Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6 on Public Safety

All right, we'd like to call the Assembly Budget Subcommitee number six to order today. We will have items to be heard, public safety budget overview, board of State and Community corrections, and judicial branch. Those will be areas that we will have overview on today. I want to welcome everyone here today. We will be covering issues that are important to the public safety budget here moving forward. Speakers are listed in speaking order for each of the items.

Please keep your remarks within the allotted time communicated to you by my staff, and remember to introduce yourselves prior to speaking. I'd like to welcome some special guests that we have here in this hearing room. The Honorable Lisa Rogan, presiding judge of the San Bernardino County Superior courts, and also honorable Maria Hernandez, presiding judge of Orange County Superior courts.

And finally, on Zoom and technology, we know there's a lot of weather that's taking place up here in Northern California, but we do have honorable Joseph James, Chairman of the Yurok tribe, who will also be joining us today remotely, and we're working on that technology as we speak. We will be moving forward and having public comment at the end of all these different panels that we're having here today. We will now move to our first speaker.

Our first panel, if we can come forward from the LAO's office, we will provide us with an overview of the budget as it relates to public safety matters. The LAO has also provided us with a handout, which is posted on our website. Thank you, Ms. Lee.

Great. Thank you so much. Anita Lee with the Legislative Analysts Office. So we were asked to provide an overview of the governor's proposed 2425 public safety budget. We will be using the handout that you have in your packet as a guide for our comments today. Pages 1 and 2 of your handout provide that summary of the governor's 24-25 public safety budget. The table on page one provides the amount of actual and proposed spending by Department listed out and separated by General Fund versus other funds.

If you look at the very bottom of the table in bold, you will see the total amount proposed for all departments and across all funds. If you look at the third column from the right, you'll see that nearly 26.1 billion is being proposed across all departments and across all funds. This is a decrease of 1.7 billion, or 6%, from the revised 2324 level. Looking at the line immediately below that, that line shows the amount that's coming from the General Fund.

So of the nearly 26.1 billion, 19.4 billion of that would be coming from the General Fund, and that General Fund amount would be a decrease of 899,000,000 or 4% from the revised 202324 amount. The reduction is due to various factors, including expiration of funding provided in previous years, the deactivation of prison facilities, as well as proposals to reduce spending, which I'm going to talk about shortly.

If you turn to page three of your handout, this provides a table of all of the governor's proposed General Fund solutions related to public safety. And so you'll see that all of those solutions are laid out by Department. If you go to the very bottom of the table, that shows the total across all of the departments. So, moving from left to right, you'll see that the General Fund solutions total 239.9 million in 23- 24, 210.2 million in 24-25.

And then if you go all the way to the rightmost column, you'll see that the ongoing amount is 68.8 million if you turn to page four of your handout. When we take a closer look at the General Fund solutions, there's really three takeaways or themes that we wanted to highlight for the Committee. The first theme is that a number of the proposals would reduce funding and revert the funds to the General Fund.

Those proposals total 165,000,000 in 23-24 and 153,000,000 in 24-25 with that ongoing amount being 68.8 million. So an example of that is that the Governor's Budget is proposing to reduce CDCR prison spending by 9.6 million to account for administrative savings from deactivating certain prisons. The second theme, or takeaway, is that some of the proposals are seeking to delay spending. And so those total 74.7 million in 23-24 and 57 million in 24-25.

An example of that is that the 23-24 budget included 87.7 million to install surveillance systems at 10 prisons. And the Governor's Budget is proposing to delay 27 million of that to future years. And then the third takeaway is that several of these proposals are specifically impacting programs that were created by the Legislature. And there's really five of them that we want to highlight for you. So on the bottom half of page four, we've listed three programs.

First, these three programs are all programs that are going to have monies that are being reverted. So that means that money isn't going to be spent. The Governor's Budget, first, is proposing to eliminate 40 million for the final year of the Public Defender pilot program, which provides grants that supplement local funding for indigent defense.

Second, the Governor is also proposing to revert 20 out of 40 million provided for the court based firearm relinquishment program that would enforce court orders removing firearms and ammunition from those prohibited from possessing them. And third, the Governor is proposing to eliminate 15 million for the multifamily seismic retrofit grant program that would provide financial assistance for retrofitting multifamily housing that are at risk of collapse during earthquakes.

So if you turn to page five of your handout, the last two programs we want to highlight for your attention are programs that are proposed for delayed spending. So the first program is the adult Reentry grant program, which was first created as part of the 2018-19 budget and that provides funding to community based organizations to offer reentry services.

The Governor is proposing to delay all of the 57 million planned for expenditure in 24-25 and instead 19 million would be spent annually over three years, but starting in 25-26. So that's your delay right there. The second program is the flexible cash assistance for a survivors grant program. The Governor is proposing to delay the allocation of 47.5 out of 50 million that was scheduled for 23-24 and proposing to shift that to 25-26 instead.

And so this is a program that would be a pilot for grants from community based organizations to support direct to cash assistance to certain crime victims. So turning to the final page of your handout, page six, the Governor's Budget proposes relatively few new major General Fund public safety spending proposals, which we're generally defining as those proposals that are over $10 million. And so from this page you can see that they are generally clustered in three departments. The First Department is CDCR.

The Governor's Budget is proposing 114.9 million for various health care costs. This includes 40,000,001 time to cover projected overspending in the prison medical care budget, 38.4 million ongoing to cover Covid health care costs and 36.5 million for contract medical services. In addition to that, the Governor's Budget is also proposing 22 million to cover increased prison utility costs. The second Department receiving a major General Fund spending proposal is the judicial branch. The Governor's Budget is proposing 19.1 million ongoing for self help centers.

This would maintain the level of funding provided since 2018-19. And you're going to be talking about this one in more detail as issue five of your agenda. And then the Third Department with a major General Fund spending proposal is the military Department. The Governor's Budget is proposing $15 million annually in 24-25 and 25-26 to continue the state funded expansion of the counter drug task force program. And so this would maintain the level of state funding provided since 22-23.

As we conclude our comments, the one thing that our office would like to emphasize is, as the Committee is thinking about proposals for new spending, whether it's those proposed by the Governor or other proposals as well, the Legislature will want to weigh it against its other legislative spending priorities. Given the state's budget situation, any augmentation in spending will likely need to be offset by reductions in other areas.

And so to the extent the state's budget situation worsens, as was recently indicated in our update to the state budget condition, those trade offs are going to be heightened because the Legislature will likely already need to make some reductions to existing programs and services. So because of that, this Committee may want to apply heightened scrutiny for any new spending proposals. With that, we'll conclude our comments and are happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much for your presentation. Any questions from the dias? Assemblymember Lackey?

I understand that no cut is popular, and I understand that adjustments have to be made in any kind of cut. But you might find this a little surprising but very, very troubled by this public defender pilot program being cut to that extent because these are indigent people that need criminal defense. How are we going to serve that population with this kind of cut?

I think that that might be a question better directed to the Department of Finance as it's a proposal from the governor's office, because, believe it or not.

I believe in a balanced justice system, and this seems to be very unfair.

Cynthia Mendoza, Department of Finance this is really, notwithstanding the merits of this program in evaluation of the programs and funding that was available, we looked for potential funding that had not been spent yet or distributed to anyone. So it really is, outside of that, this is a three year pilot program. We have funded 100 million of that program, and we believe there's enough data there for evaluation of that pilot. And the proposal was simply to cut the third year. Not that that was an easy decision, but it was just simply funding that had not yet been distributed.

Yeah, my only problem is this is probably the greatest challenged part of our population, and there's a substantial amount of that population that falls in this category. I know this for a fact, and it just seems like this is the last place we should cut, not the first. That's just a comment. I don't expect you to have an answer for me. I'm just finding that to be puzzling. That's all.

Thank you so much for those comments. And it is tough times when we're looking at the budget, and then further analysis shows that we're even deeper than when we first started and we first came back in January. So having some of these tough discussions out in the open and transparency shows the need that's there.

Yeah, one more. This firearm relinquishment program I also find to be puzzling when we're talking about the violent nature of people and red flag laws, which always makes sense to me. This is probably the most likely dangerous group of people to relax our enforcement on firearm enforcement. These folks, not all of them are going to use firearms, but the propensity and the likelihood is substantially greater. And why we would risk someone's life over, I mean, $20-40 million is a lot, but is it really?

When you talk about people's lives at stake, I find that also to be a very puzzling cut, and I think it's super dangerous and maybe borderline irresponsible. So those are my two areas of concern in this presentation. And I don't know what the answer is, but I could tell you that I find them to be hard to justify. That's all. That's all I got.

Thank you, Member Lackey, for that. And it is tough. And a lot of the different discussions there, when you see a sector that talks about Legislature and the different bills that were passed, as far as being asked to reduct reduction take place or different delays that are there, it's going to bring up some questions. But we also know that this is something that's tough here this year in the Legislature as far as the different gaps in the funding that's there.

But that's what these hearings are meant to do, is highlight areas that Members have concern on so then we can go back and better advocate for their behalf going back and forth during the budget process. So I want to thank you for your comments. I want to thank you for coming up and answering that question. I want to thank you also to Alio for your presentation as we now transition into panel two.

Panel two will be Katie Howard, Executive Director, Board of State and Community Corrections, Eddie Escobar, field representative, Board of State and Community Corrections Chairman Joseph James. From the Yurok tribe, Cynthia Mendoza, Department of Finance, and Anita Lee LAO. Please begin. Ms. Howard.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. I would like to check in with Jennifer, if I could. Would you still like me to do the very quick, high level overview of BSCC responsibilities, or shall we jump right into MMIP? Jump into MMIP. That's great. Happy to. So I'm joined today by my colleague, Mr. Eddie Escobar. And we are here from the board of State and Community Corrections. My name is Katie Howard.

As Mr. Chair said, the missing and murdered indigenous People grant, or MMIP, as we'll call it, going forward, has been a priority for this Legislature, and certainly Mr. Ramos in particular for the last two years. And our board has the responsibility to administer that grant. Eddie's the lead staff, and he will provide some additional details. We put out an RFP in the first year that this grant was funded, and four grants were funded totaling almost $3 million.

We put a second RFP out into the field because the Legislature added funding for more MMIP grants to be put out in last year's budget. So we released that RFP in November of last year. I'm going to step on one of your lines, Eddie, and there's about $20 million available out in the field right now for cohort two. And I'd like Eddie to give a little bit more information about the level of interest that we're hearing about.

And we are very, very encouraged by the amount of interest and the responses that we're hearing from tribes across the state for the MMIP grant. Go ahead, Eddie.

Good Afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members of the board. Eddie Escobar. It's been super exciting to see this grant just where it's going. I currently administer the tribal Youth Diversion grant, and we have about 10 grantees with that grant. And again, they did a lot of great work for youth diversion. So I definitely pressed those grantees to make sure that they applied.

So currently, right now, the deadline for the cohort two MMIP grant is next Friday, and I'm super excited to see that in our submittable portal, which is the submission portal. We currently have 23 applicants in there for drafts. Actually, before this meeting, another one would be the 24th, called me and said, hey, we're going to apply. We just need some assistance with kind of setting up our portal. So it'll be 24 with two weeks left, which is good news. Currently we have six letters of intent.

We have the Pachanga band of Indians, the Hoopa Valley tribe, the Harup tribe, Pinoleville will be submitting a collaborative. The Yorok tribe will also be submitting a collaborative, and the Jamu tribe will also be submitting a collaborative. So super excited. Just the interest. We've done numerous presentations, I can say I've done personally about 12 myself. Some of them have been with numerous tribes and some of them have been individuals.

Some of them requested to just, can you sit down with us and talk a little bit about the grant? And so super excited about doing that. A lot of good reception, a lot of good interest questions. I get questions almost daily how to do this? How can we do it for that? In the new RFP, we expanded the activities list, made it more clear. So grantees are potential grantees, or applicants are super excited about what they could use the funds for.

So that's where we're at right now. Again, as I mentioned, we're at 24 potential grantees. And again, throughout my last presentation that I did last month, we had about maybe 70 tribes in attendance. So again, typically they might come in a little later in these next couple of weeks. So we know that we're going to have a good representation of folk out there.

Thank you so much, Eddie. I just wanted to add, if I could, Mr. Chair, that since we put the second RFP out, or when we're in the process of putting that before our board, we've had about 17 different outreach efforts that we have done. A lot of those have been on Zooms, but also quarterly tribal affairs calls. And as Eddie mentioned, there was a virtual grant information session at the end of January.

So I'm very hopeful that of these now 24 individual applicants that have at least started their application, just want to be clear. We don't have completed applications from everybody, but we can tell from this online submission portal that 24 applications have at least been initiated. And we're happy to take any questions that you may have. Thanks for your support on this.

Thank you so much. Is Chairman James.

I'm here.

Go ahead, Chairman James.

Thank you, Assembly Member Ramos. It's an honor here to be here today. My name is Joseph James, Chairman of the Yurok Tribe. You know, to speak about the funding for the MMIP, it's critical, it's vital for us. The Governor and Legislature for the last few years have funded 12 million each in these past years to address the historical negligence and violence on tribal land. But the need is over 200 million to fund a more robust, effective state program will address the current crisis and repair.

I'm here to request and to advocate for additional 12 million this year's budget. There's a lot of work that we haven't done as a whole, including yourself, Assembly Member Ramos, in tackling this MMIP. Again, as I want you to talk the importance, as stated, the program, three applications. It's great to hear there's 20 applications with your tribe. Have been partnering in outreaches with our brothers and sister out of California regarding the need for this funding.

We're also supporting a regional outreach approach, utilizing the funding for technical assistance. And also want to express the need for when you're tribe and have lack of capacity for grant funding, the reimbursement difficult at times, going after these grants. Again, we're a strong supporter of this program and the fund vital and critical for the tribes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I know that traveling is pretty dangerous right now with a lot of the avalanche warnings and those types of things, so thank you for being able to make it using technology.

Thank you.

Any comments from Department of Finance? LAO? Any comments from the dais? Assembly Member Lackey.

Yeah, just a couple of quick questions. About how long does it take, an optimistic prediction, from the time a grant is awarded to the people actually receiving their funding?

Sure. I'm happy to take that. Katie Howard with the BSCC. The process that we have for grant making in our competitive grants does take time, but we think it's a very, very effective way to ensure fairness and consistency in how a competitive grant is rated and scored. So, as Eddie mentioned, March 15, the Ides of March, is the due date for this grant.

And then we have a scoring panel that will come together and be trained in the rating criteria, and they will have a number of weeks to review the applications and submit their scores. Our research team compiles all of those scores, and then the awards are slated, I think I'm going to say this right, to go to our board in June of this year. So the awards would be made at the board meeting, and then we begin the contract process immediately. So in this case, the time frame is due date of March 15, and then awards are notified by, I believe, the third or so week in June.

Okay. And you said you had, like, 20 some applications?

Yes, 24. They're not completed, but they've been started. The applications.

And how long do they have to complete them?

The due date is the 15th March, but the application was released to the field in November. So it's been out in the field for...

Time's running short, is what you're saying, right?

Yeah, if they're in process and they, let's hope, getting close to completion.

Okay. Because my question is, you had four of the tribes actually get awarded, right?

And that only came to 2.8 million?

Yes.

About 4 million, actually, Assembly Member, the four that were awarded... Oh, did I have that wrong? Oh, excuse me. About 3 million. My mistake.

2.8 is about three. I think we're on the right page.

It sure is. I had other numbers in my head. I'm sorry.

That's okay. All right, well, that kind of satisfies my biggest question. It doesn't sound like there's a lot we could do to accelerate that process if there's that much information to digest.

Well, and I think with help from Mr. Ramos and his office, we knew that we needed to do a much better job making sure the word was out in the field that this funding was available. And that's why we did 17 different kind of outreach activities between September and now to make sure, like I said, the word is out. And so that tribes are aware that this funding is available.

Because it is alarming to me that out of 12 million, we've only spent 2.8. That's not normal. And so I'm just trying to figure out the reason why. And I think it was brought to our attention that a lot of it is communication challenge, and getting the word out. Because this is a really, really serious problem.

Absolutely.

And so I'm hoping that we can address this problem in a reasonable way.

I hope so too.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Assembly Member Lackey. It is an area where California is number five of all the states in the nation of not investigating missing and murdered indigenous persons, native persons from federally Indian reservations and communities in the state of California. Chairman James, you talked about the reimbursement component. Can you say a little bit more about.

You know, we're fortunate we're able to use funding from philanthropy and hire a grant writer and to take on these tasks of writing the application and a grant. And when you're getting award, when you have a small tribe, I can't speak for others, but again, when you have limited capacity with little funding. If it's a grant award, up or half million or up to a million, got to print all that money to be reimbursed.

And so maybe we're looking at the upfront, maybe a quarter of that money or half of it up front. I just wanted to see ways of solution when we're addressing a crisis here. And it is a new program. Like you said, the need is out there, the outreach. We're getting better, a lot better at it.

Good to hear there's more applicants, and I think it's just going to continue to grow as California has answered that bell with solutions, with the awareness at the Capitol, with the leadership there, with the federal alert, where the state and United States federal alert system. But to get back to your question, these are one of the obstacles and hurdles that we're going through as a small tribe that does have those capacities and resources there. Reimbursement does hurt as an obstacle.

Thank you. Thank you for that and fine tuning that point from tribal government perspective. And it is, we still deal with different stereotypes that some tribes are able to provide some of that reimbursement component up front, but those that are in most dire need don't have the means or resources for that.

So looking a little bit deeper into that, as far as the grant writing, whether there's assistance, whether there's something that could go on so we could start to get more of those tribes that would not only just open up, but actually qualify for awarding some of those grants. We do know that we did talk as far as getting the outreach out there, and I would thank you for the 17 outreach components that you conducted and making sure that it's getting out there.

But we also have to look at. It's a crisis. It's a crisis in the state of California. It's a crisis within tribal communities. Being that large of a state with this large of a Native American population, but yet have the criteria statistics that show we're going in the wrong direction when it comes to MMIWs. We have to start to look at, are we looking at tribal governments in the same view as other local municipalities and our demand upon them? And are some of those that are in most dire need of receiving these resources?

Their tribal governments are still in a position where they need that resources moving forward. And I bring that up because we grew up on the San Manuel Indian Reservation, and way before things are the way they are now, there was grant writers that would come, and then they were called ANA Grants, and they would move forward on the grants. They would write themselves in the grants so they could get paid, basically volunteering to write those grants.

And if tribes aren't in a position to have the reimbursement, those types of components, they might not even be engaged in pursuing that grant if it's not available to them. That's why I think having these types of hearings, getting these types of dialogues out there so that we start to truly understand how we're going to work together to bring some solutions to the table. I want to thank you for the regional outreach that's there.

And another question. Mr. Escobar, since you first started, we started on different components, different grants, straight to tribal communities, and this is a big need. But do we feel that there's a greater need out there if we did more research within the tribal communities in the state of California?

As far as the issue goes?

As far as the issue goes, as far as funding goes, as far as resources.

Some of the tribes want to use the funds just to do that, just to see how big the issue is on the tribe regionally. Because a lot of them are starting from the ground up. I mean, obviously, some of the tribes that's been working on the issue for a very long time, they're kind of a little bit more ahead. But some of the tribes have reached out saying, we don't have anything. We want to start off from the very bottom, bare minimum, that's what funds could be used for.

So during the presentations, we gave them a whole list of activities, again, non-exhaustive. But again, some of the tribes just want to do just that. They want to just see how big the issue is and create a program based on the information they receive.

Thank you. And it goes to the overall bigger picture, as far as lack of data, when we start to move forward, working with Attorney General's Office, with Administration on this issue also. That the data that's out there hasn't been collected and whether it's jurisdictional divide or what.

But now we're at a point here in the state of California to work together to collect that data, the infrastructure that's there, but also to bring resolve to those that are out there that could be going through some of these challenges now that drastically need those resources.

Just one additional thought. Thank you, Mr. Ramos. Once these grants are awarded, we will begin to collect information and data from each of the grantees. So we'll set up, and Eddie will be centrally involved in this, what we call QPRs, which is a quarterly progress report. I'm very happy to follow up with you afterward to share with you what those data elements are so that you can see. It is important when the state of California makes an investment like this.

We want to be able to see what kinds of activities are being done, what seems to be helpful, and then what results are flowing from there. So there will be a lot more information to share once the grants are underway.

Well, thank you. And thank you so much, Chairman James, for bringing that voice forward. And thank you to our panel for having this discussions that center around a crisis here in the state of California, dealing with California's First People. It's been a long time since we had these types of discussions in this Legislature, and I want to thank my colleague for always being there as an ally to address these issues. Thank you. Thank you for your participation in this panel.

Thank you so much.

We will now transition to panel three. Panel three will be judicial branch overview and various trailer bill proposals. We have Shelley Curran, Administrative Director, Judicial Council, Zlatko Theodorovic, Director, Judicial Council Budget Services, Tracy Kenny, Deputy Director, Judicial Council Office of Governmental Affairs, Henry Ng, Department of Finance, and Anita Lee, Legislative Analyst’s Office. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, and thank you for having us here today. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon and for your continued support for the judicial branch. So thank you for that, Mr. Chair and Assembly Member Lackey. My name is Shelley Curran. I'm the Administrative Director of the Courts.

In the interest of time, I will be brief to make sure there's an opportunity for you all to hear from the judicial officers who are here, as well as the staff. The Chief Justice, the Judicial Council, and the courts support the Governor's January proposal, and we recognize the very hard, tough fiscal times that the state is in. Along with the rest of state government, we recognize that the judicial branch needs to be part of the solution to close our anticipated statewide budget deficit.

The Governor's Budget includes returning unspent judicial branch funds and deferring some funding for several of our construction projects, while still protecting the essential funding for our core critical programs and services. We appreciate that the budget continues to protect some of our core operations, including the proposal to eliminate the sunset for remote proceedings, increasing trial court funding balance caps, maintaining backfill funding for declining fines, fees, and penalty revenues, and providing resources for self represented litigants and the implementation of the CARE Act.

We look forward to working with you over the coming months on these budget proposals and promise to be good partners through that entire process. I'm now going to turn it over to our Finance Director, Mr. Zlatko Theodorovic, to get into more detail about our proposal, along with the other panelists who are here today. And I'm also happy to answer any questions that you might have. Again, thank you for having us.

Thank you, Shelley. My name again is Zlatko Theodorovic. And the agenda does a great job of really going over the proposal, the proposed budget. Ms. Lee from the LAO has also talked about some of the budget reductions and solutions that we have here. So I'm just going to move to the next topic as it relates to the fund balance cap, and I invite David Yamasaki, the Court Executive Officer from the Orange Superior Court, to provide us some context for this increase.

We really do appreciate the proposal in the budget to increase the fund balance cap, but we want Mr. Yamasaki to give you some real life explanations to what it means to have this increase. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, Assembly Member Lackey. David Yamasaki, I'm the in addition to the Court Executive Officer for the Superior Court in Orange, I'm also the Chair of the Court Executives Advisory Committee for the Judicial Council. Thank you for having me this afternoon. One of the things that we're very, very pleased to see is an increase to the fund balance cap that has been identified in your materials.

While to some the increase from 3% to 5% may be modest, for us in the judicial branch, it is extremely meaningful. One of the biggest responsibilities that we have in the judicial branch is to provide access efficiently and effectively, and those monies go a long way to help us ensure that our doors remain open, but also to invest in technology solutions and other capital investments that help us maintain a modernized judicial branch.

Many times, some of the expenses that we incur are very significant, and it requires us to save monies over several years. By increasing that amount from 3% to 5%, it certainly helps us achieve those goals much quicker. In addition to that, there are times where courts have the opportunity to have new construction in courthouses. Those monies are very helpful in ensuring that those facilities are adequately maintained, also furnished, which are not always included in the expenditures that accompany court construction.

So some of these things that I've identified are actually expenses that are planned. In addition to that, there are issues that courts face with routine, unfortunately, that are unplanned. I can tell you that we've had an instance in Orange County where a flood, as a result of a broken water pipe, shut down five courtrooms and caused hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage.

We currently are experiencing challenges in one of our other justice centers where the heavy rains have flooded lower holding areas, making them unusable for us to conduct proceedings. And also, unfortunately, an incident that we also face are cyber hacks, which cost significant amounts of monies. These are not planned. And while I like to think that these are rare and few and far between, those three incidents that have affected our Orange County court happened in the last nine months, completely unexpected.

And these things, unfortunately, are probably going to be things that many of us throughout the state will continue to see. These monies are extremely helpful in helping us keep our doors open and remaining available to provide access to justice. So I hope that those provide a little bit of context into some of the benefits of having an increased fund balance cap.

Thank you. Thank you for that. Tracy, you have anything?

Oh, now we'll have Tracy Kenny come up who will talk about the remote proceedings trailer bill language. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much. Tracy Kenny with the Judicial Council. I just wanted to give the Committee some brief information on the Governor's proposed trailer bill language to repeal the sunset dates on the remote proceedings provisions that are currently set to expire for both criminal and civil proceedings. I just want to note from the outset that courts were utilizing telephonic remote appearances for decades before the Covid-19 pandemic, but in a pretty limited fashion.

The pandemic emergency forced courts to explore new ways of using the existing technology to allow for access to the courts without endangering public health, and the Council provided temporary authority for such proceedings via the adoption of emergency rules. Happily, the Legislature stepped in to provide statutory authority to conduct these proceedings for civil remote in 2021 and criminal remote in 2022 and extended the sunset dates for both those statutes and trailer bill legislation last year.

In addition, the trailer bill legislation enacted last year provided special protections for certain civil proceedings that impact liberty interests, namely civil commitment and juvenile justice or juvenile delinquency proceedings, where there are particular due process concerns to ensure that litigants have the ability to require in person testimony when those liberty interests are at issue. I want to highlight for the Subcommitee that remote proceedings are always optional and a court can never require a person to appear remotely.

In civil cases, parties have the option to appear remotely, and the court has the option to conduct civil proceedings through the use of remote technology. A defendant in a criminal case may also opt to appear through the use of remote technology with specified exceptions. However, remote witness testimony in criminal cases requires the consent of both parties and is never allowed in felony trials. The data that we have collected on remote proceedings shows that this is an option that the people really want.

From March 2022 through August 2023, nearly 2.2 million civil proceedings and an estimated 1.5 million criminal proceedings occurred remotely. And we estimate that each business day, approximately 10,000 remote proceedings take place in the courts, saving court users at least 2.5 million trips to the courthouse annually. And we've been doing user experience surveys to see if people are having trouble with the technology, if people are satisfied with their experience.

And in those surveys, the data shows that over 95% of remote hearings participants reported a positive experience with remote technology. And going forward in March, the Judicial Council this month will be approving minimum technology standards to ensure that remote proceedings are robust and that court reporters can accurately prepare a verbatim record.

The judicial branch has seen the many benefits of giving people the option to participate remotely in civil and criminal proceedings. And we just saw today the benefits that remote proceedings can allow us in many circumstances. In fact, they're very significant in juvenile dependency proceedings for tribal entities to be able to participate remotely when an Indian Child Welfare Act proceeding is occurring involving a child that's a member of that tribe.

It also allows people to not have to miss school, to miss work, to pay the expenses of parking and travel to the courthouse. It is a huge benefit to the public and still allows us to provide due process.

In collaborative courts, where defendants typically are coming to court on a very regular basis, the burden of those repeat appearances is much diminished when they are able to appear remotely, and then it doesn't interfere with their ability to get mental health services, drug treatment, participate in work, et cetera. We know the Legislature has invested $65 million in the last two budget years in the technology to ensure that these proceedings are effective and provide due process. And we think it's critical to eliminate the sunset dates at this point so that that investment is secured and we have ongoing authority to conduct these proceedings.

Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Anything else, Zlatko?

No. We'll move on to the next topic. I believe we have judgeships and we have Leah Rose-Goodwin and Judge Rogan to come and speak on those issues.

Yeah, before we move on to that, I want to see if Assembly Member Lackey, any questions on this component of it.

More comments. I mean, clearly, the remote presentation we were talking about has a really large impact on the area that I represent because transportation is quite costly. It's not only more convenient, it's very expensive. And some of the distances that my residents that I represent are quite large, triple digit mileage each way. And so I'm thankful to say, to hear that we're actually going to be extending those sunset dates because that's a very powerful circumstance. And also increasing the reserve limits encourages efficiency.

And so I'm very happy to see that we're doing something that's very logical. Sometimes we do things that aren't as logical as I would like, but this is clearly a very logical, encouraging pathway to get people to manage their funds in a way that uniquely impacts their region because we have very, very different circumstances in the rural versus the suburban and urban environments, and the courts clearly understand their communities.

And so I'm thankful that we're given that flexibility because it just is very, very, very beneficial to trust the courts to actually manage their funds in that way. So these are two very, very helpful things because oftentimes it seems like my remarks are quite critical, but this is something I'm very, very thankful to see is happening.

Thank you so much, Assembly Member Lackey, I have a few questions. Before I do, any comments from Department of Finance? Any comments from LAO? No? Just had to go through that part of it. Ms. Kenny, you mentioned...

It's 2.2 million for civil that partaked in the remote areas, but the criminal part, how many was that again?

1.5 million.

1.5. So we do know that it's benefiting, we know that the courts, and it's optional, that people have to sign these different types of waivers to be able to do that. But you also talked about 95% that were those that were happy with it. But we also talked about a little bit about the challenges to the remote capabilities, the connectivity. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that and how you resolve those issues?

Sure. Absolutely. So, as with all things, nothing is perfect. We've all participated in remote proceedings. Issues can come up. The legislation is clear that if those issues come up and they can't be resolved, then the court continues the proceeding and they bring the parties into the court. And this is not that different from if there's a terrible accident on the freeway and a party can't get to court in person, and then they have to continue the hearing until they are able to appear in person.

But we can see from this data that this is not happening on a regular basis. That really is more the exception than the rule. But the court absolutely will continue the proceeding to allow the parties to come to court if the technology on there and simply isn't good enough for them to be able to be heard by the court and the other parties there.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And we do know that the remote capabilities coming from San Bernardino County, we know that those are areas that drastically supported those areas. I know my colleague, Assemblymember Lackey, we shared part of the county and worked together on different areas. So we know that in the remote parts of areas that the remote capabilities is something that's beneficial.

But we also know that when we start to move forward with technology, that there is an impact on the different labor pool that's there. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that, of how that's being affected or not?

Sure. All of the same parties are participating in the courtroom as they were in person proceedings. I think that there can be challenges with being able to keep a verbatim record when you have some folks who are appearing by video and some folks in the courtroom.

And that's why working with our labor partners, we negotiated language last year to require the creation of minimum technology standards in the courtroom to ensure that the court reporter is able to hear and see and be able to keep an accurate verbatim record, and that those will be going to the council this month and become effective in April. So we've really worked to accomplish that.

Thank you. Thank you so much. With over 3 million people partaking in the remote court and proceedings that are going on, I think it's something that we need to continue to look at. And as far as a 95% success rate, I think it's areas that we need to continue to have an open dialogue on. Thank you so much. As now we move to.

Mr. Chair, if I might, just to clarify, Assemblymember Lackey mentioned. Yes, thank you. That the language was to extend the sunset. These are as elimination of the sunset.

Even better. Yeah.

And then secondly, regarding the fund balance cap, you had mentioned small rural counties. The cap is also being raised to the smallest courts to a minimum of $100,000, which used to be a much smaller amount for them. And so this is really helping them with the significant costs that they may incur with relatively small budgets. And so we're really managing not only the large courts, but the small courts as well. Happy to hear that. Thank you.

Any other dialogue on issue three? Thank you so much. We will now move to issue four judgeships. We have Leah Rose-Goodwin, Chief Deputy and Analytics Officer, Judicial Council Business Management Services. We have presiding Judge Lisa M. Rogan, San Bernardino County, Emma Jungwirth, Department of Finance, Henry Nung, Department of Finance, and Anita Lee, Legislative Office. Go ahead, Ms. Goodwin.

Thank you. Good afternoon. Leah Rose-Goodwin, Judicial Council's Chief Data and Analytics Officer. So the Government Code, section 69614 C requires that the council report biennially on the need for new judgeships. We use a workload model that uses a three-year average of filings and weights that assess the workload required to process cases of different types. To determine workload need in the branch, we measure that workload from initial filing of the case through disposition and including any post-disposition activity.

The most recent judicial needs assessment was published in November 2022 and shows that 17 courts need 98 judgeships. The full list of courts and their percentage need over authorized positions is shown on page 10 of your materials. Six courts, San Bernardino, Tehama, Riverside, Kern, Kings, and Madeira, are operating with a resource deficit greater than 20%, with one court, San Bernardino, at 30%.

The branch utilizes a prioritization methodology to determine the priority order to allocate any new judgeships, and that methodology takes into account a court's absolute need and its need relative to other courts. It's also designed to ensure that small courts are also able to qualify to get a new judgehip. The branch's prioritization methodology was used to determine how best to allocate the 23 judgeships that have been proposed in the Roth Bill, SB 75.

And there's a table on page nine of your materials that shows the results of that prioritization. And very quickly, in terms of future branch activities concerning judicial workload, we will publish the next judicial needs assessment in November of 2024. We are also updating the underlying model that's used to measure judgeship need. The last time that study was updated was 2018 and we had a little delay because of the pandemic. We couldn't update the study during that time.

Regular model updates help ensure that the branch captures changes in the law, technology and case processing practices. And for the next judge study, we are particularly interested in understanding how changes in the law are impacting post disposition workload of judicial officers. And now Judge Rogan will talk about San Bernardino County.

Thank you. Thank you. My name is Lisa Rogan. I am the presiding judge of San Bernardino County. I would like to first thank you for inviting me to speak on this issue, a very important issue to our county. And I'm so happy to see you, Chair Ramos, and Assemblymember Lackey, who have taken time out of your days to come and visit our courts at the invitation of the court to see firsthand what these deficits mean to us.

First and foremost, what it means is access to justice and a difference of that access in San Bernardino as opposed to everywhere else in California. I'm going to start off with some numbers to provide to you and show you how the deficit in judicial positions affect the constituents in San Bernardino County. In civil, our judge handles an average of 1880 cases, up to 2200 cases. Other courts may have half that. What does that mean? It means 120 days to hear a motion.

It means an average of 13 months to disposition of a case. In family law, we have 8000 active cases. That means 420 cases as an average per judge. What does that mean? That means 90 days before that family gets in front of a judge, that child gets in front of a judge to determine whether that child is going to be with one parent or another, to determine whether or not there's going to be child support provided or not.

To determine a host of familial issues that everyone in this room knows can be very hard, if not inflammatory and violent. We talk about domestic violence, restraining orders. Those cases are important. Let's move on to dependency. 5609 active cases. That is 1402 cases per judge. What does that mean? That means an average of six and a half weeks before a kid finds out. Am I staying in foster care or am I going to go back to my parent?

When we think back to our childhood and we think of our summer vacations, they seemed forever at that time. Six and a half weeks is an entire summer vacation for one child to know. Am I going back home or am I going to stay in foster care? How does that look for the litigants? How does San Bernardino handle twice or three-quarters of cases more than other counties? Do they handle them more quickly? Do they make judgments more quickly, more rashly?

Are they able to hear the cases thoroughly? Do our litigants walk out of our courtrooms and have a full and complete understanding of what just occurred, many of them unrepresented? Our judges have to, I'm not pointing fingers, but in order to handle that caseload, you have to do things differently. Justice looks different in San Bernardino County than it looks anywhere else in this state. Our neighboring counties can't believe the numbers. Some of them wonder how that happens. How do you handle those cases in that amount?

Well, we do things differently. We do outside court where I can load up 200 cases in one calendar for a judge to hear in the morning before going inside and handling another 80 to 90. Why do I do that? Because it allows me to load up 200 constituents outside our courthouses without entering the courthouse. It allows that judge to cut through those cases in a time frame that is much quicker. It allows us to handle the load that we're required to handle.

We would love for justice to look the same in San Bernardino County as it looks in other places. Our judges are fantastic. For those of you who are in San Bernardino, you have a fantastic bench who do a lot of things. They stretch a lot of miles. One other thing that I would like to mention that we've talked about here today and that you've mentioned, Assemblymember Lackey. I appreciate your awareness of the ability to do remote technology in San Bernardino County.

Without remote technology in San Bernardino County, it's not whether or not they go to court, it's if they get there 3 hours. A turnaround is driving from here to San Diego. And if any of you want to make that drive in your car, that might be comfortable. But our constituents often don't have transportation, and the transportation they do have is simply not that reliable. The transportation for public use.

You have to leave California in needles to return back to California to get to the next closest courthouse. Remote technology is not something that we believe is a benefit. It is a necessity in order for our constituents to be heard, to have access to justice. I recently went to one of our juvenile courts and asked, how is the technology? I'm hearing that there are complaints that it doesn't work as well.

And the judge that was handling the dependency cases said, if you take away remote technology, you're killing the ability of us to handle the caseload that we must handle because we have a shortage of justices, of judges. When you talk about interruptions in technology, we have interruptions in court every day. We have interruptions from litigants, from defendants, from children who perhaps are not on their best day. Those interruptions are handled by the judicial officer and by court staff.

Just as those same interruptions may be handled in a remote technology type of world, so those are not unbearable or undoable. We welcome those types of interruptions. We welcome that because that allows us to handle the caseload that we must handle. There is a study that was done by the Department of Labor for 2023 and out of 873 occupations, being a judge is the fourth stressful occupation.

Imagine being a judge, handling the caseloads in San Bernardino when you're 30 judges down and your caseloads and your staff, if you want to help staff and you talk about the workload that they're having to take on, they too are taking on those double caseloads just as the judicial officer behind every great judicial officer is an even greater judicial staff. So we would love to take care of our staff.

But that means increasing the judicial officers that we have on to decrease the caseloads to allow San Bernardino to deliver justice the way other counties are able to deliver justice in this great state. When you're understaffed, something has to give. I can't tell you that our constituents are served as well as others. They are not. I can't tell you that they understand the proceedings as well as in other courts. They do not. I can't tell you that justice delayed is not justice denied. It is.

What I can say is that for those of you who represent San Bernardino you have an amazing bench, a court that serves your constituents as well as they can. Given the resources. I ask that you let them do more. Justice in San Bernardino shouldn't look different than anywhere else and everywhere else in California. And I'm happy to answer any questions anyone may have.

Thank you so much, presiding judge. Any comments from Department of Finance? Comments from LAO? Comments from the dais?

Of course. I am almost speechless. These are very stark numbers that speak for themselves. Almost half of the needed judgeships that are represented here, 40 of the 98 are represented in my district alone. So this discrepancy we talk a lot in this institution about equity and about access to justice and how such a priority that that needs to play. This is clearly an unfair set of circumstances that it's not even close what we're doing to these residents that live in this part of our state.

I don't even know the term other than unfair and unjustifiable. The pressure that we put on judges and all participants in the judicial system is clearly inordinately ugly for San Bernardino. county. And how we rationalize that, I don't have an answer to that. But maybe this institution should. And everybody that is a partner in this Legislature bears some of that burden of making this more fair. The Legislature has the authority to move vacant judgeships. We look at LA County excess judgeships by what number?

The number I'm looking at says 73 excess judges. And I read in here that they talk about weighted caseload assessment. And we heard a presentation earlier. Wow. I don't know how they balance that. I don't know how they feel justified in having that many excess judgeships. And they still have vacancies. They don't feel those vacancies either.

This is just a lot of confusing circumstances that I would love to have an explanation, but I'm looking at the people that not only do not have an explanation, but they're the victims, especially Judge Rogan. So my remarks are out of just pure frustration. There's no other term that I can craft other than to say that we have got to do better than this deficit. No deficit. To actually deny people justice is something that this country, much less our state, values.

At least we say we do. But this evidence indicates it. We really don't. It's situational, and that's something we have to rectify. And so I will do everything in my power to do that. But we need cooperative partners. And I thank you for bringing this stark unfairness to our attention. And I hope to heaven that we can do something more responsible than what we've been doing in the past to try to balance this level of justice, because this is clearly something that needs.

It should be a priority. And this is not a new problem, by the way. This didn't just emerge because of the deficit. This didn't just emerge over the recent past because of COVID or some other excuse. This is long lasting and shame on us if we let it linger. That's all I've got.

Thank you, Assembly Member to Ms. Goodwin. We've seen where San Bernardino is at 30%. And to bring up even more a long standing need in San Bernardino, county, Inland Empire. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that? That the need isn't just now at the 30%, that it's been a long standing need?

Sure. Well, it is true, it's a long standing need. The Inland Empire and the central Valley have just had much greater population growth overall compared to the coastal counties. And so this is a problem that because our model is based on filings, the number of filings have gone up as the population has increased in these counties. So the need has continued to grow and grown at a pace beyond that of the rest of the state as a whole. And that, coupled with periodic and not consistent investment in new judgeships over time has gotten us to this situation.

I know when I was on the County Board of Supervisors in San Marino County, we worked on equity ratio for the different judicial system there. In San Marino County, we worked on other capacities too, then presiding judge. But how long are vacancies posted before we get someone that could actually fill those vacant judgeships? Yeah.

So typically they're filled by the governor's office isn't involved in filling judicial vacancies. So it's not anything within the purview and an ability for us to change in the judicial branch.

So when we have a vacancy, the Administration, everybody looks at it. How long before that gets appointed to, if there is an appointment? I know there's election process, those types of things.

We can go and work with folks and see what information we have in terms of the duration of the vacancies.

Okay. And I do know that firsthand, seeing the court outside court, getting areas to where we're bringing that justice into San Bernardino, county, we've seen it work. We've seen that it's there being creative. So we know that the judgeship in San Bernardino county is thinking outside the box to delivering judicial justice systems to those in San Bernardino. county.

We also know that other cases that are there, that the statement was said that justice looks different in San Bernardino County, I think that's something that this Committee is taking back with them that is just as different in San Bernardino County than other parts of the State of California. And we would like to have further up dialogue on that to find out the caseload, those types of things, to make sure that justice is equal to everyone here in the State of California.

We do know that there is parameters, there's constraints that go along with it, but we think that bringing transparency to the issue of what is going on in those areas and how judges are being creative, how they're rising to the level to make sure that they're providing that justice is something that needs to be honored, needs to be spelled out here within this hearing here today to say thank you for thinking outside the box and bringing justice to San Bernardino County residents.

We also know that remote capabilities is something that's drastically needed in the largest county in the United States. Where you do have to travel from needles down into San Bernardino or even into Victorville takes some time. Domestic violence, restraining orders is something that we worked on when I was on the county Board of Supervisors to make sure that that was something that could be handled remotely.

So I want to thank you for bringing these issues forward, but also want to highlight that San Bernardino county is at the 30% level, even in this diagram here today. And I adventure to say that it's not the first time that San Bernardino county is at the top of this diagram. So I want to thank you for your presentation here as we transition to the next issue.

Thank you.

Thank you. The next issue is issue five, self help centers. We have Zlatko Teodorovich. Perfect. Don Will, Deputy Director, Judicial Council, Center for Families and Children's in the Court, presiding Judge Maria Hernandez of Orange County Superior Court, Anita Lee, Legislative Analyst Office, and Henry Nigg, Department of Finance. Go ahead.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, the agenda does a great job of really capturing the history. We just know this is a priority for us. And absent the approval of this increase, we will be reverting back to a program that's one third the size that it is right now with this augmentation.

And I'll turn it over to Mr. Will to go over a little bit about the program, and then we'll have Judge Hernandez talk about what it means to court operations to have these resources in the self help centers and how they help court processing.

Thanks, Zlatko. My name is Don Will at the Judicial Council. As Zlatco says, this 19.1 million was provided in the budget in 2018. In that past six years, it's become a core part of the court's operating budget and represents about 60% of court funding for self help centers. All trial courts have a self help center. The expansion funding we received in 2018 enabled courts to tool up to be able to serve up to a million customers annually.

Other activities and achievements through that expansion included a large increase in bilingual self help staff, an expansion into case types not formally served, including eviction and consumer debt. This expansion was reported to the Legislature in a legislative report a couple of years ago, which was then followed by a legislative report documenting the cost benefit savings to courts through self help centers. Self represented litigants. In our study, we show that they save a self help. Sorry.

Self represented litigants served by a self help center saves about $100 on their case in avoided costs of transportation, of lost work. And in General, the cost savings to the courts and to the litigants is about three to $4 saved in costs avoided to every dollar spent. I'm going now to turn this over to Judge Hernandez.

Thank you and good afternoon, Chair Ramos and Assemblymember Lackey. Thank you for allowing me to be here. Excuse me. I'm Maria Hernandez. I'm the presiding judge in Orange County, but I also serve as our trial court presiding judge. Chair. So I'd like to be speaking on behalf of the entire state when we talk about the need for self help centers and what that truly means, both of you have so eloquently talked about the underserved, the vulnerable populations, especially in both of your districts.

Specifically, I'm going to follow up on my dear friend and colleague, Judge Rogan. Justice denied or justice delayed? Is justice denied? And quite frankly, when it's denied, as some of the issues you heard in San Bernardino, we rely heavily on our self help centers to be able to reach, as you've heard from Mr. Will, over a million self represented litigants and the out years are projected to be far more than a million.

And I would submit to you as Members, that that doesn't even consider the ripple effect of all of the other family members that are served. When we're talking in domestic violence cases and eviction processes, and the people that we're going to be able to serve and touch in different language, those are our most vulnerable populations.

And when you talk about not being able to fund those particular folks because they can't get into a courtroom, because they don't know how to fill out the forms, that they don't have the capabilities or legal services because of their poverty level, this just accumulates into a complete denial of justice. And when we talk about justice looking different in every county, shame on us. That should never happen. And so for us to be able to have. Judge Rogan kind of coined this.

Those are our first responders. Those self help individuals are first responders. They are triaging, they are assisting. They are helping folks who otherwise would not have a voice at the table. So they become critical to all of your constituents. And certainly when we talk about what is the mission of our branch, which is equity and fairness and making sure we have a diverse and inclusive branch. How dare us to leave out our most vulnerable population by those who can be served by our self help centers? So, I'm available for any questions, but I'm just so honored to be here this afternoon. So thank you.

Thank you, presiding judge, for that.

Anything from Department of Finance? LAO?

Yes, so, Anita Lee with the LAO. So we have a pretty robust assessment for you starting on pages 13 of your agenda. It's 13 through 15, and if you'd like to follow along, our recommendations can be found on page 16. We to take a slightly broader approach when thinking about Self-Help Centers. And so we do have three recommendations for you.

Our first recommendation is we recommend the Legislature direct Judicial Council to convene a working group to assess all programs that provide legal assistance or services in the state and provide a report by January of 2027. And this would be a comprehensive picture of where these services are being delivered, how they're being delivered, whether there are gaps in services, as well as where there can be improvements to avoid duplication.

And this is really necessary because we currently have a wide array of these programs that are operating separately from one another, and they receive both state and other funding, but generally in a piecemeal manner. And so we're talking about different programs. It includes both the Self-Help Centers, but other things like county law libraries, the Shriver Program, and the Equal Access Fund. And so these programs are really helpful because they do promote equity.

There are services that are provided to lower income individuals who can't afford an attorney on issues that can really impact their lives, like child custody and evictions. As Mr. Will mentioned, there have been evaluations done on these programs, and they have indicated benefits. But the benefits are different depending on where you put the money in. And that raises some really interesting policy considerations for the Legislature in terms of where to invest money so that it's aligned with legislative priorities.

So an example of that is monies that are provided to trial courts can benefit both courts and litigants, and they're available in every court. And that's being done by improving court efficiencies, by reducing delays from incomplete paperwork or a lack of knowledge about the process. In contrast, the Shriver Program, which is only available in 11 courts, provides legal representation to lower income individuals in certain case types like eviction.

And so an evaluation of those eviction services actually indicated some actually more notable benefits for the litigants. For example, reducing the amount that they would have to pay to resolve their cases. And that, in turn, makes it more likely that they can find replacement housing in the future. So that kind of gives an illustration of the policy kind of choice that exists there for the Legislature.

Our second recommendation is for the Legislature to also require that working group to develop a strategic plan for funding these legal assistant programs and services. And so this strategic funding plan would detail how to improve the existing allocation of funds, how to minimize the impacts of any funding reductions, and to prioritize where monies could go, if future monies became available, in order to increase service levels in a cost effective manner.

And so maximizing the use of resources can really help increase the number of people served, which we would note is particularly important given the state's budget situation. And so this is also really important because there is an estimated large amount of unmet need. As an example of that, a 2017 study done by the judicial branch indicated that tens of millions would potentially be needed if Self-Help Centers themselves were to be fully staffed.

As another example, I mentioned the Shriver Program, and I said that that's only available in 11 courts. And so that kind of gives an idea of how much need there could be. Our final recommendation is to consider providing that requested 19 million, but only providing it for three years. Kind of calling back to my original comments on issue one, given the state's budget situation, you're going to want to weigh this against all of your other priorities.

But if we look at this individually, on its own merits, it is reasonable because you'd be maintaining existing service levels and preventing a reduction in service. But we are recommending only three years because that recommended assessment report and that strategic plan would be due in January of 2027. And so that's three years.

And so you'd want to use that information to then inform the amount of funding that you're providing for these programs in 27-28 to make sure that it's aligned with legislative priorities, and to make sure that you're maximizing the use of those dollars. With that, conclude our comments, and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that. Any comments from the presiding judge?

No. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Mr. Lackey? Oh, hold on, Mr. Lackey. Okay, go ahead.

Henry Ng, Department of Finance. So, while we recognize LAO's recommendation to convene a work group to assess statewide legal resources and to fund the program on a limited term basis, we would like to note that the Judicial Council is not currently being funded to convene such a work group. So that would likely mean additional General Fund resources being needed, and we're estimating it to be in the low millions of dollars, which is, of course, beyond what's included in the Governor's Budget.

In addition, we would also like to continue to support ongoing funding for this proposal. There is a clear need for these Self-Help Centers as they help self represented litigants and those who could not afford an attorney. They provided guidance, and these court employed attorneys help with their paperwork and explain the next process, next steps as well too. So providing ongoing funding also helps the courts better plan for the future. And to the extent adjustments need to be made to the funding, we can do so through the annual budget process. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any other comments from Department of Finance? Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Lackey.

Yeah, I'd just like to say that, first of all, I think it's exciting to see the success that these Self-Help Centers provide. It's important that the state don't follow a path of being penny rich and nickel poor.

And I think too often that's the pathway that we pursue. I'm actually considering... The recommendations that were given these three recommendations, and especially the first one, I'm actually working on running a study bill to do that very thing. I'm highly, highly interested in accomplishing that. And in better budget years, I think the state may want to consider expanding the eligibility in the Shriver Program. The time now obviously is not good for that.

But why in the world wouldn't we want to expand success like this? When we have so many challenges, as we just talked about earlier, and the shortcomings, especially in San Bernardino County and many other rural areas too. We need to use these programs because they're proven. Right. And one thing I've learned in my life, obviously, you can tell by my hair that I'm an experienced person, right.

And one thing I've learned is studies are helpful, but life experiences are even more meaningful because they involve human behavior, which is often hard to predict. So very, very excited to see the success that these self help programs have actually proven. And I hope that the Legislature will enhance their success because everybody deserves that.

Thank you so much for that. And thank you to the presentations and different points that were brought up and to the LAO's office. It is interesting to see and utilize resources that are available both within State of California, but also from different nonprofits that are out there.

Utilization of those resources, especially during this time, where we continue to hear the presentations on the budget and how it's grown since January to where we are now. I think we have to start thinking outside the box and start to at least discuss the utilization of resources that are available in the State of California for good programs like this to ensure that they continue to move forward. So we are open to that dialogue.

We are open to ensuring that utilization of resources is a point that we move forward on and discuss here within this Committee. So I want to thank you for your presentation. I want to thank the panel, as now we transition to panel six. Thank you, Mr. Zlatko. So the panel six will be Pella McCormick, Director, Judicial Council Facility Service, Koreen van Ravenhorst, Department of Finance, Phillip Osborn, Department of Finance, Anita Lee, Legislative Analyst’s Office. Go ahead, Ms. McCormick.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm Pella McCormick. I'm the Director of Facility Services at Judicial Council. The Judicial Council Facilities Program's mission is to provide uniformly safe, secure, and well maintained court facilities. The program strives to optimize preventative maintenance funding, reduce the deferred maintenance backlog, and replace substandard antiquated facilities with modern courthouses. The facility program completes approximately 1500 facility modification projects and 100,000 maintenance service orders annually in the over 450 facilities in the portfolio.

During fiscal year 23-24, capital projects for Shasta, Glenn, and Imperial Counties open to the public. Additionally, the Riverside Menifee Project is scheduled to open in June 2024, and projects for Stanislaus, Sacramento, Sonoma, and Riverside Indio will complete in fiscal year 24-25. These projects will activate 130 courtrooms and vacate 21 substandard facilities. The 24-25 capital project requests include design build phase for the 6th District Court of Appeal in Sunnyvale, Santa Clara County.

Funding is also requested for the operations and maintenance for the Stanislaus new Modesto courthouse, which will complete construction in 24-25. The 24-25 five year infrastructure proposal reflects the current financial circumstances and will significantly slow the completion rate for courthouse projects. 10 previously appropriated projects will complete current acquisition or design phases and be placed on hold until a future funding year. There are an additional 69 other projects on the statewide list waiting for appropriations.

Additionally, the Butte juvenile court renovation and courtroom buildout projects for Kings, Sutter, and San Joaquin courts will complete design and be placed on hold until General Fund revenues stabilize. The facilities program is poised to continue providing asset management, operations, maintenance, real estate planning, and other facility services to the courts in the coming fiscal year within current funding levels. Your continued support for the Judicial Council Facilities Program is appreciated and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any comments, Department of Finance? LAO? Comments from the dais?

Just a quick question. Would the enhancement of remote hearings change the dynamic of any of these construction projects?

Only then that we are putting technology to be able to use remote proceedings in all of the different courtrooms. The standards that are coming out in March. There'll also be subsequent standards that come out probably this fall that will address kind of those types of issues trying to give as much flexibility to the courts as possible.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you. In the different definitions in the tables that we have, does this also talk about a modifying, not so much of building from the ground up, but modifying what's already there to service a need like a court or anything of those sorts?

Each project is kind of scoped on its own merits. One of the challenges that we have in trying to do renovation in existing court facilities is that the noise and disruption is highly impactful to the proceedings.

So either you end up paying premium time to do the work after hours, or you have to relocate the court for the duration of the construction project. Many of the facilities in the portfolio are at end of life. Something like 300 of our 450 projects are nearing 50 years old, which is considered a replacement time for a particular project.

So if there is inside of a building, a room that just needs to have modification, does that go on the list? Or how do you get on the list for some of this funding and to make sure that happens?

There's two different types of funding. So if you're just trying to do like a small renovation project within an existing courtroom, that would be called a facilities modification project. So we do about 1500 of those each year. There is a priority list, and I will tell you that we get about $80 million a year to perform those projects. But primarily those projects address maintenance needs or capital renewals.

So, for example, large equipment that needs to be replaced because it's at end of life. A lot of times the court funded requests, funding would come from the court itself to be able to perform, like, enhancements. For example, if you wanted to change a conference room into two offices, a project like that would be self funded by the courts.

So those types of projects, different categories, self funded by the courts themselves, meaning the different county Superior Court that way would put it through their budget system and then would be able to come to your purview when you're looking at different remodel type deal and new construction?

That's correct. There's a set of protocols to determine kind of what path a project takes, depending on the rule of court and particular procedures and what exactly the project is. Typically, if it requires permitting and inspection, that project needs to come through the facilities group for project management to ensure that it's regulatorily compliant.

And if I might add, the Committee also is overseen by judicial officers, so it's not a staff driven decision. The team makes recommendations, and then there are core leadership who are heads of these committees that are looking at the statewide need and determining what are the highest priorities of expenditure.

Thank you. Thank you for that. And thank you for your presentation here today. And thank you to all the panelists that were up here on all the different issues that we went through here today within this hearing. I want to thank you, as that concludes issue six. We will now move to public comment. Each person will have up to 1 minute to stress public comment on issues we discussed here today.

Good afternoon. Lindsay Gullahorn here with Capitol Advocacy on behalf of San Bernardino County. Just want to emphasize the shortage of judges in the County. As you heard from Judge Rogan today, this extreme shortage is creating a really significant hardship for County residents who have to wait years to have their legal cases held, let alone resolved. As Judge Rogan stated, it also is placing a crushing administrative burden on the entire apparatus of the Superior Court, where judges, prosecutors, public defenders, administrative support staff are struggling to ensure that proceedings are held in a timely and effective manner.

And while we are, of course, aware of the state's fiscal situation, the lack of judges in the County is an extreme inequity in this state and resources are needed to create new judge positions. So the County is eager and willing to work with the Legislature on solutions to this. Thank you.

Kenneth Hartman with the Transformative Inprison Workgroup. Going back to issue number one, the section on adult reentry grants. I just wanted to say I wonder if the state is being pennywise and pound foolish because undermining adult reentry grants, actually, those help people get housing when they get out of prison, and it usually goes to the poorest people who don't have any family. A formerly incarcerated person myself, luckily, I had more support than that.

But I know those grants support thousands and thousands of people getting out. It makes it much more likely to be successful. So I wonder if there should be some rethinking of how that's being done.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chairman, Members. Nick Brokaw from Sacramento Advocates here on behalf of the Public Defenders Association, as well as a coalition of county partners, social justice organizations. Here to comment on issue number one and the Administration's proposal to eliminate or claw back the $40 million in the final year of funding for the Public Defense Pilot Program. We certainly hope to see the Legislature retain that funding.

I really appreciate comments of Assembly Member Lackey recognizing the impact on vulnerable populations. But also want to recognize that this is the only statewide funding in place specifically for the provision of indigent defense. And when we look at the numbers and the data, we appreciate and recognize the great deficit the state faces. But the return on the state's investment thus far has been substantial.

We look at 13 counties in the state we have data for out of the 34 that participate, and the savings are substantial, anywhere from, at a minimum, $94 million, but upwards of 781 million in cost savings. So we think the ROI is significant and it's good for public safety and appreciate the consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you Chair, Committee Members, and staff. Ryan Morimune from the California State Association of Counties, also on behalf of the Urban Counties of California and Rural County Representatives of California. Would like to echo the comments of a colleague from the Public Defenders Association and appreciate the comments from you, Mr. Lackey, just around the importance of funding the final and third year of the program.

In short, this $40 million is absolutely critical to help ensure that counties can continue to provide those essential post conviction services as aligned with recently legislation passed through this body. So thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. Sandra Barreiro on behalf of SEIU California. We represent court employees in 34 counties across the state. Wanted to comment on issue three, the remote proceedings trailer bill language and the increase to the Trial Fund Reserve Cap. We aren't inherently opposed to remote, but we are opposed to a straight extension of procedures intended to get us through an emergency without reevaluation for the impacts on staff.

It's been four years since remote proceedings were implemented and many courts still don't have the appropriate technology for staff to successfully complete and perform their functions with remote proceedings. And there are currently no minimum equipment and technology requirements in the language, the trailer bill language, for criminal proceedings and most civil, including family. So there definitely needs to be minimum equipment and technology standards added. Courts are also experiencing high vacancies in both court reporter and clerk positions. Those are the people who move the calendars.

We heard a judge talk about how difficult it is to hear hundreds of cases a day on a calendar, and the court staff are the ones that make that happen. Court reporters are also burned out because they're stressed about losing their licenses. During a remote proceeding, any glitch can interrupt a proceeding and then if the verbatim record is inaccurate, they could lose their license. And then when it comes to the reserve cap, low wages contribute to the vacancies and high turnover of court staff.

Any excess money should be used for bargaining to help compensate employees who are sometimes doing the work of two to three different staff members due to vacancies. And also we want to know what's happening to the money for these vacant positions. Again, this is across every single court, including San Bernardino. The legal processing assistants are experiencing high vacancies. So what's happening with funding for these vacant positions? We'd like to know before there's an increase to the Reserve Fund Cap.

So, for instance, San Francisco won't allow their clerks to work overtime, which would help them move their cases. Since returning to in person workers' complaints about remote have largely been ignored. So we look forward to working with the Committee more on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Mr. Chair and Members, Pat Moran with Aaron Read and Associates, representing the Orange County Employees Association. We represent court workers in Orange County. We're experiencing the same problems that my colleague from SEIU highlighted. We're not inherently opposed to remote proceedings, but we are opposed to the trailer bill.

Until our issues are worked out and included, protections that are included in AB 1214 by Assembly Member Maienschein, which is over in the Senate. We'd like to see those incorporated into the bill dealing with criminal. We also have an issue with regard to what was said with regard to interruptions during remote proceedings. One of the judges made it sound like interruptions in remote proceedings are just as easily handled as they are in live court proceedings. They're just not.

According to our clients, interruptions during remote proceedings are much more difficult to deal with, and they're just different. So with that, we are opposed until we can work out our differences. And thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Hello. I'm Jan Schmidt, the Director of the Stanislaus County Law Library and past President of the Council of California County Law Librarians, here to speak on behalf of all county law libraries throughout the state. And I want to say that I appreciate the LAO's recognition of a need for a comprehensive view of the legal services that we all give or all serve and the most vulnerable populations that we do all serve. The problem is that last year county law libraries served 600,000 people.

Many of those were referrals from Self-Help Centers, people who needed to conduct remote hearings but didn't have technology, referrals from legal aid. And we got no funding last year from the state. And by the time this study is complete, in three years, more than a third of the rural county law libraries in the state will be closed. There won't be county law libraries to serve these vulnerable populations. And I know that we've testified before, and Jennifer is well aware of our issue.

Year after year we're doing the tin cup funding, so we are hoping for a comprehensive long term solution. But the $16.5 million supplemental funding that county law libraries get from year to a few years, we've been told, is budget dust, and it keeps our doors open until we can at least see. And you can see, we would welcome your view of the services that we deliver and the people that we deliver it to. So sorry for going over time, but thank you for your consideration of that.

Thank you for your comments.

Hi, I'm Emily Bergfeld, Director of the Alameda County Law Library. Continued investment in California's existing network of county law libraries is a critical part of a cost effective, efficient, and sustainable long term solution to ensure that all Californians have equal access to accurate legal information, equal access to legal technology and subscription legal databases, equal access to the courts, and equal access to justice.

Please protect public access to high quality legal information by funding county law libraries, which are California's access to justice safety net. Demand for our services continues to grow each year, even as our funding from court filing fees has declined. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Janice O'Malley with AFSCME California. I just wanted to echo the comments made by Sandra Barreiro from SEIU and also Pat Moran representing OCEA Members.

We also have a handful of court reporters, court clerks that we represent, and we also are in opposition to the trailer bill language and item three under the judicial branch. We'd like for extra consideration on safeguards for technology to ensure that our court reporters have accurate access to the verbatim record and to protect those who are seeking restitution. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Any other public comment? Seeing none. This hearing is adjourned.