with transit operators and stakeholders to develop solutions in consultation with the legislature that will preserve and improve the state's transit system in a work towards long term financial stability.

I would add to that also that getting stable capital funding into projects often relieves some pressure on funds that would otherwise be diverted from operations by some of the local agency financial management. And so depending on the specific agency, some of the stability of capital funding and getting those projects fully funded relieves other pressures on their budgets.

There are also formula funds that are flowing and some of those are flowing at higher levels right now, that because of the high diesel sales tax prices and diesel prices and so forth, those funds are increasing and so there is some natural increase happening in funds flowing to the agencies through those resources.

Good, I'm glad you said that because these $2 billion cut here.

But that doesn't come out of operations.

No, I'm saying is you said it helps to relieve the pressure.

The capital funding that we have does.

We put $2 billion back in. Right. Thank you. Going to quote you on it. Okay. I don't think I have. Do I have any more? No. Okay, colleagues, no more questions. Comments? No. Okay. Thank you. Thank you all very much. Some of you might stay. We're moving on to issue 18, implementation and delays of the supply chain and goods movement package.

Again, first we'll hear from Mr. Quant from the California State Transportation Agency. We'll get started there. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Carlos Quant again, deputy secretary for budget and fiscal policy, California State Transportation Agency for the supply chain resilience and port infrastructure package. I'll also be providing an update on the administration's progress in implementing the funding as well as the revisions proposed in the governor's budget.

The 2022 supply chain resilience and port infrastructure package included a 1.38 billion General Fund for supply chain investments in port, freight and goods movement infrastructure. Specifically, the package was comprised of the following investments.

First investment was $1.2 billion General Fund for CalSTA to invest in port, freight and goods movement infrastructure. Upon budget enactment, CalSTA developed program guidelines. In October 2022, we published a call for projects which detailed application requirements and procedures for applicants to apply for grant funding.

Applications for this funding were due to CalSTA by January 13 of this year. We're currently reviewing project applications and intend to award the entirety of this funding by the end of March.

Funding for these projects will be used to leverage additional funding through the IIJA. The next investment was 110 million for the California Workforce Development Board to establish a goods movement workforce training campus that would develop the skilled workforce needed across the goods movement system to build long term system resiliency.

The California Workforce Development Board is currently working with the Port of Long beach and the Port of Los Angeles on the planning phases of this project.

The Port of Los Angeles is working to procure design consulting services to complete the design of the project and obtain an environmental clearance for it. Design of the project is expected to begin in 2023, with environmental clearance expected in 2025.

With the current timeline, the California Workforce Development Board anticipates completion of the goods movement workforce training campus in 2029. The next investment was $40 million for the Department of Motor Vehicles to enhance California's capacity to issue commercial driver's licenses.

This investment included funding to lease and establish dedicated commercial drive test centers in the Bay Area and northern Los Angeles County, and funding for overtime on Saturdays to expand capacity to accommodate commercial driver's license applicants who have appointment wait times greater than 30 days.

For the Bay Area Commercial Drive Test center, the DMV and the Department of General Services have identified three potential sites for a commercial drive test center and have begun the request for proposal process for the northern Los Angeles Commercial Drive Test center.

The DMV is still working with DGS to locate viable locations for the overtime. DMV currently estimates it will spend approximately 1 million by the end of the fiscal year. However, this projection could change as the demand for commercial driver's licenses typically increases in the summer and spring.

The final investment was $30 million for the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development to provide funding for operational and process improvements at the ports.

GO-Biz is moving thoughtfully to deploy funding to establish the California Containerized Ports Data Interoperability Grant program, which is currently under development. The grant program will provide funding to ports for targeted investments to outdated infrastructure and data resources.

GO-Biz's program is now viewed as being a model nationwide as there is no funding or effort like this one in the supply chain ecosystem across the nation. We would note that the Federal Government is also working to improve data and transparency for ports.

We have been working closely with our federal counterparts to ensure California's grant program will align with and complement the policy goals of the federal program and that California's grant program will be competitive for additional federal funding.

Lastly, GO-Biz has engaged with all of the containerized ports and is currently developing a memorandum of understanding that will confirm the intent of all signing parties to work towards a common goal of achieving data interoperability and advancing cloud based data systems as a means of improving port system resilience, goods movement efficiency, emissions reductions, economic competitiveness, and support port system users.

We anticipate the MOU to be executed by April of this year and will be the first of its kind that concludes the implementation updates to each component of the supply chain resiliency and infrastructure package. Now, I will briefly present the governor's proposal related to this funding.

While the governor's budget does not propose any reductions to the supply chain imports package, the budget proposes to spread the 600 million for port, freight and goods movement infrastructure plan for appropriation in 23-24 evenly across three fiscal years, 200 million annually from 2023-24 to 25-26.

We do not anticipate that this proposal will have any significant impacts to projects as these large multiyear infrastructure projects will likely incur expenditures across multiple fiscal years.

Similar to the grade separations proposal in the transportation infrastructure package, this proposal aligns the availability of the funding with the anticipated receipt of associated expenditures. That concludes my presentation. My colleagues and I are happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Mr. Jimenez.

Many of our comments for the supply chain package mirror those that we made in the transportation infrastructure package. Overall, the governor's budget prioritizes sustaining funding for programs within the supply chain package that have already been appropriated.

So if you look on page 19 of your agenda, that's going to be the amounts in 22-23. We find this approach should be reasonable given that many of these programs have already begun accepting applications from local agencies or have started to award funding.

In this package in particular, we recommend that the legislature direct the administration to not solicit applications and award funding before the legislature grants spending authority. Council is in the process of awarding the 600 million agreed to in the budget year for the port and freight infrastructure program.

I think the distinction between our discussion and the transportation infrastructure package on the Clean California program. Caltrans is in the process of soliciting applications and will award funding in the budget year.

For the port and freight infrastructure program, CalSTA is in the process of actually awarding those funds in the current year, even though that's budget year funding. We note that this funding is also proposed to be delayed. Under the governor's proposal, the 600 million would now be 200 million each year from 23-24 to 25-26.

While this out year funding was agreed to, it has not been appropriated by the legislature and is still subject to adjustments based on changing legislative priorities.

As I mentioned, the transportation infrastructure package, we find this to be very important in a year where the legislature faces a budget problem. We find that the premature action to award funding before it is appropriated creates a dynamic where the legislature would then need to consider whether it should cut funding that CalSTA has already promised to local agencies.

This places the responsibility of the potential resulting disruptions on the legislature's shoulders, despite the fact it was the administration's premature actions that created this expectation at the local level. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Department of Finance, Mr. Wells.

Department of Finance. We don't have any additional. I don't have any additional.

Okay. All right. Okay. Well, that last point that was made for CalSTA, if you could please address that, why the administration is awarding funding that's not yet appropriated.

Sure. Thank you for the question. So, similar to the response in the transportation infrastructure testimony, funding for the large transportation projects is typically awarded on a multi year basis when it's not General Fund.

If only half of the funding had been made available, it likely would have deterred the amount of projects that we get for this funding and additionally structured the program, making the entire 1.2 billion available to better position the state to compete for federal funds and maximize the available federal funding through the IIJA, which, consistent with statutory requirements and legislative intent. So, yeah, that's why we're pursuing that.

I'm sorry. So, our analysis notes that GO-Biz received $30 million for port operational improvements that have yet to be expended or programmed. And so, to the LAO first, would your recommendation be that that money be redirected for other purposes?

It's our understanding that that funding, as Carlos Quant mentioned, that it's in the process of being awarded across the state. I would defer to the Department on the exact implementation timeline, but it is a current year appropriation, and that funding is in the process of being awarded out.

And so I guess to do up, you're confident that we'll be able to program those funds during an appropriate interval and apply them in some way that's useful as opposed to using them for something else? That's a yes. Okay, fine. All right. Thank you.

Okay. Went over to GO-Biz, so I'll ask my questions. With regards to GO-Biz, there's something that was mentioned about insufficient capacity to implement the grant program internally. Yeah. Right. So they're hiring a contract because they don't have the internal capacity to do that. Will the cost, it segues from Senator Newman. Will the cost of the contract decrease the amount of funding available for the grants?

Defer to my colleague from GO-Biz.

Good morning, and my name is Trey Bradley, and I'm the Deputy Director for Sustainable Freight and Supply Chain at GO-Biz. And thank you for the question, Senator, I'm happy to give an update on this program, which is in a very dynamic time here at the national level, and honestly at the global level. For the implementation phase in the period, is that there will no, using an intermediary or having an intermediary come on to support us in this work will not diminish the amount of the award because that amount that we are using is allocated in the administration portion of those funds.

And the reason that we made the switch over to that is because of challenges in the state hiring. We wanted to build the staff. Right now, this unit within GO-Biz is just a unit of only myself working on this topic, along with all the other requirements of our office across supply chain ecosystem in the state and doing response to multiple issues.

But the piece is that we are also evaluating, and there was really the deep discussion with the Legislature at the time, that this is, to take this program strategically and with a lot of thought in the process, and hence why the funding window and the amount of the allocation and when it can be encumbered is so long. That piece was really made with the idea that this is a very early pioneering space, which is why we are working so closely with the federal government on it.

There is no federal equivalent in funding to this program, but we are now working hand in hand with them because, in a way, our work and the MOU that the Legislature required within this funding is kind of now being seen as a model for delivering on standards for data at ports. So it's a very dynamic time in the space. But the MOU execution will happen next month, as required under the statute, and funding will be distributed this year.

So have you identified the contractor?

So we are in that...

And what the parameters and the responsibilities are.

We are in that process right now of identification, so RFP process. But the parameters and the requirements of the contractor have all been laid out.

And can you remind me what, you mentioned the administrative fee. Is that incorporated because I asked about whether or not it would take funding away for the grants?

It would not take any funding away from the grants. There's a portion of the total amount of funds that was allocated for administration of the funds. We really wanted to use a portion of that to hire on more staff within GO-Biz to build this knowledge, expertise at the state level and in our state Department. But there's challenges in state hiring. So priority shift at the end of the year, just to make sure that we're able to deliver on the funds in a timely manner.

Could you tell me how much the fees are or the percentage? What is the amount?

The percentage is 3% of the total funds that are eligible to use for administration. But we expect the contract not to be as much as hiring state staff. It will actually be a lesser amount. So we will, in effect, likely have more funds available from the total pool.

Okay, thank you. With regards to, just from CalSTA, the funding for the port infrastructure, and then there was funding for transit infrastructure. Could you tell me a little bit about what the rationale, the thought that went into preserving the fund in one and reducing the funds in the other?

Sure. Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. So the TIRCP Program has its own dedicated funding source, and it's an ongoing program. So the funding that we appropriated for the ports and supply chain was really a one time investment that was meant to address critical supply chain and port infrastructure needs and really to maintain California port competitiveness for years to come. And so we figured that that would probably know we'd start with the TIRCP program and leave these funds as is.

Okay. With regards to the workforce development on the campus. Could you explain that a little bit more? What's the expected timeline in the project and the implementation status?

Sure. I will defer to my colleagues from the California Workforce Development Board or, excuse me, the Port.

Madam Chair, really great to see you, Members. Mr. Quant already talked about the timeline of the funding, but we can go into more detail. Also the activities of building the campus and the time it's going to take to finish that, but also the vision for jobs in goods movement, not just in Los Angeles and the Long Beach ports, but also all the way to the Inland Empire. Just real quickly, the California Workforce Development Board was allocated the funds over three years, $110 million.

The total cost of the port campus is 150 million. The difference being picked up by the LA and Long Beach ports. The California Workforce Board and EDD are in the process of completing the contract to move the first tranche of money over to the LA port, and that's $30 million. And then the next two will be $40 million.

We're trying to build a contract, however, for the full amount of 110 million, contingent upon allocation of the resources, the funds, to just simplify the contracting process so we can streamline it, get the money down to the LA port as quickly as we can so we don't hold up the planning and the development and the building of the port complex, or rather the training center. The timeline of the project, I think I'll hand it over to my colleague, Avin Sharma from the LA Port, Port of Los Angeles, who's also a Board Member on the California Workforce Development Board.

Hi. Good morning, Senators. Avin Sharma, Senior Director of Labor Relations and Government Affairs for the Port of Los Angeles and also a Board Member on the California Workforce Development Board. In regards to timing, as was mentioned earlier, that we are working closely with our sister port, the Port of Long Beach, on moving forward with this project.

We've already conducted some of early soil evaluation work on the site, and our engineers from our two respective departments are working together on design, going through an RFP process to bring on a project manager. The ports and our engineering departments are very good at infrastructure projects and building terminals, and this is similar in nature. This will be a 20 acre campus located at the port, what will look almost a smaller version of a container terminal with ship to shore cranes and space for cargo handling equipment.

So we're moving forward on the design and engineering side of the campus, and we're also starting, our environmental management division colleagues at the ports are also starting the early phases of the EIR and CEQA process that they'll go through. And we'll go through that process because it obviously will require clearance through the CEQA process and then construction to begin after that.

So as was mentioned earlier, if you add that up, we're looking at a 2028-2029 time frame for what I would say is opening of the campus. On your question, Madam Chair, on the operational side of the campus, the campus, as Executive Director Rainey mentioned, is not just about the port itself. We're focused on three areas, longshore, trucking, and warehousing. And in those three areas, really, this campus has three goals. The first goal is existing training needs across these occupations.

There's clear examples in all three of occupations where there are training shortages. Training needs more resources for training. So that's what this campus would look to provide. Second, the two ports, the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, have, through their Clean Air Action Plan, committed to go zero emission on all their cargo handling equipment by 2030. And as you all know, it's not just the ports. Other segments, other areas, the goods movement industry, have committed to going to zero emission.

So understanding that is on the horizon, it's important for us to make sure that that movement on decarbonization, whether it's battery, electric, or hydrogen, whatever the technology involves, has a worker focus and is thinking about workers and is thinking about that transition.

And we want to make sure that the workforce, not just the longshore workforce, but those that maintain and repair trucks, those that maintain and repair cargo handling equipment in the warehousing area, have a state of the art facility where they could be trained on how to operate that equipment and maintain and repair that equipment. Currently, at the Port of Los Angeles, we have 11 different demonstration pilots going on and zero emission equipment. Those demonstrations take place on live terminals.

And so if you're thinking that, it's the perfect environment in which to test out the equipment, but if you're thinking about where are you going to train the employee on how to operate that equipment or how to repair the equipment, you'd probably want a more safer, secure environment. So that's the second goal. And finally, the third goal is we're thinking about this industry as a whole. This industry, in terms of, does not have a long history in workforce development.

And so, for example, back in 2017, the Port of Los Angeles was awarded one of the state's first High Road Training Partnership Grants, an HRTP grant. And two of our fellow grantees were the Shirley Ware Center in Oakland and the Hospitality Training Academy in Los Angeles. And in both cases, those two examples are really serving as a model for us for this campus.

In the Shirley Ware Center example, that is in the healthcare industry, where anyone could walk into there, work, learn about different occupations, receive training on those occupations, and end up in a high road position working at one of the Oakland area hospitals. The hospitality training academy, which Madam Chair, as you well know, is in your district, works with hospitality, tourism, and other related industries.

So any one of us could walk into the hospitality training academy and get training and end up being placed in a high road employer that works with Unite Here, Local 11. Our goods movement industry does not have that. And the goal of this campus is then to begin to insert, working in collaboration with Executive Director Rainey and his team, the goal of this camp is then begin to insert some of those high road principles of job quality, sustainability, and equity into an industry that does not have it.

Thank you.

Sure.

Thank you. And I'm glad you ended on that note, because goes straight into my next question, which is, of the three sectors you talked about, the longshore, trucking, and warehousing, longshore clearly has a history. The practice labor practices are high road, high paying, union jobs, trucking and warehousing is just the opposite. Its whole history is misclassification. It's low compensation. Just poor, not just working conditions, but poor wages. So how do you use this investment by the state, which is an enormous amount of money, how do we turn that into something that's going to feed high road industries, high road employers, and not just feed the creation of poor paying jobs?

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll maybe start, and then I turn to Executive Director Rainey. That's where, frankly, is the most exciting piece of this, I think, is because to do what you've just articulated, which is what we agree with, it's going to require a culture change. Because that history isn't there, one job initiative program, one program, regardless of whether it's local, state, or federal program, is not going to change this entire industry. It's going to require a culture change in this industry. And in order to effectuate that culture change, we look at this in some of bringing the high road principles in other industries, and the Executive Director Rainey could speak to other examples.

But trying to bring that here. And by bringing that here with this campus, you really start to begin to look at a company's bottom line and thinking about, as these companies are beginning to think about how they are going to transition to zero emission cargo handling equipment and zero emission equipment, how are they going to be able to afford the training? And if they're not going to be able to afford the training, they're just going to resort to equipment that is not cleaner.

So the idea by this is that this campus is intended to be a public good. Thinking about how we can use this campus to work with. You're absolutely right. I'll just say on the docks there's a collective bargaining agreement that covers the longshore, but you don't have those same principles and those collective bargaining agreements across the other areas.

And so that's what we're hoping to accomplish here, is that then working with employers, and we're going to need every day of that timeline, the timeline of 2028-29 to then work with employers, identify employers that would be interested. And the incentive is being able to utilize a state of the art campus. And the goal then that would then, again, be able to insert some of these high road principles.

Thank you.

He says it so well. I don't know what else to add other than it is, as Mr. Sharma said, based on the principle of high road, which is where we identify companies that do right by workers, invest in skills, invest in training, don't misclassify, don't pay low wages, pay good wages. For this purpose for the campus, those are the employers that get invited in to be part of this partnership. In that way, we provide extra incentives to do the right thing.

They may be companies who are already there, and we want to benefit them. We want them to know that the state has their back because they do right by workers. And we want to help change practices with other employers inside the sector by coming and get this added benefit. It makes them more competitive vis a vis companies that choose not the high road.

Thank you. Well, yes, Senator.

So thank you, Madam Chair. Mr. Rainey, good to see you, and I appreciate you. One quick question. So longshore, trucking, they obviously happen and will continue to happen in the port area. But warehousing is an interesting question. And to the extent that much of that activity is moving out eastward into the Inland Empire, how does the work that you would do at the campus intersect with that broader economic set of trends and challenges?

Absolutely. That's a great question, Senator Newman. I'd answer it in a couple of ways. First is the two ports, LA and Long Beach, are really the tip of the spear in that transition of cargo handling equipment to zero emission equipment. So I think it's a fair statement to say that that cargo handling equipment that's being tested today at the ports will make its way through the rest of the goods movement chain.

And a top handler, a zero emission top handler or hydrogen powered top handler that's being tested at one of the terminals today, will end up in a rail yard or a warehouse facility once they become more commercialized there. So if we, as the ports, are the future, it behooves us to work more closely through the supply chain and work with partners out in the Inland Empire.

There is an existing HRTP project working with warehouse workers in the Inland Empire that we've had conversations with and have talked to, where it's about coordination. Transportation, obviously, as this Committee well knows, transportation is a barrier to entry in many cases. And so we would not expect someone who lives in the Inland Empire to come all the way down to the ports to receive training.

But if you can think about the supply chain, and if you basically set up two tent poles, one at the port and one where you have more warehouses in the Inland Empire that are then focused on our worker center focus and focused on this new technology, that's where you then begin to create the change.

That's encouraging. So I understand you're doing some equivalent work out there by way of workforce development. That's good. But to Senator Durazo's point, how do we make sure that that leads into high road jobs, particularly the employers that are currently doing a lot of that work out in that area?

Yeah, it's back to what Mr. Sharma said at the start. We have a couple of models that we've been investing in for some time. The Hospitality Training Academy in Los Angeles, which is a bunch of hotel properties and other event venues in Los Angeles, and the centripetal force for that is this training center, Hospitality Training Academy.

All of these properties, all of these employers are invested in it because it's helping them be more competitive compared to other places where people may want to take conventions or events. We're doing the same thing in the transit industry with California Transit Works. We have six transit agencies involved in our High Road Training Partnership across the state, and we're adding seven more. This way, we can affect the whole industry.

So we bring on more and more employers across the whole goods movement supply chain between Los Angeles and Inland Empire. We start to change the way companies recruit, hire, pay, retain their workforce, so that we can set a new standard across warehousing and trucking and longshore. That raises the level of pay, investment in workers, and economic sustainability, but also economic stability for families.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Well, I look forward to this. Thank you for the presentation, and also just to remind all of us that there is a really important climate issues here too. And we rarely talk about them. So I think as we go forward and talk about this program, to talk about this investment, it is not only about the training, it's about the training leading to the good jobs, but it's also about climate issues.

Because if those trucks, if the people who own those trucks aren't able to have clean trucks and invest in clean trucks, then they dirty the air all the way from the ports to the warehouses. It's all just connected. So I really appreciate also that we incorporate into this budget item the extraordinary need to have clean air, especially in those areas, because they are communities of color, and they are low income communities.

They really need the clean air as much as they do a job, not one or the other. So appreciate you. Thank you all very much. I want to move on. Just have some questions about the DMV. I think you mentioned it, but if you could dig a little bit deeper. How is the DMV working towards making the driver's license testing process more efficient and streamlined? We still hear complaints of last minute cancellations, driving further to find testing appointments, and being provided conflicting information about license requirements from the DMV offices. Who is that?

Good morning, Madam Chair. Steve Gordon, Director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles. So, thank you for the question. Over the past, well, since the pandemic, I think the Department has been doing, I think, a fairly good job of making sure that, in fact, we can increase capacity by looking at multiple factors. So I take your point. Sometimes there's confusion. There are truck driving schools in the mix. There's a number of players in this ecosystem that we try to make sure that we serve.

But the factors we've been addressing to make sure we increase capacity, one part is making sure we've shifted resources from lower demand areas to higher demand areas. That is often case in Southern California, especially near the ports, as we just heard. We're also working with the schools to make sure that they are prepared with their students. So their students have to be trained. Because we have about a 25% failure rate for students, even on the basic inspection of the vehicle. Where are the brakes?

How do those basic mechanical things work? That should be a layup for them. And that's something that the schools train on. So that's about 25% of our capacity is tied up and things like that. And also then scheduling. We have last minute cancellations from the schools. So again, we're working with the training schools, predominant demand on our program are from those truck driving schools. We're working with them to make sure that they show up.

We're making sure that their people are prepared, and then we're making sure that our capabilities are available. So today we see that at many sites you can get a same day appointment by, again, working with the schools to make sure they're prepared, making sure the capacity is in place, making sure our capacity matches their capacity by shifting our examiners locally. So I appreciate that there will always be lingering concerns about the Department. There's concerns about us meeting the moment.

But given the data we have today, given the availability of appointments across the state, whether it's in Southern California, Inland Empire, even in rural California, we, I think, have done a very good job. And there are appointments that are available today for people who want to show up today. But again, it's a complex dance between a truck driving school wants to bring six of their students to the test center today.

They bring one truck for those six students, and we have to make sure that all of that stuff works in concert. So again, we're working. If you were to visit one of our CDTCs, the truck driving schools, or the training centers we have, you see every morning, the first thing one of our managers does is starts calling the local schools, make sure a, like a restaurant we're calling from, are you going to be there? How many people are you bringing?

Do you need to shift around appointments? And B, we're looking to fill, when we have open slots to make sure they're filled with the next available student. Can you advance the student you wanted to test tomorrow into today? So the teams are doing a number of things, again, to make sure that our capacity that we've created at the offices is utilized fully by the industry. And also, of course, for the individuals.

We have people from Caltrans, we have people from USPS and others that get commercial truck drivers certified. So it's not always truck driving schools. But again, all those things have to work well together, Madam Chair. And I think given the data we see today and the industry conversations that we have, we think we're making tremendous progress on many of those fronts. And we're trying to disabuse the notion of some of the schools that we're canceling things at the last minute. That may have been true at the height of COVID but certainly less so over the last 12 months based on the data that I see.

Just one more question, so the schools are the source of, that's who you really work with in terms of the applicants?

Yeah. About 90% of our traffic comes from truck driving schools, and those programs that the truck driving schools run four to six weeks, the paid program, and we work with them. The truck driving schools are the ones that secure a schedule for their student based on their assessment of the student's preparation. And they're also the ones that sometimes pull somebody out of the rotation when they don't think a student is ready. So we have to make sure that they're ready. They show up, they bring the equipment, they bring the students in, and everyone is prepared. And that's when the system works its best.

Okay, I'm sorry. One last question is, what have been the major roadblocks in identifying leases for additional commercial drive test centers?

Yeah, that's a great question, Madam Chair. I'm not sure I have the answer to that. We have found, I think, as Mr. Quant has mentioned, some locations in Northern California, which is sort of in the Greater Bay Area, call it the East Bay for now. And I think we have three sites that are identified there. We're currently working temporarily at the, I think starting up next month, the Pleasanton Mall. So that's a mall, tends to have a large parking lot, as many of us know.

That's going to work as a short term measure. But in northern Los Angeles, we have not had the same luck at finding property. And this is going to be like a 405-5 interchange. So due west of Fontana, somewhat north of Gardena, where we have two major centers in that area. But we have not had luck working with DGS looking for properties. So we're continuing to aggressively tackle that.

But in the meantime, those other centers, Fontana and Gardena, you can get a same day appointment today, and they are extremely busy. And just for those of you that have not been out to one of these pads, these are massive locations. There's somewhere between 10 and 20 vehicles on the pad at any one time. These are 18 wheel trucks, so you can imagine they're very busy. You got to be very careful. You have a lot of moving parts.

So we are doing our best to make sure that those stay fully occupied. But we don't want people having to drive from northern Los Angeles to drive out to Fontana unnecessarily, because that creates traffic, pollution, all the other things. So we're trying to make sure that we find the location, but that has been very challenging in the northern Los Angeles area, unfortunately.

I'm sorry, I said that was the last question, but...

Sorry.

Just in terms of, and you don't have to do this now, but in terms of what your goals, is there a certain number of licenses that you feel if you fulfilled a goal within the next six months or a year, because this is all connected right, to the supply chain. Do we have enough people driving and moving the goods? So are you working off of a certain time frame for a number of a goal?

Yeah, it fluctuates, Madam Chair. So I could give you a number today, but if the fuel prices go up or the economy slows down, there's less need for drivers. In the inverse of that situation, of course, there's an enhanced need for drivers. So we're seeing 6000 or so exams on a monthly basis. So that's kind of our target to date. But we want to have the ability to peak up as we need to. So we need to have the physical facilities to do that.

And of course want to make sure we have the relationships with the truck schools to make sure that we can stay in concert with an increased demand that maybe they're seeing. So we don't have a set number because it ebbs and flows. But thank you.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Any more questions? No? Okay. All right. I think we're ready to move on to... Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Issue 19, encampment homeless services liaisons. And I think we're going to hear first from Mr. Steven Keck from Caltrans.

Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. I'm Steven Keck, Chief Financial Officer of the California Department of Transportation. So item 19 is a BCP wherein the Department is requesting a three year limited term General Fund increase of $5.8 million to fund 30 positions for those three years and seven two year limited term positions to support our statewide efforts in addressing homelessness within the state highway right of way.

Mechanic coordinators are very highly specialized and they act as conduits between the people experiencing homelessness, the communities in which they live, and the social service providers who are funded to train and meet their needs. This active collaboration that we're performing is vital to bridging the gaps that exist between the removal of the encampments, which we do for safety reasons, and the accessibility to and the placement in alternative and safer housing options.

So we really need to be coordinating with the local agencies who provide that service so that when we do our job of keeping our highways safe, those are experiencing homelessness have a place to go. And these coordinators really make sure that that happens.

Okay. Yes, Mr. Jimenez.

No concerns with this proposal. We find that these positions are continuation of previously approved ones with a slight augmentation. This is a space that Caltrans finds itself increasingly in, and these positions are reasonable. The Legislature could request additional data from the Department on how these positions are being implemented and what the outcomes are based on its priorities.

Great. Thank you. Mr. Pollack, Department of Finance.

Nothing to add.

Okay, great. Senators, any questions? Comments? Senator Seyarto.

How's the pilot been going for the last couple of years?

It's been going very well. We have a couple of really huge examples. I think Wood Street in Oakland is a very good example of where we were able to coordinate with local agencies, the City of Oakland, the County of Alameda. That was a site, I think it's a 28 acre Caltrans owned property adjacent to a rail right of way. So doubly dangerous. We were able to remove that encampment. We were able to find housing for, I think, 200 individuals in that area.

We removed 4000 yards of trash from that property, over 400 derelict vehicles, and were able to install some measures to help prevent access to our right of way in the future. That's just one example. We have several very large examples of that. But in general, we're finding really a lot of support from, not only the local agencies responsible for providing social services, but from the people experiencing homelessness themselves. They are responding well to our outreach to meet their needs as well.

Right. And are you finding that once you've cleared an area, it stays cleared, or are we finding that eventually it reinhabitates with...

Yeah, so that's a tough question. And certainly there are cases where it doesn't stick. Sometimes folks end up back where they were. But we also work with CHP to continue to patrol the sites to ensure as much as possible that it doesn't happen. Sometimes they move somewhere else.

The key that we want to be able to do is to provide that link between the safety purpose that we are doing to remove them from harm's way and getting them those services, which is how we connect to the larger machine. And so these coordinators are vital to that role.

Thank you.

Real quickly, just a comment. So, Mr. Keck, good to see you. I have some recent experience with this in my district, mostly with smaller camps. But I'm really grateful for the improvements we've seen in both responsiveness but also coordination with some of our local agencies, so thank you. The work moving forward, to Senator Sierra's point, what we see is not your fault, but it's kind of Whac-A-Mole, where you move smaller encampment, especially one place, it kind of reemerges somewhere else.

But that's probably in the nature of things. The one point I would make as we do this is to ensure ideal coordination. Post-cleanup, what we've seen often is there can be several days in between when your cleanup team leaves and when the local agency comes to remove everything. The shorter that duration, obviously, the better the outcome. But otherwise, it seems like we're definitely seeing progress in the Orange County area. So thanks.

Thank you.

Well, I just want to repeat that our office works very closely with Caltrans, and we're really grateful for all of the people who work Caltrans, especially doing this. My staff, Ms. Thomasian, works very closely. And we see a lot of involvement, community involvement as well. And so somehow that is very helpful. So I appreciate that as well.

And that what you're saying, that the link is safety and services coming together on this, but any lessons, or what are the lessons learned so far from this type of pilot, and especially if you're looking to expansion of it? Hopefully there's no need for an expansion. Hopefully.

Right.

This is the kind of program that we eliminate altogether, but... That's what we should be working towards. I know that's not your goal, to grow the number of teams and coordinators that you have, but lessons learned.

Yeah, no, that's exactly right. Ultimately, if we're successful, we eliminate this program entirely. That's a lofty goal, but one that we're working towards. I think some of the lessons we've learned is, A, we always need to keep learning. In other words, we need to be out there in the community. The advantage of having these localized specialists is that they get out, they see where the hotspots are, they meet with people experiencing homelessness, they meet with the coordinators, they're in constant contact.

I think when we originally envisioned this, we thought it would be more of a scheduling thing, like, hey, we're going to be out here on Thursday, come on out. But really we're seeing so much more need for that in depth contact. The other thing that we really learned is, what else can we do? What else can Caltrans do? And this is why we're expanding this program slightly. How can we help with some of the longer term solutions?

Like we do have properties where it could be safe for people to shelter, and we've done several instances now where we work with local agencies to provide housing in those areas. So it requires a lot of coordination between us, between the local agencies, with Federal Highway Administration, who ultimately controls what we can do.

But in those instances, we've been able to provide the space for, say, tiny homes or for other shelter, communal housing, and have been able to help a little bit, even just beyond the safety aspect that we need to do, and help provide some of the interim solutions as well.

Great. Thank you. I just want to also comment that we've been working with Caltrans very closely in my district on the 710 corridor, the housing in that area. So that's not your expertise, nor should it be. But I appreciate working the way we work together on addressing those issues. So just want to say that. Thank you very much. I think that's it for that. No more questions? Okay, we move on to issue 20. Thank you all very much. Hazardous material removal at the encampments. Again, Mr. Keck.

Thank you very much. This is similar, but a different proposal. This is also a continuation of funding that was received two years ago. This is a request for an additional two years of limited term funding for $20.6 million from the State Highway Account to provide a stable fund source for hazardous waste material removal from these encampments.

These resources are going to give us that dedicated fund source so we don't need to pull from other areas within maintenance to focus on what do we do to make that site safe for our workers, for contractors who might be working on our system, for pedestrians in the area after the encampment is removed. Oftentimes when the removal of an encampment, there are hazardous materials left behind that we need to deal with. These are very unsafe conditions, and we hire licensed and bonded hazmat contractors to deal with this waste, removing it, transporting it safely, and disposing of it, as required by law.

Okay. I'm sorry. Yes. Mr. Jimenez.

Thank you. No concern with this proposal. It's a continuation of a previous augmentation that the Department received. And as Mr. Keck mentioned, it's the contract out for hazardous material removal, which Caltrans doesn't have specialty within its staff to do. So it's reasonable to contract out for these services to ensure that the hazardous material can be cleaned up.

Thank you. And Department of Finance, Mr. Pollack?

Nothing to add.

Thank you. I just have a couple of questions, Mr. Keck. You know, we've had this experience in the East Los Angeles with the company Exide and the contamination of the dirt there. And one of the issues that came up was whether or not there was sufficient training of the workers who are actually digging up the dirt and doing with it what they're supposed to be doing.

So I guess my question is, how do you make sure that there is the quality training and labor standards of the employees of the companies that you contract with, because that's what we're facing in the Exide situation.

That's a good question. So we work with Department of General Services in evaluating the licensing and the appropriateness of the hazmat contractors themselves. And we have a litany. I think there's 10 different certifications we require from a contractor to successfully bid on one of these hazmat contracts. In that, of course, I'll provide the list of the 10 items so I don't have to list them all for you now.

But in that is a requirement for what we call hazardous waste operations and emergency response training, which is a 40 hours training program for the employees to be doing this work. So we require our contractors to provide proof of all 10 of these different licensing and certification requirements prior to beginning work on a project. So that's really our means of ensuring that the contractor can do the work that they've bid on. And as they are showing us, assuming no intent to deceive us, they are showing us that they have that training in place.

Okay. Just a layperson's suggestion is how to spot check. I have found in different industries, especially when they're dangerous industries, there may be on paper that it's checked off. Right. All their requirements, but in fact, lot of other things are going on behind the scenes. So figure out how to make sure that the people actually doing the hazmat work have the protections and the training that they need.

Certainly good advice. We'll work with Department of General Services on that.

Thank you.

Issue 21. We'll move on to highway maintenance safety program. Mr. Keck.

Thank you. So, once again, we are requesting a four year limited term funding of $48.4 million and 38 positions to continue a pilot that was put into place two years ago called the HM-4 Safety Program. This pilot program supports our goal of reaching zero deaths and serious injuries on the state highway system by 2050. A very lofty goal on a heavy lift.

But this pilot seeks to target small, quickly implementable safety improvements on the highway system through a safe systems approach, kind of taking it out of the traditional plan design award, a contract construct, multi-year process, and getting out there and doing with our maintenance forces and through maintenance contracts, this sort of immediate safety improvements that we can make on the highway system. We're expanding the program a little bit to also include three new focus areas that the federal highways is looking into.

Those are older drivers and pedestrians and high-risk rural roads, and also the most vulnerable users of our transportation system, which are bicyclists and pedestrians. So we'll be looking at additional measures to meet those specific goals, as well as continuing this pilot for a longer term, which will allow us to gather long-term data on what the impacts of the projects that we put in and how they're performing. Certainly, this two-year pilot program, we're in the middle of the second year now.

Some of these projects haven't even completed construction, so we'll need to be able to evaluate those moving forward. And continuing this pilot program will ensure that we continue to assess where we've been and also allow us to continue to succeed with these safety projects that we've already put in place.

Thank you. Any questions, comments? No. If you're not getting the results that you're looking for, how do you deal with that as you move forward?

That's a really good question. So what we do is we monitor the condition of the safety improvement and the traffic around it after installation. And if we don't see improvement that we were expecting, that triggers a deeper analysis of that particular situation. So the safe systems approach is basically doubling down on what we know works, but it doesn't always work in every situation. And sometimes there's something going on right there that needs special attention.

And so if it doesn't improve, as we expect, that will trigger a deeper analysis, which may mean we do something different with the HM-4 program for that location, or it could even kick it into the longer, more in-depth process in our state highway operations protection program. That would allow us to really get into what didn't work and why and then address that problem.

Good. Thank you. Thank you very much. 22, are we on 22? Okay, moving on to issue 22, pedestrian crossing signals. Mr. Keck.

Our last one. So in this one, the department is requesting one permanent position and $1.7 million for fiscal year 23-24 for traffic operations to reconfigure the timing of up to 6000 traffic signals for leading pedestrian intervals pursuant to Assembly Bill 2264.

That bill requires CALTRANS to implement these leading pedestrian intervals on all of our signals that are accessible to pedestrians that are owned by the state and that are either in a residential area, business area, safety corridor, school zone, or an area with high pedestrian and bicyclist traffic. So really this is to allow time for the traffic to stop. Then the pedestrian signal goes with a period of interval in between to allow to make sure that traffic stopped before the pedestrian begins to cross the road. A fairly simple but very worthy improvement to the system that will be implemented with this program.

Thank you for that. Okay. Yes. God, I keep forgetting. Okay, Mr. Jimenez.

Thank you. We have no concerns with this proposal. I will note that as originally proposed by the department, the BCP would fund the department's original estimates on what was calculated in the bill when it was going through the policy process. There is an alternative within the proposal for a further amount which would fully comply with the intention of the bill. So just wanted to point that out there for the Legislature.

Okay. Is that something that you want to respond to, Mr. Keck?

I can if you'd like. So we recognize during the development of this budget change proposal we had provided an estimate to the Legislature which we wanted to stay true to. At the same time, recognizing that the final bill envisioned a little faster implementation, we provided a detailed alternative to in our BCP that would implement the full 5 or 6000 LPI changes in about two years by scrunching those resources up into a shorter period of time.

Okay. Thank you. Colleagues, any questions or comments? No. Okay.

I'm pretty sure scrunching is a finance word I'm going to use.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Move on now to issues 23 and 24. California Highway Patrol. Issue 23 is wireless mobile video audio recording system and body-worn camera. Statewide implementation. We will hear first from Commissioner Sean Duryee from California Highway Patrol. Good morning.

Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Sean Duryyee. I was recently appointed as the commissioner of the California Highway Patrol. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and the invitation to come present on these two issues. And thank you to the committee staff. Who's worked with our team to prepare for this.

The CHP is requesting 11 permanent positions and a multi-year budget augmentation from the MBA to extend the wireless mobile video audio recording system, we call it the WMVARS project, and implement body-worn cameras statewide. This proposal requests a one-time budget augmentation of 9.8 million in FY 23-24, 9.9 in FY 24-25, and 4.9 million ongoing budget augmentation beginning in FY 25-26.

The requested 11 positions will allow for the department to do proper maintenance, support, and oversight of the body-worn camera program and departmental compliance with requirements of the California's Public Records Act. As you know, a series of high-profile national events have shed light on the benefit of body-worn cameras and recording devices in law enforcement. We feel it's become a public expectation and probably a best practice for law enforcement to have video recording devices, including body-worn cameras.

With the approval of the Legislature and administration back in 2016 tested body-worn cameras in the CHP. We tested them in two areas, the Oakland area and the Stockton area. We found benefits both with the public and the public's response to the use of the equipment, but also from our officers and most officers. It was surprising to us, wanted to wear the cameras, wanted to record those interactions.

There was also positive response from district attorneys with the enhanced evidence value of the videos that we were collecting. Most enforcement contacts, as you can imagine with the CHP, started with a patrol car or a motorcycle. Our patrol cars are equipped with onboard video recording devices. We've had those since 2009. The pre-stop observations, the interaction with a vehicle is recorded, but we're missing that piece with the interaction with the officer and the public, and body warrant cameras will help bridge that gap.

We feel the project would greatly benefit the CHP's effort for increased accountability. Our goal is to be more transparent and to police to the standards that the public expects. If approved, this proposal would provide body-worn cameras for every uniform CHP employee. Additionally, every CHP patrol car is currently equipped with equipment, including a docking station, that would allow the body-worn camera to dock and interact with the onboard camera system in the patrol car.

The statewide body worn camera implementation the Department is requesting authority for 11 new positions to support the increase in workload and staff work associated with the program. Additionally, a portion of the funding will provide essential video redaction software, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to present on this. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Commissioner. The LAO I understand, Ms. Rachel Ehlers.

Yeah, Rachel Ehlers. We didn't raise any concerns with this proposal. It does seem that it would go a long way towards increasing accountability and transparency. However, we think the comment raised on your staff comments in your agenda is an important one, which is that this is proposed to be funded out of the motor vehicle account, which does have a structural imbalance and is projected to have a deficit in out years.

So taking into account, if you're committing to an ongoing program, will you have the resources to do it and making sure you have a plan for that.

Thank you. And Department of Finance. Ms. Bell or Mr. Bell? Sorry.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Jeff Bell, Department of Finance. We support this request, and we'll, of course, be watching very closely the motor vehicle count.

Great. Thank you. I think these would go to the commissioner. A few questions. Have you had any difficulties in uniformed employees requiring them to activate or deactivate the body worn cameras?

No, Madam Chair. In the areas we're testing, we haven't had any. We've actually gone in and done audits with other ways that we track stops to make sure that the video and audio equipment was being activated. And somebody used an analogy for me that I related to back when I was on patrol. When you got out of a patrol car off your motorcycle, you would, out of habit, turn on your radio, your extender radio, you would do it without thinking about it.

It's something that you develop muscle memory in the body camera. We actually brought one here. It's always on in kind of a standby mode, and then the officer just double taps that big button right in the front that will activate it when they get out of the car or off the motorcycle. We are also working towards for the cars, where it integrates with the system. That system activates automatically when we turn on the red lights. And so we're working towards making a connection there with this as well.

Great. Thank you. Are there any issues that might hinder the implementation?

Not that we're aware of. The pilots offered us an opportunity to learn some valuable lessons when it comes to training, the policies, procedures, interacting with DAs, the Public Records Act. So we've learned a lot of valuable lessons with anything with this size and scope. When you're rolling out new equipment, there's hiccups and hurdles, but we're confident in our ability and our staff to overcome that.

Okay. And when you receive a request for video footage from body worn cameras, what's the process of reviewing?

Yeah, that's a great question. If it's a Public Records Act at the local area level where the body cam footage was originally where it originated, it's going to be reviewed, and we're going to review it for information that should be redacted that we're not allowed to release by the statute. If that information there is personal information on there, either from third parties or stuff that would be inappropriate for us to release, that video is sent to Sacramento at our public records unit here in Sacramento, where we have a staff of analysts that have the knowledge and the expertise in redacting that information. They redact that information that we're unable to release, and then the video is provided after a brief review process, it's provided back to the originating area, and they provide it to the requester.

And have you encountered any issues with using that process?

No issues. We have with SB 1421, AB 748, where it opened up a lot more public records acts requests were coming into law enforcement agencies. We've learned a lot in the last couple of years on how to be more efficient. Those bills I just mentioned were retroactive, and so we had to go back and redact several records on large cases that were intensive man hours. We're getting to a point where we are almost caught up with all of those, and we have a pretty good understanding of what it takes moving forward to maintain the workload.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Well, I applaud you for being ahead of the game and seeing the positive benefits of this, so thank you very much. Senator.

I just wanted to say to commissioner, welcome, this is my first time seeing you before, so looking forward to working with you.

Thank you, sir. Likewise.

Yeah. Okay. Issue 24. 24 capital outlays. Right. Okay. Issue 24, capital outlay proposals. Commissioner.

Thank you, Madam Chair. CHP is requesting 500,000 from the general fund to identify suitable parcels for replacing up to five additional field offices and develop site studies for those parcels. Additionally, we're requesting just under 11 million from the general fund for the performance criteria phase of the capital outlay projects for the reading, Los Banos, Porterville, Antelope Valley, and Barstow Area office replacement projects. Additionally, 85.6 million from the Public Buildings Construction Fund for the design-build phase of the gold run and Humboldt Area office replacement projects.

And finally, 184.3 million from the Public Buildings Construction Fund to replace existing current-year authority of the same amount from the general fund for the design-build phase of the Quincy, Baldwin Park, and Santa Fe area office replacement projects. Let me say I understand the questions and concerns, maybe with the funding sources of these projects, and I'll defer to Department of Finance on those in DGS, but when we determine the suitability of these projects. Some of these projects are in dire straits. Some of these buildings are severely undersized. Many of them are 80 to 90 years old. They have seismic issues. And so there is quite a criteria that goes into determining which of these are selected for capital outlay projects. I'll just leave you with that. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Ehlers.

Thank you. So we didn't raise any concerns with these specific projects. And similarly, the proposal to shift from funding them with general fund cash to lease revenue bonds makes sense given the general fund condition. What we do, as is detailed in your agenda, have some concerns about is what is going to be the Fund source to pay the debt service on these lease revenue bonds has not yet been identified by the Department of Finance. And that raises concerns for a couple of reasons.

One is if you're borrowing money, you should have a plan for how you're going to pay it off, but also because the two prime sources for paying that debt service have a lot of trade-offs associated with them. One is the motor vehicles account, which is typically what has supported the department. And that makes a lot of sense from a policy reason to have drivers and the fees they pay support these services.

However, as was mentioned already in the previous item and as noted in your agenda, this account has a structural imbalance. And already under the governor's proposal, even without accounting for these debt service payments, would have a deficit in the out years. So there's some concerns there on the general fund side. This would be a policy shift to have general taxpayers, through the general fund, support these programs. And as we all know, there are some concerns about the fiscal health of the general fund as well.

So really, our prime recommendation to you here, there are trade-offs. There aren't easy answers here, but identify and have a plan for how you're going to pay the debt service for these before you take on these new debt on behalf of the state. And those comments will apply as well to the next issue because it's a similar proposal for both CHP and DMV for capital outlay. This switch to lease revenue bonds without a plan.

Thank you. Department of Finance. Mr. Katz.

Hello. Randy Katz with the Department of Finance. Thank you, Senator Durazo. So, first of all, we support the CHP wholeheartedly in expressing the need for these continuing projects. But to speak specifically to the LAO's point about debt service, the Administration is very concerned about having the flexibility to determine which is appropriate between MVA or general fund to pay debt service. We would note that for the CHP projects, the first payment would be in 26-27 if not later.

Debt service happens once bonds are sold, which happens once projects are completed or very close to completion. So that is like the tail end of MVA projections. As we know recently, it's hard enough to predict next year, much less four years out or the 25 years beyond that for which debt service would be paid. That said, debt service is provided each year in the governor's budget. So we do not have any concerns if, as part of each year's budget deliberation, the debt service for that given year. So 2027 or at the tail end, 2052. But each year there's deliberation on whether MVA or general fund is most appropriate.

So you're saying each year the administration is going to determine which fund is going to repay?

Correct. From a bondholder's perspective, they just need to know that the bonds will be repaid.

But for purposes of our budget here, don't we need to know that?

For purchasing lease revenue, it's a requirement that we use basically the rental stream of those buildings, once they're completed or near completed to pay back those bonds. And so that's done as debt service, which can be provided. There's no preclusions in law under which fund source is used, and certainly there's a preference to be able to use the MVA, should the MVA be able to sustain such a payment without having to sacrifice the other purposes funded from the MVA.

But that is something that debt service is budgeted each year. It's actually a distinct item in CHP, DMVs, or Cal Fires or corrections, whatever department's budget. And at that point, based on how the general fund or the MVA is looking, we would make a decision as part of our governor's budget on which Fund source to use, and then that can be subject to deliberation.

Okay, thank you. Yes, Senator.

So I'm not a big fan of debt service. $625,000,000 for $325,000,000 worth of buildings. We should be looking at finding funding and make it a priority because it should be to just pay for it, and then we move on to the next priority. This is just piling priorities on priorities and paying twice as much of taxpayer dollars to get something done that we should be able to if we would just prioritize correctly.

I'm glad, and I'm sure the governor is glad I am not up there with him doing this budget, because there's a lot of things that we could change in this budget to get a lot more things done that people need done to keep them safe and to give them some adequate working conditions. I would hope that we can find the funding to do this without going more into debt than this state already is in. Thank you.

Thank you. Senator Newman. No. Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. And the same, I guess, questions apply here. With issue 25, we have the Department of Motor Vehicle capital outlay proposals, I believe. Mr. Gordon. Thank you. Thank you, Commissioner.

I will do. So for the first is the El Centro Brawley Field Office Commercial Drive Investigations Consolidation project. DMV is requesting 2,458,000 from the General Fund Fund the performance criteria phase for the continuing DMV El Central Braley DMV Field Office and Commercial Drive Test Center Replacement Project. The acquisition phase was funded in fiscal year 22-23 for 3.1 million from the General Fund. Funding for the design-build phase will be requested in a subsequent request to utilize lease revenue bond funds.

The El Centro Field Office is no longer a viable location due to the structural and functional deficiencies. This project will consolidate the El Centro Field office with current leased Brawley Field Office location as well as local investigations and commercial driver licensing programs. That's the first one. The second one is the Inglewood Onsite Replacement Project. DMV is requesting to revert 20,928,000 from the General Fund and replace it with funding from the Public Buildings Construction Fund.

The lease revenue bonds for the previously approved construction phase of the Inglewood Field Office Replacement Project. Construction of an onsite replacement facility that complies with current building codes is tentatively scheduled for October of 2023. This project will replace a facility constructed in 1972 that is space deficient, noncompliant with the California Building Codes, the American with Disabilities Act, and is functionally and seismically deficient.

The site and building will be designed to ensure that the safety and security of both customers and employees will meet all current code requirements. It's also addressing the U.S. Green Building Council's leadership in energy and environment design criteria. Also, the new structure will be designed in a manner consistent with the Department's field office workflow design standards to more efficiently and effectively service customers. That's the conclusion of the second one and the last item is the San Francisco Onsite Replacement Project.

DMV is requesting 41,654,000 to fund the design-build phase of the San Francisco Field Office Onsite Replacement Project utilizing lease revenue bond funds again. The performance criteria phase was funded in fiscal year 21-22 for two and a half million. The 62-year-old aged and obsolete building will be replaced on-site with a facility that complies with current building codes, has new modern building systems, is compliant with ADA requirements, and energy efficient.

Also, as a result of the Executive Order N0619 for the Affordable Housing Development Resolution, the timeline for completion may change as DMV is working with DGS to identify options to satisfy the housing resolution in this space. The tentative completion date for this project is July of 2026, and as a reminder, each of these proposals is a continuing project that were approved in previous fiscal years.

It generally takes several years to acquire land and design of the project and as we monitor the state's future funding conditions. At the moment, we are utilizing lease revenue bonds and being requested to lease these new capital outlay projects. As CHP echoed in the previous statements, we also have old building seismic issues that we need to still be able to address. We are happy to answer any questions for these requests.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Yes, Ms. Ehlers.

Thank you. So yeah, same comments. We don't have any concerns about the specific projects. It's really just the funding plan. I think one thing I would add is some of the downsides of waiting to identify later. If you're going to want to use the MVA, you're going to want to take steps sooner rather than later to address the operating shortfall there. Whether that's raising additional revenues or reducing expenditures to make room for this. You don't want to kind of wait and hope that there's enough money there.

You could actually take action to ensure. If you want to use General Fund, you're going to want to build that into your multi-year budget plan so that you have a sense for your out years of what the General Fund condition would be. And just this wait and see, we'll decide in the year we want to fund it would preclude doing that.

So again, just a few more reasons to underscore if you're going to choose to use a lease revenue bond approach and take on debt, having a plan that can help build these into your longer-term agenda for how you're going to address this. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. Yes. Mr. Katz?

Yes. Randy Katz with Department of Finance. Same thing as with CHP. The same comments that were made, except to say that we support DMV's projects. And then as for the multi-year, we understand that is important. We would just want to reiterate that the first year of debt service funding would be the last year of multi-year. And usually that is the one that has the most uncertainty for 100 other reasons.

Okay, thank you all.

Yes.

Sure.

Or the state could just give the DMV back the $740,000,000 that they borrowed from the DMV's Fund, put into the State Fund, and then they could probably build their buildings and we wouldn't have to do debt service again. This is a great example of why we shouldn't be skimming money off of our agencies, because the money that we pay to the DMV, from a taxpayer standpoint, is actually tax.

It's tax money, and it's supposed to go to a specific purpose. When the state takes money out of that for a specific purpose and although they took 1.2, they did pay some of it back. That almost constitutes an illegal tax, and it certainly doesn't uphold the intent of Prop 26. So has the state looked at doing that? Maybe paying back the agencies that they've borrowed money from over the years or taken money? Because if you don't pay it back, it's not really a borrowing, it's a taking.

Because that would help agencies stay solvent in their operations and probably better serve the people that are so frustrated because they have inadequate facilities to serve the need that's out there.

Yeah, I'm sorry. As the cap outlay analyst I can speak to.

Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot with that one. But it was just pointing out that that's one of these strategies that's been used over the years to raid our different pots of money that are not really supposed to be, that the taxpayers think is being used for that. And then they wonder why they get such bad service. It's not because the people don't care. It's because they don't have the tools they need.

They don't have the tools they need because their money got taken away. So I would rather see a plan that says, hey, let's pay these people back. And that way they don't have to come out and try to do revenue bonds, et cetera, to try to build facilities that are desperately needed. So thank you.

Thank you, Senator. Okay, we're done here. We're going to move on. Thank you all very much. Appreciate all of your hard work. We will now move on to anyone wanting to provide public comment. As a reminder, today's participant number is 844-291-5491 and the access code is 7042477. We're going to begin with any witnesses here in Room 112, and then we'll move on to individuals on the phone lines. So again, please identify yourself and a quick comment. Thank you. Go ahead.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. Kiana Valentine, on behalf of Transportation California, here to comment on item 17 from earlier this morning. Wanted to express our appreciation to the Committee for the robust dialogue about how to best address the budget shortfalls you are facing and the difficult decisions that you're looking at with respect to transportation programs. And we recognize that General Fund solutions from the transportation program will likely have to be a part of the overall budget solution.

Transportation California and the transportation construction industry were strong proponents of the General Fund multimodal transportation package last year. And so it's, of course, disappointing to be in a position just six months later that you're having to face reductions. Multimodal transportation needs abound. Given the time constraints and the long line of public testimony, I will not reiterate for you what you all know. Multimodal needs across the state are in the tens of billions of dollars.

And so for that reason, we are very concerned with the administration's proposals to backfill the General Fund transportation funding package with State Highway Account Dollars. The transportation construction industry would not have been able to support the notion of a fund shift as a standalone program last year. I also would like to comment briefly on the notion that IIJA can serve as a way to support transportation programs through fund shifts from the State Highway Account.

As long as I've been working on transportation, almost 20 years now, we've been calling on the Federal Government to be a strong funding partner. And so at a time when the Federal Government finally steps up, increases federal transportation funding, it seems ironic then, that we would be relying on that to justify reductions from state investments. Again, I think we are just concerned about the bad precedent that it sets today.

Recognize that you have a long way to go to determine the final budget, and we look forward to future conversations on this. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you. And if everyone could limit to a minute, I would really appreciate it so we could give everyone the opportunity. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, Manny Leon with the California Alliance for Jobs. Just want to strongly echo all the comments that our industry partners made right now previously. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members Alchemy Graham with the California Transit Association, representing 220 members statewide. Thank you, Madam Chair, for noting the need for additional state support for public transit in your remarks. I'd like to urge the Subcommittee to maintain funding for the TIRCP at the levels included in the fiscal year 2022 and 2023 budget and call for multiyear funding for transit operations.

While we understand the current budget outlook is dire, these investments are essential to delivering on the state's climate, mobility, public health and equity objectives. Further, the historic levels of TIRCP funding was a key part of the budget negotiations between the Legislature and the Administration last year and should be upheld for that reason. Transit agencies are also in dire need of additional operations funding to have the opportunity to rebound from low ridership numbers caused by the pandemic.

While we look forward to providing the Legislature and Administration with recommendations for these operating deficits with budget conscious operations funding later this month. Finally, we urge you to extend the COVID related statutory relief provided to transit agencies through fiscal year 2024 and 25. Thank you.

Hopefully, I can reach the mic. Sarah Pollo Moo with the California Retailers Association commenting on discussion item 18, California Retailers appreciates go business partnership on the goods movement and we encourage the Subcommittee to prioritize funding for their two programs under the port operational improvements in the supply chain package so the Containerized Ports Data Interoperability grant program and the funds to improve data processes. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Moira Topp, on behalf of the Orange County Transportation Authority, also want to align myself with colleagues before me related to the transit issues in the budget. But to underscore one quick point, we face competing priorities. We want to make sure that our fares remain low, especially for those transit-dependent riders. We want to make sure our buses are clean and safe.

And most profoundly, we are facing significant requirements from the state to replace our entire bus fleet so that they are zero emission. Transit funding is a zero-sum game. It's one pie. And so as we take from one, it's going to affect all of the rest of the transit operations within our agency and within the state. So the $2 billion reduction to the TIRCP program will have a profound effect on our operations and our ability to meet the state mandates. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Rebecca Long with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. We are the nine county regional transportation planning agency for the San Francisco Bay Area and just wanted to call out the letter that we sent last night that has over 108 different organizations. We've been building a really strong coalition in the Bay Area. Public transit is vital to the Bay Area.

While our ridership is down, we carried about 22 million trips last year, but we are looking at major, major cuts to our transit systems, particularly some of our largest systems, that are vital to ensuring mobility in the region. I did want to just associate myself with the comments of California Transit Association. We strongly object to the cuts to TIRCP, but we also very much do need a multi-year, limited-term transit operations support from the state.

The extent of the need is too large for operators to just adjust without making major service cuts. And so we really are looking to the state to get creative and find a limited term, multi-year support so that these agencies don't have to make devastating cuts that will disproportionately hurt low-income people, people of color, as well as undermine our climate goals. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Steve Wallauch on behalf of the Alameda County Transportation Commission, the Golden Gate Bridge District, and the Napa Valley Transportation Authority and the California Association for Coordinated Transportation, I want to echo the comments made by MTC and CTA earlier. I really want to urge your support for maintaining the commitment to the capital funds that were in the budget, but also, more importantly, developing a multi-year commitment for transit operations.

It's critical to come up with something in the short-term before service cuts starts to spiral out of control. Thanks.

Thank you.

Hello, Madam Chair and Members Andres Ramirez on behalf of the Transbay Joint Powers Authority regarding issue 17, we'd like to express our gratitude to the Legislature and the Administration for their critical investments in public transit over the past few years. However, we are very concerned about the proposed cuts, as others mentioned, for the transit inner city rail capital program in the amount of $2 billion.

The TJPA is tasked with delivering the Downtown Rail Extension Project, now known as the Portal, which will be connecting Caltrain's 72-mile system, along with building the northern terminus for high-speed rail. This project is currently, like a lot of other projects in the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investments Grant Program, which will provide up to a 50% project cost match. The state's Transit Inner City Rail Capital Program is a major source of non-federal funds that are matching funds.

So if cuts are made to this program, we risk the real possibility of not meeting our local match requirements, meaning we ultimately sacrifice billions in federal dollars and further subject ourselves to further cost escalation, which for DTX is about 300 million per year. So we look forward to working closely with the Legislature, budget committees and Administration to ensure that current and future transit infrastructure funding remains intact. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair Members Andrew Antwih with Shaw Yoder Antwih Schmelzer and Lange, here today on issue 17 on behalf of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. Like others that you've heard testify today, including the California Transit Association. We very much oppose the proposed reduction in funding from the TIRCP, especially from the $4 billion pot. Understanding that the Governor has installed triggers, we see where the trend lines are going. So we urge this Subcommittee to sustain the funding.

The investment in transit is part and parcel of our climate strategy, and transit is being asked to do more and more with respect to being the canary in the coal mine, to essentially be the test lab for zero-emission vehicles at the heavy-duty level, something that is with great expense. But there's been a lot of cooperation to make that regulation a success, and we think that this investment will help get it to that point of being a success.

In Los Angeles County, we have the largest bus fleet in the state, second largest in the country. And so having that fleet turnover, at least currently on a very aggressive timeline, the funding that's available needs to kind of be sustained. So we urge you to do that. And then on item 18, on supply chain investments on behalf of the Port of San Francisco, we urge those dollars be retained in the budget and sustained from what the Governor proposed without reduction.

We saw what happened when we don't prepare for these choke points that happen in the supply chain, and we think that the investments are close to being done, especially with respect to the containerized port cargo grant program and the other investment components as well. And so we very much urge this Committee to go ahead and include that in the budget and sustain it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members. Brian White with KP Public Affairs, representing the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association. We represent the ocean-going vessels, marine terminal operators doing business on the West Coast. Here to speak on item 18 and our support for maintaining the 1.21 billion one-time spending for the supply chain package. Over the last four years, California's ports and supply chain have endured the most prolific and intense business period in the state's history.

From the start of the pandemic, the goods movement industry was forced to adapt to worker shortages throughout the entire supply chain and to adapt to demands that were beyond our control. We had to adjust to shortages in equipment and trucking services and clear congestion terminals, and we did that all in good faith, and we were able to sustain those things. But even before the pandemic, we had a significant impacts with the supply chain and the good movements in California.

And California ports were already experiencing a decline in market share prior to this pandemic. So the congestion that we're experiencing now has not gone away. We still have market share issues that need to be resolved, which is why we support the Governor's 1.2 billion budget proposal for the 23-24 budget. We think this will help improve ports and freight infrastructure, increase the supply chain workforce, provide operational improvements.

These investments are critical if we're going to address our supply chain issues and remain competitive throughout the state, the country and the entire world. So we ask for your continued support.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairwoman and Members. Sara Baumann on behalf of the Port of Long Beach. we thank the Governor for his steadfast support for ports and critically needed port-related funding in his January budget. This includes $1.2 billion for port infrastructure, 30 million for ports' data connectivity, and 110,000,000 for Workforce Training Development Center in the San Pedro Bay Port complex. The 1.2 billion for port infrastructure will provide critical funding to enhance system capacity, including the development of cargo support facilities, rail expansions, bridges, and so on.

The Port of Long Beach's 10-year capital improvement program alone comes with a $2.6 billion price tag. The state's investment in ports is critical to building a resilient supply chain that drives California's economy. The 30 million for ports' data connectivity is also another critical allocation to allow for ports across the state and nation to gain better visibility into the supply chain, visibility that is lacking today.

Being able to track containers is not only common sense, but it also will allow for all parts of the supply chain to better plan for logistics, which will have economic and environmental benefits to the state. Lastly, the proposed 110,000,000 investment to build a goods movement workforce training center will be the first facility in the nation to attract workers, address skill shortages, and provide workforce advancement opportunities across the goods movement industry.

We ask the Legislature to retain this critical funding package that was approved by the Legislature in the 2022 budget in order for California ports to remain competitive and assert trade leadership. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairwoman and Members Eric Martell with the Port of Los Angeles. As my colleague just stated right before me, we're here in support of the supply chain package over at the Port of L.A. Most importantly, you heard from my colleague Avin Sharma regarding the Goods Movement Training Campus at the San Pedro Bay Port Complex. It's the first in the nation that will be actually dedicated to retain and upscale the current workforce and we ask for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Durazo and Members. Marvin Pineda, on behalf of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, here in support of the funding for the Job Training Center. The training center is absolutely needed for the reason stated. We currently don't have a location where we bring the workers to be trained, and we have a piecemeal approach at every terminal. A lot of times we've lost workers at the job because of accidents.

So the funding is absolutely needed. As far as investments on the port infrastructure and different data systems. Last year, Governor Newsom and the Legislature, with your support included language so that none of the funds are used for automation. So we continue to ask for your support on that, and also that none of the data systems track the worker productivity. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members Alchemy Graham with the California City Transportation Initiative. In reference to issue 17, we'd like to urge the Subcommittee to maintain funding for the active transportation program at the levels included in the fiscal year 2022 and 2023 budget. These investments are essential to delivering on the state's climate, mobility, public health, and equity objectives. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Begging this Subcommittee's indulgence and being very brief, I just wanted to, on behalf of L.A. Metro, make a crystal clear underscore that transit operations is a priority. We need relief from the state on that issue as well as L.A. Metro.

Thank you.

Chair and Members, Nate Solov on behalf of the Port of L.A. Just wanted to highlight on the Goods Movement Package that the 1.2 billion infrastructure investment that is so critical because CalSTA just received all the applications in January. They're going to be awarding that over the next couple of weeks, and that's timed so that it syncs up with the federal funding applications that are going to be happening in a few months here.

So just wanted to highlight how that the state funding is tied into our ability to get federal funding as well, and how critically important it is to keep California ports competitive since we are seeing volume, competitiveness, and loss to other states on the East Coast and Gulf states. Also, just wanted to highlight the importance of the GO-Biz $30 million funding to ensure that the ports have the updated technologies to be able to track both outgoing and incoming cargo to address supply chain issues.

So appreciate your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you to everyone who testified today. Where's my? Seeing no one else here in Room 112. Moderator if you would please prompt individuals waiting to provide public comment, we will begin. And if you would, let us know the number of people waiting to testify.

Thank you. For public comment. You may press one and then zero. Again, that is one and then zero for public comment. And, Madam Chair, we have about 30 in queue.

Okay. I would remind everyone who is waiting to testify, please keep it no more than a minute per person. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll go to line 14. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Great. My name is Jessica Zenk, Deputy Director for Transportation with the city of San Jose.

I'm also speaking on item 17 from this morning and want to thank the Subcommittee for prioritizing transportation funding, particularly last year during the budget surplus, and for being creative today as we go into more difficult fiscal times. I wanted to briefly give you a local perspective as you look at budget options. This was also emphasized by San Jose's mayor, Mayor Matt Mayhem, in the letter he submitted to this Committee.

First, transit funding is critical to our economic development, as well as to support new housing and ensure a more sustainable, affordable California. As you're likely aware, San Jose is still growing as the largest city in Northern California. In our downtown alone, we are preparing for 60,000 new residents, 100,000 new workers, and 15,000 new students. With all these new people, we project more than 50% of trips will be made by people taking transit, walking, and biking.

Fast, frequent and reliable transit is critical to meet this growth and serve our existing communities in affordable, sustainable ways. Extending the Bay Area's transit backbone, BART, into the core of the city is a necessary first step. The BART Silicon Valley extension is shovel-ready, but relies upon previously proposed TIRCP funding to finalize the full funding agreement with the Federal Government for more than $4 billion. That's a huge opportunity for the state to bring in federal resources to build out our transit system.

Billions in local sales tax resources are also committed to the capital project. With this in mind, we echo those who have implored you to maintain General Fund transit capital funding for FY 23-24 at the levels proposed last year. We are also heartened to hear that this Committee is discussing the need to find sustainable transit operating funding sources without digging into one-time capital funding.

Public transit is an economic lifeline for many of our residents and is critical for the future of our economy, sustainability and quality of life.

Thank you. We're going to have to. I'm sorry, you're way past your time. Thank you so much for calling. Next, please.

Thank you. We will go to line 44, your line is open. Line 44, your line is open. Please check your mute button. All right, we'll go. Line 49, your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. This is Kirk Blackburn calling in on behalf of the San Diego Association of Governments, SanDAG, on item 17. We'd like to support the comments of the California Transit Association in urging the Subcommittee to maintain funding for the TIRCP at the previously prescribed levels. Also want to urge the Subcommittee to provide funding for transit operations as transit agencies are facing massive operating deficits over the next five years. And finally, want to stress the importance of extending statutory relief for transit agencies through fiscal year 2024-25. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 47. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Committee Members. Jonathan Clay, on behalf of the Port of San Diego. Just echoing the comments of the other ports you've heard today in support of item 18 and the continued inclusion of infrastructure money for goods movement. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 52. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Alex Walker, manager of legislative affairs at the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District or BART. We thank you for your support for public transit. Just want to associate ourselves with comments from the California Transit Association, Metropolitan Transportation Commission, and others in our sector, and just want to say that we have a great level of coordination between the Bay Area, between our operators, MTC, our business community, transit advocates, and also statewide through the Transit Association.

And we hope to keep this TIRCP at the prescribed levels because it's important for getting other funds, getting federal funds, and also for keeping statutorial leave through fiscal year 24-25. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 58. Your line is open.

Hi, good afternoon. This is John Minet speaking for the East Bay Transit Riders Union.

I'm a Sam Leandro resident and I want to express that I'm glad that some transit is being invested in on the infrastructure side, but it is vitally important that we as a state make operational funds investments in transit service in the Bay Area and elsewhere. We are headed to some really catastrophic potential outcomes in as little as one or two years for transit service, which is really the lifeblood of the Bay Area, is part of the livelihood of low-income workers and people of color.

I use transit every day and so many people depend on it, and efficiencies and oversight are not going to solve a gap in the billions of dollars. We do need to make transit better and we need to make it work better and more seamlessly, but for that to happen, it needs to survive first. So please bring the state in, in making sure that it survives. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 64. Your line is open.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Alfred Hughes. I'm on a park train right now, headed to work. On behalf of everybody else on this train, I want to make sure that we get transit funding to avoid massive service cuts that will be difficult to recover from. Please fund transit operations. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 42. Your line is open.

Hi. Good afternoon, Chair Durazo, Members of the Subcommittee. Andrew Saul calling on behalf of the Riverside County Transportation Commission.

Also on item 17, just want to share, like other speakers before me, I want to share our support for maintaining the previously approved funding levels for the Transit and Inner-City Rail Capital Program. We definitely understand that this year's budget outlook requires the Administration and Legislature to take a hard look at spending. However, restoring the proposed $2 billion and cuts to this program is critically important, particularly as the state continues to look at providing new mobility options that reduce emissions as well as vehicle miles traveled. So thank you for your time.

Thank you. Next.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 28. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, Chair, and Subcommittee Members. I'm Devon Ryan, Government and Community Affairs Officer, speaking on behalf of CalTrain. We deeply appreciate the work of the Committee and the challenge of this difficult budget year. However, funding for our public transit systems is critical to the health, climate, and economic future of our state.

We echo the comments from the California Transit Association and others urging the Committee to maintain the previously prescribed funding levels for the Transit and Inner-City Rail Capital Program. This program recently closed the funding gap for electrification project. A huge moment as we will be the first diesel-to-electric conversion of a railroad in the American West, increasing reliability while reducing air and noise pollution.

At CalTrain, due to the impacts of the pandemic, we are facing a future operating deficit over the next five years and the tens of millions of dollars. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of providing transit operations funding as well. We understand the hard decisions that need to be made, but again, urge the consideration of needed and necessary public transit support. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 53. Your line is open.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Todd Bloomstine for the Southern California Contractors Association. With regards to issue 17, we'd like to align ourselves with the comments made by Transportation California. We'd like to thank the Committee for the Discussion and finally like to mention that we have some concerns with the shifting away of funds from the State Highway Account. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 33. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, Chair and Subcommittee Members. My name is Mina Layba. I'm the Legislative Affairs Manager for the city of Thousand Oaks and Thousand Oaks Transit. We just want to briefly align ourselves with California Transit Association. We ask that you remain or keep level funding for transit operations. It is very important for us to maintain that funding so we can continue to serve our low-income populations as well as our senior adults. Please maintain level funding. Thank you.

Thank you for calling.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 46. Your line is open.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Durazo and Members. Kate Green, Director of Government Affairs for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency under issue 17. Here to emphasize the importance of providing short-term relief funds for transit operations to ensure continued sustainable transit service throughout California. The state cannot achieve its climate and equity goals without safe and reliable public transportation.

The transit fiscal cliff situation is the result of sustained loss of revenue from a variety of local sources, including fare revenue, and really appreciate the clear acknowledgment of this problem in the excellent staff report. San Francisco's transit system, Muni, the second largest in the state, is projecting $130,000,000 budget shortfall in July 2024, which is the equivalent of 20 Muni lines. We are doing everything in our control to look at alternative revenue options and fit service to what we can afford.

But we help with our bridge to get to a sustainable future. On behalf of public transportation interests, we thank you for your leadership and support.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 20. Your line is open.

Hello, this is Denny Zane. Good afternoon, Chair Durazo, Senators. I'm representing Move LA in Southern California. Regarding issue 17, we urge you to support and fund a universal fare-free student transit pass program as proposed in AB 610 from Assembly Member Holden.

We believe $180,000,000 over two years will provide an adequate demonstration of the value of such a program. There are few other uses of public funds, especially of our greenhouse gas reduction funds, like a universal fare-free transit pass program that can help us achieve so many different important purposes, including putting money into the coffers of transit agencies facing a fiscal cliff while also putting riders into empty seats, reducing VMT and fighting climate change and cleaning our air.

It will also help us rebuild lagging enrollment in our schools and enable students to afford to go to college and fulfill their educational dreams. There are so many upsides to investments in the student transit pass program, and we urge it be one of your priorities. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Moderator? How many more witnesses, Moderator?

We have 19 in queue.

Thank you.

You're welcome. Next, we'll go to line 57.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Gus Khouri, legislative advocate for the Tri-Valley San Joaquin Valley Regional Rail Authority. Just want to affiliate myself with comments made by the Transit Association and Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The Valley Link Project is critical in providing a huge mitigation strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the San Joaquin Valley introducing new riders into the Bay Area to supplement our sister agencies and putting a dent into the 105,000 daily commuters that traverse the Altamont.

So we appreciate your comments and look forward to working with you on a solution. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 63. Your line is open.

I'm Hoai-An Truong, a volunteer with Mothers Out Front Silicon Valley. Please support Seamless Bay Area's request to provide new multi-year funding for public transit in Silicon Valley. People of color make up 80% of transit riders. 50% are low-income. 80% are transit-dependent.

Public transit plays a vital role in a just transition away from fossil fuels. A lot of low-income folks are about to fall off a cliff as both pandemic food relief and transit-related pandemic relief are running out. They still need to get to work in grocery stores. We made effective multiyear funding of robust public transit growth for climate, for equity, clean air, public health, and especially for social justice. We will not reach our climate goals without it. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 30. Your line is open.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My name is Jonathan Karpf from California Faculty Association. I have a brief comment and then a quick question. Given that Governor Newsom is a champion for measures to reduce climate change, I'm very disheartened that his budget worsens the impending budget shortfalls that transit operator operators are facing. And these service cuts would undermine the state's ability to meet the ambitious climate goals, as transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

But furthermore, California has also led the country in measures to increase social equity. And almost 60% of California residents who commute via public transit have a household income below $35,000. Over half a million California households own no vehicle and count on public transport for their daily needs.

My question is, given that we have a rainy day fund of, I think, upwards of 25 billion, and given that it's both literally and figuratively a rainy day, now, is there some reason why we can't draw upon those rainy day reserves to increase the funding that is so needed in our public transportation systems? Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 56. Your line is open.

Hi, this is Martha Miller with the California Association of Port Authorities, which consists of the 11 commercial seaports in our state. We are here to express our support for the Governor's Budget for the Port and Freight Infrastructure Program. Respectfully ask that you maintain and fund the 1.2 billion one-time spending allocated from the General Fund for supply chain, including the immediate allocation of 600 million.

This would include the port and freight infrastructure program, the supply chain workforce campus, the port operational improvements, as well as the increased commercial driver license capacity. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go line 50. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to provide comments on item 17. My name is Jesse Cuevas on behalf of Via, a provider of on-demand, micro-transit, and other transportation tech solutions in partnership with more than 65 transit agencies and cities throughout California,

Via provides innovative mobile solutions to complement fixed route transit to grow ridership and improve the transit experience. Here in California, cities and transit agencies use public on-demand microtransit services in urban, suburban, and rural areas. These services make it easier for residents to access jobs, healthcare services, recreation, and other transportation needs. Moreover, the services are made accessible to everyone, including wheelchair users, the unbanked, and those without smartphones.

Micro-transit reduces reliance on single occupancy vehicles as well as improves the quality of the rider's transit experience and their perception of transit safety. While these on-demand micro-transit services are building transportation ridership for the future, it's worth noting that funding to operate and scale these services is a constant challenge. For these reasons, we strongly support fully funding the TIRCP to the previously committed funding levels and provide funding for transit operations. Thank you again for your support and opportunity to provide comment today. Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 13. Your line is open.

Good morning, Chairman and committee members. My name is Mark Watts. Today I'm representing the San Francisco County Transportation Authority. And first I'd like to align myself with comments by the Transit Association, Rebecca Long at MTC, and most importantly, Kate Breen with San Francisco MTA.nTransit agencies do need the certainty of having a multi-year operational funding solution in place, hopefully this year so we can keep services running while planning towards longer-term sustainability. Finally, I would just comment that the state budget situation and outlook is a difficult challenge. We understand that, but we also urge the committee to fund TIRCP at the levels previously established in this current year budget. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next we'll go to line 45. Your line is open.

Hello, my name is Jocelyn Duarte. Can you hear me?

Yes.

All right, awesome. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, Madam Chair Durazo and committee members. As I mentioned before, my name is Jocelyn Duarte. I'm the executive director of the Salvadoran American Leadership and Educational Fund, an organization that has been serving immigrants for the past 28 years. I'm here to ask for your continued support for the DMV Now kiosk program. This program really provides access to Latino and immigrant communities across LA County. Approximately 313,000 Latinos use this service annually.

And so this service really helps immigrants and working diverse communities have access to vital DMV services without leaving their own communities and really helps them navigate any technology barriers. So we hope to have your continued support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next we'll go line 21. Your line is open.

Can you hear me? Hello? Hello? Oh, thank you. Good morning, Senators. Jovanka Beckles, AC Transit board member. I'm here because I see firsthand the issues that are facing transit. Transit staff and the public are incredibly worried because we keep hearing that we're headed towards a fiscal cliff. But, you know, we all know that a strong public transit system is vital to creating healthy communities, equitable communities, economically vibrant communities.

And for me, as an environmentalist, creates a climate-friendly future that I know you're all interested in and invested in. Multi-year funding for transit operations is absolutely key to meeting the state's climate, equity, and housing goals. Cuts would seriously on the mind of state's ability to meet our very ambitious climate goals, which is so needed to ensure that future generations have a future. We know that equity is important.

We know that almost 60% of California residents who commute by transit are households with low incomes who are communities of color. Public transit is vital to supporting people getting to their jobs, for students to get to school, and for seniors and those with physical challenges to maintain Independence. Please support funding public transit because without further funding, we'll lose this vital system. It's important that we invest so that we don't actively harm transit moving forward. Thank you so very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 62. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair Durazo and members. My name is Carolina Martinez with the Environmental Health Coalition. We're here to ask that you prioritize funding for transit operations to survive the budget crisis and thrive. The Metropolitan Transit Agency in San Diego is looking at a budgetary shortfall in the next two years.

We also know that even before the pandemic, the status quo was not good enough to support transit operations and as a result, our climate, equity, and mobility goals are at risk. Prior to the pandemic in San Diego, 70% of the jobs were not reachable by transit and 88% of the low-income people did not have access to reliable service. Transit works. It is a lifeline, but it needs you to take action. We ask that you prioritize the funding of transit operations to meet climate goals and center communities that have been actively harmed by past transportation decisions. Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 65. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. Emily Loper with Bay Area Council. We represent over 300 major employers across the Bay Area. I want to support the comments made by CPA and MTC earlier and call out the coalition letter highlighting the need for a multi-year operations funding commitment to make sure our transit agencies do not hit this impending fiscal cliff. We know that public transit is essential to our state's equity and climate goals, but transit is also the lifeblood of our economy.

In the Bay Area, residents of all income levels depend on transit to access their jobs, and ensuring our transit systems survive this crisis and thrive moving forward is essential to our state's economy and overall quality of life. It's impossible to imagine a world where BART, Muni, and many other operators across the state are required to make such severe service cuts that it's no longer a viable commute or travel option for people.

As transit recovers from the devastating impacts of this pandemic, we have an opportunity to build these systems into a better service that meets the needs of future needs of residents across the state and we look forward to working together to build that better future. Thank you for your support.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 59. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. My name is Zack Deutsch-Gross. I'm the policy director at Transform. Transform promotes walkable communities with excellent transportation choices to connect people of all incomes to opportunity, to make California affordable, and to help solve the climate crisis. Regarding item 17, we want to align ourselves with CTA, MTC, and many of the other transit agencies and communities that have called in today to request your support for transit operations to avoid looming cuts that would impact riders across the state.

72% of California transit agencies will run out of federal leaf money in the coming years and be forced to make cuts if we don't address this fiscal clip and invest in ways to rebuild ridership. In addition to helping address our equity, climate, and economic recovery goals, this investment is fundamentally about combating the climate crisis as well.

The California Air Resources Board has urged the state to support to double local transit coverage and frequency by 2030, recognizing that both vehicle decarbonization and less driving are needed to achieve our GHG targets. However, without multi-year commitment of state funds to help sustain transit and rebuild ridership, our state's climate strategy is in serious jeopardy. Thank you so much for your time and consideration.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 29. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, it's Louis Vidaure on behalf of the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority. Regarding issue 17, we join with our transit partners and urge the Committee to maintain funding for the TIRCP and express our support for expanded funding for transit operations for public transit agents. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 38. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. Steven Jones, external affairs representative with the Alameda Contra Costa Transit District in Oakland. Thank you for the thoughtful discussion this morning. AC Transit understands the difficult budget decisions that lie ahead. Like others, I'd like to encourage the committee to maintain funding for transit at the previously prescribed levels. And thank you, Chair Durazo, for raising the issue of transit operations funding. As you've heard, many agencies throughout the state are facing fiscal cliffs, some beginning next fiscal year.

AC Transit is an essential public service for East Bay students, seniors, people with disabilities, essential workers, and low-income communities. Many of our riders cannot work remotely, so our service remains as vital as ever. But the pandemic has ravaged our operating budget. Increased expenses, inflation, and the end of federal support further threaten our essential service. We're facing an operating deficit of $155,000,000 over the next several years.

Without additional support, we could see layoffs and deep cuts to service that would have profound effects on the people we serve. We continue to stretch the remaining federal dollars and have built up our cash reserves for when they run out. We're looking for new revenue sources, like converting capital funds to operating dollars, and we're doing all we can to bring riders back to transit.

This includes restoring our service to nearly 90% of what it was before the pandemic, spending fare increases and offering free and reduced fares, and partnering with other agencies to encourage transit use. Limited-term funding from the state will help stabilize our operations so we can find the long-term funding needed to serve our communities into the future. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 66. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, Chair and members. My name is Cyrus Hall. I'm a resident of San Francisco and a member of the San Francisco Transit Riders. I depend on buses on a bike to get around San Francisco. I urge the state to develop a multi-year commitment to transit operations and to maintain capital funding at current levels.

Looming catastrophic service cuts 20 lines, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority, would shrink horizons for everyone that depends on transit, shrinking access to jobs, shrinking access to family and friends, and to live a full life. This would be a deeply inequitable outcome. The state understands that climate change is an existential threat to a healthy and prosperous state, and now California must act on those understandings and ensure that public transit and active transportation are strong and ready to support real mode shift. Thank you for your support.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 68. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. My name is Alan Abbs, representing the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which oversees air quality in the nine Bay Area county region. Transportation-related emissions from the 6 million registered Bay Area vehicles is the largest source of our air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and we need to maintain significant investments in transportation serving all nine counties to help us reduce that pollution.

Our new Flex Your Commute partnership campaign, coupled with our Spare the Air campaign, encourages Bay Area residents to take alternatives to driving alone in their cars. But we can only get more residents embracing the benefits of public transportation if it is available, well-connected, clean, and easy to use. We encourage continued state funding for public transportation to help show California's commitment to meet our climate and public health protection goals. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 69. Your line is open.

Good afternoon. My name is Madison Vanderclay with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. We represent about 350 tech and innovation economy members throughout the Bay Area. I am also speaking on item number 17. We support more funding for transit, both operations and infrastructure spending, to allow transit to survive its current challenges and to support California in meeting its climate, jobs and equity goals.

We've had success in the bay at attracting businesses to develop and invest near transit that's better for planning, better for reducing emissions, better for jobs and the economy and the communities who live there. Businesses can make those investments based on the state and the region's commitment to high-quality public transit. Now is not the time to retreat from that commitment.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 71. Your line is open. Please go ahead.

Hi there. Jared Sanchez with CalBike before we articulate the accurate transportation request we made BR letter submitted to the subcommittee, I just wanted to lift up an important point given earlier conversation on the state highway accountant funding the SHA doesn't only just Fund fix it first projects as promised by SB 1.

It also funds highway capacity expansion projects like the recently canceled 710 freeway expansion, which is not only counter to our fix-it-first needs, but also actively works against our state climate and equity and safety goals. Highway capacity expansion is proven to increase traffic congestion, greenhouse gas emissions, toxic air pollutants, low-income, community of color, displacement, marginalization, traffic fatalities, DMT, and maintenance costs. With that in mind, we request the Legislature restore plan cuts to the ATP.

We also request to reallocate SHA funds to going instead of going to highway eight capacity expansion to prioritize funding to cut greenhouse gas emissions, connect communities and support healthy places and deprioritize projects that bake in higher emissions for decades to come. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 54. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, this is Laura Tolkoff, transportation policy director for SPUR, speaking on issue 17. Many of the state's largest and highest ridership operators are facing significant financial challenges over the next few years because they carry so many trips. These agencies play an enormous role in California's ability to meet its ambitious climate goals. This isn't just a Bay Area issue, it's an issue for the entire state.

Without your help, many of the state's transit operators are at risk of slipping into a downward spiral of service cuts, ridership losses, and disrepair. This would be devastating to millions of riders who most rely on transit, be a tremendous blow to the state's housing and environmental justice goals, and undermine decades of investment to improve the state's transit network. We want transit to be better than it was pre-pandemic, but there is simply no path to financial stability or improvement. Let alone ridership growth. If California's transit systems slip into this death spiral, we strongly encourage you to include a multi-year commitment to public transit operations in your budget. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we'll go to line 73. Your line is open.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and committee members. Everyone listening in? I'm Zak Accuardi, senior transportation advocate at NRDC, the Natural Resources Defense Council. I'm calling in regard to issue 17. 1st, it's critical that the Legislature leverage historic Federal Transportation funding to increase year-over-year funding for active transportation in the ACP, public transit, and the TIRCP, and funding for community center zero-emission vehicles programs in this year's budget. Second, the state must take steps to ensure that these investments align with the needs and priorities of disadvantaged communities.

And finally, we need to see state leaders identifying a funding solution to ensure public transit agencies can maintain transit service to preserve safe, affordable access to everyone who depends on transit, which is all of us. As CARB and others research has showed, all these clean mobility investments are critical to achieving the state's health, climate, and equity goals. And so we hope you'll make these investments in the budget cycle. Thank you for your time and attention.

Thank you. Next, we'll go line 43, your line is open.

Good afternoon. Adina Levin, advocacy director of Seamless Bay Area, working as part of a coalition with over 100 other groups around the state supporting multi-year operating funding to prevent public transit from hitting a fiscal cliff and severe service cuts that would negatively impact our goals for climate and equity and so many housing policies that depend on public transit. This funding can support preventing cuts that would harm those goals and also help transit to regrow the ridership that is needed in order to achieve those goals. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next. I'm sorry, next we'll go to line 75. Your line is open.

Chair Durazo and members, Delaney Hunter on behalf of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority. Also on item 17, inconsistent with comments made by our friends at CTA, we would urge the committee to maintain funding as promised in last year's budget for the CIRCP program, as well as look forward to working with the committee and the Legislature to provide additional funding for transit operations, both through new sources and through policy changes to existing programs to maintain the viability of those programs. We thank you for your time.

And line 76. Your line is open.

Madam Chair, members, Andrew Antiwh, once again, this time for the Southern California Regional Rail Authority, also known as Metrolink. We align ourselves with comments by CTA and other groups. We thank the Chair for her sustained focus on crafting a solution that provides sustained transit operations funding. Not an easy task given some of the storm clouds with respect to state revenue trends.

But we do support kind of a multifaceted suite of solutions to help agencies like Metrolink, which have faced drop offs with respect to the change in commute patterns, and really want to highlight the fact that within the transit world, commuter rail agencies have specialized impacts and do face fiscal cliffs of their own. And so we very much are supportive of sustaining the TIRCP funding but also finding a multifaceted solution on transit operations. Thank you.

And Madam Chair, we have no further public comment in queue.

I want to thank our moderator very much for your work in making this smooth. I want to thank all of the individuals who participated in the public testimony today. If you are not able to testify, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee or visit the website. Thank you. We appreciate your participation and thank my colleagues here on the committee. And so we have concluded the agenda for today's hearing. Thank you.