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

We are joining, we are joined by representatives from the Department of Industrial Relations, Agricultural Labor Relations Board, Employment Development Department, California Workforce Department, Development Board, Legislative Analyst Office, and the Department of Finance. There are five issues on the agenda that cover major governor's proposals, none of which were part of last week's early action agreement. We will also hear General status updates from EDD and the workforce Development Board. This is an informational hearing, so we are not taking any votes today. We will take public comment.

After all, discussion issues are covered. To ensure we have time for everything on today's agenda, we are asking presenters to keep their testimony under five minutes. I would also ask my fellow Committee Members to keep their comments and questions concise. Would any Members like to say anything before we begin seeing? None. Before we begin discussion, let's establish quorum consultant. Please call the roll. [Roll Call] We have a quorum. The consultant notes the quorum has been established. Let's begin with our first issue.

Our first issue is going to be California Youth Apprenticeship program. Our panel will be Andrew Marsh, Department of Finance, Chas Alamo, Legislative Analyst Office Adele Burns, Department of Industrial Relations. Thank you. Issue one covers the youth apprenticeship program at Dir. First, we will hear from Andrew Marsh, Department of Finance. Please go ahead. You will be timed.

Good morning, Andrew Marsh, Department of Finance. As noted in the agenda, the Governor's Budget proposes a delay of the $25 million slated for the California Youth Apprenticeship program in 24-25 and to delay it over the the next few years. This is part of our comprehensive package of Governor's Budget solutions that include approximately 734.5 million of delays. Approximately 355 million of those delays were adopted in the early action package last week. So these are some of the remaining items for discussion.

Any comments from Lao?

Good morning, Madam Chair Chas Alamo with the Ledge analyst office. No specific comments about the delays here in this item. I think we'd note that this is the administration's proposed package of delays for workforce programs, and the Subcommitee and the Legislature as a whole has an opportunity to rethink the specific outlines and the details of what programs would be subject to delays either within or beyond the administration's anticipated sort of total target for the delay amount in past budgets, the Subcommitee has considered alternatives to the administration's package and could do so again this year.

Thank you. Next we're going to hear from the Department of Industrial Relations, Miss Burnes.

Good morning, folks. Pleasure to be here. So I'm very happy to share that the first round of the California opportunity Youth Apprenticeship grant has been a huge success, just in terms of the level of engagement that we've had at every stage of the grant. And this really speaks to the need for the funding, and I applaud the championing of this funding source and really the need that it's filling.

So, as shared with you in the summary update, the California Youth Youth Apprenticeship Committee first convened in early 2023 and was embarked on work to develop recommendations to all of us around three definitions of youth apprenticeship, advisory on the most effective use of the funds, and also how we as a state organize around youth apprenticeship. And that group is convening regularly and is working towards a report to all of us by June of 2024. So we look forward forward to, to that.

And we are drafting that, and we'll be gathering public comment on that in the coming months. But of course, we knew that we needed to deploy the funding before that report was due. So that was advisory around the use of the funding was one of the first things that the group embarked upon. And we held a public comment process around the most effective use of the funds. And we got just a tremendous response, 53 written comments.

We had 90 people attend a public meeting and speak up and share their public comments. I personally read through 120 pages of public comment, and it was really, really valuable to get that engagement and to get that input from folks as to how to most effectively use the funds. So we, in November of 2023, we announced the framework of the funding at the November National Apprenticeship Week event that we hosted on the subject of youth apprenticeship.

And we opened up the solicitation for proposals on February 5 of this year. And by the March 15 deadline, we got an incredible 192 proposals, which vastly exceeded all of our expectations. So, once again, testament to the importance of this funding to support opportunity youth in getting into apprenticeship programs. So we received proposals in four different categories. We have pre apprenticeship planning grants, apprenticeship planning grants, pre apprenticeship implementation grants, and apprenticeship implementation grants.

And one of the key things we focused on in evaluating proposals was looking for organizations that had experience serving opportunity youth and helping them enter into employment. That was one of the key areas. So we have finalized the review and we are, as we speak, preparing the press release and the award letters. That are very soon to go out.

And just to give you a little sneak peek, we have 51 proposals that we have selected for funding, and it's roughly one third apprenticeship implementation grants, one third pre apprenticeship implementation grants, and one third planning grants, with a little bit more emphasis on the apprenticeship planning grants. And the aim, through the implementation grants, is to serve roughly 2000 individuals. And we just.

We got such an incredible number of quality proposals that while we initially intended using $25 million of the funding we've been allocated so far, there were so many amazing proposals, we went back to our finance team, and ultimately we're awarding $31.1 million in this first round of the grant. So in addition to the CoIa grant, we've been diligently hiring in the areas of program support, support, the funding team, and outreach roles. And we're in the final interview stages on the program support and the funding team.

So we're going to be onboarding those folks in the coming months to really support with these 51, but really the 192 proposals, because even though we couldn't Fund them all, of course, we are here to support all of them in developing programs. So the next steps, we are going to be finalizing and executing those $31 million in contract and getting at least the first 20 million of those encumbered before the June 30 deadline. So we're on track for that.

We'll, of course, be onboarding the new team Members, and we do plan to do future rounds of the Coia grants, possibly with a focus on funding the successful planning grants from this first phase to help them launch and scale their programs. I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you, colleagues. Do you have any specific questions for the panel? Senator Durazzo,

I just want to thank you. I'm personally very excited and very proud of having moved that forward, so. And to see you actually doing it really, really makes me excited. Not one of those words just put off and put off. So thank you very much on behalf of all the youth.

Senator Seyarto.

So in the relation to our budget, what happens to these youth after they go through their apprenticeship?

Yeah. So, as you know, the apprenticeship is employment. Right? And so it's a job that they're in. And historically, somewhere between 80 and 90% of apprentices get hired on as full time employees by the employers that they're apprenticing with. So that's absolutely the hope. And the intention is that after that, they are employed.

And this grant does also Fund some pre apprenticeship programs because we know when we're supporting youth who are out of school who are disconnected from our education system, facing systemic barriers, they sometimes need a little bit of extra support to get into that apprenticeship, get into that job. So there are pre apprenticeship programs, and through the grant program, we focused on making sure that those had a paid training, because, again, opportunity youth, they can't afford to not be earning, but maybe they need that extra help.

So for the pre apprentices, we hope that they matriculate into the whole system of apprenticeship programs that we're building. And that linkage is one of the key things that we also looked at.

In evaluating the grants and with respect to our budget. One of our problems is we're not collecting enough revenue to meet what we want to spend. And one of the revenue sources is income taxes from people that are employed. And so spending this money, I would think, would create that. On the other end, a cut to this exacerbates the problem that we're already having, which is we don't have enough money on the revenue side from people that are working. So we have to grow the economy.

And it sounds like that's what this does. So you spend money here, but we make a lot more money on the other side.

Yes, I agree with the philosophy there.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no other questions. We appreciate your time. Issue number two, women in construction unit. Again, we're going to have Andrew March, Department of Finance, Chas Alamo Legislative Analyst Office, Adele Burns, Department of Industrial Relations. Issue number two covers the women in construction unit at the Department of Industrial Relations. Dirty. First, we will hear from Andrew Marsh.

Andrew Marsh, Department of Finance. The 2022 budget included $15 million General Fund ongoing for the Women in construction priority unit. This proposal in the Governor's Budget proposes to reduce that to $10 million ongoing, which I would like to just reframe it that the $15 million was provided at a very different time with a very different budget outlook, a large surplus. This reduction sort of, we feel right sizes the investment while maintaining the commitment to the women in construction priority unit of maintaining the ongoing funding.

Thank you, Lao.

No specific comments on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Dir.

All right, so with the women in construction unit, we have rolled out the first round of the equal representation in construction apprenticeship grants, Erica for short, with the first 25 million encumbered and going to 19 different organizations across the two categories of funding in the grant, which include supportive resources for childcare and outreach and community building, to try to invite more underrepresented groups into the building trades. And we have the first two reporting periods complete.

So we have some initial impact metrics to share with you today. So the overall target number of participants that we're aiming to serve with the supportive resources for childcare specifically, is 2153 participants. So that's the overall plan over the life of the grant, which we're sort of a third of the way into. But really we only have the first two reporting periods.

So actual participants served in those first two periods is only 77, which is not that surprising because a lot of the grantees are setting up their systems for reimbursement or stipend of childcare. So we're expecting those numbers to go up. But we certainly looked at the first set of participants, and of those actual participants, 31% are women.

And it's important to keep in mind that this child care funding is available to all apprentices and pre apprentices, parents and legal guardians who are in building trades, apprentice building trades programs that got this grant. While, of course, it would be nice if the gender breakdown was closer to 50%, it is important to keep in mind that in 20233.95% of building trades apprentices were women. So by comparison, 31% is actually a pretty solid number.

And I think if we all got to the end of this project and there were 31% women in the building trades, I think we would all be pretty excited. So we, of course, also want to zoom out and look at the overall representation numbers in apprenticeship as a whole, not just in this set that got the grant. So in 2022, there were 3.73% of new CAC apprentices were women, and in 2023 we saw that tick up a little bit to 3.95%. So that is an improvement.

This is the right direction. But of course we want to be seeing more significant gains in the coming years with this investment that we're really just embarking on the implementation of. So, within Dir and Das, we are implementing the one year review of the Erica grantees coming up in June and July. We have been convening the Women in construction Committee, which has met quarterly since Q two of 2023. And that group's been looking at like a literature review of how has this issue been evaluated?

Doing a data dive into representation in the different trades within the building trades, and also working to develop a work plan for the group with activities and goals. So that is underway. And we are also doing a outreach and marketing campaign with the support of contracting a marketing firm and working with the Dir Office of External affairs to do really an amplification of the messages of all of the outreach efforts of the Erica grantees.

And we are also in the midst of hiring a few folks within Dir to support with this. And specifically, we brought on an apprenticeship consultant. She's amazing. Named Lisette Cruz, who's our equity and inclusion apprenticeship consultant and leading the women in construction work within Das and with the Erica grantees. And we're also in final interview stages for a person in our funding team. So, next steps.

We continue to cultivate this community of practice of the Erica grantees so that they can be sharing effective practices across them. We are planning to run another round of the Erica grants later in this calendar year, and we will do so with the funds made available to us for that effort. And of course, we're continuing with that marketing campaign again to amplify the outreach efforts that are taking place with the Erica outreach and community building grantees. I'm happy to take questions.

Do we. Senator? Sorry. Durazzo.

Yes. I just want to clarify. This is a permanent cut that's being proposed.

And yes, it's a permanent reduction, reducing the 15 million ongoing to 10 million ongoing. Given the projected budget deficit in the out years, we feel that this is a prudent measure to take at this time.

Okay. And I appreciate that it wasn't all cut, but it's such a small amount to begin with. I'm really concerned about it being an ongoing cut. Women hold the majority of Low wage jobs, jobs in this country, and it's a direct reason why there's a persistent gender wage gap.

And so if we don't address the opportunities and really invest in women for their opportunities to get higher paid jobs, we're always going to be, every year we're going to celebrate or not celebrate the fact that this gender gap is so persistent, seeing as how it is showing very positive signs of success, I just would ask why especially such a small amount would be permanently reduced.

And considering the impact, the enormous impact for such a small amount would have on helping women get into higher paid jobs.

Yes.

Across the Governor's Budget, there are many difficult decisions that had to be made, and so we had to reevaluate our ongoing commitments as well to be able to afford other commitments that the Administration and the Legislature have made over the past few years. So, as you noted, rather than reducing the entire amount, we feel that reducing it up to $10 million still provides a meaningful impact to this community while maintaining the ongoing funding.

Are you done, Senator Seyarto?

A little bit on the same lines. So does this reduction reflect a non use of the $5 million? And so it's sitting on the shelf and not because there isn't enough participation, or is it an actual cut where we're going to be serving that much less people in the program?

So the $15 million could be used very broadly by the Department of Industrial Relations. So in addition to funding staff at the Department of Industrial Relations and a woman in construction Committee, it can be also used for support. So it's depending up to the Department sort of how much is used for these various activities. So to date, the majority of the funding has been used to provide grants, as my colleague from the Department noted. But in the future, it could be used for different priorities.

I'm trying to quantify how much that $5 million cut results in as far as income later on to the state. In other words, are we giving up $20 million of increased economic activity for a $5 million cut a year for doing that? I'd rather spend the five and take the 20 later on.

Understood. We don't do those sorts of projections. But this program is done to reimburse for childcare is what the grants have been done for, predominantly up to the state. So it's not necessarily similar to the other program, the youth apprenticeship program that was noted earlier.

So it enables them to get the training they need to get into the economy and return, make great returns. So because that's what I'm kind of getting at, there's some money we spend in the front to make more in the back.

And if we're going to focus our money on high visibility, but not pay attention to what it's creating on the other side, we're going to continue the problem we're having with our budget, which is not enough revenue from people with meaningful jobs that pay well, that enable them to participate in the economy. Thank you.

I would ask you to look at setting aside a percentage of the federal infrastructure funding for workforce development so that we have an ongoing. We don't have to worry about being cut, just Reserve a percentage from that federal funding for workforce development and apprenticeship.

Thank you. I personally just want to say that there are women in construction in my district, and I've had conversations with them, and I'd be more interested in a little bit of the demographics, particularly women who, you know, let's say, are of child rearing, slash bearing age if they are pregnant, obviously, the work is a little bit, you know, accommodations have to be made, number one.

Number two, after they have a child and some of them have shared with me stories of, for example, when they have c sections and so forth, they cannot lift 50 pounds, right. They cannot do some of the physical work that is required in construction. And I would like to see more programs or arrangements made to entice women of all ages to be able to do construction work.

This is also including leadership positions in construction, not just the physical labor piece of it and the planning and management and so forth of different projects. I would like to see a full pipeline for women in construction. And construction is not obviously just, you know, you know, many of us sometimes think, you know, just construction is like, let's say carpentry and like putting up, you know, walls and so forth.

But there's a lot of other work that is subdivided into construction, you know, electrical and so forth that can be very much a great job for women, and it's especially middle class jobs, union jobs and so, so much more.

So I would like to see a little bit more planning and then also a little bit more data in regards to the demographics, age, how long they've been in it, because if they only do it for a year and then have to dip out because they had a baby or they can't keep up with the physical demands and so forth, I would like to see other opportunities for them and programs and arrangements designed specifically to attract and maintain women, including those that are aging as well past 455060 so forth.

So I would like to see a little bit more of that, and I do appreciate your presentation. I'll move on to the next item. Issue number three, various governor's proposals for Dir. We're going to hear from Andrew March, Department of Finance Courtney Massengill, Department of Finance Chas Alamo Legislative Analyst Office Josh Iverson, chief financial officer of Dir. Sebastian Sanchez, Deputy secretary of Agricultural, Agricultural, Agriculture and Immigrant workforce, labor and Workforce Development Agency Victoria Haseed, ALrB, board chair Deanna Ping, Chief Deputy Director of Dir. Juliet Montgomery, ALRB General counsel that's a lot of people. Issue number three covers various governor's proposals for Dir. First, we're going to hear from Andrew March, Department of Finance.

Andrew March, Department of Finance. So as noted in the agenda, there are a number of proposals for the Department of Industrial Relations. I understand that the Committee wants to focus on the rural strategic engagement program, so I'll turn it over to my colleagues to provide more context on that.

Thank you. Good morning, chair and Committee Members. My name is Deanna Ping I'm the Chief Deputy Director for the Department of Industrial Relations. As my colleague mentioned, item three lists several BCPs for our discussion, but will mostly focus on the rural strategic engagement program. But I did just want to take a moment to highlight the common theme across our proposals.

And in short, they support our efforts to improve our service delivery, increase departmental capacity, and scale our impact through automation projects to modernize our systems so that we can better support enforcement, data analysis, and our adjudication efforts. It also supports supports our staffing augmentations to address increasing workload demands and as well as outreach resources to more effectively reach and engage vulnerable workers.

And so with that, I'm going to turn it over to Sebastian Sanchez, our deputy secretary of Agriculture and Immigrant workforce, to talk about the rural engagement BCP. Thank you.

Thank you so much. This rural strategic engagement program was developed that the instructions of Secretary Knox in conjunction with both the ALRB and the Department of Industrial Relations.

This program is meant to address ongoing gaps in our ability to effectively service workers in rural areas of the state consistently through our engagement with stakeholders, as well as through our ongoing outreach programs, the COVID-19 workplace outreach program project in the statewide Agriculture and farm worker education program, we've continued to hear that there are particular challenges for farm workers and workers in rural areas.

There's a lack of knowledge as to where they should go and who they should engage, not really properly understanding which of our enforcement agencies do what. We also have ongoing siloed enforcement efforts. There's been an effort to increase the collaboration, but we want to continue to break down those silos and encourage more collaboration across all our agencies and leverage all of the staff that we have available in both outreach and enforcement to work together.

And we also just want to reduce the obstacles with regards to distance that farmworkers have in engaging our offices. We have three priorities for this program. One is increasing access to in person services and creating one stop locations where a farm worker can come or a rural worker can come and address any question that they might have, whether it's a wage and hour question, a health and safety question, or a question about their ability to engage in collective action in the workplace.

We plan to do that through ongoing clinics, launching clinics in collaboration with trusted partners that we've developed relationships with through our CWAP programs, where we will bring all of our agencies, including even working with with EDD, to bring UI Services and DI Services to farmworkers.

The second part of this is really establishing a no wrong door policy and cross training all our staff to have a minimum level of knowledge and understanding as to what rights and protections farmworkers have in the workplace, as well as employer obligations, so that if a farm worker engages any of our entities, rather than being told, here's a phone number, here's a website, they will be warmly handed off to the appropriate agency that has jurisdiction over the particular issue that farmworker has.

And finally, we want to continue to invest in the development of farmworker specific outreach assets. We've learned over the past few years, particularly through our COVID efforts, that we need to develop more audio visual tools for farmworkers and really simple plain language items. So that will be the focus of our work. I'll pass it along to Julie Montgomery, our General counsel for ALRB, to go into a little more detail as to ALRB's role.

So the ALRB will be implementing the parts of the proposal that Sebastian mentioned, specifically relating to cross training and providing content for that training, and collaborating with the different organizations and departments within our labor agency so that we can break down silos, as he mentioned, and provide more comprehensive services and understand what one another does.

And also just make sure everyone has some minimal tools in place, cultural competency, understand how to work with farmworkers, how to refer cases to one another, how to work together more effectively, and just increase access to the state so that farm workers can come to any of our offices or any locations and get services. We will also be strategically placing staff in rural locations that are harder to access for farm workers so that they can get more face time, more services from our staff and representatives.

We'll be working hand in hand with nonprofit, community based organizations as well to further those services and reduce barriers. And as Sebastian mentioned, we are also going to be significantly expanding our outreach assets. ALRB did. We had a budget change proposal approved three years ago in which we hired four outreach staff persons. One of them was just hired in the last year, and the other three were hired a few years ago.

But they have greatly increased our outreach presence, and we've gotten a start on our outreach assets, and we begun to develop materials in different languages, different formats, such as social media content, plain language materials that are more accessible to farm workers. But we've just started that process, and we need to greatly expand it. There are many different indigenous languages spoken by the more than 800,000 farmworkers in multiple areas throughout the state.

I mean, farmworkers are far flung all over the state, and there's quite a lot of diversity. So we really have our work cut out for us, and we just barely begun. So this is a monumental effort to be able to increase access to this vulnerable population.

And it is going to require a fair amount of resource and work to be able to effectively deliver services to this population that speaks many different languages, has a lot of fear about being retaliated against and even coming forward, enforcing their rights, trusting government to begin with. These are all very difficult tasks that we have to overcome through multiple different strategies to be able to increase access to this population. And as we've seen, there's a great, great need. So with that, I can answer any questions.

Thank you, Committee Members. Senator Newman.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the presentation. Question. How do we measure or track success in programs like the rural strategic engagement program?

Thank you for that question. There's both an aspect of looking at the metrics, at how many workers that we will be engaging, and we're looking in these monthly clinics. At the very least, we plan to launch at least six clinics by the end of this program. The labor Commissioner's office launched a similar clinic that has really laid the foundation for this program. In Santa Maria, the first clinic, they had eight workers.

At the last clinic, in December of this past year, they had over 100 workers attend. So we're hoping that at the very least, we'll be having, once we start clinics, about 20 to 30 workers. And then as we progress and develop trust in the community that we're there, present regularly, that we'll be seeing more like 40 to 50 workers per clinic and doing at least six clinics on a monthly basis. We're also currently taking some lessons that we've learned from the COVID-19 workplace outreach project.

We're working in conjunction with the possibility lab to really develop an evaluation of how this outreach programs function and what the impact is. So we have included in this BCP additional funding to engage with vendors to help us develop an evaluation to look at other metrics of how this program can impact farmworkers.

So do I understand that you're developing a post clinic evaluation methodology, but you don't have one in place yet? Is that correct? How do we track the impact on participants after the clinics?

Well, we'll track the number of workers that are attending these clinics.

No, the impact on them post clinic, what they get out of the clinic.

I think that we'll be developing that. This is a program that we're piloting and we've seen, this has been built on caravans that we did through the CWAP program. And we got a lot of feedback from stakeholders about the need to have regular presence. So we're hoping to continue to build on that information we've gotten from stakeholders.

And you'll provide that information to us, I assume, over time?

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Senator Durazzo.

I just want to thank you very much. You mentioned 800,000 farmworkers, but they're not really. It's actually very, very shameful that a state like California that depends so much on agriculture and these 800,000 workers where these workers would not, would have the conditions that they have both working and living conditions and the fear that they live in. So part of my question is, I assume having experience in low wage industries, that working with partners in the community is an important part of this. Could you just talk a little bit about that?

Absolutely. So, as I mentioned a couple times, the clinic model of this program is based on lessons we learned through our COVID-19 workplace Outreach project, where we work closely, closely with trust and messenger and organizations throughout the state.

During the COVID campaign, we launched these caravans that the labor commissioners came up with, and then we had all our teams join in where we worked with an organization in a local rural community to help us drive through the fields, go to places where farmworkers congregate and live, and be able to engage the workers in those spaces.

This model continues that and builds on that by working directly with a trusted partner organization to co host the clinic, to help us do outreach to workers, to help us ensure that the workers will be present and make it a welcoming space for those workers. We're also looking, I think, when we look at cross training our staff, it's not just substantive issues that we want to train them on. We want to ensure that they have cultural competency to engage workers.

So that's something that organizations can really help provide information to us when, if they need to work with an interpreter, for example, for an indigenous language speaker, that's somewhere where we can also work with trusted partners. So this program is really meant to build on our experience that we've had over the past three years in developing these outreach models with trusted organizations.

And I would also just add that in addition to so much of the groundwork has been laid in those community partnerships where even as part of CWAP, we've put together a working group to get feedback on our materials. What's missing? What information do we need to add? How can we simplify them? Much of which influenced the proposal here. Right. But is also going to build upon this work of how do we better tailor those resources. And in my mind, too, that's the way we measure success.

I remember when we launched the caravans, it was a mad rush to get audio in Mixteco and Tricky and Vorevica, and we had those and it was great. And the hope is we can measure some success by having more of those and having those resources. And we can see how they're being utilized both in the field and also just through kind of the metrics on our website and things like that. And so I just wanted to add that as well. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. So with this program, it's going to generate more workloads for the agencies that are going to handle the complaints and also process those complaints. Do you guys anticipate how much it's going to cost down and have you, are we going to have a budget that will be able to handle the additional workload or are you guys equipped already with the amount of people you need to handle this additional workload downstream?

I think that's something that we've been monitoring our caseloads and will continue to do. So we just are monitoring our workload across our Department.

What I will say, though, is, and I hate using anecdotes, so forgive me, but I remember when we were doing in the midst of the COVID outreach campaign and we had a worker who because of a fact sheet we created on supplemental paid sick leave, was able to go to their employer and say, look, supplemental paid sick leave, like I would like this, I got COVID and that employer gave it to them. That's not a claim to us.

Like, so I would say that there's, I can't quite hypothesize what that means. Right. In terms of what our caseload. What I can say is we'll monitor it like we continue to do so across our Department. But also I think that there very much is a gap in which there are just people, people who don't know about these protections and both on the employer side and on the worker side.

Right. And I understand that part. I'm just, are we anticipating that there will be an increased workload which we are going to have to budget for in the future?

We will continue to monitor.

Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate your time. We're going to move on to issue number four. Sorry, Senator Durazo has an additional question.

Sorry, I'm sorry. I thought we were just doing questions on this particular program, but I have some broader questions sort of segue off of Senator Seyarto about the staffing at the DIR, the labor Commissioner.

Okay. We know that there's understaffing. There's a backlog of issues and complaints or claims, I should say claims. So given the severe backlogs, how do you see your plans for increasing the staffing to be able to handle those backlogs? Are you proposing increases in staffing to address the backlogs?

So in the current.

One more, I'm sorry, one more question. Is the Governor announced budget cuts. One of them would be eliminating vacant positions. Is that something that you are considering? I hope not. Thank you.

So with the vacant positions. So that was adopted as part of early action. So the proposal that, that the Legislature and the Governor signed last week is to potentially reduce departments budgets by up to half of the amount of vacant positions. So there's still a lot more conversations to happen with the Legislature as far as how this is implemented. But it would be across, at the moment, the proposal is across all state government.

So we would obviously monitor how that would impact departments to make sure that there's no impacts to programs, programs.

And so on the labor Commissioner side, I did want to note I do have colleagues with me from my leadership team in case anyone wants to ask more questions about the BCPs we put forward. We don't have a BCP for the labor Commissioner's office staffing. You may recall we did in the previous budget. And so our current priority is to fill those vacancies. That's what we're trying to do now from the previous augmentation specifically that we had for wage claim. So we are focused on that.

We actually just recently launched a nationwide recruitment campaign that's specifically targeting Cal OSHA as well as the labor Commissioner's office to get more people eligible on the list, to get more people so we can hire larger pools for when we're hiring candidates and things like that to hopefully scale up our hiring. So currently we don't have a proposal forward in this budget, but we are, it's our main priority is to get those vacancy rates down.

Thank you. We'll now move on to our next issue area. Issue area number four, General EdD updates and Edd next, Andrew March, Chaz Alamo, Nancy Farias and Ron Hughes. And we're going to start with, and we also have additional questions and details from Caleb Horrell, Employment Development Department. Thank you again. Issue area number four covers General EDD updates and the administration's EdD next proposal. First, we're going to hear from Andrew March with the Department of Finance please go ahead.

Andrew March, Department of Finance so, as noted in the agenda, the Governor's Budget includes significant amounts of funding for EDD next. That's the third year of the IT project, which will modernize EDD's benefits system. I'm joined by the Director of EDD, who will provide a larger update on EDD next as well.

Thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. Thanks for inviting me here today to just provide a short overview of the modernization efforts that's underway, especially as it relates to EDD next and the IT infrastructure, which is the budget proposal before you today. I want to first thank the almost 9000 employees at EDD who do all of the work, answer the phones, collect the taxes, determine eligibility.

I am incredibly grateful for their dedication to the Department Department as well as to the State of of California. Thank you. So, as you are aware, EDD implements some of the state's most vital programs for workers, Unemployment Insurance, disability insurance, and paid family leave, as well as for employers. We collect the most income tax in the nation, second only to the IR's.

As a Director of this Department for the past several years, my focus has been on one major initiative that has had and will continue to have the most impact to the customers we serve, including our employees. And that's eddnext. Eddnext is a top to bottom modernization and culture effort for the Department and its programs. Yes, it's a very big IT project, but it's also much more than that.

You can have the best technology in the world, but if you do not change the processes, procedures, and policies, the technology will not be helpful. For example, technology will help us get payments to customers faster. But if our application is not in plain language or in the language that claimants speak, there will inevitably be delays, and we want to prevent that. As such, the budget proposal before you today includes seven different work streams, each intended to improve the customer employee experience.

It all starts with listening to our customers, the employees, the Legislature, the Auditor, the Lao advocates, vendors, other states, sometimes even DOF. Basically, if you have advice, we will take it with that. I just want to take a few minutes to highlight some of the accomplishments that I know this Committee is interested in. To provide ongoing support to multilingual communities, we establish a language access office, led by our language Act Access officer.

Their work has helped establish dedicated UI call centers in the most commonly spoken languages, while also providing access to interpreters in over 200 languages at no cost. We created a user experience as well as a customer experience team, ensuring our customers are at the forefront of every change we make. We have used many of the thousands of comments and suggestions from customers and staff in in our modernization efforts. In June of 2023, we launched my EDD, our new shared customer portal.

My EDD embodies our approach to modernization, delivering improvements to customers quickly and making meaningful changes over time. My EDD launched in English and Spanish, and as of last month, the portal is available in the top eight languages used by EDD customers. In parallel, we've also made our UI application available in the top eight languages, including Armenian, Korean, Tagalog, Spanish, simplified Chinese, and traditional Chinese, as well as Vietnamese.

Moving forward, we are also working on a complete overhaul of our UI online application, shortening the application by eliminating unnecessary or duplicative questions and adopting plain language to to make the questions simpler and easier to understand. For example, we'll be changing questions from like are you ready and willing to accept part time work in your usual type of work? To a simple question are you able to accept a part time job? If listening to customers is the first step, then better communication is the second.

We know that the most important information that customers want is the status of their claim of our modernization. We've created new text messaging services for our UI, PFL and Di programs, providing customers with important information about their claims. We also launched a UI claim status tracker, which provides customers with real time information about the status of their claim immediately after they log in. We plan to introduce a similar claim status tracker for Di and PFL in the next coming months.

For our call centers, we've partnered with Amazon to develop a new platform which will launch later this year. It's the same platform that's used in other departments, and it will give customers more self service options and make it easier for our staff to provide callers what they need. We also plan to launch a secure live chat service, providing even more real time information. Whether a customer interacts with us online or by paper, protecting their personal information is a priority.

During the pandemic, we began using ID me to verify claimants identities in real time. ID me allows customers to verify their information by uploading documents or connecting with a live agent. As part of Eddnext, we plan to further improve our identity verification process by also adopting frictionless technology technology from Soqure. We estimate that this will allow most of our customers to verify their identities without the need to upload documents.

Last, but certainly not least, is the adoption of the new technology system that we're here to talk about. This effort will replace the core benefit systems we use to process claims which have not been modernized in decades. The request for information period just closed last month and the response from the vendor community is super exciting. Everybody wants in. We expect the new system will allow us to make changes to our programs faster, improve services, and better provide better support for our EDD employees and our customers.

That's just a short list of some of the ways Edd is proving the process, making it easier for customers to interact with EDD. We're committed to continually improving and appreciate the support of the Legislature in fulfilling this mission. I'm joined by my amazing colleagues, Ron, who's the project Director of EDD next, and Caleb, who is our chief financial officer. That's not Caleb. That's Caleb. To answer any questions that you may have. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Do we have anybody else?

Chas Alamo with the Lao. No specific comments. Happy to provide context or answer questions that the Committee might have about.

Thank you very much, Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. So the Governor, in the budget, there's a $1 billion repayment to the Federal Government for the fraudulent claims that were made previously. And do we have a status update? Because we are challenging that, as far as I remember, to see if we could get that amount lowered.

So for as far as fraud goes, we've collected about $6 billion. I'm not familiar with what you're talking about with the 1 billion, but. zero, the lost wages, I see.

Yeah, lost wages. I'm sorry.

And we have not heard back from the Federal Government on that. Not yet, we don't.

And is that amount included in the Governor's Budget as a line item for potential repayment or is, if we don't get that, is it going to be in addition to the deficit that we already have?

So it's included in the overall budget. It's been accounted for.

Okay. That's what I was asking. So it's not going to be a surprise later on if the government says no and doesn't reduce that amount, it's already covered in the current budget?

That's correct.

Okay. Thank you, Senator.

Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate the work that you did. Jumped right in, or you were pushed in into this and you've really taken it by the horn. So I appreciate all of your work. So the UI system benefits system, I think you would agree that the system is chronically underfunded. And just as a reminder, the paid family leave is paid for by the workers. The disability benefits are paid by the workers. The unemployment benefits are paid by employers. So it's chronically underfunded.

What is the Administration doing to address this? It's a structural deficit. So what is the Administration doing and about it?

So at this time, the Governor's Budget does not include any proposals to increase taxes on employers as to increase Unemployment Insurance taxes.

I'm sorry, I didn't.

There is no proposal in the Governor's Budget to increase taxes on employers for Unemployment Insurance.

Okay. Well, I would suggest the, I think it would be a great thing to do for the Administration to work with the Legislature, to work with the labor, to work with employers to address this. We're paying somewhere between 34, $500 million just on the interest of the loan that we've been having to get. We're on the lower end of contributions. We're on the lower end of. Low end of benefits. So I really think it's.

I would make that suggestion to the Administration to work with us because we've got to come up with, we've got to come up with a path to address this and along the lines of the technology, the EDD. Next. Speaking of benefits, there are some of us who are trying to figure out how to include undocumented workers to receive benefits as well. Their employers pay into the system, but the employees don't get anything when they're needed.

It's difficult to hold on to working people when there's not a safety net for them, when they lose their job through no fault of their own. So is there anything in the technology and the program that could be incorporated to, you know, on that piece of it? I don't mean the policy piece, but to address the technology. Is that available to be able to address the issue of undocumented?

Yeah. From a technology standpoint, the new technology for EDD, for the UI program, for all the programs will be much more flexible. The program today are really difficult to make changes to, really costly, really time consuming. The new systems will be a lot more flexible. So any proposed program changes will be much easier to implement.

And is this the right timing in terms of taking that into consideration?

Yeah, I mean, once we get the new technology implemented, and by the way, we've drafted the RFP, we're going to release it in June of this year. Then once we get that implemented, making changes will be much more straightforward than what we have to do today.

Okay. I think that's it.

Thank you. I'd like to ask a question. Does EDD anticipate spending all of its EDd next 20232024 appropriations by June 30?

Yes. So we got an extended appropriation period to June 30 of 2025. And so we will spend all that appropriation by that point. It was in the budget language for, I think, 2023.

Okay. So as of today, what is the projected overall cost for EDD next?

I'm going to have to put my glasses on. Sorry. It is 1.258 billion. Hasn't changed. We'll have a little more clarity once we complete the last procurement, which is the integrated claims management system. But we're very comfortable with the number 1.25 million. Billion. Sorry, billion. Yes.

Okay. And overall, for how many years? When is this going to be, like, fleet complete?

It's a five year process, five year project, and the completion date depends on the vendor selected. We reached out to the vendor community. We've been talking to them constantly for the last couple of years, and depending on the solution chosen, it will either be a three year implementation or a four and a half year implementation. So again, we'll have more clarity on the total project costs and the schedule once we complete the procurement.

All right. I personally want to just thank the Director of Employment Development Department for meeting with me one on one. I really do appreciate that. I know that you deeply care about a lot of the work. I have a question in regards to EDD amounts for people. What is the lowest to the maximum that an individual can make?

The lowest, I believe, is $50. And the max is $450 a week.

A week. And how long has it been since that's been updated?

It's probably older than me. I don't know, and I'm old. 2000.

Okay. And can a person survive on $50 a week?

Madam Chair, if I may, I understand the line of the questioning. We as an office just requested some sort of individual level data from the Employment Development Department on the income characteristics of people who get Unemployment Insurance benefits. In statute, the minimum is $50 a week. In practice, almost no one receives such a small amount. Very few workers receive a UI benefit that's less than $200 a week. So statutorily, as a policy, that is our state's minimum.

But in practice, because of the state's labor market in 2024, it's difficult to be eligible for UI and be eligible for such a small amount. So the practical effect is.

So practically, on average, an individual who's on Unemployment Insurance receives about dollar $800 a month, right? That's what you said, $200 a week.

Very few people receiving Unemployment Insurance receive benefits lower than $200 a week. The average is about $350 a week. So more like $1,400 a month.

So $1,400 a month. Does that cover rent, the average rent in California?

I don't know. Off the top of my head with the median.

It doesn't.

It probably doesn't cover.

It doesn't.

That's a question for the Legislature, the Administration, to determine a path forward if it desires changes to benefit levels. Adjusting benefit levels in the UI program has been a long standing interest of the legislature. Since I started on the assignment seven years ago, changes have not been made, in part certainly due to the fiscal condition of the UI Trust Fund. The Fund has difficulty generating the contributions under the current system to pay for benefits.

So what do you see as a solution?

Our office has no formal solutions at hand, but we would be more than happy to work with you, the Committee staff, your personal staff, other Senators on the Subcommitee to consider solutions.

So the reason why I bring this up, and I know I brought it up to the director when we had our one on one, and granted, this is a little bit, you know, I know, a little difficult for you guys right now to be here and asking, being asked the question. I really want to highlight to the larger public my frustration with Unemployment Insurance across the board.

I understand where the businesses lie and how difficult it is for smaller businesses to be able to keep up with increased costs and so forth. Utilities are through the roof. Rent is through the roof, groceries are through the roof, you name it. But the fact that it hasn't changed, even to a cost of living adjustment year over year. It is problematic, number one.

Number two is the mere fact that, and I'm going to be quite frank, I constantly hear almost every elected individual speak about how we're the fourth largest economy in the world as a proud point. And we are talking about the most vulnerable community members who are hardworking. These are not handouts. These are individuals who worked a job that, for whatever reason got laid off or so forth, that also pay into this system to some degree. Right.

That with the work, with trying to find another job, they cannot maintain their basic cost of living. So I'm very disappointed in this, and I know that this is not necessarily for you guys right now, but it is something that I would like to see be worked on moving forward, myself included. I would love to partner in some way about this, right. And find some solution that is reasonable and an adjustment. At this point, anything is better than what we have, right.

So I would like a commitment from you all to prioritize that as much as possible in the year to come, two years to come, so forth. And the fact that, you know, when we're talking about this Fund in particular, we had one of the largest windfalls of money in the last couple years. And now, as a freshman Senator, I'm coming in to a downturn, right. A potential silent recession. Debatable for some, but it is very much true for a lot of other people, working people.

So I want to see where we can balance it off. But most importantly, in my district, we are seeing in my district of the East Bay and South Bay, in the Bay Area, we are seeing layoffs across the board, right. And the cost of housing, single family homes or apartments and so forth is well over $2,000. Well over. Right. For an apartment, $2,500, so forth. Right.

So how do you pay for your rent, pay for groceries, pay for your car, pay for insurance, pay for whatever if your Unemployment Insurance can't even float you till you find the next job? So to me, it's a problem, to my district, is a problem. And I hope that, you know, we all see some action on this. So thank you. Senator Seyarto.

We'll follow up on that conversation. EDD is responsible for collecting the money that we tell them collect and dispersing that as much as they can can. If they were giving out money in the amounts that you were talking about, we'd have a lot less businesses that would be even supplying the job for somebody to have a job to lose in the first place. And I think the bigger economy is what the issue is for us to grapple with in the state.

And I don't feel like the folks at EDD are the key to affordability in California. The key to affordability in California is ensuring that from the housing standpoint, we do policies that encourage housing without increasing the price of every house, and we're not doing that.

And so I don't want to see us laying this off and having EDD walk out of here feeling like they're the culprits and why people aren't getting the money that they need in their insurance, their Unemployment Insurance, to supply what you're talking about, which is a, a huge cost of living in California that has been created by policies in the Legislature for the last 30 years.

I appreciate that. I understand. However, also EDD takes a holistic approach as to what's going on with the system at hand. We are talking about Unemployment Insurance as well. Unemployment Insurance is something that we should talk, and it should be flagged to us when we're talking to EDD, that this is not enough money, period. So I appreciate that. Again, I appreciate your time, and I'm hoping that we can get some recommendations as to what you guys see moving forward.

We are going to move on to issue number five, General CWDB updates and governors proposals. All right, we're going to have Andrew March, Chas Alamo, and I apologize, Kaina Pereira.

Very close. Kaina.

Kaina, sorry. Who's the Executive Director of CWDB, which is the California Workforce Development Board. This is our last discussion item, issue number five, and we're first gonna hear from Andrew March. Thank you.

Andrew March, Department of Finance. The Governor's Budget proposes two reductions for the California Workforce Development Board, as noted in the agenda, the Low CARB economy grant program and the high road training partnerships, specifically the health and human services portion of that. Happy to take any questions.

Quick. Would you like to. Go ahead.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. My name is Kaina Pereira. I'm now the Executive Director for California's Workforce Development Board, very recently added. So thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the amazing work that is being done at the board level and with our partners on the field. So I'm going to give very General high level breakdowns of what the current programs are doing, how those partnerships are enabled, and then also those who have been participating in these programs to date.

So in relation to the high road training partnership, we have 95 total partnerships, 88 of which are active, and the remaining active contracts are in place and should be executed by the July 1 date. Under the High Road Construction Careers program, there are 13 currently under contract, and in both of these programs combined, participants serve to date total 2333.

There are five other programs that are currently active under other funds related to workforce development programming under both high road training partnership collaboratives for the Low Carbon Economy grant, which was mentioned previously, and in that case there are 10 currently funded and 27 directly served to date. However, the funding was only started in the last month.

As far as getting out into the field for HRTP healthcare, our health and human services portion, there are 23 that are currently under contract, 12 from the 22-23 General Fund allocation and 11 from the 23-24 allocation. Those participants serve to date through the 12 projects in the 2022-2023 period are 631. We have no data yet on those contracted in 2324 as it relates to regional equity and recovery of the prison to employment program, HRTP and HRCC breaking barriers programs.

There are eight currently active programs that have been serving participants since April 1 of 2024 and currently have 8092 under service. That closes the details of those programs. Happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Senator Durazzo,

Thank you very much and congratulations. I think on your new position. I think so. I hope it's congratulations. How long did you.

I was sworn in on the 27th of March, but then took a little bit of vacation and I actually started on the fourth.

You vacationed and you just got sworn in?

Yes, it was more of an accounting thing to keep my health insurance.

Anyway. Well, hopefully you have enough background to answer some of these questions. As part of the budget process a few years ago, the Administration agreed to language that requires the Board to set policy to further define high road standards. So if you could address that, what do you see the plan and the timeline to implement this statute through your board? Do you see it coming up in your board agendas? How do you see it moving forward?

At this time? I know that we are going to be talking to the Executive Committee for the next board hearing, which is scheduled in May. This is one of the topics that they would like to discuss to see if it's going to be included on the docket. There's also in relation to another administrative priority, which is the California Jobs first initiative, and how are we going to fold in the high road language and information underneath that new umbrella program. So there's still more to come.

I'm eager to work with both the Executive Committee and the full Board to understand how to establish those policies and to make sure that they fold within the administrative priority brand as well.

Okay, speaking of your Board. So at your March 27 meeting, a Board Member made a motion that the board consider and adopt policy on requiring labor equity and climate standards and enforcement governing the deployment of federal and state transportation infrastructure related projects. I'm not sure why a Member of the board was blocked from making a motion, but how do you see addressing that? Because it directly has to do with what we're talking about, high road standards.

Yeah. Unfortunately, I was not present for the meeting. I have reviewed some of the notes from the staff as well as watched the YouTube whatever of it. But at this time, I don't really know why those issues came up or why the motion was not allowed. However, I instructed staff, along with myself, to review both the rigor guidelines and what boards should be doing and what they can be doing to ensure that in future practice we are able to accommodate the requests as necessary.

Yeah, and I say this because it was obviously something we were looking forward to. You know, this is from SB 150 and all the steps that were taken and the report was going to be submitted and then action taken. So I'm just really disappointed that that process has been disrupted and there's no explanation for it.

To my knowledge, the report was due two days after the Board meeting on 327, and there was incorporated language into the final report illustrating that public comment was received by CWDB. However, I don't believe that it was explicitly indicated within the report at that time.

Okay. And how do you see yourself supporting labor management partnerships, especially with regards to equity and job quality, and strengthening the high road definition?

So I come from a background. I was formerly with the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development and was in charge of both business development services as well as expanding our industrial footprint. So in a lot of sense, it's understanding what the supply and demand looks like to be able to bring in the programs of skilled and trained necessity to ensure that we're putting programs together that actually lead to good paying jobs that are actually jobs of the future.

And so from my perspective, it's going to be both incorporating what it would be an industrial policy directive in terms of how are we going to see those opportunities and understand what the demands look like. Therefore, under understand what the skills needs, and that's going to require direct engagement with both the businesses, the communities, and the actual practitioners, along with those who we're intending to serve.

So I think we're going to be taking a little bit more of a holistic approach in terms of industrial engagement and trying to ensure that we have a good understanding of what those new critical areas of investment are going to be for the business community. So that way we can see that investment within our regional boards and our local boards more effectively.

But with regards to equity and job quality.

Yeah. So equity and job quality are paramount of both the HR programs as well as everything that this board stands for. And so from our perspective, that is an embedded measure that will be really counted on in every step and ensured through both the guidelines that are developed as well as the measurable outcomes that we require from the subcontractees and the awardees of these grants.

Okay. Because the reason SB 150 was needed was to be more explicit and have a clearer way of doing that, rather than ending up with minimum wage jobs where, you know, the business could say, well, we're living up to all the legal labor standards. Legal labor standards at $15 an hour, just don't cut it.

Yeah, I think it's the board's desire to never look at the legal standard as the requirement, but what is an optimal standard or what is a family supporting wage in that respect?

Okay, great. And then on the AB 398 report, if you can provide an update on that, and your plans to implement recommendations such as labor standards, especially with regards. I've been really interested in the non construction, because we have so much experience with the construction jobs and industries and careers, but we have very little and we always seem to shove it aside, which is manufacturing and climate projects. So how do you see the plans to implement those recommendations?

To be honest, I'm not fully read in on the dynamics of AB 328, and we'll get back to you with some specifics after I am able to meet with staff.

AB 398

oh, 398. See, I don't even know the number. Okay, apologies.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you guys for your time.

All right, we are going to be moving on to public comment to ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard. Please limit your comments to 30 seconds. And if someone else has already made a similar comment, please just add a me too. Thank you. And let's begin public comment.

Hi, my name is Naomi Woods and I am here today representing the Safety Net For All Coalition with over a hundred Member organizations.

The safety net for all coalition is requesting $250,000 to advance Unemployment Insurance for undocumented residents by incorporating elements of an excluded worker program into EDD Next modernization efforts. This proposal will result in significant cost savings to the state by avoiding future duplicative costs, and the proposal is timely. EDD Next is currently working on upgrades that would advance this program. We look forward to your to support in advancing a safety net for all. Thank you.

Good morning everybody. Cesar Lara from the California Labor Federation and I want to make some quick comments on all the areas. First, the Erica Grants. So much of the funding got awarded and got handed to the partners in early January. So it's so hard to get the results in so early on the Erica grant part of it and also on EDD we need to raise the rate. California is the fifth largest economy in California and people cannot live off of that.

And finally, around the workforce high road training partnership we are requesting $25 million from the California jobs first to support high road training partnerships. The current budget has zero funding going forward.

Thank you.

Hello, I'm Bekka Rosenbaum. I'm the Chief Strategy Officer of JVS, a leading workforce development agency based in the Bay Area and operating throughout the state. JVS has received over $5 million from the HRTP program and has successfully trained and placed people in high demand, well paying careers across California. HRTP funding is now on the chopping block, leaving the future of countless job seekers hanging in the balance.

Job seekers such as Jordan Hernandez, an HRTP alum who struggled for years to find a career that not only paid the bills, but also provided stability, benefits and room to grow. Through a partnership between JVS and local water and wastewater agencies, Gordon received free training for a new career.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Tamina. I work for BlueGreen Alliance.

BlueGreen Alliance is a national coalition of labor union and environmental organization working together to facilitate transition to a clean economy that protects the planet and also workers. In addition to providing high quality training for workers, HRTPs are collaborative arrangements between employers, labor unions and workforce development organizations. The Contra Costa Fefinery Transition Plan, which BGA is leading, is a good example of this. This HRTP program is a coalition of environmental justice organization, labor unions and academic institutions working together.

Thank you.

Hello, Sylvia Romo, a Director of Systems Change with the Building Skills Partnership. We represent unionized property service workers across the state and we are a hydro training partnership. Urge the Committee to preserve HRTP funding. It has been essential in helping us to serve the immigrant workforce that helps keep clean and sustainable and safe building facilities across the state. Now is not the time for the state to suddenly move this workforce from being considered essential during a public health crisis to being expendable.

They are worthy and deserving of continued investment for improved job quality and career and economic moment. So we provide a me too to providing the $25 million of funding for this program. Thank you.

Thank you and anybody that has additional comments. Again, we're taking 30 seconds of comments. If you have additional comments, you can always email us our call staff and let them know how you guys feel. 30 seconds. Thank you.

Thank you. Amarantha Silva with Parent Voices. California community organizer here as a part of the Safety Net Coalition. I'm here to ask you to support the request for the 250,000 to implement the program with the EDD next. And I will ask everybody that it is here in support of the safety net for all program to stand up and say in support of that. I know we just have 30 seconds, but you mentioned that $350, it is not enough to live in California.

The program, they don't have access to a penny. It is documented that undocumented workers, they provide like billions of dollars to California on taxes and they are not receiving even a penny back. So on your words, we need to do more work and.

Thank you.

Priscilla Quiroz here on behalf of the Center for Employment Opportunities, known as CEO. We're an employment social enterprise operating throughout California, providing employment to individuals that are returning from incarceration.

Hello everyone. My name is Yesenia Barrera, an organizer with the Warehouse Workers Resource Center, but also part of the Safety Net For All Coalition.

We understand that the state is facing a large budget deficit, but we strongly urge legislatures to not make any additional reductions in the California Workforce Development Board, but instead encourage investments towards reentry population programs such as hiring justice involved reentry initiative that provides a holistic approach to the reentry. Thank you.

I am asking you to integrate an insurance program for excluded workers through the EDD next. Thank you,

Thank you.

My name is Rachel Church. I am part of Parent Voices San Francisco here today to support Safety Net For All. I am asking you to please integrate an insurance program for excluded workers through Edd Next. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is George Luna with Valley Voices serving in the community of Kings County. Like my colleagues have voice, we're in support of Safety Net For All and in support of the California Worker Outreach project. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

California. Gracias.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Daniela Esparza with ICUC from San Bernardino. I'm here in support of CWAP.

Hi, my name is Alma Bellis. I come from San Francisco, and I support that. I work as a caregiver and I support the program Safety Net For All. Thank you.

Sacramento. Mi nombre es Elena Rodriguez Ibango. Represento. Alarez Parato. Even represent. Muchas gracias.

Good afternoon. My name is Ben Takemoto. I represent Valley Forward in Fresno County. I am here today in support of the California Worker Outreach Program and Safety Ner For All. Thank you for your time.

Buenos dias. Mi nombre es

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Carmen Mua from San Francisco I am asking that please think about Safety For All. Thanks.

Thank you.

Hello, everyone. Arturo Orozco, community organizer with ICUC and the PICO Network, and here in support with the CWAP. And I do ask you guys, give the rest of us your full attention. Thank you.

Thank you.

Muchas gracias.

Hi, I'm asking for safety for all because it's not just for us. That is also for all our family. Please. Thanks.

Thank you.

Buenos tardes. Mi nombre es. Gracias.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Jorge Toledo, and I come from Oxnard, California, and I'm asking to integrate the program of Safety Net For All. Where it. Yep. And for it to come with another. With another year of funding. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Megan Whelan. I'm with the California Domestic Workers Coalition. I want to start with thanking the Committee for all your work on shrinking the shortfall in the existing proposal. The Domestic Worker Education Outreach Program is still existing, and we just want to appreciate and hope that it's preserved in this coming year and also in support of CWAP and Safety Net For All. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Olivia. I live in Oakland and also from the California Domestic Workers Coalition, and also want to thank the Committee for your work in preserving the funds for the domestic worker and Employer education and outreach program, and hope that that continues to be a priority in the budget conversation going forward.

Thank you.

Hola. Buenos tardes. Gracias.

Thank you.

Hi I'm Carmen Mua from the initiative Collectiva of Women and laborers and please if you can support for ASB 227 SIWA and also the education outreach for all workers.

Thank you.

Thank you. Hola, Buena, mi nombre. Jericho, California, La Collectiva De mujereji labor program, Si se Puede. Gracias.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Erica Chavez from San Francisco, California, of the Women's Collective and the Labor Program. The original and I'm here to support for you in support of the EDDX program and SIWA. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hola. Muy buenos dias. Mi nombre es Elizabeth Montia, yo S? Vio in San Francisco, soy De La Qualicion De travagadoras De Lugar e estoyana organization. Mua mujeres unidas, Yaktivas, Yo quier de Pedir les no saudi programmers. I parado Cara Los travajadores porque mutas veses De Verdade Los impliadores.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'm with the California Domestic Workers Coalition and Mujeres Unidez. I live in San Francisco. I'm here to ask for your support for domestic workers, for education, and for employers because we continue to suffer from labor abuses and long live women.

Thank you.

Hello. I am Lorena. I live in Hayward. I am leader Member of MUA and Domestic Workers Coalition, and I am here to support the education and outreach budget for labor protections for employers and employees in the domestic work industry. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello there. My name is Arsionoe Orihuela. I am from Concord and work as an emerging business coordinator at Monument Impact. Next. I am asking you to integrate an insurance program for excluded workers through EED Next. And just as a reminder, I want to let you know that according to research, immigrants workers will add an extra 7 trillion to the US economy within the next decade and an extra 1 trillion in federal tax revenue. Again, 1 trillion in federal tax revenue.

Hola. Buenos dias. Mi nombre es Maria Aguilar. Gracias.

Thank you.

Hola. Buenos tardes. Mi nombre es. EDD Next. Gracias.

Hi. My name is Rocher. I'm from San Francisco. I work as an assistant waiter, and I would like to ask you to please integrate an insurer program for the excluded worker through EDD.

Thank you.

Mi nobres Humberto Cantum bengo representando De rede segurida IO trabajo Enemas program. Gracias.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Humberto Cantum and I came here in support for the safety net for all. I'm a restaurant worker and I'm here also to ask you to please pay attention to the work that we do in the restaurants. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mariko Yoshihara. On behalf of the California Coalition for Worker Power. I just want to thank the Committee for preserving CWAP and DWAP funding.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Seida Amado and I am field investigator for MCTF and this is my second time here and I'll be back if it is necessary. And I support Safety Net For All. for all. And I would like you to invite to union, to all of us, because we are the community and we need that redesign. Paratolos y Parano Estrosijos. Gracias.

It was great to hear the comments from the agency today. Really showing the importance of CWAP for worker outreach and education. This is not part of the governor's proposal, but we are asking for an additional 30 million of CWAP funding. Just to make sure that we continue. Also support Safety Net For All. Thank you.

Thank you. And before you guys begin, I just want to make an announcement. We've already gone a significant amount of time in regards to public comments.

I encourage everybody to state, me too, if they belong to the same organization, which many of you guys do. And we will be cutting off public comments at 12:00 so there's roughly another 10 minutes. So just giving you guys all a heads up.

Buenos tardes. Mi nombre es. Gracias.

Thank you.

Mas importante. Rapido. Gracias.

Hi, my name is Gavino. I'm from the Central Valley and I'm here to support safety and for all. And I ask you because I am like a seasonal worker and when the season is over, I don't have any more work and I would like that help. And we are really working very hard for this state. Thanks.

Good afternoon. My name is Reuben Flores. I'm from San Francisco and work as a server. I'm asking you to integrate an insurance program for excluded workers through EED Next. Thank you.

Mi nombre es. Petition El Corazon posturos Personas cannot organization travel Dias minambre De La organizacion De L Campesinas in California. Gracias.

Buenos tardes. Mi nombre es. Muchas gracias.

Buenoas dias. Mi nombre es.

Hi, my name is Virginia and I'm with lires field leaders and I'm supporting Safety Net For All and SIWA.

Hi, good afternoon. Ivette Chaidez Villarea. I am with Valley Voices from Central Valley and I am also in support of Safety Net For All and the California workplace outreach program. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Teresa Molina. I'm coming from San Francisco supporting safety net for all.

Hola. Buenas tardes. Mi nombre es, Oakland. Hi, I'm coming from MCTA and I ask, please, to integrate and ensure program for the excluded workers through EDD.

Hola. Mi nombre es Torres, the Tolos. Hi, I'm coming from Oakland. Also MCTA, and I'm the voice for all the workers that couldn't come today. And I'm really supporting Safety Net For All.

Hi, my name is Rachel Vangenhoven, I'm here on behalf of Worksafe and California Coalition for Worker Power offering a me too for Safety Net For All and CWAP.

Hello, my name is Elba Velasquez, I work for Monument Impact. We are in Concord, California. Among the many programs we offer, we have a day labor center with over 50 Members. I am here to ask you to please integrate an insurance program for all those essential but unfairly excluded individuals. As contributors, everyone deserves to feel protected and included. Thank you.

Hi, I'm a restaurant worker coming from San Francisco and please, if you support Safety Net For All and EDD. Thanks.

Good afternoon, my name is Miriam, I am from San Francisco, I work at Travajalores Unidos Workers United. I'm asking that you integrate an insurance program for excluded workers through EDD Next. Thank you.

Hi, I'm coming from San Francisco, I'm a baker and please, I ask you to integrate an insurer program for the excluded workers through EDD.

I'm coming from San Francisco, I clean houses and I ask you please to integrate an insured program for the excluded worker through EDD.

Hi, I'm coming from San Francisco, I work with Workers United and please, if you can help us with Safety Net For All because the unemployed benefits. Please.

Hola, buenas tardes. Adriana Rendon Bengo De San Francisco, California Sunidos Workers United e Estoy Piriendo quapoinga travajadores Conun seguro De San Playo atraves De EDD. Gracias.

Hi, good morning, my name is Maria Luz Torre with Parent Voices and I support everything that's been said because it's fair, it promotes equity and it's right. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Juliet Balaoro from San Francisco, Parent Voices. So I'm a single mom and I can find full time job because I have a son that I have to take care. So I support the Safety Net For All. Yeah, thank you.

Hi, my name is Vanessa Chena, I live in Concord and work in Concord with the nonprofit Monument Impact with the 50 Member day labor program. Like many others, I'm asking you to integrate an insurance program for excluded workers through the EDD Next. Thank you.

Fresno, California Vinational takachinu chinu Campo. Can you come to Fresno, California? Bashishi centro Del.

Hello, my name is Cornelia Flores, I am from Fresno and I work as an agricultural field worker. I'm here with Centro Venacionar. And I'm asking you to help us with unemployment benefits for all and also with the CWAP program. Thank you.

Hi, I'm coming from San Francisco and I ask you please to integrate an insurance program for the school through worker, through EDD. And we are having today the motto of bread and roses.

Hi, I'm coming from Fresno with the Centro Binacional and I will ask you please to help us with Safety Net For All and SIWA.

And hi, I'm coming from Fresno. I'm a field worker, and please, I ask you to integrate an insurance program for the excluded workers through EDD and Safety Net For All.

Thank you. I'm gonna stop you guys right now. We are at 12:00 but I do want to say that those that would like to be included in EDD Next, just say me too, out loud. Thank you.

And then if you guys can also translate this for us, if you guys would like your comments and statements, you guys can definitely email the Committee. The Subcommitee. I would also ask you guys, just as organizers, many of you guys are from my district and from the Bay Area, as well as throughout California, to be able to reach out to both Assembly and Senate leadership to ensure this is prioritized. Thank you all for being here.

All right, having heard from the Members of the public, Members, are there any additional questions? Seeing no other Member on the Committee asking questions, thank you all to the individuals who participated in public testimony today. Again, if you were not able to testify today, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee or visit our website. Your comments and suggestions are important to us, and we want to include your testimony in the official hearing records.

Thank you, everyone, for your participation. We have concluded the agenda for today's hearing. The Senate Budget Subcommittee #5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation is adjourned.