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

The Senate Budget Subcommitee number five on corrections, public safety, judiciary, labor, and transportation will come to order. Good morning. We are holding our Committee hearings here in the Capitol. I ask all Members of the Subcommitee be present in room 112 so we can establish quorum. And beginning our hearing today, we will cover the board of state and community corrections, or BSCC, and the judicial branch.

The state is facing a significant deficit this year, and we will look carefully at all departments under sub five as we figure out how to solve the budget problem. Last week, I did say that I am looking for up to 15% reductions because that is the magnitude of the deficit the state is facing. We are not expecting cuts at that level for every Department, especially not cuts that will harm vulnerable populations. And the state has reserves and other ways to address the deficit.

But the bottom line is that we are looking for larger reductions to solve this budget problem, and we expect all departments to contribute to find efficiencies and redundancies that can be eliminated. And we look forward to working with the Administration as we do it to ensure we have time for everything on today's agenda, including public comments, which will take on all items at the end of the hearing. We are asking presenters to keep their testimony under five minutes. We do keep time.

I would also ask my fellow Committee Members to keep their comments and questions concise. Before we begin, I would just like to ask if there are any Members that have any opening comments. Seeing none, let's establish a quorum consultant. Please call roll.

[Roll Call]

Thank you. Let's begin with our first issue. Issue number one, Department overview. We'll hear from Kathleen Howard, the Executive Director of the Board of State and Community Corrections. You will have five minutes.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Thank you very much for having me. It's nice to meet you. I'm Katie Howard. I'm the Executive Director of the BSCC, and I'm happy to provide a Department overview. I'm going to focus a bit on our programmatic responsibilities, touch on some numbers, and then the Department of Finance is here as well to talk about proposed solutions in our budget this year. So the BSCC, for short, has four major areas of responsibility.

We inspect county correctional facilities for both adults and juveniles across the entire state, and we promulgate the regulations for the operation of those facilities. We have a regular revision process to those regulations. We also administer the training standards for local correctional officers and assess compliance with those training standards. We have a very significant grants division as well, just in terms of dollars. And you'll see that.

I want to thank the staff for the really good summary in today's agenda, just to touch on our grant funding amounts. And like I said, Department of Finance is here to describe some of the proposed solutions this year in broad categories of our grant funding. We have almost $430,000,000 in ongoing state grants. Our one time state grants at the moment total about 320,000,000.

Our ongoing federal grants are about 57 million, and then our local construction grants are sort of a different kind of category because they're lease revenue bond funding, and over the years, the Legislature and the Administration have tasked the BSCC with a variety of grant making responsibilities. I'm happy to answer any questions about particular programs. Turning just for a moment back to the overarching summary of the BSCC's responsibilities. We have the inspections and regulations, the training standards for local correctional officers, very significant grants program.

We also have a research division doing a lot of work connected with grants and other data collection responsibilities, and the facilities construction division. So that's a lightning fast summary of the BSCC programmatic responsibilities and DoF. Would you like to pick it up? Thanks.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and Committee Members. My name is Cynthia Mendonza, Department of Finance. As Katie mentioned, the BSCC provides statewide leadership, coordination, and technical assistance necessary to promote effective state and local efforts and partnerships within California's criminal justice systems, and it promotes legal and safe conditions for the incarcerated and staff in local detention facilities. The BSCC currently has five programs, and Katie mentioned those to facilitate ongoing operations.

The 24-25 support budget includes a total of 356.7 million, and of that amount, 172.6 million is General Fund, which is roughly about half of that total support budget. At Governor's Budget, two budget proposals were included for the board, the reappropriation of the medication Assisted grant program and the transfer of juvenile justice programs to the Office of Youth and Community Restoration. The Governor's Budget also included several proposals to address the anticipated budget shortfall. They included $100 million loan from the Cannabis Tax Fund to the General Fund.

Secondly, a pause of the 24-25 adult reentry grant of 57 million, and that funding would be restored over the subsequent three years and split equally at 19 million each year in 25-26 a funding shift for the California Violence Intervention and Prevention program known as CalVIP, which would shift that funding from the General Fund to the newly established gun and Ammunition Tax Fund, which was established by AB 28, which would provide up to 75 million annually to the BSCC for the implementation of CalVIP.

Next would be the elimination of the third and final year of funding, which is 40 million for the public defender pilot program. Fifth would be the elimination of the annual 835,000 for the proud parenting grant program. And lastly, the elimination of an annual 7.9 million in funding for the community corrections partnership plans. And with that, I turn it over.

Thank you. We'll go to the LAO. Do you guys have any other further comments? All right, colleagues, would you guys have any questions? Comments? Senator Durazo.

Thank you very much. Just on the public defender pilot program, I am really concerned about the impact that this is going to have on, obviously, communities, poor communities, and we have, I think, a very lopsided way of funding our prosecutors and our public defenders. And this seems like it's going to make it even worse, that gap between what we provide for people who can't afford legal defense and yet face a much, much higher. I think there was a chart here somewhere. So could you address that?

How do we deal with that? Because sure, in our sensitivity towards the budget and our problems with the budget still, I'm looking out for who are the most vulnerable, who's going to be hardest hit by any shift change, reduction or delay or elimination altogether. Very worried about that.

Understanding that question, Senator. Thank you very much. And I'm going to ask Department of Finance to comment further, but just to clarify what this proposal is, understanding that there are real consequences to any reduction. This is the third year of a pilot program, and it was not a decision that the Administration came to easily. It was more of just know all of the potential ways in which some savings could be achieved. And I'll ask Cindy to say more.

I'm not sure I could say anything better than what Katie mentioned. It wasn't an easy decision, and we looked for funding that had not been distributed yet. So it was a very difficult decision in terms of pulling back any funding that was not yet obligated.

But this was submitted and they were acting on as if they were going to get the money, right?

Zero, absolutely right. Yeah. We had taken the administrative actions of asking counties if they wanted year three funding. We had that in process, and that's, of course, now on hold while the budget negotiations are being worked through.

So again, my concern is how people will end up. More people will end up incarcerated. More people will just not have the benefits of a public defense, and that will cost. So maybe we ought to be looking at what the cost is going to be on the other end of this. Thank you.

Senator Newman.

Thank you. So I actually want to add on. I share Senator Durazo's concern about the public defender pilot program, and you've indicated that many of the recipients had already made plans.

That's right.

And so to the extent that this was the third year of a pilot, it seems to me that may undermine the goals of the pilot to eliminate the third year. And so what accommodations, if any, can be made to make sure that the goals and benefits of the pilot program are actually realized in the absence of funds for the third year of a three year program?

Good question and kind of a difficult question. We would still be able to attempt to measure and assess the benefits that came from the first two years of the pilot program. It is $100 million that has gone out for year one and year two, 50 million in each year. So there will be meaningful information that can come together and inform perhaps future priorities in this area. But there's no easy way to say it.

It certainly means that the year three activities that could have been funded would not be funded and the additional data and impacts couldn't be assessed. I hope that makes sense.

It does. I guess it just doesn't bode well for sort of the larger goals around the pilot program as it relates to Poga defenders. Thank you.

Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. My question relates to the CalVIP Program.

It says the $9 million annual General Fund. But that's not the budget for CalVIPs there is a lot of other augmentations to that?

Okay.

There have been in recent years, Senator. Yes. The gun violence and violence intervention prevention efforts have been a huge priority for this Governor and the Legislature. So over the recent years, I don't have all the numbers right here in front of me, but there were very significant augmentations made to CalVIP. So, yes, historically it's been 9 million a year, but a few years ago, Cindy probably has it ready. There was $200 million added.

Right. And that's what I was getting at. Now when they say it's eliminating the baseline amount, is it the 9 million or all of that. And only relying on the tax?

Yes. So the 200 million was a 200 million augmentation over three years. This would be the last year of that funding, that final amount. But there is an ongoing amount of 9 million in the General Fund. And so essentially next year, the only thing that would exist had we not done anything is 9 million General Fund.

So we're proposing not in the next year but the following year that we would shift the funds from the $9 million to the $75 million, up to $75 million from the gun and ammunition tax Fund.

Okay. And we're really confident about the $75 million because this is a really important program in relation to actually directly impacting gun violence in communities that are impacted by it. And it was actually sold to us as a - we're going to bolster this program, not replace one with the other.

And it looks to me like all we're doing is replacing one funding with the other, and it stays where it is, and the funding for that program will be dependent on whether we actually gain $75 million a year in taxes. So if we're eliminating the budget for the baseline budget from our General Fund, we're going to have to come back in future years.

And if they don't make the amount of money they need for this program to actually be successful, it's not going to be successful, and we're just throwing money down the drain. So that's my concern with that particular part of the cuts anyway. And then cannabis tax fund. The cannabis industry is struggling mightily. Is this going to impact the parts that this fund is supposed to be helping? The enforcement and those type of things?

I'll turn it over to Katie. This is not anticipated to impact any of the grantees.

Okay, thank you.

Right. I do want to ask. We have heard concerns about BSCC's grant administration, including clawing back funding from community orgs. How is BSCC addressing these concerns and ensuring that administrative issues are not preventing these orgs from continuing their work?

So I'm aware that the Legislature is hearing from some of the community based organizations that have had difficulty with grant administration issues. Much of that wouldn't be appropriate for me to discuss here in public because this has to do with contractual agreements for services to be provided,

These are public contracts, correct?

Yes.

And these are funds, correct?

Yes.

Okay. So what is the concern?

Talking about discussions ongoing right now with grantees who were not able to meet the contract requirements in terms of how invoices were submitted and these sorts of things. We are working very closely with grantees to work through the issues and attempt to reach resolutions that work. It's really important for me to add that this is a small number of grantees. Most of the grantees are doing very good work out in the field and are able to comply with the Grant Administration requirements.

Those that have not been able to meet all those requirements are in various stages of negotiation, and in some limited numbers of cases, there have been requests for money to be returned to the state when it has not been properly used by grantees. Roughly how many orgs, probably around 10 to 15 right now, are in this stage of the process of working through.

I do just want to highlight this. Last week we had a meeting and CDCR stated that they have 12 contractors and roughly 700 subcontractors. Just the amount of oversight needed for all of those subcontractors. And I'm assuming that you guys have a significant number of organizations you guys work with and potentially even additional subcontractors. And we don't have to get into it. I think that's extremely problematic if we don't have good oversight over these organizations that are providing these services. Number one.

Number two is the fact that a lot of the effort has been where funds have been diverted from the, let's say, traditional model to go more into the counties, to go into the jails, to be in the community and so forth. And we haven't necessarily seen just efficiency models, especially when we know that there's more community. It's not in rural areas necessarily, things like that.

So I'm just going to state this, is that as we are working with these orgs and maybe there are templates set up for these orgs to be able to highlight their finances, their billing, their this and that, this should not be difficult at all. There's a lot of online tools and so forth. So there should be a uniform process and this should be streamlined.

It's a lot of time and energy to put people in investigating what's going on, helping what's going on, changing what's going on, monitoring what's going on and much more. So administrative tasks like this should be streamlined immediately. So I'm just going to state that and we can move on to the next item.

Thank you, Senator.

Definitely. Issue number two, proposed reductions in public defense pilot program. We're going to hear again from you. You will have five minutes as well.

Okay. I believe we've covered that. Skyler. Excuse me.

Hello. My name is Skyler Miles Clinton Cobb. I'm representing the Department of Finance. So the public defender pilot program was created to include three years of funding totaling to 150,000,000 or $50 million per year for three years to be used for indigent defense providers, including public defenders and other qualified entities that provide indigent defense for certain criminal matters.

Due to the anticipated budget shortfall, the Governor's Budget proposes to reduce the third year of funding for the pilot program while retaining about $100 million from cohort one and cohort two from budget years or for fiscal years. Sorry, 2021 through 2022 and 22 through 2023. This approach allows for the state to Fund $100 million for the pilot program, and the BSCC will contract with a vendor to evaluate the program results while reducing the final year of funding.

Last year, due to budget constraints, a proposal was brought forth to eliminate the third year of funding. However, $40 million was retained to continue the program for 2023 through 2024 this year to attain a balanced budget. A proposal included in the Governor's Budget to eliminate the third, or was included to eliminate the third year funding. Sorry.

The decision to include this item is not based on the merits of the program, but because the funding is limited in term, in nature and has not yet been spent, so it's been included in our package of solutions. However, since this program received $100 million in 2021 and 2022 and 2022 through 2023, it can be evaluated and further determinations can be made about continuing this program in the future.

Thank you. LAO, any other remarks from you? No, Senator Durazo.

Thank you. And I just want to add some of the information that was provided to us. 88% of the people that were resentenced under this program were people of color, with African American comprising the largest share, 45%. That's just one example of the benefit of this program. 414 people receive reduced sentences, resulting in a reduction of 2186 hours of incarceration and $30 million in savings. So this is not only an issue of dollars and cents, $30 million in savings, but we're taking away $40 million.

It just doesn't make sense there. But the specific question that's not covered here is, what about cases are in progress right now? Are they going to be allowed to continue their defense as needed?

The year two funds are still out in the field and working. So my understanding is that that work would continue uninterrupted, but the additional work that would have begun in year three is where the reduction is proposed.

All right, seeing no further questions, we'll move on to issue number three, allocation three, cannabis tax Fund special Fund loan. We're going to hear again from Katie. Katie, you have five minutes.

Thank you very much, Senator. So, yes, the cannabis loan is a 100 $1.0 million loan, and the important thing to maybe highlight in the Prop 64, the cannabis grant that the BSCC administers.

Our grant focuses on public health and safety impacts out in the field, and the requirement for eligibility for the Prop 64 grants that we administer initially, per the initiative, that the local governments that could apply for the funding, whether cities or counties, had to allow both retail sale and cultivation, both indoor and outdoor cultivation of cannabis, legal indoor outdoor cultivation. And that really severely limited the number of cities and counties, local governments across the state, who were eligible.

So I think the short version is to say that over the years since Prop 64 was enacted and the excise taxes have been collected, some funding has sort of gathered up over the years. We have put multiple rfps out. There's really good work going on in the field right now, and this proposed loan does not affect current grantees, and then we will be able to get right back to work and put more grants out into the field after this loan.

Thank you. We'll hear from LAO, from Department of Finance Members of this Committee. Senator Durazo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't think this was flagged, but is it appropriate when something that was funding that we got through a very specific language in Prop 64 could be used in a different way from what the voters voted on? So is that an issue and why not?

DOF?

Yeah, this is Skyler-Myles again, from finance. So, to answer that question, I would say that a few court opinions decided after the great recession approved special funds loans, despite similar statutory language governing the special Fund. Like we've discussed a little bit earlier, we think that those cases apply to the cannabis tax Fund loan, since the loan is temporary, and use of excess funds, as opposed to an appropriation or expenditure or true use of the funds.

In addition, other special Fund language expressly prohibits General Fund loans. So the fact that the voters did not include such a prohibition on Prop 64 means that they did not intend that restriction. Thank you.

Senator Seyarto.

So when are they paying it back? Do they specify that?

Cynthia Mendonza. Yes, it is specified. It won't be in the next budget year. It will start in 25-26 and 26-27 and it'll be 50 million each year, should the board need the funds sooner, that the repayment can be changed.

Can be moved up, because we're anticipating large budget deficits in those years. Also not confident that this is going to get paid back.

So for the full year, Prop 64, the revenue generated through the cannabis tax, how much is it per year? The cannabis tax is how much per year?

This tax varies per year. So the board of state and Community Corrections is in what they call allocation three. So after all costs and other allocations are made in allocation 1 and 2, the allocation three funds are then distributed, and the board, I believe, gets 20% of those correct remaining funds.

Okay. And roughly what is that number?

I believe it's been in the neighborhood of $80 million annually, Senator, but we can follow up to be sure I'm giving you the right number on that.

For how many years now?

I think the funding started coming in, in that level in about 19.

Okay, so what analysis has the Administration done on if this is allowable use of funds under Prop . 64?

And that was the research into what similar funds that provided similar statute from other propositions that provided authority for a Fund loan such as this. So based on those similarities of court decisions, there's the belief that the cannabis tax Fund can be used in this manner because it's not a true use of the funds, it's not an expenditure of those funds. These funds will be repaid to the balance.

Okay. All right, thank you. We can move on to the next item, item number four, post release community supervision funding. We'll have Katie present again.

If I could. I'd like to turn it over to Department of Finance.

Hi, so this is Skyler Myles again with Department of Finance. The post release Community Supervision act of 2011 authorized the CDCR to release certain incarcerated individuals to county supervision. Post release community supervision is a form of supervision provided to an individual who has been released from a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations institution to the jurisdiction of a county agency. In 2016, California voters approved Proposition 57, which allowed parole consideration for nonviolent felons upon completion of their prison term for their primary offense.

It also allowed the CDCR to award sentence credits for rehabilitation, good behavior, or educational achievements. When Proposition 57 was approved, more individuals were released from prison earlier and caused the PRCs population to increase beyond what the counties were funded for. As a result, additional funding was provided to county probation to address Proposition 57 impacts. Funding is determined annually to assist with the additional individuals release to post release community supervision, or PRCs.

As far as the calculation goes, to determine the funding for county probation, data from the CDCR is used on the estimated additional PRCs releases for the expanded nonviolent parole process and is added to the estimated PRCs releases for enhanced credits. The sum is multiplied by the per offender rate to derive the annual costs per county. The PRCs impacts are naturally declining at this point, but based on the data we receive, there are still impacts due to Proposition 57.

The 2024-25 Governor's Budget estimates a $4.4 million General Fund to counties based on the increased population being returned to the counties due to Proposition 57. For reference, the Budget Act of 2022 allocated $20.9 million to county probation. The Budget Act of 2023 allocated $9.3 million what we anticipate for this year is less than half of what was provided last year. Thank you.

Thank you. Lao?

Caitlin O'Neil with the Legislative Analyst Office. We recommend rejecting this proposal. And to explain that I will just expand slightly on some of the history that Department of Finance discussed. So, in 2011, responsibility for supervising about half of people released annually from state prison was shifted from state parole to county probation departments. That population is called the post release community supervision population, or PRCs for short.

The state provides counties with a portion of annual state sales tax revenue to pay for these responsibilities, as well as other responsibilities that were realigned at the time. Prop 57, approved in 2016, is causing some people to be released from prison earlier than otherwise, which means they arrive at county probation Department caseloads earlier than otherwise. It also means they leave county probation departments caseloads earlier than otherwise, but they're getting there, essentially while other folks are still finishing up their supervision terms.

So it creates a little bit of a near term temporary traffic jam, if you will. In other words, it temporarily increases workload for probation departments, but it's not an overall net increase in workload over time. However, the sales tax that supports this responsibility doesn't get moved forward in time. So there was a concern in the past that counties may face some cash flow issues in supervising this population.

And so, in response to those concerns, the state has provided a series of one time augmentations to support that temporary increase caused by Prop 57. So we recommend rejecting for two reasons. The first is we think that we find it unlikely that counties are continuing to need this funding for cash flow reasons because the PRCs population is essentially back to where it was before Prop 57. I'd also note the tax revenue for this responsibility has increased significantly over the years.

And given the state's budget problem, we think that dedicating new General Fund to this purpose would come at the expense of previously identified priorities and don't find it to be sufficiently justified for prioritizing limited resources. Thank you.

Thank you. Any rebuttals?

Counties were not funded for this additional PRCs population. We believe there is ongoing need based on projections that we receive, we anticipate a natural reduction to the point where there are no impacts, but we're just not there yet. We are seeing that decline, but not there yet.

Okay. Any Members from the Committee? All right. Given that the PRCs population has declined to pre-position 57 levels, why is this funding still necessary, though?

Based on the data we receive, we are still seeing those impacts.

Okay. And is there eventually an assumption that this funding will be cut? Yes. When.

Current projections are in the next few years. And as we've seen in the last couple of years, it went from $20 million to $9 million to $4 million for the budget year. So we are seeing that General trend downward.

Considering that we have this fiscal cliff, why not try to implement it either in the next year or two?

The Administration feels strongly that counties should be funded, the additional services.

Okay. With a minimized population? With a minimized population. Okay. We'll move on to issue number five, Department overview. First we're going to hear from the Judicial Council, starting with Shelley Curran.

You will have five minutes. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to address you this morning and your continued support of the judicial branch. My name is Shelley Curran. I'm the Administrative Director of the Courts. The Chief Justice, the Judicial Council, and the Court's support the Governor's Budget proposal and we recognize the hard financial situation that the state is in right now.

We know that along with the rest of state government, we need to be part of the solution to close the statewide budget deficit. The Governor's Budget includes returning unspent judicial branch funds and deferring funding for several construction projects while still protecting essential funding for our critical programs and services.

We appreciate that the budget proposal continues to protect core operations for the judicial branch by proposing to eliminate the sunset date for remote proceedings, increasing the trial court fund balance cap, and maintaining funding for declining fines, fees and penalty revenues. Additionally, the budget continues to support resources for self represented litigants and the implementation of the CARE Act.

We look forward to continuing to work with you all on the budget proposal as it makes its way through the Legislature and the Governor over the next several months, and we promise and are committed to be good partners through all of this. I'll now turn it over to our Finance Director, Zlatko Theodorovich, who will provide an overview of the budget and more detail regarding the specific programs. Thank you.

Great. Thank you, Shelley. Yes, in terms of the budget, over $5 billion, $3 billion of that from the General Fund, including about $800 million of fine and fee revenues that we collect. Of those resources, about 80% goes to the trial courts to support their operations.

In terms of a finer point on the reductions, the $75 million transfer from the Trial Court Trust Fund to the General Fund, $5 million related to some emergency funding, and also something that will be discussed in greater detail later in the agenda is related to a return of $20 million for firearms relinquishment program. I want to turn our attention to a proposal regarding fund balance reserves that Shelley had mentioned.

The proposed budget includes Trailer Bill language to increase the fund balance cap to 5% and we from 3%. So a modest increase, but an important increase for the trial courts. And we have David Yamasaki here from the Orange Superior Court who can provide us the benefits to the state and the trial courts and access to justice from that increase.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair, Members. I speak this morning on behalf of the Court Execs Advisory Committee representing all of the superior courts in California. During good fiscal year, we rely heavily on the use of those reserves. It helps us achieve our objective of maintaining court hours, keeping our doors open, and our courtrooms functioning. We oftentimes turn to those reserves to help us maintain service levels both in the courtrooms and our front counters by backfilling positions early when we learn that they're going to be vacant.

But also in helping us invest in technologies to make sure that we're operating very efficiently. During very lean economic times, we also very heavily rely on those reserves. Oftentimes we experience significant challenges that are unexpected, and we always invest very quickly to maintain service levels by backfilling positions very quickly. And it is also a very important resources that we also turn to when we experience significant challenges that are unanticipated, like emergencies, floods, fires, things of that sort that happen unexpectedly.

And throughout those experiences, we've been able to maintain services very effectively by using those scarce resources. Sometimes we do experience a little bit of savings, and it allows us to put money in our reserves for these critical times and helping us help the financial challenges that currently are facing the state.

Thank you. LAO? Nothing. Finance? Nothing. Committee Members? Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. So, in talking to a lot of your various court systems throughout the state, the one theme that resonates with everybody is they have a severe shortage of judges, especially down south in our region, and that's clogging up the courts. And when that clogs up the courts, it backs everything else up, and that costs us more money.

So one of the things that I would like to have a little bit better grasp on is how much money does it actually take to run the courts so that they are highly efficient, in other words, so we can fill the judgeships and all that. It just seems we're trying to move money around just to barely survive.

The court system is such an important part of our justice system for moving through and people allowing - getting their justice, and also for people that are frankly in trouble to get their issues heard and moved along. It doesn't seem it's being very efficient. So is this budget just continuing to keep us treading water? Is there any room in here for us to address the long standing issues of these shortages of judges? How are we going to address those within this budget?

Senator, if I may, I very much appreciate the question and the comments. We continue to advocate for funding judgeships throughout the state. As you note, it is a very important, critical issue for the branch. We also recognize the very trying budget times. We have been progressing towards efficiencies within the courts. That's a regular topic of conversation among the presiding judges and the court executive officers. One piece or one proposal that is in front of, included as a Trailer Bill language is the extension of remote proceedings.

We have found that remote proceedings do support efficiencies. They're very beneficial for individuals who need to come to the courts. So that is one thing that we would ask during these trying budget times, support for that proposal. I know that's on the agenda. And as far as judges are concerned, we appreciate the work that the Governor is doing in appointing judges.

And we do continue to have the critical need for judges throughout the state, especially in some of these areas that are growing significantly throughout the state. So we will continue to work with all of you on that and hope that funding will become available for additional judicial officers.

All up to that. With the incorporation of CARE Court and the Prop 57 realignment and all of that resentencing for people, that's created a workload. And it doesn't seem that our budget has allowed us to respond to that workload. In other words, we've given you a job, but we haven't given you the resources to do it.

At some point, we have to come to grips with, and I keep hearing this trying budget year, we have more money than we had four years ago coming into the state. We just don't know how to spend it right. This is a priority. This should be a priority. And that's what we have to do better, is prioritize things that are important that will actually save us money in the long run by unclogging a system and getting people through it. And I feel like we're just treading water on this, especially in the judicial system. So thank you. I appreciate. And if you had a response to that, that's fine.

I want to thank you for your support.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto. Those are great words, especially for our Budget Committee because we're on the same page. So we have any other comments from our Committee Members? No, none. All right, thank you. I do want to say that we are looking to, again, ensure that we are cutting where we can. We need a little bit more affirmative and proactive action from every single department to see where there's duplicative services, things that can be streamlined and more efficient.

I will also say that for an average person in regards to the judicial system as a whole, technology is very important and the hours of operation aren't conducive to an everyday person's real work times. Right. So if you guys are only open between nine to five, nobody can actually engage with you guys, it's the post five or online or self help or anything like that that we can kind of take a look at. So as much as possible, if we can. I know you guys are going to talk about a program, but I just want to make sure that we're cutting costs, not investing constantly in something and increasing costs rather than anything else. Go ahead.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So we have invested a significant amount of our resources, recognizing that the community really benefits immensely by remote services and appearing in between on their breaks, perhaps for certain hearings. So we've endeavored to allow documents to be filed electronically, allow people to appear in court for some of the traffic matters remotely, and acknowledging that service levels can reach more people when we can provide them online. So we've made significant investments in this area precisely for the reasons that you have stated. It benefits many, many people.

Okay. And have you guys been saving funds?

We save funds where we can, and there are efficiencies that are gained. We can certainly serve many more people remotely than we can if they're waiting in line. So we recognize the benefit that people gain by appearing using technology, and I think that's the universe that we're living in right now.

I just want to see that when we're utilizing technology, that there's a cost benefit analysis done in the sense of what are we cutting? Technology is supposed to make everything more streamlined, faster, more efficient. It also means to save money. Right. That's the end all, be all goal. So I just want to make sure we're doing that and making it as easy as possible, especially for vulnerable communities and so forth. So I appreciate the effort. Thank you.

All right, we are going to go on to issue number six, remote proceedings. We're going to have Tracy Kenny, Deputy Director, Judicial Counsel, Office of Governmental Affairs, present. You will have five minutes. We do time.

Thank you. Madam Chair, good morning again. Yes. I'm Tracy Kenny with the judicial counsel. I just wanted to give the Committee some brief information on the proposed Trailer Bill language to eliminate the sunset dates on the remote proceeding statutory provisions currently set to expire this year and next year. I want to begin by giving a brief history of how we got here and begin by noting that courts were utilizing remote appearances by telephone for many years before the COVID pandemic occurred in a range of cases.

But as we know, the pandemic emergency forced courts to explore new ways of using technology to allow for access to the courts without endangering public health. And the council provided authority for such proceedings via the adoption of emergency rules. I think it's fair to assume that if the pandemic had not occurred, then courts would have been much slower to incorporate video remote proceedings into their regular operations.

But the pandemic did result in rapid innovations, and the courts and attorneys, justice partners, and the public were all able to see in real time the many benefits of providing remote access to court proceedings when appropriate. The Legislature took note of these benefits and stepped in to provide statutory authority for civil remote proceedings in 2021 and criminal proceedings in 2022.

But because of concerns about implementation challenges, these statutes had short sunsets, which were again briefly extended in trailer Bill legislation last year. Before highlighting some of the benefits to the public of remote proceedings, I want to note that remote proceedings are always optional, and a court can never require a person to appear remotely. In addition, a defendant in a criminal case.

While they can opt to appear remotely in some circumstances, remote witness testimony in a criminal case requires the defendant's consent and is never allowed in felony trials. And last year, in Trailer Bill legislation, new provisions were enacted to provide due process protections for civil commitment and juvenile justice proceedings so that the subject of those proceedings would have the ability to consent to remote witness testimony and require in person testimony when they desired it to protect their due process and liberty interests.

I also want to note that the court has the authority to require an in person appearance whenever it is needed, and if there are audibility issues or other technological glitches that cannot be resolved quickly, or if the court determines that a party is being intimidated or coerced, the courts will continue the proceeding and direct the parties to come in person.

The remote proceeding statutes also require that courts have a means for the court reporter to alert the court if there are issues with making the record, just as they do in in person proceedings. The data that we have collected on remote proceedings shows that this is an option that the public wants. As your analysis notes, we are conducting millions of these proceedings over the last couple of years, and each business day.

We estimate approximately 10,000 remote hearings take place in the courts, saving court users at least two and a half million trips to the courthouse annually. We also collect user experience data from each participant who uses a Zoom.gov platform, both court employees and court users, and over 95% of these participants have had a positive experience.

Over the two years that we've been collecting this data, the satisfaction rates have remained stable and responses have been provided by more than 111,000 people, of which 65% of these were court personnel. This data demonstrates that court staff and the public are overwhelmingly satisfied with their experience using remote technology. The judicial branch has seen the many benefits of these remote proceedings.

It's very expensive to come to court, and in many counties the distances are large and public transit options lacking. The remote option helps preserve access to justice for many Californians and vulnerable court users by reducing time and expense for them when they would otherwise lose time from school or work and would incur travel, childcare, and parking costs for short hearings and appearances.

Participants in collaborative justice court programs and diversion programs particularly benefit as they have regular appearances, and the ability to appear remote allows them to continue in their treatment and work obligations, finish their program without having to come into court. It also helps the mental health professionals who serve them to be able to participate in those proceedings and continue to serve other clients. Courts are continuing to work to improve the remote experience and to ensure that remote technology solutions protect the due process rights of litigants.

The council will soon be considering minimum technology standards that will apply to all remote proceedings that were developed pursuant to a statutory directive requested by our labor partners. These standards are designed to ensure that a verbatim record can be prepared accurately. The Legislature has invested $65 million in the last two budget years on the technology to make this happen, and the proposed Trailer Bill language will provide the branch and the public with permanent authority so that the investment is secured.

We have nearly four years of experience using remote regularly, and while any change of this nature comes with implementation challenges, the popularity of this option, as well as the user satisfaction data show us that we need to maintain this tool that provides access to justice on a permanent basis.

Thank you. 15 seconds to spare. So kudos to you. I just love that everyone's going faster. LAO? Nothing. Finance? Nothing. Members of the Committee? Senator Durazo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been working on this issue since I've been on this Committee for four years now, and we have had conflicting, to say the least, testimony and information provided us from the people who are in the courts, people in the courts, the professionals in the courts, and especially testimony from those people who are in the courts. Really, their goal is to make sure that there is a record, because a record is so important to everybody's case. Anybody here in this room would want a clear record. I don't care what the issue is, but I see from here of 5.1 million proceedings had a record created, 1.6 million proceedings had no record created.

I mean, there are some really obvious issues here that need to be addressed, and I understand because I have worked my entire life in communities that are poor, that don't have resources available to them like the rest of us, and to put their poverty as a reason for not providing an accurate record is wrong. We need to give them the same respect that we would want, which is, we want a record. So that's just. Sorry. Opening remarks here, but I do have a question.

You mentioned the funding that we've approved for the technology. I think the last amount was $33 million. So I'd like to know where we are in the process of adopting the minimal technology standards for the use of remote proceedings.

Sure. The minimum standards will be going to the Judicial Council at its meeting on March 15 for approval. They become effective at April 1, and we're hoping that courts can implement those by July 1 of this year.

Okay. And how do you expect to address the digital divide for court users? That's a big reality. I've heard stories of people who don't have, God forbid, that there be a lost connection in the remote while they're in the proceeding. They lose the Internet connection, or there are people in the house because they don't have homes where they can go off in their own separate bedroom. Those things happen. So that's a reality. And to make people choose between, okay, I don't have to go to work today, but I have to do this in a place where I'm not going to have potentially an accurate record. That's not a choice we want people to make.

Senator, I appreciate the question. I think that there are larger questions of Internet accessibility and digital divide. Again, this is an option. So people are choosing which way they want to appear in these proceedings, and so the option to come to court is always available. If people prefer that and they don't feel like their technology can work, our data shows that for the most part, the technology is working successfully for folks, and we are not needing to continue a lot of cases.

There are oftentimes when people would have trouble getting to court. Their bus would be late and they would miss their appearance, and continuances would result. So this is allowing, in more cases than not, folks to be able to participate and appear in their proceedings remotely when they would have had a real obstacle, being able to appear at all without the remote option. So we do think that overall, this is expanding access.

I think there are various options that can be pursued, partners in the community who can help us by providing access to technology. But a lot of these platforms can be accessed via a smartphone. And so the use of video remote has really allowed it to be much easier for folks to participate remotely.

But we've been doing that. We don't even have the minimal technology standards yet.

So the minimum technology standards were designed to ensure the verbatim record could be prepared most accurately. And they were premised on a pilot program that came out of Santa Clara County, where the court reporter was actually remote in the proceeding. And so the technology was designed for remote court reporting. And to get to that standard, I think that the courts need to get the information to be able to hear these cases.

And so if there are audibility issues or problems with a remote proceeding, then the courts are pausing those proceedings to either resolve those issues or continue the case to be in person. But I think that before the pandemic, I think a lot of judges would have shared your hesitation and said, there's just too many problems. We just need people in court in person.

And then they had the experience of it working relatively consistently and realized how much it benefited the public that we serve, and felt that overall, preserving this option, which is only an option, is critical to ensuring that the public has a real ability to appear in the court proceedings that impact them.

Well, we've had testimony from the court reporters, we've had testimony from the interpreters who describe it very differently. And so I think that point of view and that expertise needs to be a part of this on an ongoing basis, not just make a decision and exclude what they have to say. They're in the courtrooms, and they don't have any reason not to provide us with information as to what is going on in those courtrooms. So I'm really concerned. I continue to be concerned.

And I think, at the least, I would suggest that you have specific meetings with these professionals who are there and who want to be there so that there is more continuous conversation to solve this and not just go one way or the other. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I do also just want to raise a couple of points. Number one, specifically, I appreciate Santa Clara County. It's my county, so always happy to hear that they're doing well. But specifically with the concerns around audio and visual quality that were brought up as remote proceedings were being implemented. And we also know that there's a couple of things that I'd like to say.

Number one, not everybody has access to Internet, or even if they do, assume that they have access and voluntarily accept the fact that they want to do it remotely. And let's say they're not tech savvy. Right. And obviously, the bandwidth is lower than what they expected. Right. Not even understanding bandwidth. Right.

And let's say that they were having some technical difficulties, or they were understanding it, but couldn't click on a button or something was going on, and they couldn't even communicate it to you all in a short period of time, and you guys were assuming that this is going smoothly, and they felt that it was not, but were unable. Afraid. A little surprised, shocked. Going to court is a daunting effort in itself and sometimes scary in other ways. Is there an option for them to say, even after, let's say, a decision was made in, let's say, a speeding ticket, something simple? Right. They're like, that wasn't exactly how it was. Can they redo their court visit, if you will?

There's always an opportunity to request a continuance, to be heard at a later date if they want.

Even after they were, let's say, found guilty or innocent or verdict was made in some capacity.

So if the proceeding came to a resolution, then that would be a different situation. They would need to alert the court that the technology was inadequate and they wanted to continue it to in person, typically.

So yes or no?

So I think that if the court ruled on the issue in an infraction case where someone appeared remotely, then they would have, by appearing, have consented to appear remotely so that they would not get to have a second in person rehearing of the case.

Okay, so, no, basically. Right. So that is a little bit concerning. And the reason why I bring this up is for immigrant communities in particular. One, we have the interpretation issues. Right. Even in both of the counties that I represent, which is largely diverse, interpreters are very scarce to begin with. Right. Number two, I get, obviously, I'm a big fan and proponent of technology, and we have to just be aware that technology does take on its own life. Right.

There's a lot of concerns around the fact that with the survey on remote civil proceedings, it indicated that 9.5 of court users had a negative remote proceedings experience. Right. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but 10% is a good chunk of change. Right. I'm asking for a 15% cut across the board as much as possible for a lot of departments, and we know that's daunting. So 10% in itself is quite a big number if you put it into context. Right.

So even though it's a minority, it's a lot of people that had some of these issues. So I do have concerns about that moving forward. And if there's technology or anything like that, if there's more efforts of local libraries, some people live in more rural areas. Some people do not have high speed Internet. Some people do not know how to use technology. Some people think that they can do it, but can't do it, think that it's going to be shorter, the meetings aren't short.

It's not efficient. It's not anything like that. For an arraignment, some people will stay several hours for an actual hearing for their court case. They will stay the whole day until their case is heard. There has to be efficiency models in the structure of this as a whole. Right? So if you have an appointment at 10:00 a.m. You should be heard at 10:00 a.m. You should not have to waste 8 hours of your life for this. So I do just want to highlight that.

So as we're talking about technology and efficiencies, this has to also be implemented. Right? That's number one. Number two is also, have we thought about expanding night court? The number one concern we have, and I know night court is kind of an option once or twice a week in my county.

It should be available more readily in every single county and easily done specifically because, again, nine to five, if people are working, and let's be honest, people are actually going to work at like seven and coming back home at around six or seven. So what are we doing in that frame if we're trying to expand remote?

We have Judge Hernandez who might be able to provide some, she's the presiding judge of the Orange Court Superior Court and Chair of the Trial Court {residing Judges Advisory Committee, who could give us maybe some greater insight on night court.

If the person would like to show up.

I am going to share with you, I agree with you wholeheartedly, and I am so supportive of all of the comments that have been made on our vulnerable populations and the ability to serve outside of the time parameters of a nine to five job. Speaking to Senator Durazo specifically, I've been in the courts since 1991 as a public defender and then on the bench for the last 18 years. So the vulnerable population, there is a way to do the night court.

It is a way that we have to, again, utilize efficiencies. Technology is something that we are doing. And when we talk about this remote. Short answer to your other question, there is an appellate process. So if a decision is made in some of the occasions that you were talking about, there is absolutely a right to appeal directly to us in the Superior Court or in our court of Appeals if there are issues that you have spoken to, to answer on behalf of Ms. Kenny as well.

All right, now, the trials by written declaration in particular, this is an issue that I'm actually very interested in. Hence, these questions are a little bit long. That's one option for a person who is, let's say, working and unable to attend. Right. And do we have a potential survey on how many of them have been found guilty? And what is the process? Why do we not keep track of just the ratio of that?

I don't know if we have a statewide, countywide, we can create those kind of numbers, because certainly trial by declaration is available to anybody. Yes. And so those numbers could be collected, and I do not believe we do it at the state. But Ms. Kenny.

No. Typically, when we were collecting data on courts, we're collecting how many filings do we have? How was the case resolved? Not the outcome, the verdict of the case. And so that's not typically a thing that we measure, because we're looking at those outcomes case by case by case, based on the specific facts.

100%. But I think that we should also be keeping track of that, primarily just to see if there's any implicit bias, systemic bias there. And let's be honest, our judicial system has it built in. So that's one piece. But then number two is the fact that I don't think a lot of people are aware that there is trial by written declaration available to people. Also, is it available in multiple different languages? So if the person cannot necessarily write in English, are they able to write in Spanish or in Dari or any of the other languages? Also, the websites, I'm just going to lay it all on thick for you guys.

The websites for literally every single court system that I have taken a look at is very not user friendly. Right. Whether they're looking at family courts, whether they're looking at traffic court, whether they're looking at anything like that, it is not user friendly. It is not easily accessible. It is not written in a way that's conducive to visually impaired individuals, things like that. And I just really want to upgrade the judicial system as a whole to the 21st century, and it's not just remote court proceedings.

Certainly. And so recently, there's been a complete overhaul of the website. And I'm saying very recently, and I know for your county, or for our county and statewide as well, to be much more user friendly and to have it in multiple language, to your point, because that is something. We're talking about our most vulnerable population. We're talking about the communities that all of us serve, to be able to have equal access, means meaningful equal access.

So that user friendly aspect has to be something. And again, sitting here for almost 35 years in a courtroom every single day, the populations that we serve, that is what we are working efficiently as best we can with the technology. I'm right with you, Senator. I am a technology person. But I also realize we're dealing with people, not just numbers. These are vulnerable people coming into our court system.

And I know our next issue happens to be the self help, which this runs into, that our self help centers become so critical and core to the functioning of reaching out to those who don't know how to use technology to be able to assist them with that if necessary.

Okay, so there's two types of populations we're really talking about. When we say vulnerable communities, we're talking about vulnerable communities in the sense of poverty. Right? And we're talking about vulnerable communities in the sense of, let's say, potential immigrants or monolinguistal lingual individuals. And so I think that there's different aspects to this. The technology piece is, for the broader community as a whole, the entire world is moving in that direction. We do need to make better efforts to make things efficient, streamlined, clean and easy. And there's a lot of Jargon that is in these websites that actually don't say much. Right. It should be.

Do you have a speeding ticket, do you have a family court case? Whatever. Right. I have not seen that very cleanly defined even in one of the counties that I represent. Right. The second piece is the fact that we do know through poverty there's natural disenfranchisement happening. Right. So maybe the person doesn't have Internet, maybe the person doesn't have any of these options.

But again, working with your local cities as well as counties, public libraries, areas that are available maybe 24/7 that have a kiosk that they can attend and in some of these rural places and so forth, I just want to see a little bit more effort. If we are funding these systems, they have to work to the 21st century technology. But also there has to be metrics being tracked and identifying what is success.

And me waiting 8 hours for my hearing is not success to me, and it's not success by any other standard of in any industry period. Right. And at the end of the day, this is an industry. So how are we really making our justice system work for an everyday person?

I completely agree 100% with what you said when we talk about justice delayed being justice denied. And what does justice look like in all of the other counties? And I look at some of the rural counties or the geographics that are so spread out to be able to have that technology. And what Ms. Kenny spoke to at the very beginning, we were using telephonic prior to the COVID pandemic and then really blossomed with technology and the remote capabilities to do so.

So I look at it in its emphasis and yes, we are prioritizing and we are also making more efficient, but we literally were flying the plane and creating it during COVID to make sure that we did not shutter our doors, that we kept our doors open every single day for those that needed to come in. And those populations we're speaking, our most vulnerable populations that you all have spoken to.

That true, but we also weren't in the judicial system. We weren't taking a lot of cases either. We weren't hearing it. So for example, the housing industry, which are big fans of mine, they felt that none of their cases were being heard at all during COVID, right. So I just want to highlight this and I'm going to let you guys move on to the next topic.

But the concern that I have is that when we're trying to implement a technology upgrade, for example, there is one Department that in the State of California that has been working on a technology upgrade for, I must say, years now, and there's still very long lines out the door, and it's completely inefficient. And so a technology upgrade doesn't mean pausing everything. It means in parallel, moving this forward simultaneously and even after implementation, another parallel piece for some time before we completely stop something.

That is how technology implementations work. Right. So I just want to highlight that as much as possible, because for any future reference of anybody watching, it cannot be an excuse to, we have to wait or so forth. There are consultants that are hired. There's implementation done by experts, not by anybody actually doing the work that they're hired to do. So I just really want to emphasize that because this is actually one of the biggest frustrations I have with bureaucracy. So thank you. Yes, and Senator Newman.

Very quickly, I just want to go on record to say first, I share my colleagues'concern about the digital divide, and there is this kind of inherent tension between accessibility, especially for somebody who's new to the system, and intimidated, and rigor. Right. So I think that's important. But I want to put a pin on the specific concerns of Senator Durazo as it relates to the court.

Larger quality of the court experience, especially the conversation I've had with court reporters and their very real concern, I guess, about the impact on their workforce always going to be the case, but more importantly, about the quality of the record and the integrity of the court record. So there are obviously larger kind of policy discussions around all of this.

But to the extent that we're talking about budget reductions and you've gotten the brief from the chair to find savings, I'd urge you to consider the impact as we look for those savings on those issues, especially as it relates to court proceedings and the quality of the record. Thank you.

Senator Seyarto.

These are all great comments. The problem is you can't tell people to do a 10% reduction or a 15% reduction and then make all these improvements to a program. There is no perfect program. We will never come up with a system that serves every person the way they need to be served because every person is individually got their issues. We need to take that into account when we have expectations beyond what we're able to provide the tools for these various departments to do their jobs.

And that's part of the process of us prioritizing what is important to us. And if this is important to us, we have to ensure that they have the funding to be able to do this stuff, to be able to do the programming, to be able to have the courthouse space, to be able to have the transportation if they need it.

All of that stuff costs money, and we spend a lot of money in other places, and then we come to places that are very important, like this one, and we're not spending the money we need there. So that's something that we need to take into consideration when we're prioritizing the funding that we do get from our taxpayers. And hopefully we'll do that as we go forward.

Thank you. Do we have any other members wanting to comment? All right, thank you. We're going to move on to issue number seven, ongoing funding for court based self help centers. We will be starting with I'm a mess up the name Zlatko Theodorovic.

You did a good job. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Zlatko Theodorovic, Director of Budget Services, the Judicial Council. Just want to introduce this topic, an important one that Judge Hernandez has addressed related to self help funding. Funding was initially funded in the budget in 2018 and is on two times now been extended as limited term funding. The budget proposes that this funding be made permanent and ongoing to support the current baseline. If this funding is not continued, there'll be some significant impacts on self help and impact access on vulnerable populations.

And I'm first going to turn it over to Charlene Depner, our Director over our Center for families and children, to courts, and then to Judge Hernandez to give us some real life impacts of this program and funding.

Thank you. I appreciate that. This funding is part of Court Budgets, which places self help centers in every court in California. We've had it for six years. It represents 60% of the self help center funding. The funding has enabled the courts to serve up to 1 million customers and annually, Selfhelp Center's activities and achievements have been documented in two extensive reports to the Legislature.

They document substantial increases in people served through multiple modalities, bilingual self help providers services in case types, new case types such as eviction and consumer debt. The cost benefit analysis showed that for every dollar spent, $3 was saved. And this included two litigants who otherwise might be making multiple trips to the courts to get their business done without help. It saves money, about $100 per case for travel, daycare and lost wages.

And just adding on from the court perspective and being in that courtroom for the last 35 years, when we aren't able to access those courtrooms, this is our first responder. This is the critical core principles for triaging and assisting those vulnerable populations. You're talking your children, your families, your domestic violence victims, those who need that assistance that won't get turned away because their paperwork wasn't completed, so that it then adds to the backlog of the courts, of the public.

And I think that public or that analysis that Ms. Depner just shared with you for every dollar, because I know people ask us, well, what does that save us? Every dollar, three to $4, is saved to the public and to the courts. But more importantly, for us as judicial officers and those involved in the court system to be able to serve the public, I don't know what that sound is, but at a place where we can meet them at.

And two, one of the questions, I can't recall, Chairwoman Wahab, if it was your question, but what about those remote capabilities of kiosks? And we have kiosks at every one of our self help centers. So if you have remote folks in geographic locations that can't access the courthouse assigned to, they can go to a self help center and jump on a kiosk and be able to connect face to face.

Those are just examples of why this is so important to continue funding and serving all of our community. And I'm available for any questions on any of those topics.

Thank you. LAO.

Anita Lee with the Legislative Analyst Office. So we took a holistic view related to these programs, and we do have three recommendations for the committee's consideration. Our first recommendation is for the legislature to direct Judicial Counsel to convene a working group to assess all of the legal assistance and services programs that are provided in the state, and to provide a report by January of 2027. This report would assess where these programs were provided, how the services were provided, where there might be gaps in services, and where improvements could be made to avoid duplication.

And so this is really important because there's a wide array of these types of programs that are being offered, and they operate separately from one another, and they do receive state and other funding, generally in a piecemeal manner. It does include programs like the self help centers, but other programs that have been brought before this Committee, like the County Law Libraries, the Shriver program and the Equal Access Fund programs.

And so they do provide some really strong benefits because they're promoting equity by providing services to lower income individuals who can't afford attorneys in cases that really impact them, like child custody or eviction cases. But in the evaluations that demonstrate the benefit of these programs, the benefits can be different based on the program that's funded. And so that raises some really interesting questions for the legislature in terms of where to put the money so that it's aligned with legislative priorities.

And so an example of that is the self help centers, which are offered in all trial courts, improve court efficiency by reducing delays from incomplete paperwork or a lack of knowledge about the process. In contrast, the Shriver program, which provides legal representation to lower income individuals in 11 courts, generates some other notable benefits for litigants.

And so the valuation of that indicated, for example, that Shriver attorneys were able to reduce the total amount that people had to pay to resolve their case, and so that, in turn increased the likelihood that they were able to find replacement housing in the near future. And so that's a different kind of benefit. So our second recommendation is for the legislature to also require this working group to develop a strategic funding plan, also due in January of 2027.

And this funding plan would identify how we could maximize the use of our existing funding to achieve the best benefits, to minimize any impacts of funding reductions, and to identify priorities for where additional money could go so that we could increase service levels in a cost effective manner. And so this one is really important because there is a large amount of unmet need that likely will be growing.

And so an example of that is that a 2017 study indicated that tens of millions of dollars in additional money could be needed annually if self help centers were going to be fully staffed. Another example, sort of like I mentioned, is that the Shriver program is currently only available in 11 courts.

And so if you think about maximizing the use of your dollars, that can increase the number of people served, which is particularly important in a budget situation that you find yourselves in, where new monies may not be available. And so our final recommendation is that the legislature consider providing this requested funding, 19.1 million, but only on a three year basis.

You are going to want to weigh this against your other spending priorities, because given the state's budget situation, any increased spending will likely require to be offset by reductions in other programs and services. But if we evaluate this one on its own merits, we do find that it's reasonable because it maintains existing service levels and prevents a reduction in service. But the recommendation for three years of funding is because that assessment plan and the strategic funding plan would be due in January of 2027.

And so that would then provide the legislature with the opportunity to incorporate all of that information into its funding decisions in 27-28 to ensure that the funding was maximized and aligned with legislative priorities. Thank you, and happy to answer questions.

Henry Ng, Department of Finance. The resources proposed in the Governor's Budget makes permanent the 19 million General Fund of the current level of funding to maintain current service levels for these self help centers, which ends this fiscal year. We recognize LAO's recommendation to convene a working group to assess statewide legal resources and to fund the program on a limited term basis. However, we like to note that the Judicial Council is currently not funded to convene this work group.

So this recommendation would likely require additional General Fund resources, potentially in the low millions of dollars. And, of course, this is beyond what is currently in the Governor's Budget. In addition, we would like to continue to support providing ongoing funding for this proposal. Selfhelp centers are an integral part of core operations as they provide services to selfrepresented litigants and individuals who cannot afford an attorney. 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. Do we have any comments from the committee members? Seeing none. I do just want to ask the judicial branch if you guys would like to respond to LAO's suggestion to develop a strategic plan for legal assistance and legal service funding.

Yes. Thank you, Senator Wahab. I mean, at this point, we are focused on preserving our current level of funding, and so we appreciate the recommendation that is made in the Governor's Budget and rather than the continuation of the limited term nature of the funding because it provides program stability. In terms of this mean, I think one of the issues is resource limitations. But we do understand we are part of an overall system.

But to the extent that there is desire to move forward on any sort of analysis suggested by the LAO, we would need resources to do that. In this General Fund environment, that might be a challenge.

Okay. And then which programs are available to undocumented individuals?

I'll turn that over to Ms. Depner to respond.

Self help centers are, and we have agreements for anybody who is working in the equal access space to have personnel who are authorized to treat immigrants and nondocumented people.

So they're available to undocumented individuals to the extent that there are any limitations based on, say, federal funding, there are avenues for folks to have access to services.

Okay. I'm a big proponent of self help and the online services. Just because people really do work, they cannot afford to take as much time as sometimes you guys request off. So as much as possible, streamlining it to Senator Sayarto's previous points in the last issue, I do agree that if we make these investments, obviously we want to make proper investments that help the community but if we are not measuring our success, there's no point of funding something, right?

I just want to thank you all for the self help centers. I took a tour of a visit of Los Angeles Superior Court and went through that. And I think what's hard, I really appreciate, as the chair said, this opportunity for them to represent themselves. Hopefully, at some point, we can get a better idea of the quality of the self representation and how that may not be identical to having an actual attorney. But it's more than not having an attorney. It worries me when I see that 93% of tenants are unrepresented, but 81% of landlords are represented.

So making sure that one, we know how many people we serve, what are the outcomes? So we also are able to potentially track bias that, let's say, if all online self help or anything like that were all denied, denied, denied. Found guilty. Found guilty. Found guilty. That's a clear bias. Right. So we just want to make sure that we have those metrics and transparency in what we're doing.

We've done two benefit cost analyses related to this funding that we could provide to the committee, at least demonstrating what we have gathered. It may not include everything, but we have done analysis.

Its not just a cost benefit, cost benefit. It's also just, again, the outcomes of the individual cases, too, at a very high level. Right? So if there's 1000 cases and 800 are all found guilty, let's take a look at exactly what's going on. Senator Durazo.

So at some other point, maybe we can get a better idea of how it results in actual benefit to that person. I'm not sure how to measure that.

Sure. And Senator Durazo, I would invite any of the Committee, Chair Wahab, any of you to visit with us. As Shelley shared with you, we want to be partners in the solutions. And you're absolutely right. Those self help centers have multiple workshops because so many of them, and the majority are all self represented litigants.

And so we have eviction our unlawful detainer workshops in all of the different self help centers. And capturing that metrics is so important to us. And I know that's something that we also collect and we utilize to make better policy and better decisions. So, again, I'm available to any of the committee members and would be more than happy to sit down and share.

Thank you. We'll move on to item number eight, proposed reduction of the Judicial Council Firearm Relinquishment grant. We're first going to hear again from you.

In this instance, we're going to turn to the Department of Finance to respond to the proposal, as well as some other questions as it relates to AB 28 implementation. Thank you.

Henry Ng, Department of Finance. I'll provide an overview of this proposal and turn it back to my colleagues at Judicial Council for additional details. But the governance budget does include a General Fund reduction of 20 million for the Judicial Council Firearm Relinquishment grant program.

When determining General Fund solutions, the administration looked at grants funded on a one time basis and funds that have not yet been encumbered at this time. This proposed reduction reflects the current amount of unencumbered funds for this program. We also did recently take into consideration chapter legislation AB 28 when evaluating this proposed reduction. AB 28, which establishes in a 11% excise tax on firearm sales, allocates 15 million annually to the Judicial Council to support firearm relinquishment grant programs.

So with AB 28 going into effect on July 1 of 2024, the Board of State and Community Corrections will receive AB 28 funding in 2024-25. Then the other departments will receive allocations in 2025-26 once revenue data is available to determine how much to allocate to those other departments, including to the Judicial Council. We are currently working on revenue estimates and will like to provide an update in the May revision.

Thank you.

And then I'll turn to my colleague, Don Will, to respond to some questions that the staff had asked and wanted us to address in terms of the status of the program.

Thank you. The agenda materials are very complete. The Judicial Council has currently encumbered 20 million of the firearm relinquishment grants to eight courts. That was through two solicitation cycles. We conducted a third solicitation cycle that received a total of $9 million additional applications from six additional courts and one existing court. We suspended that application cycle.

We've also suspended the solicitation for the mandatory evaluation for the legislative report that is due at the end of the project. We do expect to incur some costs through the end of the existing award cycles to manage these programs and to do the grants accounting, and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. LAO.

Anita Lee with the Legislative Analyst Office. We just have some overarching comments for the committee's consideration. So Chapter 231 does generally impose a new 11% excise tax on the gross retail sales of firearms, firearm precursor parts, and ammunition beginning July of this year. Those monies are supposed to be collected and submitted to the state quarterly.

As it was going through the policy process, the preliminary estimates were that 159,000,000 could be generated annually. So after deducting administrative costs, chapter 231 or AB 28 also specified that these monies be used to support seven specific programs and purposes in a particular priority order, capped kind of the amount that was eligible for each of those programs, and required the funding for all but one of the programs be subject to legislative appropriation.

And so, as it relates to this issue, the third funding priority specified in the legislation was up to 15 million for a court based relinquishment firearms grant program, which was something that the Department of Finance mentioned. I think the key thing that we would flag for the committee is that the proposed budget generally doesn't include expenditures in 2024-25 of these revenues, and that would all be pushed to 25-26.

And so, as I kind of mentioned, the tax goes into effect July of this year, which means that monies could be available, and so the legislature could consider whether or not you want to make appropriations in 202425 for any of these eligible programs, because that might offset, for example, the reduction proposed in this item. The one thing that we would note is that actual revenues, when they come in, might be higher or lower than that $159,000,000 estimate.

So to the extent you were interested in appropriating funding for these, we would suggest potentially maybe appropriating less than the maximum amount, just in case revenues are lower than expected. Thank you.

Thank you, Finance. Members, Senator Seyarto.

So on the relinquishment program, we have no track record now because we haven't used this money yet, or do we have the relinquishment program in place and have a track record of how much we are benefiting from that?

There are eight courts who are funded, and there are various stages in their programs. They take a while to set up because it involves multiple agency coordination. So we're beginning to establish a track record. We are, in maybe month two of data collection on what they're managing to firearm relinquishment.

Okay. Because in terms of our gun issues, this is one program that actually focuses on the people that are not supposed to be having guns and getting them from them. One of my concerns is on our revenue projections coming up. Well, if you're a smart person, you're going to buy your stuff before the tax goes into effect, and then after that, you're probably not going to buy it in California.

And so I think our projections are going to be affected by that. Has anybody taken that into consideration in terms of working with persons who are in gun shops to see what they're. Because they'll have a surge before the tax, and then there'll be a period of time where they probably will have a drop off.

There we go. Emma Jungwirth, Department of Finance, know I am not in our revenue projection unit at finance, but I can definitely take your question back and see what they take into consideration when developing the revenue estimates. I think, as my colleague mentioned, we will have an update in the May revisions that we'll probably have more detail to share with you.

My concern is that we're depending on that revenue to fund some very important programs, and if that revenue doesn't come in, those funds aren't there and the programs wind up getting squished anyway. I would appreciate if you follow up with my office on that and let me know how those projections have come, what they considered in those. Thanks.

Thank you. Moving on to issue number nine, capital outlay and facilities. You got five minutes again.

I will, and I'll be quick and make sure I have time for my colleague Pella McCormick to come up and talk a little bit about. So first, the agenda does a nice job of laying out the three items that are before you in terms of a new courthouse for the 6th appellate district in Sunnyvale. We have an additional funding for operations and maintenance of the new courthouse, and finally, some backfill of some declining fines and fee revenues into our critical state court facilities construction fund.

Just want to say broadly that over the last decade, revenues in some of our core funds, not only just this facilities fund, but our trial court operations funds, have declined and the state policy has been to backfill those declining revenues, and so they're absent. These backfills programs would have to cease and access to justice would be impacted. So now I'm going to turn it over to Ms. Mccormick to talk about the more detail of the proposals.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee, I'm Pella McCormick, Director of facilities services at Judicial Council. The Judicial Council's 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. California's courthouses are aging.

The oldest courthouse in California is the 170 year old Mariposa county courthouse. More than 30 facilities are over 100 years old. An additional 150 courthouses are over 50 years old with infrastructure systems that are at or beyond the end of useful life. An additional 142 court facilities are over 35 years old and in need of renovations or replacement. During fiscal year 23-24, capital projects for Shasta, Glenn and Imperial counties open to the public.

Additionally, the Riverside Menafee project is scheduled to open in June of 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 phases 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 fiscal year 24-25.

The 24-25, 5 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 then 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 in King Southern San Joaquin courts will also 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. Your continued support of the Judicial Council's facility program is appreciated and I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. LAO nothing finance nothing, members nothing. Thank you. All right, we are moving on to public comments to ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard. Please limit your comments to 30 seconds, and if someone else has made a similar comment, please just say me too. We'll begin public comments now, please. First person, please show up.

Good morning. Brendan Woods, public defender, Alameda county and I'm here to ask you to restore the funding to the public defense pilot program. Public defenders, their clients, their clients' families, counties throughout the state are relying and depending on this funding, and this program actually saves the state money. In Alameda County alone, in less than two years, we resentenced saved the state 908 years in incarceration cost. Our county received $4 million and using the LAO's marginal cost, we saved the state $13.6 million.

Thank you.

Can I say one more thing?

Go ahead.

90% of our clients that were resented were people of color. Please restore the funding.

Thank you. My name is Tracy Olsen. I'm the chief public defender of Yolo County. Yolo County received $568,000 in the first two years of the pilot grant. We returned 5.5 million as a return on investment. The year two ended last year or last month. It ended in March. And so right now, either I'm going to be continuing this work or I'm going to be writing letters to clients telling them I can't help them, and I don't know of anyone that can. So please retain your three. Thank you.

Good morning. John Skoglund with the County of Los Angeles opposed to the public defender pilot program cut. I just wanted to share that according to the state public defender, this program has saved $325,000,000, reducing the state's prison population for the County of Los Angeles, County attorneys, paralegals and social workers have worked tirelessly to secure the release or resentencing reduction sentence reductions for over 2500 residents returning over 10,000 years of time of incarceration. And finally, we currently have 3000 cases outstanding that would be affected by the cuts of this. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and members Elizabeth Espinosa, here today on behalf of four county boards of supervisors in the counties of Santa Barbara, Ventura, Contra Costa and Riverside, as well as the urban counties of California, the 14 largest counties in the state, adding my voice to those who are encouraging you to restore the funding to the public defense pilot program. Thank you.

Chair and members Pat Moran, with Aaron Reed and associates representing the Orange County Employees Association were opposed to the remote proceedings trailer Bill until it is amended to include protections for court reporters, court clerks, that there's adequate remote technology in the courtrooms. Only 19 out of 125 courtrooms in Orange County are outfitted adequately to have remote proceedings. We're also opposed to going from a 3% to a 5% Reserve cap. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members Mike Belote, speaking on behalf of the California Judges Association, California Defense Counsel, and with permission, the consumer attorneys of California on the remote appearance issue. We don't disagree with anything. Of course there should be an accurate record. Of course we should listen to our professionals in the courtroom. But by and large, it's working. It's getting better. The pandemic has refined it. It is saving money for litigants and the court. It's giving vulnerable populations an option. Most proceedings are not jury trials. Most are routine, and this is enabling them. Thank you.

Emily Bergfeld, Director of the Alameda County Law Library. Over 600,000 Californians a year rely on the specialized legal research tools, technology access, and one on one supportive assistance that is available free to the public only at county law libraries to learn about their legal rights, meet legal challenges, draft legal documents and prepare for court law libraries help the public with the full spectrum of legal issues and anyone is eligible to use our services on demand and without exception. Please protect the future of equal access to high quality legal information for all Californians by funding California's network of county law libraries.

I'm Roger Huynh, Director of the Santa Clara County Law Library. I'm here to comment issue number seven. County law libraries are a vital and unique part of the legal safety net and the only resource that supports the legal research needs of the most vulnerable Californians. We provide safe spaces, research tools, treeises, databases such as Westlawn, Lexus, and we provide guidance to their use. In fact, we're the only access to the law that many Californians have.

From minimum shape process to immigration, to drafting, pleadings and motion, we serve others that they cannot serve themselves. Funding one piece of the legal safety net would not mend the large hole that exists in the rest. We appreciate and support recommendation of the research.

Good morning. Josh Gogger, on behalf of the chief Probation officers of California in support of the post release community supervision funding discussed in BSCC's issue four. When a subset of the state prison population with prior serious or violent convictions are released early from state prison as a result of Proposition 57 credit earning enhancements, the state relies on probation departments to be successful with their reentry services and supervision. This funding has been provided to promote that success. This is not a cash flow issue. This is direct funding for programs and services for this population.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Senators Erin Niemela, representing Giffords. On behalf of item eight in your agenda, we urge the restoration of that funding. And to answer Senator, Seyarto's question, in just one county alone, there were 246 seizures of firearms, just one of the eight counties. We really appreciate the legislature's support in the past. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning Chair and members Rebecca Marcus, representing the Brady campaign, Brady California, and the Consumer Protection Policy center at the University of San Diego School of Law, just echoing the comments of my colleague from Giffords. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair Members. Cathy Sunderland Mcdonald, on behalf of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, urging maintenance of the third year of the public defense pilot program. Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair Members. I'm Mica Doctoroff. I'm a senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Northern California. Here today on behalf of ACLU California action to urge you to reject the governor's proposal to cut the public defense pilot program. California is already dangerously out of step with the rest of the nation. When it comes to the provision of indigent defense funding, the public defense pilot program, a meager amount when compared with other states' investments, represents the vast majority of state funding for public defense in this state.

Cutting this funding will effectively eliminate state funding for public defense. Please restore it. Thank you.

Good morning. I'm Charlyn De Witt on behalf of Legal Services of Northern California in favor of extending the ability to appear remotely in civil proceedings. This has been an enormously useful tool for our federally funded grant funded project, especially since we serve 23 in Northern California counties.

This has increased the ability of us to represent low income clients across our service area and improved their ability to access services, particularly in remote areas. Thank you.

Good morning. Ignacio Hernandez I have multiple clients, multiple issues. I'll do my best. First issue, California Attorneys for Criminal Justice, Statewide Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, private practice and public defenders. Just echo of preserving the funding for a public defender pilot project on the remote proceedings on behalf of the California Court Reporters Association. There are still a lot of inconsistencies and problems with how remote proceedings are being handled.

If you look at the data in the report, it's a very small percentage of folks who actually have reported and the data, I think is like two or 3%. So there are a lot of problems that remain. On behalf of the California Federation of Interpreters, there are still problems and on behalf of the California criminal justice, there are still problems with no proceedings.

Thank you. Nicole Wordelman, on behalf of the Orange County Board of Supervisors and San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, also in opposition to the public defender cut. The reality is they were supposed to receive the funding in March and now they have the option as to whether to fire staff and delay options of justice for primarily communities of color or keep going and hope the legislature restores the funding. Thank you.

Sandra Barreiro on behalf of SEIU California. I'll align myself with Mr. Moran's comments on remote proceedings, and I also want to add that courts are experiencing high vacancies in clerks and court reporter positions. And before we increase the Reserve cap, we should look at what courts are doing with funding for those vacancies. Thank you.

Good morning. James O'Malley with ask me California. We also represent court reporters, court it workers, court clerks, echoing the echoing of the comments from Pat Moran and Sandra Barrero. Appreciate the recognition from members on the dais that there is a difference on perspective on remote courts and we are just asking for guardrails and safeguards when it comes to accurate, verbatim records. Thank you.

Thank you thank you chair, Committee Members and staff Ryan Morimune with the California State Association of Counties here in regards to issue two and know appreciate the comments earlier from Senator Newman and Senator Durazo around the importance of funding the third and final year of the public defense pilot program, and also echoing the comments from the Public Defenders Association and others. And then in regards to issue number four, in support of the funding the $4.4 million in the governor's proposed budget for the post release community supervision for county probation. Thank you.

Thank you. So, having heard from public comments members, are there any additional questions? Comments seeing none. Thank you for all the individuals who participated in public testimony today. If you're not able to testify today, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the budget and fiscal review committee or visit our website. Your comments and suggestions are important to us, and we want to include your testimony. Thank you for everyone's participation. We conclude the agenda for today's hearing. The Senate budget sub five, is adjourned.