Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 5 on Public Safety

The panelists are listed in speaking order, and we will have questions from the Subcommitee after the presentation of each item. We will not be taking any votes today, and public comment will be available after all issues have been presented and discussed at the end of the hearing. We ask all panelists to introduce yourselves prior to speaking, and we will take roll call at a later date. We will begin with the California Military Department and issue one overview of the Department of Various Youth Programs.

Acting Adjutant General of the California Military Department. And based on the agenda today, I thought that it would be best to explain the Department in terms of what we're doing today and then talk briefly about the youth and community programs task force that you mentioned. So today, just today, we have 155 soldiers and 52 high water vehicles arrayed across the state to support the flood fight on behalf of Director Ward.

Two hundred seventy-seven service members under the operational control of CAL FIRE are participating in the flood fight and also Wildland fuels mitigation. Three hundred and sixty-six service members are supporting our counternarcotics task force. They support four high intensity drug trafficking areas. They also support Customs and border protection, interdicting fentanyl along the three ports of entry. Since Governor Newsom appropriated $15 million last year and going to appropriate another 15 going forward, we've been able to increase our partner seizures by 529% just this year.

So incredibly successful program. So we're attacking the supply side of narcotics, primarily fentanyl. We're also attacking the demand side. Last year alone, we reached out to 56,000 middle and high school students with a drug demand reduction message, talking about resiliency, talking about the deleterious effects that narcotics have on not only mental health, but also on physical health. We have 42 cyber warriors participate across state government. Working for the California Department of Technology's State Operations Center, OES is Cal-CSIC and our own computer network defense team in order to secure the state's network, make it less vulnerable, make it more resilient.

Today we also have the 144th Fighter Wing out of Fresno. Their jets protect the southwest United States airspace every day on a mission, what we call the Airspace Control Alert System. 1,044 California Army National Guard soldiers today are deployed on contingency operations abroad. And let me give you just a taste of where they're at. These countries include Poland, Kosovo, Kuwait, Qatar, Iraq, Jordan, and Germany.

And this summer, we will deploy another thousand soldiers to Kuwait and to Iraq. Our Air National Guard, we have 342 airmen deployed again to contingency operations abroad. These countries include Germany, Poland, Romania, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Iraq, Djibouti, Niger, and Korea. So on top of all of this, we have an extraordinarily capable, what we call youth and community programs task force. And what we do there, run three charter schools across the state, one here in Stockton, one in San Luis Obispo, and one in Los Alamitos.

And these are 22 week residential programs primarily targeting at risk youth that would otherwise not graduate from high school. We bring them in, provide some extraordinary leadership training, very rigorous academic standards, and give them the opportunity to either complete their high school or get a GED. We also run right now two after school fifth grade STEM programs called the Starbase. It teaches science, technology, and engineering, math to fifth grade students in order to really bolster their ability and understanding, get them involved in those STEM programs.

That program is 100% federally funded. We also operate or support the Oakland Military Institute, the California Military Institute, and the Porterville Military Academy. We support those organizations with military cadre and leadership instructors. And those programs are really targeted at providing realistic, applied leadership opportunities in a very rigorous academic setting. So that's kind of the roll up of what we're doing today and what we do relative to our youth and community programs task force.

Thank you. Are you going to be speaking?

No, I'm Darren Bender. I am the Government Affairs Officer for the Military Department.

Thank you. LAO.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No comments from the LAO.

Thank you.

Anthony Franzoy, Department of Finance. No additional comments.

Great. Thank you. Well, I'll go ahead and ask questions. First, I want to thank you all for your service and for outlining such critical areas of importance to the state and certainly the country. And I just wanted to get a sense of whether you could give us a bit more information about the youth programs, either Major General Beevers or Colonel Bender. In your opinion, what element of your program differentiates itself from traditional schools programs to make it successful?

I think a couple of things. Number one, it's a residential. Number two, we provide, given it's a residential program and given we segregate them by sex so that we have male facilities, female facilities. We give them the opportunity to focus primarily on their academics and their leadership skills. We spend a lot of time to ensure that they are both physically fit. So a year or so ago, collectively, across one of our academies, I think students lost 1,000 pounds total.

So it's ensuring that we provide them not only the mental part, but also the physical part, rigorous leadership, teaching them techniques of resiliency, much like we discussed earlier.

That's wonderful. And do you have any breakdown information about the race, ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status of the youth who are in your programs?

Sure. Generally our students, our cadets come from low SES generally to kind of a title one environment. It's about 53-47 male to female, roughly 74% Hispanic, I think 7% African American, probably 4% Asian, and then 9% Native American. And the balance would be other, not reported.

And do you get a sense that there are ample opportunity for people to be able to enroll and get recruited into the programs?

Absolutely. The challenge right now, Ma'am, is these programs are wildly oversubscribed.

Do you have a sense about how many are either looking to join the programs?

No, not off the top of my head. What we're trying to do too, in this budget year, looking to grow the program in San Luis Obispo by 100 students. And that's a budget item that will be before you later. And if we secure that, if that's approved, we'll be able to grow it by 100 students this year and then 200 the next year.

Thank you. I was talking to a youth just two days ago who was interested in entering into the military service, and he was trying to figure out what would be the best pathway for him to be able to do that. And I grew up, or I was a school board member in Alameda Unified School District, and we had a ROTC program, and people were very dedicated to ensuring that it existed. So it's very helpful to know that there are additional opportunities for people to become a part of the service. Thank you. Mr. Lackey, do you have any questions?

No.

Okay. Thank you.

Very welcome. Thank you.

We will now be moving on to the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, commonly referred to as POST, for the next issue. Issue two, SB overview of the Department and update on SB 2, implementation and the related budget proposals. Go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Bonta, Assembly Member Lackey, staff Members of this Committee, my name is Manny Alvarez, and I serve as the Executive Director for the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, or as we're commonly referred to as POST. Seated to my left is Assistant Executive Director Annemarie Del Mugnaio. Assistant Executive Director Del Mugnaio is responsible for the new peace Officer Standards Accountability Division within POST. We thank you for the opportunity to testify at this afternoon's hearing.

POST is a regulatory agency which sets the minimum selection and training standards for over 600 law enforcement agencies and approximately 90,000 peace officers and public safety dispatchers in California. Pursuant to the Penal code the Post Commission is made up of 18 Members, 15 of which are appointed by the Governor, two by leadership in the Legislature, and one is a permanent ex officio position for the Attorney General. Today we will speak to you.

Today we will speak to where we stand with the execution of Senate Bill Two. Our testimony will include implementation steps, the volume of serious misconduct reporting we've received since January 1 of this year, as well as the need for additional funding to support expected expenditures for evidentiary hearings before the office of Administrative Hearings, hearings which are required pursuant to the legislation. Prior to the Governor signing SB 2, POST began coordinating implementation should the bill be signed into law.

Immediately after the bill was signed by the Governor, post redirected approximately 8% of existing staffing to the implementation project. In the spring of 2022, the Commission approved over 20 new regulations for law enforcement agencies to follow. Once fiscal resources were provided to post in the FY 2022-2023 budget, POST started hiring for the new division in earnest. We also started training law enforcement personnel across the state.

Since July 2022, POST has trained more than 3200 law enforcement personnel on SB 2 on the new regulations, as well as the procedures to be used by law enforcement departments to submit serious misconduct data to POST. POST also worked diligently and accomplished implementation of a software platform for law enforcement departments to submit data and enable post to track investigations and perform overall case management. We've separately trained over 1700 law enforcement personnel on the use of this new technology platform.

Assistant Executive Director Del Manayo will now provide information on the current and expected volume of data on certification actions, and she will detail the need for funding to support evidentiary hearings before the Office of Administrative hearings.

Thank you. Thank you Executive Director Alvarez. Good afternoon Chair Bonta and Members of the Subcommitee. My name is Annemarie Del Mugnaio. I'm the Assistant Executive Director of the Standards Accountability Division of POST. Today, the Peace Officer Standards Accountability Division is in full operation and is comprised of six bureaus certification intake and disposition and four professional conduct bureaus that are responsible for investigations of law enforcement agency serious misconduct reports.

These professional conduct bureaus are broken up into five districts across the state that are aligned with the regions for the Office of Administrative Hearings. Since January 1, 2023 the division has received over 4500 reports of serious misconduct from approximately 31% of the 690 law enforcement agencies across the state. This is on average roughly 400 reports weekly. About 59% of those reports received are what is referred to as look back cases where the investigations and findings occurred between January 1 2020 and January 1 2023.

I should mention that the 4500 reports are coming from the 31% of the law enforcement agencies across the state, but those are the largest law enforcement agencies representing about 85,000 peace officers in the State of California.

SB two included provisions for law enforcement agencies to submit these lookback reports for serious misconduct to post by June 30 2023 and for POST to act on cases involving excessive use of force likely to cause serious bodily injury or death, cases of dishonesty and cases of sexual assault, should be noted that while post is receiving 31% of the law enforcement agencies reporting to date, it is not representative of the size of these agencies.

So we are still expecting a great deal more reports for some of the largest agencies in the State of California. Given the sheer volume of reports, the division has implemented a triage system where upon initial review of the serious misconduct reports, staff assign a priority to the reports according to the serious nature of the act and whether the subject peace officer is still employed. Currently, the division is actively reviewing 2000 cases that may result in some form of action.

The division has also elevated 15 cases to the Executive Director that have resulted in the issuance of an immediate temporary suspension order where the subject officer is suspended from serving as a peace officer until a full adjudication of the case under the Office of Administrative hearings or criminal proceedings. Today, we are before you to request funding for 4.5 million from the General Fund in 23-24 and 3.9 million ongoing for the work of the Office of Administrative Hearings.

These costs are associated with the adjudication of the peace officers decertification as required under Senate Bill 2, post estimates it will receive thousands of cases monthly once all agencies begin to fully report acts of serious misconduct. The projection is based on analyzing the public complaints submitted to the Department of Justice annually, where roughly 3,000 to 3,400 of those complaints involved acts of serious misconduct by peace officers which may result in disciplinary action.

Where an officer is afforded due process and a hearing. POST projects about 30% of those cases may be handled through stipulated settlement and not reach a full evidentiary hearing. That being said, there is still workload for the Office of Administrative Hearings associated with the filing of cases, including analyzing the complexity of the case, calendaring the matter for hearing, scheduling and staffing, settlement conferences and consultation on resolution.

While POST appreciates there is a great deal of uncertainty regarding the volume of the cases that will result in decertification. We know this workload is ongoing. As such, we respectfully request your approval of this funding to enable post to meet the mandates of Senate Bill 2 and responsibly address acts of serious misconduct by peace officers who pose a threat to the public's health, welfare and safety. Thank you.

Thank you. We'll hear from the LAO.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Jared Sippel, and I'm with the LAO. So regarding this proposal, we recommend that--we have two recommendations for the Legislature's consideration. First, we recommend that the Legislature approve the funding for three years, as opposed to ongoing as proposed by the Governor, and require POST to report on its OAH hearing cost over that time.

And second, we recommend that the Legislature adopt provisional language that would require any unspent funds to revert to the General Fund at the end of the fiscal year. We base our recommendations really based on, I think, two key findings. The first is that the number of decertification cases that are referred to the OAH at this point in time are uncertain.

As the Department mentioned, cases were just started to be referred to POST as of January of this year, and the number of cases that ultimately work their way through the pipeline up to OAH is uncertain at this point, and even if cases do reach OAH, the number of hours that OAH bills by case would vary depending on the complexity of the case. So essentially, right now, we just don't have actual or historical data to base ongoing funding needs on.

And then our second point is that POST is still actively building capacity to receive and process cases. Also, as mentioned, as you're aware, SB 2 was just passed in September of 2021. The 2022 and 23 Budget is what provided the funding for POST to implement SB 2. So POST is understandably still actively staffing many of the positions that are responsible for reviewing and processing the cases which could affect the volume that ultimately reaches OAH.

So again, I think really our point is, at this point, we would recommend that the Legislature approve the funding for three years, give POST time to process cases, track data, and report it to inform ongoing funding needs for the Legislature. And then in the event that, depending if not as many cases or as many hours are billed by OAH, we would have the provisional language that would revert any unspent funds at the end of the year, which is important given the budget environment.

Can I have someone to clarify what OAH is?

Please. Go ahead.

The Office of Administrative Hearing is--

Appreciate that. That's all I needed.

Yeah, I was hearing OEH myself. Please go ahead, DOF.

Sarah Tomlinson, Department of Finance. The Administration acknowledges that the ongoing cost to the Commission for decertification hearings represents the best estimate available at the time and that costs in the future could vary. However, the Administration notes that this request is based on conservative estimates and that costs and workload associated with these hearings--excuse me--hearings will be ongoing accordingly.

The Administration's position is that the ongoing funding for this purpose is the most appropriate and reasonable at this time, and it's the best approach as it pertains to support for POST in implementing SB 2. Lastly, the Administration does not have any concerns with additional reporting. As POST can explain in more detail, SB 2 included annual reporting requirements that could likely be leveraged for this purpose. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. I think LAO touched a little bit on this capacity issue and you all did as well, but if you could give us a sense, POST, if you can clarify how many positions you've actually filled for this effort so far and talk about any challenges associated with filling those positions and generally what the lead time is from recruitment to actually onboarding?

Okay. Chair Bonta, I'll give you the overview of overall hiring at POST, and then Annemarie can address the new division. So this time last year, we were staffed with 125 full time positions and five RAs. We are currently, as of today, at 153 full time positions and I believe nine RAs. We have been hiring in earnest. Obviously, we've had some people depart, so we've added a total of 28 positions in the last year, most of them coming after July 1st once we got the resources.

Half of them have gone to the new division, half of them have gone to existing POST positions where we transferred people from existing POST positions into the new division. The new division is staffed by 50 percent previous POST employees and then 50 percent new hires. Annemarie, can you give general?

Certainly. So one of the challenges we've had is hiring law enforcement consultants, and those are the folks that actually analyze the serious misconduct cases that come to POST as a part of SB 2. We currently have 12 full time law enforcement consultants working in the division and 20 vacancies that we are attempting to fill. These positions are challenging to fill because they are not considered peace officer positions.

So either someone would have to leave their peace officer career mid-career to come over to POST, and then of course, our salary is not, you know, commensurate with what someone may leave as a lieutenant or above from a law enforcement agency or they are retired and they come over after they retire from their law enforcement career. However, if they have been in PERS, they can't come over because they would then be double dipping into a PERS, and then that really restricts us in the local area, right, where we have a lot of PERS law enforcement personnel.

So we have been staffing judiciously as quickly as we can. We are utilizing the help of retired annuitants to help shore up some of the workload because, as you can imagine with 4,500 cases and 2,000 active investigations, 12 law enforcement consultants is really limited to attack this workload at this time. So we are using the help of RAs. We have four additional RAs that we're looking to hire in the next month to try to shore up that workload. But those are some of the staffing challenges we're facing in the division.

And if I may, overall, 25 to 30 percent of our overall staffing is made up of law enforcement consultants, individuals who have at least two years of experience as either a sergeant or as a lieutenant in a law enforcement agency, both on the training and the standards side, as well as on the accountability side.

That's helpful, and actually, thank you for pointing out the impact of the really limiting the pool, at least for a bit, which is something to consider. And then just on the reporting and data collection side of things, can you remind us what SB 2 included in terms of data collection?

Absolutely. So, Penal Code Section 13510.9 requires comprehensive reporting on POST as a result of SB 2, including reporting of employment, terminations, separations, complaints, charges, allegations, investigations of serious misconduct, settlements by a civilian oversight agent or board, any civil judgments. It also requires that we report the number of law enforcement agencies reporting, and on and on. There's quite a bit of reporting, so if you want me to highlight all of it, I'm happy to do so.

Number of notices that we send to peace officers as a result of the cases that we're receiving from the law enforcement agencies, number of hearings conducted by the Board and the Commission, number of hearings conducted by the Office of Administrative Hearings, number of certifications that are surrendered, suspended, or otherwise revoked, number of audits that we may conduct on the analysis of the investigations that are submitted to POST, and that doesn't name all of them, but it's quite comprehensive, the reporting that's already required under the penal code.

Thank you, and I'm hoping that we can just make sure to continue to confer with Senator Bradford's office to ensure that the identifying data points are helpful to the Legislature, ultimately, to be able to review that information.

Absolutely.

Any other questions from our colleagues?

Yeah, I have a lot of questions, but I'm not going to burden everybody during this session, but I have a lot of questions because I think that they're important to understand. I guess one of the general questions, not being as familiar with SB 2 as I'd like to be, is this an allegation-driven process where at the point to where you guys get involved--at what point does the agency work with you? It can't be just mere allegation.

There is a requirement for agencies to report complaints, charges, and allegations to POST.

That's been forever.

Right. Well, to DOJ originally, and now it's to POST.

Okay.

So what we typically receive is an internal affairs investigation that's sent to POST where they're then completed and there's been some findings. When we get a complaint charger allegation, what we would do with that is we would log it into our data system, our case management system, but that complaint, charge, or allegation would go back to the law enforcement agency for a full investigation. And SB 2 requires that if they receive a complaint charge or allegation, it must be investigated regardless of whether the individual is separated or terminates.

And Assembly Member Lackey, if I may add, although the majority of the investigations are conducted by the law enforcement agencies, the bill also gives us the ability to conduct our own investigation outside of the law enforcement agency. Just to emphasize what my colleague here mentioned, the challenge, I think, for most, including POST, is the volume of data with a complaint charge or allegation that has to be reported within ten days.

We get a lot of questions from the law enforcement community as to what that all means, and we just recite the bill to them and tell them, 'look, a complaint charge or allegation must be reported to POST within ten days.'

I work for an agency that took the complaint process very serious. I wish all of them would have. We probably wouldn't have SB 2, but I will tell you that it's a big responsibility, it's a lot of work, and I don't think the public has any idea how much work goes into these investigations, and I'm thankful that we're doing our best, and I would love to meet with somebody from your organization to help familiarize me so that I could be more aware of this whole process because there's a lot to it.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Thanks for the time you've given me the last couple of hearings. Probably some will take 13 minutes, like I took on one, but have you looked at--and maybe you said this before I walked in--but what the cost would be to hire peace officers in some of these positions that you were saying might be hard to attract folks?

We haven't explored that to date, but it is something that we've just preliminarily been speaking about because of the hiring challenges, the recruitment challenges that we're having. So we have not explored that to date.

How many vacant positions do you say? I know there's 127 here that need to be fulfilled, but how many?

So in--I'm sorry.

So we have 153 full time positions on board right now. The staffing model is 263 total, after Senate Bill 2. We added 127 positions effective July 1st. So the growth has been almost double since July 1st.

Okay. All right, and so the budget here is 20.6 million in this coming budget year plus four and a half for Office of Administrative Hearings or 3.9 in ongoing to support implementation of SB 2?

Correct.

Yes. Okay. It's a lot of money. So thank you very much.

Mr. Jones-Sawyer.

Thank you.

And maybe I missed it. There's a nine-member Peace Officer Standards Accountability Advisory Board that's supposed to have been--did you tell us who is on this board, or do you have an idea who these people are? Because they're obviously going to have an awesome responsibility.

Yes. So the Senate made an appointment, I believe, back in March, April, May of last year. The speaker made an appointment last week, and there are seven remaining positions that are to be filled by the Governor, my understanding from working with the Governor's Office that they are actively putting that together right now as we speak. So there are seven vacancies of the nine.

This said no later than January 1st, 2023 to make recommendations, and you're saying that we haven't made them? Or am I reading this wrong? I mean this is--

Yeah, I--

Still March 2023?

Correct. I think I'd have to go back to the bill in and of itself to see if the appointments had to be made by January 1st or they had to start moving on it by January 1st. I don't have the bill in front of me. I know that the Governor's Office is actively working on those appointments only because we speak to them about them regularly. Every couple of weeks we have a conversation with them as they're going through the applications and the candidates. I believe they've started doing interviews a while back, several months ago of candidates, but we are still awaiting the remaining seven.

Okay. Because implementation, obviously, is really important, and the key to this is the Advisory Board, and hopefully we have a balanced group because you mentioned earlier about POST having 18 people or 18--are they like 18 law enforcement and two non-law enforcement? What's the makeup of that?

Of the Senate Bill 2, the Peace Officer Standards Accountability Board or the Commission? Of the Commission. Yes. The Commission, I believe, has six vacancies right now, if not five. They made two appointments last week, two new appointments of two new commissioners. I believe that brings us up to the 13 of the 18 are now in place.

Can you give me a breakdown of how many are law enforcement, how many are non-law enforcement?

Sure. Absolutely. Yes, sir. It's written in the Penal Code 13500.

Okay.

So there are five chiefs and sheriffs. There are five individuals that are sergeant or below. We call them rank and file. There is one educator. That's 11. There are two public members. There is a county-elected or county administrator position. There is a city-elected and a city administrator. And I believe that covers the 15, if I'm not mistaken. Then there is one by the Senate.

This is a new law that was passed two years ago. I believe it was Senate Bill 1 or so. So there's a position for the Senate Pro Tem to appoint somebody, and then there's one for the Speaker of the Assembly or the Speaker to appoint another position, and then the Attorney General Ex Officio position. The Senate has appointed their members, as has, I believe, the Assembly.

I have to go back now--I'm losing my train of thought--but there are five vacancies on the Commission, primarily law enforcement folks and one public member. The city and the county administrator positions are also vacant.

And the reason I ask is, obviously, these positions will have immense power over how well SB 2 is implemented. And needless to say, I don't think SB 2 was the favorite of law enforcement. I also understand that Sheriff Jim Cooper may be a member of POST now.

He is.

And God help me why you would put somebody on that was actively campaigning against this law and to be there in the implementation, science would be a little counterproductive. But appointments are appointments.

At the end of the day, what I think the Chair is asking, make sure that you talk to the author of this bill so that a year from now, two years from now, we look back and nothing of what the original author wanted to do is done because we've stacked the deck with individuals who are not going to go to the letter of the law and try to make sure that this gets implemented the way it was voted on by the Assembly and the Governor's Office.

It's really, really important, the implementation part. Legislation is fine, but implementation, by all means, is the most important. And so if you can get me some data on who these individuals are because I think that's really important as we move forward and maybe even looking at the makeup of POST so that it's more representative of the new way we should train people. The reason I say that--because I also have a bill, AB 89, that went into effect, which totally changes the way we recruit officers.

And I'm concerned that that also could be compromised in a way where many law enforcement officers may not have been fully on board with it, and that it gets diluted or compromised in a way that we don't really get the most effective and the best candidates for recruiting into law enforcement. So that's why this SB 2 is so important that we have everybody rowing the same way to try to make sure this gets implemented. Thank you.

If I may, Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer or Jones-Sawyer, Sheriff Cooper--I'm sorry, I apologize; no disrespect in that--Sheriff Cooper was appointed last week as well as a rank and file member to the Commission there, then two new members, and I also said that I couldn't recall if the Speaker--or there was a position filled by the Assembly. It was filled back in January, so there is a position on the Commission for an appointee from the Speaker's Office as well as from the Senate.

One out of 18.

Pardon me?

One out of 18.

Okay.

Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

Yes, sir.

Don't have any additional questions. Thank you for--

Thank you.

Coming to the hearing today. We will move on to the Office of Emergency Services. And before we begin, I want to welcome. Wait till you're here. Please come. Want to welcome the new director of OES, Miss Nancy Ward, to our subcommitee. Thank you for being here with us. Today. We're discussing issue number three, overview of the department and current disaster response efforts.

Great. Is this on?

It is. Okay.

Good afternoon, chair Bonta and Committee Members. I'm Nancy Ward, the new Director of Cal OES. Governor Newsom appointed me on New Year's Eve 2022. And I have to say it's been a bit of a ride since that day. As a bit of a background, I'm not new to emergency management. I've worked at Cal OES on a couple of different occasions back in the was the recovery division director. In 2014 to 2017, I was their chief deputy director.

And since that time I've been a retired annuitant working as a special advisor to Callawes. During the break 14 years I was with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Eight of those years I was the FEMA regional administrator for FEMA region Nine, which also oversees emergencies and disasters in California as well. While I never thought I'd unretire, it really is a privilege to be back working with some of the most dedicated professionals in all of state government.

But between the atmospheric rivers, the winds in December and January, cold snowstorms in February, and these latest atmospheric rivers in March, Cal OES, in partnership with other state and federal agencies, has been coordinating state and local response and recovery efforts all over the state. In a nutshell, Cal OES role is coordination. We're charged with anticipating, planning, and preparing to coordinate critical resources and support to the impacted communities to protect lives and property, and to support their recovery efforts from disasters.

Over the last several years, the state has experienced unprecedented number of emergencies, severe drought, catastrophic wildfires, power grid outage challenges, earthquakes, COVID-19 and intensive storms with severe flooding. 15 of the most destructive fires in the state's history have occurred since 20157 of which in the last three years, California moved into a new chapter of emergency management and disaster response and recovery. Emergencies and disasters are more frequent, they're more complicated and involving multiple counties and regions all through the state simultaneously.

During the last few years, Keloes has been before this Committee discussing the changing and worsening disaster landscape, and with your support, we've made some significant investments in creating a stronger Cal OES. This year, we have proposals to make permanent California Cyber Integration center, expand our hazard mitigation efforts, to improve our processes, and advance our coordination to individuals receiving federal aid. I was also asked to touch a bit on what's going on with the current storms.

As we know, since January we have nine atmospheric rivers that came across our state. This is the first time in my 30 some odd years of emergency management, quite frankly, that we had some technology to assist us from the Department of Water Resources, their state climatologist and the National Weather Service to actually predict where those most vulnerable places in the state would be if the storms came on as they were predicted out in the ocean.

We had in the first January February storms, we had 17 areas throughout the state that we would consider the most vulnerable to be able to shoulder the kind of water and snow that was predicted. By predicting those 17 areas, we were able to preposition resources all throughout the state, high water vehicles, Swiftwater rescue, fire engine, EMS, not to mention commodities for sheltering supplies if communities were to need them with food, water, generators and supplies.

The Governor declared a State of emergency in 51 counties at that time and secured federal assistance for individual assistance to households and businesses, as well as to public infrastructure, as well from the Federal Emergency Management Agency this time around. With three atmospheric rivers hitting us in March, the Governor has declared a State of emergency for 43 counties so far and obtained direct federal assistance from FEMA so far.

That allows us to have the full weight of the Federal Government should we need their resources, staff and technical assistance to assist us as we move through these storms. Right now, we're assessing the damage in most of the critically hit communities, California has a large threshold to meet to again secure federal disaster assistance.

We have to have upwards of 1000 to 1200 destroyed or major damaged homes and businesses, as well as we have to meet a more than $70 million financial threshold for damages to public infrastructure. Our teams are out in multiple counties right now doing damage assessments, and as soon as we believe that we meet those federal thresholds, the Governor will move swiftly again to try and secure federal assistance.

What I'd like to say, though, is that these storms, like so many other disasters, disproportionately are impacting the most vulnerable Californians. For the first time during these events, the state government has taken a new and novel approach in how we communicate with prioritizing the way the crisis outreach is being handled. We believe that the chances of Californians surviving a disaster shouldn't depend on their age, their ability, their zip code, or how much money they have in the bank, nor what language they speak.

With the new funding approved last year by the Legislature and championed by Governor Newsom, the team at Cal OES has changed our communications approach for this event to speak directly to those all too often overlooked and at most at risk. We've also established a new priority populations task force charged with identifying ways to protect Californians and to communicate with them those that are most threatened. Materials were deliberately prepared to culturally and linguistically inviting, accessible, respectful and useful.

Outreach likewise was intentionally designed to be people centered and people powered, with local community groups assisting our leaders and members because they know most and know their trusted agents within those communities to be able to rapidly get on the ground and get the word out for how to get resources, where to get resources, how to prepare themselves personally and their families for disaster.

So it's a new way of doing business, getting out on the ground a little bit earlier and focusing on those that are most vulnerable. And we're seeing that actually play out in how these disasters over these last three months have played out in California. So with that.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Ms. Ward. Could we hear from LAO?

Hi, Madam Chair. Jared Sippel with the LAO, no comments.

DOF?

Tess Scherkenback with the Department of Finance. We're here to answer any questions, but no comments.

Great. Thank you. I'll just touch on some of the recent frequency of so many of the disasters that we're experiencing in the emergencies that are causing us to be a lot more nimble. And I appreciate, Director Ward, that you stepped in at a time when we couldn't have imagined the level of disaster that we've been experiencing. Can you speak to any additional proactive measures your office has undertaken to address some of these disasters?

I think some of the most important is really getting in and being in the local office of emergency management offices in the counties. What we've seen over these last several months, quite honestly, is some of those offices are not totally staffed, not certainly trained to the level of disaster that we're seeing right now. Some of the emergency managers, quite honestly, this is their first event.

And so we're trying to be there for them to shore up their emergency operations centers, to be able to not only anticipate what they're going to need, but to help us help them in identifying the kinds of resources that we need to bring to them, to help them through these events.

I would say that's the most widespread proactive thing that we can do to help all of us to know firsthand from those local governments what they need, when they need it, and how they can shoulder the resources that we're about to bring. Some of what we've brought have been overwhelming, quite honestly, to some of the local governments, and we understand that.

And so we're sending not only equipment and personnel, but overhead teams from CAL FIRE and the Guard, as you heard from the general earlier, to assist the counties and the folks that are having one of the most terrible winters in their communities to help them understand how they can get resources quickly from us.

I appreciate your sharing that you're hoping to kind of enter into a new way of doing business. And you mentioned the priority populations task force. I did want to just use a very recent and horrific example of the City of Pajaro in Monterey County, where we had a lot of undocumented individuals who really struggled mightily with the recent flooding and are still doing so as its town primarily is made up of working class farm workers in particular.

It's my understanding that about 2,000 undocumented residents were impacted by the flood, and in all likelihood, many, if not all, of them do not have flood insurance. So it's been reported that from local officials that they knew about the risk of the levee breaking, but didn't do anything about it. So my first question is, really, are there resources for undocumented people in these types of circumstances? And then second question is, does OEAS have any role related to local infrastructure?

I'll take the first question first. Yes, there are resources, certainly any sheltering and immediate needs that any of those undocumented communities have a plethora of resources for them, for the farm workers. My understanding is that through the United Way, that there is a farm worker fund that is giving $600 per person out to these communities, was a donation I understand. Also, we have the State Department of Social Services, HHS, and a plethora of community based organizations in Monterey County hoping to establish a local assistance center.

So there is one stop shop other than the shelter to go to for assistance. Now, keeping in mind that we are doing damage assessments to try and meet the federal thresholds for damaged residences, and the Governor will be making a request, if we meet those thresholds to, again, secure federal assistance that has additional resources. If an undocumented household has a child or a permanent resident in the household that has their own Social Security number, the household is eligible for assistance through that process as well.

So sorry. So it's only conditionally available if there is somebody who is a documented citizen?

From FEMA.

Okay.

So we are also establishing long term recovery task forces that will wrap around the community and try and bring in philanthropic, community based organizations, even for home repairs, to try and provide resources for this community and others. We believe that there will be others in the Tulare Lake Basin area.

Outside of the private dollars that these communities are receiving. What do you think? Would you include undocumented citizens in the category of people that should be receiving state support?

Okay. All right. Do any of my colleagues have questions? Mr. Lackey?

Absolutely.

Yeah. More of a comment on the critical nature of what you folks offer. Just recently, I was reminded of the critical services that you provide. In my district, we had quite a snow incident that was pretty overwhelming. And fortunately, we have the unified command system and the depth of daily coordination that goes on. The public would be heartened to know because it seems like all they know is what's not being met.

And if they knew the degree of work and commitment that emergency personnel, and it's not just law enforcement and fire department, it is gas companies. It's all sorts of organizations that have responsibilities that are clearly cooperating in a very feverish manner. And the depth of coordination and the expertise that was displayed that I went and saw was very reassuring, that a lot of talent is being demonstrated.

And when there's that degree of overwhelming, I mean, we had 10 feet of snow in an area that, and that accumulated in less than a week. That is enormous. And the residents felt betrayed, many of them. And unfortunately, there's only so much you can do in those kinds of calamities.

And I took an active role as my responsibility is just to oversee and was very proud of the hard work and dealt with a lot of very, and still will, deal with a lot of very disheartened, surprised people. And that's just the nature of emergency. And I'm thankful. As a highway patrolman, I dealt with a lot of circumstances with fires and the same system is utilized. That whole emergency operation system is such an example of effective coordination.

And the depth of coordination, as I said, is so remarkable. I mean, if you go around and you go to the command post and you see all the tables, there were probably at least 25, 30 different tables that were all coordinating at a very, very efficient manner. And the degree of technology and the mapping systems and the current updating of information has really progressed since my day.

I would just tell you that I wish that the people that were so frustrated could know what was happening instead of just what wasn't happening. And I understand it. Right. I mean, if I was in their shoes, I'd probably feel the same way. So it is understandable, but in the same. Right. I'm very, very thankful for what you do. It's very, very critical. It's life and death stuff. And so we're very thankful for your expertise and your genuine interest in the public good. Thank you.

Thank you. I'll just have a follow up. So I had a second part to my question.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Which was the levees and the condition of the levees and understanding that in some sense it was a disaster waiting to happen, that was pretty well understood to be so. Can you speak to the role that OES will have or could have around infrastructure support? Do you have a sense of understanding when there is a legitimate disaster waiting to happen because we haven't invested in that infrastructure? Is there any prepositioning that is being done?

And that's exactly what happened here. Unfortunately, shoring up one side of the levee weakened the other. But the side that was shored up had a wastewater treatment plan on the other side of the levee. And that was part of the vulnerability that they wanted to shore up on that side, and it weakened the other side. It actually weakened an abutment to a bridge that almost caused a breach to have to be done again to alleviate some of the pressure of the water.

OES doesn't have any responsibility in the area of levee maintenance or levee repair. I would tell you that in this particular case, this levy has been very vulnerable, have much legislation and criticality to the vulnerability of it for many, many years. I understand that just last fall, Governor Newsom signed a bill to help the community pay their share of the levy stability that will be ongoing. It just happened before that could all get worked out. And it's been something apparently I've understood for many, many years.

Historically, when we've had events and we've received federal assistance, FEMA has limited levee repairs, reimbursement to just floodfight and emergency response to stop the breach or seepage or whatever to stabilize it for emergency response. They typically don't repair the levee unless it's at a standard that meets the Corps of Engineers. And these levees out there typically don't. They were built for agricultural land, and so they don't meet the requirement for FEMA assistance as well. So it's a long problem.

I agree with you, Chair Bonta, that this was a devastating event that had years before been realized to go in and shore up those levees, this may not have happened.

Thank you. Mr. Patterson.

Thank you. Recently, I had the opportunity to, I represent Placer and El Dorado counties and been a few instances out there in the last, well, really last year, 18 months, but went up to tour the Grizzly Flats, which is actually right outside my district. And inexplicably, the Federal Government has denied Grizzly Flats for individual assistance from the Caldor Fire. And I think there was bipartisan support from pretty much everybody in this state to do that and appreciate the administration's support of that as well.

But one thing that struck me is when I was out there, there was a lady probably in her 70s shoveling snow, and she was living in a trailer because her house burned down in the fire. And it was really heartbreaking to see this community where people were living in trailers and things like that.

But one thing that really struck me, especially given right outside my district, but a little bit beyond my district in both Placer and El Dorado counties are obviously the amount of federal forest lands that are there. And I was just curious--I sit on another Committee where maybe this will be an appropriate question there, too--but what is your involvement on emergencies? Especially fires, because now we're going to have flooding with the snow pack and there's no trees to take the water and things like that.

But when the fires actually happen and when these floods unfortunately occur as well, what is your interaction with the Federal Government and the Forestry Service pertaining to fires and things like that?

In terms of?

I'm just curious because you can obviously control or help navigate different state agencies that are responding to fires, whether it's CHP or CAL FIRE. But the Federal Government has such a huge role, obviously, in response to fires. And I'm just curious, how is communication there?

Between the Forest Service and the state?

Correct.

Testy at best. I will say that they don't attack a fire like CAL FIRE does or the State of California. A lot of times they let that fire burn way too long. It's been a bone of contention between the state and the Forest Service for many, many years. I would say that's probably the biggest bone of contention. Still very tense sometimes, but they do have to work together because fires know no boundaries.

So it goes from Forest Service land to state property to the interface very quickly. I will tell you that they also are included in what's called a Max task force, and that's the adjudication of resources. When resources become finite in these large wildland fires, they're good partners in that because we all need to share resources and understand that some of the bigger types of resources, air resources, mostly we have to share them and we have to put them in the most priority driven areas. And a lot of that is driven by the state on our land. But I would say that it's tense at best at times.

Just an operational question. When there's a fire on federal forest land, are we able to go in there and?

We help. Local governments help. Certainly, because again, very quickly could burn off into state land and the state interface. So, yes, CAL FIRE is engaged in all fires in California.

Well, thank you for, again, the whole state came together to ask for this individual assistance, which has been granted routinely in fires like this all across the state. And I appreciate that. And I'm going to take another stab at it to the President. I'm sure he's going to be listening to Assemblyman Joe Patterson from Rocklin.

But I think we got to keep pushing that because unfortunately, the reality is, and I know that there are federal elected officials are looking at changes in that policy, including Senator Feinstein, I believe, has been pretty active in that. But we're going to have more disasters here, unfortunately, not only do we have to figure out how to attack the fires.

But when they happen, and I see a lady that's shoveling snow in a front yard and living in a trailer and doesn't know if she'll ever rebuild because she just, frankly, she's had her house paid off. So we need a policy on that in California because, like, you know, unfortunately, these are going to happen again and they're getting bigger.

I spent 14 years with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and the individual assistance criteria was the bane of my existence. I hated it then, I hate it now. And we'll be pushing with the National Emergency Management Agency about that in about a week, because all across the country, when you have a large state and have to have whole communities that are gone and still have to meet a threshold of 1,000 to 1,200 destroyed or majorly damaged residences, it's out of balance. And while they'll tell you that there are other criteria that they look at, they're looking really at the numbers.

Well, thank you for putting in a good word for California when you meet with them. Thank you.

I don't know. They didn't listen to me when I was there.

Well, that's why you're here now.

That's right.

Thank you so much for the testimony. Appreciate you. We're going to move on now to issue number four, which is disaster related federal funding realignment.

Yes. Good afternoon, Chair and Members. I'm Eric Swanson, Deputy Director of Finance and Administration at Cal OES. I'm going to describe our budget ask in a moment, but I first want to turn it over to Mr. Buras right beside me, who will give an overview of our federal disaster funding process.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Committee Members. My name is Ryan Buras. I'm the Deputy Director for Recovery at Cal OES, and it's always good to follow your boss in these types of hearings. So I really want to go over just a quick federal overview of federal reimbursement on two programs, one being hazard mitigation and one being public assistance. And I'm going to start with hazard mitigation first. Hazard mitigation.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has two programs annually set up not tied to a disaster per se here in California. One's called the building resilient infrastructure in communities, and the other one's the flood mitigation assistance. Now, these are annual grants that are allocated money each year by the Federal Government, but they're a nationally competitive grant program. So we as the state are competing against our colleagues throughout the nation. We at OES, my team, the hazard mitigation team, is required to provide technical assistance to the local communities.

And it's key they do two things. One, they ensure that whatever they are submitting is eligible according to the federal requirements for these programs. And two, we also look over these programs when we get the notification of what these dollars are for. We try to assist those communities to make projects in those communities that tied to those criteria to be nationally competitive. And I am glad to say we have been successful in that.

In 2020, we had seven projects approved for about 20% of the national funding, and that continued into 2021 when we had 12 projects awarded nationally, and they arranged from wildfire to drought to flood. So it really was all hazards, which is key. Now, moving on to post incident or Post Fire, there's two grants. One, Post Fire is the fire management assistance grant program we get.

Every FMEG, that's what we call that, we get a certain amount of dollars per incident that we can use to mitigate that community and indoor communities. And two, for the hazard mitigation grant program, when we're allowed or able to get a major declaration, like Governor Newsom was able to get this passed by the President this past December, we get 20% of the total cost of that federal disaster to be used for hazard mitigation.

The reason we can get 20% is the State of California has an enhanced state hazard mitigation plan approved by FEMA. So we get 5% additional dollars when we do get a disaster. Very much like the other programs I just mentioned, Cal OES does provide local assistance to the locals to ensure that their projects, when they are submitted, do meet the eligibility requirements of the Federal Government, and it is quite lengthy for the projects to meet. Once again, this funding is for all hazards.

So even though we may have a disaster for flood, doesn't mean all of those dollars will be used for flood. They could be used for anything, wildfire, flood, earthquake, tsunami, or anything else that we need. We also get management costs for both of these programs. So the state gets management costs and so does the local community to pay for the management to assist them with these grants.

And I would like to say, before I move on to public assistance, it's been stated, approved for every dollar invested in hazard mitigation, you save $6. So it's a very important investment for all of us here in this state. For FEMA, public assistance, disaster funding.

After we do get a disaster declaration and we do get approved for public assistance, we are allowed to work with the locals to assist them with getting reimbursement for emergency protective measures, removing debris over time, and also for repairing infrastructure, roads, bridges, and like. There is no cap to the funding. But it's important to note that the reimbursement for those projects have to be related to damage caused by that disaster. So it's not to do anything that might have been pre disaster related.

It's only there to repair the damage that was caused as a result of that disaster. There are ways to use mitigation and public assistance. So if you can do a benefit cost analysis of building something not like for like if you lose a complete building. This is something fairly new, and we're able to assist our applicants doing that as well. Once again, this is a long-term project for hazard mitigation and public assistance. Many of these projects last years.

We actually get allocated to management costs for up to eight years, and then we lose it if we're still working those projects. And in many cases, some of the projects, we are still working with those applicants. Like after an earthquake, it takes a long time to build back your infrastructure. So the project themselves will be assisted with FEMA as long as the extension is granted. And only mention that, because as we all know, every year we're getting more and more disasters.

That just goes on top of everything that we're working here at OES with the local communities to ensure that they are doing everything they can to get every dollar back that they lost during those disasters. So, Eric, I know you're going to go over some additional.

Yeah. So our budget request is really a budget display issue. It's to separate out or to make more transparent disaster related federal grant or reimbursement funds. If approved, these new budget items would have enough budget authority for the next fiscal year based on an analysis of prior year receipt of funds. The other important factor here is to mention that the state doesn't have discretion on how we allocate these federal funds. The Federal Government chooses.

We act as a pass through for FEMA reimbursements that go to local government agencies, other state agencies, or to reimburse the General Fund. We're proposing one billion in federal funding authority for state operations and local assistance associated with this new item. And again, there's no General Fund spending impact associated with this request.

Thank you. Hearing from LAO or DOF on this item? Okay, thanks. I did just want to ask a question. Can you give us an estimate of how much in federal funds the state will apply for or receive for the flood damage that happened so far?

So at the present time, we don't have the estimate we can get back with you. How this works is we work with not only locals, also state agencies, and we meet with them and we have a briefing to get their projects that were damaged. Unfortunately, they've been pretty busy since the first of this year, so it takes some more time just to figure out what that actual cost can be. But I will tell you, we're talking hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars for the storm in December, January.

Okay. And related to the Hazard Mitigation Grant program, just as an example, just to get a sense of how much time it takes to get resources to the intended recipient individual, can you perhaps walk us through a scenario or timeline related to how and when the grant program is available and when the benefits eventually reach a homeowner?

So there's an application period. We give a notice of intent through OES, and we receive the applicants with the applications. Typically we give 30 days or so, and then there's a review period, and then we submit that to FEMA. That's where the delay typically is. FEMA does review these projects, and we work with them to encourage them to get these approved. I would say, though, this is a reimbursement program, so even once approved, the money is not provided upfront to that entity. So it is a reimbursement.

Do you have a sense of how long?

It depends on the type of project. If your project is buying a generator, you're not talking that long. If you're looking to move a police station to another area, that, of course, has environmental concerns, which would take longer. I'm not trying to dodge the question, but it all varies. And I can give you something back for average time.

That would be great.

Sure.

Thank you. I don't think we have any further questions. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

The next item on your agenda is a request for four positions and 23.8 million 988 State Suicide and Behavioral Health Crisis Services Fund. That's a long name for.

Just to orient us, we're on issue five, which is the 988 suicide and crisis.

Oh, sorry about that. I'm trying to keep it going. We're behind.

Appreciate that.

So, yeah, this is the 988 Suicide Fund. We are asking for four positions, $23.8 million and ongoing, a smaller amount to support activities required to implement AB 988. This includes a request to shift 6 million in ongoing funding authorized in the 22-23 budget from the General Fund to the new 988 Fund. And with me today is Mr. Currier, who will further describe our proposal.

Thank you, Chair Bonta and Members of the Subcommitee. I'm going to give you a quick overview on what we've accomplished so far in the 988 effort. So you're probably tracking that in July 16 of 2022, 988 became a number that you could use to access crisis and mental health services nationwide.

In California, we submitted a budget request last year, and we began the initial efforts to support, we call sort of basic interoperability between 911 and 988, knowing that we had to build out additional capacity and support. What really we want to make sure is that no matter what choice an individual makes when they begin to access services, whether they call 911 or 988, or they call a warm line to get services, they get equal access to whatever help they need.

And that means building in the capacity to be interoperable between 911, 988, and to be able to move information around. So we started this process in July of 2022. We did a competitive bid process, anticipating this 988 number was coming. Of course, with the thanks of the Legislature, we were able to get initial funding to start this process. We've begun our initial site surveys at all of our mental health crisis centers throughout the state, or lifeline crisis centers throughout the state. We've finished the competitive bid process.

We've selected a vendor. We've started the rollout. Then AB 988 passed and added additional capabilities that were really above and beyond those federal requirements. And so we took the requirements in AB 988 and took a good assessment of what we needed to do above and beyond the work we'd already started. That's the budget proposal that Eric just provided a summary for. So we've formed a 90 day technical advisory board. We've already met a couple of times.

We're staffing that by using some of the initial resource provided. But really these extra requirements that include the management of this board, the Administration of a 988 surcharge that was part of AB 988, and really building out mobile crisis capacity and providing additional resources down to these local centers was all included in AB 988 above and beyond those initial federal requirements. So it's that effort now that we need the resources to complete that work.

And again, our goal is to make sure that whatever choice an individual makes to receive services, we get the best services possible and provide equal access to all. That's a quick summary of where we are, and I'll turn it over to any questions that you all may have.

Thank you. Can you just describe what the OES funds are being used for right now?

Initially, from the legislation, from the BCP from last year, it's that technology upgrade to support the interface between 911 and 988. The surcharge that was enacted with AB 988 started to be collected in 2023, but access to that funding is dependent on this year's budget. And so those expenditures would begin in July of 2023, dependent on the budget and what happens moving forward.

And are any of those funds currently being used to fund call center personnel?

So the surcharge funds, Chair Bonta, is that what you're asking? Those funds are not accessible yet because that would be in July of this coming year. This year.

Do you have a plan to understand what gets allocated directly to the call centers, the local call centers and the personnel?

The legislation is very clear in what the required steps are to access that funding. And so we're working through that process, and that's really a big part of what the technical advisory board is doing and also working with Health and Human Services and the work that they're doing through AB 988.

Can you describe at all the technology capacity building that's happening with partners at Didihirsch?

Yes. So we work closely with them. They're the largest 988 center in the state. There are a total of 12. So there's other stakeholders in this space as well. And we've met with them many times. We've toured their facility.

The focus that we're working on now is a unified platform for 988 call handling to make sure that we are able to gather the data, statistics, answer the call volume, and do the transfers between 911 and 988 and vice versa, and also be in compliance with SAMHSA, the federal agency that's over this, and Vibrant, their service provider that they're working with to gather the statistics at the national level and then at the state level with HHS to make sure that we're gathering the data needed there.

The other piece of the technology they refer to as customer relationship management. It's basically a workflow. When you call into 988, it's walking you through certain topics like a flow of, okay, I need this service. I need that service. And then providing help for the counselor that's working with the help seeker.

That entire software package is what we're working on now and the ability to integrate with other data sources that might exist at these crisis centers today and to make sure that we can provide that technology to be able to interface with 911. And that's the effort that's underway right now.

And do you have a sense of what the integration essentially between the CRM and the intersection with the 911 technology is?

We do. So thankfully, we began a next generation 911 rollout project a few years ago with support, obviously from the Legislature. And so we're ahead of that process and we're really blazing the trail, not only for California, but for the nation on how you do interoperable communications between 911 and 988. So we have the technology in place.

We will begin to deploy that at these centers by June of this year with the plan to get the first centers online with that technology by July, and then to complete the rollout at all 12 centers by July of 2024, obviously pending the resources that were being requested through this process.

And can you just give us a sense of some of the coordination between other state and local efforts? It's obviously a huge integration implementation challenge. I kind of want to acknowledge that, but also just want to get a sense of what kind of coordination is happening with other aligned efforts, particularly around the crisis continuum planning or the rollout of the new Medi-Cal mobile benefit or anything else. How is that going?

So the Medi-Cal benefit and the mobile crisis, that's really over in the HHS space. But to answer the first part of your question, the collaboration we're doing with other states, I serve as the state and I'm an administrator for California. Each state has someone like me. We have a board, and I'm the President of that board right now. So we have the ability to have a lot of collaboration because I'm leading that effort at the national level.

And it's the same question that's being asked in each state. So Washington, Virginia, Michigan, and a few other states are really farther ahead in this process. Minnesota is another one that we're collaborating a lot with to really learn what are you doing in this space? How is your 90 day crisis lifeline center process moving forward? How is it interacting with 911?

And then we're meeting with those cities that have done pilot projects or have rolled out similar integration of technology between 911 and 988, more of a localized level. Obviously what works for a single city, you have to be able to span that to something the size of California. But it's those best practices that we're looking at. Part of our technical advisory board, we form three working groups. One of them is looking at the interface between 911 and 988.

Another working group is looking at these best practices that exist around the nation. And then the third is looking at really equitable access to the system to make sure that whatever is done, we provide equal access to all. That's a really key part of our process. So those are ongoing efforts and there's a work in progress, but we're definitely making some huge strides toward implementing this system.

Let me just clarify, if I could just for a second. Although as Mr. Courier saying, it's a collaborative system. We're working with a lot of departments and a lot of different agencies. Our little niche here is sort of on the technology and fiscal end. It's sort of the role we're playing in this. But certainly we're working with all kinds of folks on how to develop the best 988 system possible.

And from the tech and fiscal end of things, where are your challenges?

No one's ever done this before, and certainly no one's ever done it on this scale. So I think that's probably the biggest challenge. No pressure.

Thank you. And I know this will also get reviewed in Assembly Subcommitee one on Health and Human Services, so I'm sure there will be other questions in that regard. But I just wanted to get a sense of what role the OES will play in any outreach and education on the availability of 988 in their communities. Do you have a sense of that?

So you're right, most of that is over on the HHS side, our role is to make sure that the technology does not limit anything that they want to do. And so that's really where the collaboration comes in.

Thank you. And I failed to give an opportunity for LAO or DOF to speak on this.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No comments from LAO.

Same, thank you.

Great. To my colleagues. Mr. Lackey?

Yeah. Unfortunately, I'd like to take a moment to express my frustration, dismay about action taken through budget bill language last year in SB 184. It shifted the statutory provisions for the Suicide Prevention Voluntary Contribution Fund, which my bill, AB 984, in 2019, created a fund to fund suicide prevention services across crisis centers, with the specified split for dedicated resources in rural and desert communities.

When asked, my office expressed opposition to this change because these dollars would go much farther with a dedicated mission rather than funding an expansive project. When you only give these communities priority, they're just as forgotten. And that's actually what happens. They get forgotten in this whole system, and that's always been the case. So that's why we did it this way. That merge takes away the intent to service an underserved community in order to solve the bureaucratic problem of implementation.

I was also co-author of AB 988, by the way, which was a great and important service that needs to be implemented. And I see the huge challenges and cheer it on because it's long and coming. But to revert back my bill, AB 984 made it through the transparent policy process with a lot of stakeholder engagement, and I'm frustrated that the valuable work that we accomplished was swept into a budget bill language without giving due consideration to our particular efforts and undertaking.

So if there's any way to reverse this action, we would appreciate any kind of consideration that you could afford us to get some dedicated funds to desert and rural communities because they're so easily forgotten because they're swamped by the city and urban challenge, and we get swallowed up. And so if we could have some way to where we could get some level of priority, we would love that. That's really all I got.

Do you have a response for that at all?

No. I appreciate the feedback and that's one of the things we're making sure is that equal access for all is a big part of what we're looking at. And I'll definitely bring this up to that Working Committee that's making sure that there's equitable access to these services.

Appreciate knowing that. Thank you.

I would just follow up and ask perhaps that LAO do some additional analysis about the implementation, or lack thereof, of AB 984 for our consideration.

Thank you.

Thank you. I think we are good. Thank you so much.

We will move on now to issue six, which is school cybersecurity.

The next proposal on your agenda is a request for 5.4 million General Fund in 17 positions, and it's split between departments. There's seven positions at Cal OES, five positions at CDT or the California Department of Technology, and five positions of the California Military Department to implement AB 2355 until the repeal date of January 1 2027. With me today is Mr. Osborne, who will describe how we approached implementing AB 2355.

Thank you, Eric. Good afternoon, Chair and distinguished Members of this Committee. My name is Tom Osborne. I'm one of the deputy directors at the governor's Office of Emergency Services. I oversee our Homeland Security Division, which includes our State Threat Assessment Center as well as the California Cybersecurity Integration Center. And I'd first would just like to say thank you for your ongoing partnership and your opportunity to address this Committee regarding our budget proposal to help California Cybersecurity Integration Center, or known as the Cal CIC, to help meet its statutory obligations under AB 2355.

By way of background, the Cal CIC was originally formed in 2015 by then Governor Brown via an Executive order to bolster California's preparedness and response to destructive cyberattacks. In 2018, in recognition of the ever expanding cyber threat environment and its associated risks, the Legislature formally codified the Cal CIC by statute.

This placed the Cal CIC within California Office of Emergency Services and charged it with the primary mission of reducing the likelihood and severity of cyber incidents that could damage California's economy, its critical infrastructure, or public and private computer networks. AB 2355 requires the Cal CIC to do several things.

Number one, to establish a database that tracks and reports cyber attacks submitted by local education agencies, referred to as LEAs, in this context and two, prepare an annual report to the Governor and relevant policy committees to the Legislature that includes summaries of the types and numbers of cyberattacks on LEAs, data breaches reported to the Attorney General, and any activities provided by the Cal CIC to prevent or respond to such cyberattacks or data breaches on LEAs.

Within California's 58 counties, there's over 1000 school districts and over 10,000 schools and nearly 6 million students. Federal and private sector research shows that cyber threats to the K through 12 education sector have continued to escalate since at least 2018 schools in most states have reported cybersecurity incidents on their systems, and the impacts of these cyberattacks can result in theft of our children's PII or Personally Identifying Information, which then is usually offered for sale on the dark web, allowing for future victimization to occur.

Additionally, ransomware deployed by cybercriminal actors can encrypt entire networks, including HVAC systems, rendering them inoperable for weeks, if not months at a time. Reported incidents between 2018 and 2021 have risen from 400 in 2018 to an accumulated total of over 1300 incidents, and this is provided by DHS CISA nationwide. According to a recent report by the Multistate Information Sharing and Analysis Center, or MS-ISAC, 29% of the ISAC's K through 12 schools and district members reported being victims of cyber incidents.

Even without the reporting requirements of AB 2355 the Cal CIC has observed a total of 36 cyber incidents targeting California's education sector in 2022. This is an increase of 33% compared to 27 incidents observed in 2021. With so many schools in the state, we expect that the increasing awareness of AB 2355 will lead to an exponential increase of incidents reported to the state and to the Cal CIC specifically, many of which will lead to requests for services that the Cal CIC can provide.

The Cal CIC has been concerned about the vulnerability of local education agencies to cybertechs even before the passage of AB 2355. LEAs generally have very limited IT or cybersecurity resources, but nevertheless maintain sensitive records for millions of students across the state. Even with cybersecurity insurance policies, they do not often have consistent standing relationships with external cybersecurity support or experts.

These challenges highlight the need for the Cal CIC to conduct extensive training and outreach in the LEA community so that school and local officials are aware of the support that we can provide.

If our budget proposal is approved, the Cal CIC intends to, number one, establish a reporting mechanism for all California education institutions number two, provide outreach to those local education agencies to streamline the reporting and help improve their defensive posture and, if needed, conduct more robust data analytics on active threat measures to their schools and four, respond to requests to support with sufficient onsite incident responders to stop an active attack and conduct reasonable and logical cyber forensic activity necessary to prosecute these cybercriminals.

Chair Bonta and Members of the Committee, thank you again for your opportunity to share with you this important work that our dedicated team of professionals are doing at the California Cybersecurity Integration Center and how you can assist us in our efforts to safeguard our education sector from cyber attacks. And thank you. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you. We'll hear from the LAO.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Jared Sippel with the LAO regarding this proposal, we recommend that the Legislature approve only 951,003 information technology supervisor two positions, which is the amount of funding that Cal CIC indicated would take to implement the required, or to develop, plan and implement the required database for LEA reporting. Accordingly, we recommend that the Legislature reject the remainder of the funding and position requests because we don't have a basis for assessing the LEA's need for additional assistance from Cal CIC at this point in time.

With that said, we do acknowledge that Cal CIC may need some level of funding to help LEAs with cyber attacks and data breaches. So we would also recommend that the Legislature consider approving provisional language that would allow Cal CIC to access some small amount of funding based on a demonstrated need from the LEAs in response to AB 2355. And so, just to elaborate a little bit further, we base these recommendations really on three key findings.

The first is that the governor's proposal exceeds the requirements of AB 2355 which calls for Cal CIC to develop a database to track LEA reports of cyberattacks and submit annual reports to the Legislature. So, for example, the governor's proposal also assumes that Cal CIC will provide onsite response to every LEA if requested. While it's reasonable for Cal CIC to consider what additional resources might be needed to help LEAs, none of these activities are specifically required by AB 2355.

And the second point we would make is that because AB 23505's requirements are new, there's no historical data on the number of LEA cyberattacks, requests for assistance, or incidents requiring response to base the actual funding needs on. So thus, right now it's a preliminary best guess estimate.

And then thirdly, which kind of wraps those two points together, particularly given the budget problem that the Legislature is facing this year and the fact that we don't have any historical data at this point in time to determine what an appropriate funding level would be. Any funding beyond what's needed to implement AB 2355 we believe should be done incrementally and based on LEA's demonstrated need for additional assistance from Cal CIC.

So, basically, just to recap, we recommend only approving the funding that's needed to specifically implement AB 2355 which is a 951,003 information technology supervisor positions project the remaining proposal, but then also adopt provisional language that would allow Cal CIC to access some level of funding when there's a demonstrated need from LEAs.

And from DOF.

Tess Scherkenback with the Department of Finance. Just wanted to clarify that the Administration continues to support the request as originally proposed, and we are recognizing that should we only partially fund the proposal that we've run the risk of Cal OES running out of resources or being underresourced to provide adequate support to LEAs in the event of a attack. Thank you.

Thanks. So it seems to me that we have a question of sequencing and timing as it relates to scope here. So I just want to give you an opportunity to respond to the LAO. But from my perspective, the AB 2355 was pretty narrowly scoped around just being a resource, around data, creating kind of a database to be able to hold this. And what you've proposed really goes more into actually offering technical assistance to LEAs.

Having been a school board Member, I have a sense, and having actually worked with many school districts, probably about 10 in California, around their student information systems and a lot of the technology that they use to be able to support that. I'm curious about whether you all are actually set up to be able to do that, given that each system is highly decentralized.

Let me take a stab at the first part of the question, and then I'll let my colleague talk a little bit about our readiness to work with local LEA's. We think the LEA analysis is correct in that the minimum the bill required was to kind of plan, develop and implement this database. However, it's difficult for us to sit on the sidelines if issues are reported to us.

We tried to make a reasonable effort so that we could respond to the increased events that we think will be reported to us through this process.

So you've had 36 incidents in 2022 that presumably were reported to you. Correct.

Either directly or just through our observation of our different sources of information that we get.

And what was your role in supporting those?

And it varies in a lot of different degrees. I'll pick one in particular. Fremont School District. They called us directly and said we were a victim of a cyber attack, ransomware attack, and requested our assistance that required deployment of resources to help them to find where the bad actor is in their system, eradicate the bad actor from their network-

When you say, deployment of resources, what does that mean?

Physical analysts and computer experts to go to their facility to help them with their initial triage of that cyber attack.

Okay, so that's one example. Can you just give another scenario with perhaps something else?

Yeah. And then certainly one other example is LA Unified School District, very large school district. They also, in turn, called us looking for some technical assistance in regards to what they were up against. Although we did not need to deploy actual resources physically on site, we did provide limited technical resources.

And in that particular instance, they had a cyber insurance policy that they leveraged to conduct their initial incident response, two kind of broad examples of actually hands on keyboard to help them find the bad actor in their network, to help contain that threat to simply a consultation with LA Unified School District.

Have you been able to catalog the kinds of technical assistance or support that you've been able to provide in these 36 incidents in 2022 or the 27 in 2021?

Yes, and various different degrees. I'll just quickly kind of summarize some of the technical assistance provided. One, a lot of times we will provide dark web monitoring. So when a school system is under a cyberattack and their data has been held ransom, we are scouring the dark web because typically these bad actors are offering this data for sale. So if we're able to find where that's being located, that can further the investigation. Secondly, we have also what I like to refer to left of a cyberattack.

We have been contacted by a few different districts. Can we provide assistance to identify what is their vulnerabilities and what does their cyber attack surface look like? So we will provide some technical assistance and scan their networks with their permission to say, this is kind of what we see. This is what we don't see. Here are some recommendations so you can best defend your network.

We look at it from an attacker's perspective and saying, this is how your network is presenting itself on the Internet for which you could be exploited. And then it runs the gamut from certainly network, just consultation network harding, how can we give us your advice of how we can better protect our networks? And so those require various degrees of expertise of cyber professionals to help them.

Absolutely. Happy to.

Do you think that you'd be able to provide a written response around the kinds of technical assistance or support that you've been able to provide to, given that you have real life situations that you've already provided some support around to be able to inform the second recommendation, around the level of some type of funding to be able to support your efforts?

Okay. I think that would probably give the LAO some additional information to be able to do further assessment. So I don't think I have any other questions at this time, and I'm the only one here, so we will move on.

Thank you.

To issue number seven, which is the early earthquake warning system.

This one we get to go straight to Ms. Nezhura here.

Great.

Good afternoon, Chair Bonta. My name is Lori Nezhura. I'm the Deputy Director of Planning, Preparedness, and Prevention at Cal OES, and as such, I'm over the California Earthquake Early Warning Program. We now have 912 earthquake early warning stations operational out of a statewide goal of 1115. So we're up from 802 stations this time last year, and I'm happy to report the remaining 203 stations are fully funded and in varying stages of progress. We're still on target for full system buildout in 2025.

As you know, Cal OES has sponsored the MyShake mobile app, which now has 2.49 million downloads. Public alerts also go out through the Android system on enabled Android phones, sometimes through the federal Wireless Emergency Alert, or WEA system, and that's if the earthquakes are 5.0 or greater, and through other public and proprietary systems in office buildings, factories, and transportation hubs. The system and its public alerting partners have had several real world uses over the last six months.

On September 13 of last year, we experienced a 4.4 earthquake in Santa Rosa. It was originally estimated at the 4.5 threshold, which is why we had alerts go out over 21,300 MyShake and approximately 400,000 Android users were alerted. Nearly 30,000 MyShake app downloads occurred in the three days following the event. And to put this in perspective, we generally average about 3,000 a week. So considerably more than, just six weeks later, on October 25, San Jose experienced a magnitude 5.1 earthquake.

And in that densely populated area, over 95,000 MyShake and over 2.1 million Android users were alerted. We had over 165,000 MyShake downloads in the three day period following that event. Our public outreach includes what we call earthquake rapid response, social media and earn media strategies. And as a result, we saw 182 articles in English, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, and other languages that mentioned earthquake early warning following this earthquake and Cal OES and our system partners were invited to do over 20 broadcast interviews.

And with each one of those mentions, it increases the public awareness of earthquake early warning. The biggest recent earthquake here in California, as you know, was the December 20th 6.4 magnitude in Ferndale, up in Humboldt County, and over 271,000 MyShake and 3 million Android users were alerted. And there were over 108,400 MyShake downloads in a four day period following that event. And that's pretty amazing, considering that's a fairly rural area. These earthquakes tested and validated the earthquake early warning system operations and alerting mechanisms.

We still have work to do with public education and implementation of automated actions in many sectors and settings, and that is our focus this year and moving forward. I want to thank you for your time, and thank you for the Legislature's support of the Earthquake Early Warning Program. And I'm available for any questions.

Thank you. Anything from LAO? All right, so I just want to clarify something. So I heard you reference specifically Android users. So the MyShake app is kind of native to Android users, and it's actually not an app. So there's ability to be able to get that direct, an alert system built into the Android, but there is not clearly for non Android, ie iPhone or the iOS. Right?

That is correct. And so we do focus our efforts on public awareness of the MyShake app to the Apple phones.

But to clarify, you can download it, it's just not automatic.

Right. I heard basically when there's an earthquake, you get a bunch of downloads.

Yes. And those are of the MyShake app, right.

Right of the MyShake gap on the iphones, because they've just experienced an earthquake. So can you speak a little bit more to the education campaign outside of that would be presumably targeted at the iOS users?

Happy to. We have taken quite a diversified strategy. We've as of last year, started some grants to nonprofits to help us do some grassroots work in various communities. And that was so successful that this year we've done a second tranche of grants to those same non governmental organizations. We have a public affairs team that works on this, and we're working to get the message out through various toolkits in various sectors, education, utilities, telecommunications, healthcare, government facilities, and more.

And we're working now on kind of a spearheaded implementation strategy to try to get various businesses, industries, various critical infrastructure sectors interested in implementing earthquake early warning, automated actions in their facilities to protect their customers, their workers, and more.

Can you give me a breakdown if you know of the percentage of Californians that are Android users versus iOS users?

I don't have that. That's actually a very difficult number to come up with. We think it's roughly 50/50 but it's proprietary information, so we don't know for sure.

Had a little bit of a foray into the EdTech World where we were trying to market a particular app and understand the challenges related to iOS versus Android. I actually don't think that it's 50/50. I think the majority of folks are more iOS users than Android.

So I think it would be helpful to understand that, particularly in regard to the education component and awareness component, where you're trying to get people to be able to get onto MyShake and have that be primarily iOS folks to be able to do that. I'll move on. Do you have any details you can share regarding the impact this early warning system has had on utilities or transportation entities or hospitals during an earthquake?

So we do have earthquake early warning in some of our healthcare facilities. I know Cedars-Sinai has a public alerting system. I think probably the greatest impact has been in our transportation sector. As you know, BART is one of the first ones that implemented Earthquake Early Warning. We now have Metrolink as of a week ago, that's fully integrated it into their train system.

And LA Metro, which is a bus system, also provides that to their drivers so that they know when to pull over and alert their riders. So the transportation sector, I'd say, is where we've made the greatest inroads. And you also mentioned utilities. So PG&E has implemented in their facilities, they have a long term plan that they're working through to get it to do more automated actions with their SCADA.

I don't know what SCADA stands for, their systems that control their other systems, but they're just beginning that part of their goal.

And then just a technical question. So does the MyShake app work? Is it keyed into the registrant's location, ie. where they live, or is it where their phone is?

So that's a very good question with a complicated answer. I'll try to simplify it. The nearest cell tower will pick up where their phone is located. So if they're in an area that has a magnitude 4.5 or greater, and with a shaking of what we call MMI three or greater, they'll get an alert.

They'll also get it in a specific location if they register their phone, what we call homebase, so they can put an address in their phone and get alerted whether they're at that address or not. So it doesn't know who they are or where their home is. It just knows that the phone is in that polygon where it's getting alerted.

Understood. I don't have any additional questions, so thank you.

Thank you.

Before we turn to public comment, I want to thank my colleagues and the panelists for the discussions today. We appreciate the preparation and look forward to working together in the coming months. We will start with any public comment in the hearing room. Each person will have up to 1 minute for public comment. Next, we will turn to the phones. The phone number to connect is on the Committee website and should be also on the screen if you are streaming this hearing.

The number is for the public toll free number 877-692-8957 and the public access code is 1314737. That was wrong. The public access code is 1315437 we'll move on to public comment in the room. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Madam Chair, I am Christina DiCaro, representing the California Public Television. We're a group of the public broadcasting stations in the state, including KQED in San Francisco. I'm speaking relative to an item on the Cal OES budget.

We'd like to thank the team at Cal OES, their early earthquake warning unit, as well as this Subcommitee, the Senate Subcommitee, and your consultant, Jennifer Kim, for helping CPT ensure that $500,000 in funding was included in the 2022-23 Cal OES spending plan for phase two of a project between Cal OES and CPT. Specifically, the funds will connect the remaining six public television stations in the state to the early earthquake warning system, which will complete a successful pilot started in 2018.

And with this technology, countless first responders and frontline workers will be able to eventually receive warnings on a receiver box when an earthquake, fire or other disaster is imminent. The receiver box can direct a fire station door to roll up automatically so that the fire trucks aren't trapped inside, or it can direct surgeons at a hospital to stop their surgeries. We are requesting $1.8 million in one time funds to begin placing the receivers in various high risk locations throughout the state.

We know the budget is very, very tight, but we would appreciate your support for this life saving program, and thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair. Amanda Gualderama for CalBroadband. We respectfully request that the Committee reject the proposed trailer building, which relating to the 988 lifeline. Last year, a coalition worked with the author of AB 988 to ensure a balance of affordability for consumers and the capacity of use for the lifeline.

If the sources of the funding or the use of the surcharge funds are proposed to be changed, we believe those discussions are better suited to be held in the Policy Committee process rather than the budget. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no one else in the hearing room, we will move to the phones.

Thank you, Madam Chair. For those who wish to comment, please press one, then zero at this time. We're going to go to line 18. Your line is now open.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Tara Gamboa-Eastman with the Steinberg Institute here on behalf of both the Steinberg Institute and the Kennedy Forum, the two lead co sponsors of Assembly Bill 988 last year. We're still reviewing the trailer bill, and while we know it's going through sub one, obviously it touches the Office of Emergency Services. Look forward to working with you and sub one, as well as the rest of the Legislature and the Administration.

Thank you to the Committee for today's discussion, as well as to OEs for their work to implement 988. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair. There is no one else who signaled they wish to speak.

Thank you. With that, that concludes the Assembly Budget Subcommittee number five on public safety.

Thank you, Madam Chair.