Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6 on Public Safety

I'd like to call Assembly budget sub six on public safety to order. Good afternoon. Today we'll be covering all may revision items for the various departments and subsidies. The May revision presents many challenges to the Legislature.

The timing is always difficult for us to evaluate hundreds of new proposals in a short amount of time to meet the constitutional deadline to pass a budget by June 15.

But it is essential, especially difficult this year, because we have to respond to the fiscal challenges the state will be facing, not only this year, but in the next coming years and figure out how to balance a budget in the next few weeks.

We won't make these decisions lightly, as choices can have significant impacts on the most vulnerable in the State of California. We also want to be thoughtful of the unintended consequences that can harm the progress the state has made over the years.

As Subcommitee chair, I intend to make prudent decisions that are not only important for the short term, but the long term as well, so that we will continue to build a stronger, more equitable state for all of us in the State of California.

Finally, it is my intention to look at the budget holistically and comprehensively, and not in a silo. I look forward to working with the Administration and the Senate on the budget that reflects our state's values, as well as with the speaker and the budget chair.

The public has already been weighing in on much of the governor's may revised proposals. I ask you to continue to weigh in so that our decisions are weighted by the decisions that you are making and the voices that we hear from those in the State of California. To ensure that we have sufficient time for public comment.

I ask all panelists, please keep your presentations to the allotted time that our staff has communicated with you. With that. With that, I will open up the meeting and call on our first panel to move forward. May revision overview issue one legislative analysis office may revision overview.

Drew Soderborg, Legislative Analyst's office so today I'll be providing some overview comments about the overall structure of the state budget condition. Our comments today reflect our preliminary assessment, and in the coming days, we are going to be revising these comments in some cases and also providing comments on specific proposals as appropriate.

I'd note that our initial comments publication will come out towards the end of the week, and towards the end of the next week, we'll be releasing our multi year forecast of the governor's May revision.

Initially, in taking a look at the governor's May revision, it looks like due to recent revenue weakness, the Administration is projecting $10 billion, a $10 billion reduction in the amount of revenue that they project will be coming in.

While this is still more revenue than the Lao projects, we think that this number is a reasonable basis to start building a budget around. Overall, we would say that the governor's may revision does put the state on a better fiscal footing.

This is because it pulls more one time spending, it reduces reliance on reserves, and it also starts to address the state's multi year budget problem by converting some proposed delayed spending into outright reductions. And also, as I said before, relying less on reserves.

This means that it's more likely that the state will be able to preserve its core programs. There are some key questions facing the Legislature as it deals with the May revision. To begin with, it needs to wrestle with how it will address Proposition 98.

It also needs to identify whether any of the proposed reductions in the May revision raise concerns. So, for example, there's a proposed 7.95% reduction to state operations spending. Our initial take on this is that this would be challenging for departments to achieve and potentially disruptive.

But it is important to note that in cases where the Legislature chooses not to adopt a reduction proposed by the Administration, it will need to find a reduction of equal size somewhere else in the budget.

The last thing the Legislature will need to wrestle with is whether or not it's comfortable accepting the Department of Finance's revenue projections, which come with greater downside risk. In our view.

This could be a reasonable step to take, we would acknowledge, but it could also mean that the state ultimately has less revenue than it's projected and will need to solve a larger budget problem in future years. Happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much for that. Do we have any questions from the dais? I do want to announce that we are joined on the dais with Assemblymember Banta and assemblymember team. Mister Lackey, is there any comments? As Vice Chair, I have plenty of comments, but not now.

Thank you. Thank you so much. All right. Moving on to issue number two, Department of Finance, Office of Inspector General and the Legislative Analyst Office.

Good afternoon. Alyssa Cervantes with the Department of Finance. Before we discuss the proposals before you today, we did want to take a brief moment to provide some comments regarding the overall budgetary architecture of the May revision. So the May revision is the governor's proposal to bridge the additional shortfall that has developed since the Governor's Budget.

And like the Governor's Budget, the May revision is a proposal, and we understand that the Legislature may have alternatives. We look forward to discussions with the Legislature to come to a final budget agreement.

The May revision proposes a balanced budget in the budget year as well as the following budget year, and that year has a significant negative deficit.

And if not addressed now, it means we are back in a matter of months developing another budget that will that may require even deeper cuts without as many potential solutions from which to draw from. As the Governor stated in the budget release, none of these solutions were made easily or lightly.

The overall goal was to maintain core programs and benefits such as CalWORKS, SSI, SSP and Medi Cal. Another goal was to propose a balanced and responsible budget that puts us on strong footing going forward so that we may continue to support funding core programs in the future.

So, moving forward to the Office of the Inspector General Proposal we have before you today, this solution is a reduction of 1.9 million in the budget year and 3.9 million in 202526 and ongoing.

This proposal would return staffing levels for the Office of the Inspector General's medical inspection unit back to levels that existed prior to the recent augmentation that was included in the 2022 Budget act.

The intent of the reduction is to solely decrease the frequency of medical inspections for delegated institutions while still maintaining the shortened period for non delegated institutions. This solution will allow the Administration to realize savings while also protecting the OIG's core mission that include employee discipline monitoring, critical incident monitoring and staff complaint, and inmate grievance monitoring.

Happy to answer any questions the Committee has.

Thank you so much. Office of Inspector General yes, good afternoon.

My name is Neil Robertson. I'm the Chief Deputy Inspector General. I do not have any prepared comments, but I'm prepared to answer any questions you might have about these issues.

Thank you so much.

Eliot Drew Soderborg Legislative Analyst's office before adopting this reduction, we think that the key question that the Legislature needs to wrestle with is whether or not this reduction could inadvertently delay the transition of the responsibility for medical care from the federal receiver to the state.

The inspections carried out by OIG are one of the key issues that the receiver looks at when deciding whether or not he can delegate care for a specific institution back to the state.

To the extent that less frequent inspections delayed the ability of the state to take over care at individual prisons, it could ultimately result in a delay of the ability of the state to take over medical care more broadly. To the extent the Legislature is concerned about this, we note that there are alternative reductions could consider.

So in 202324 the Department was provided with 3.0 CDCR, I should specify, was provided with 3.2 million General Fund increasing to 6.1 million annually in order to seek accreditation from the Joint Commission. The Joint Commission accreditation was sought in order to provide external oversight of the quality of care provided at CDCR.

This is obviously very similar to the mission that the OIG undertakes with its medical inspections. Given that we found that this proposal was unnecessary and duplicative. So if the Legislature was concerned, it could instead reduce funding for the joint Commission and preserve funding for the OIG.

We do note that this would create a larger ongoing level of General Fund savings. Happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Back to the Dios. Any comments, Mister Vice Chair, Mister Lackey.

Yeah. Recently we had a report that identified some very, very critical problems with your oversight responsibilities as it relates to the complaint process with CDCR. And as was just mentioned, also the medical inspections. How are these reductions going to collectively have an impact on those two issues? Because those are pretty serious circumstances.

They are. Yes. Thank you. Senator Lackey. Demoted me for a minute. I've been a few places today. It's all good. So, yes, first of all, I'd like to start by saying the budget, additional positions that we got for the medical inspection unit were 18 positions.

And I'd like to report today that we have filled all of those positions. So we have them completely filled. And that is they are applying their trade and work into this, our recent cycle in order to pick up the pace in presenting findings on the medical side as to.

So it would be difficult to say, you know, the impact on that. I'm not sure, you know, what we'd have to work with Department of Finance on, you know, on that to determine.

Is it going to impact it at all?

Well, I mean, the bottom line is that we, our statutory authority, I've heard today some things about delegating and non delegating prisons, but our statutory authority really applies to the entire system.

And I do recognize that the receiver does utilize our reports, but we are not in the position that we are to serve the receiver or it's one of the aspects of our transparency.

So our medical reports go to, they're transparent, they come to this body, they come to the public, they are used by the receiver's office, is my understanding. But as far as the determination of delegated versus undelegated, at this point, we've been operating under the, under our operating statute, which says we are to monitor all those prisons.

So if you took it from a perspective of monitoring all the prisons simultaneously in our normal process of cycle six, it would logically follow that reduction in staff would affect that. So is that a yes?

Yes. Thank you.

I don't know if you had a second question regarding the. Sounds good enough. Good enough. CDC or not.

Well, thank you so much. Any other questions, Mister Ting?

I'm just going to follow up from my colleagues questions. So in terms of the cut, what would that mean in terms of cuts to staffing or what resources would actually be cut in this proposal?

Are we referring just to the MIU or to the. The sweep of vacant positions?

I didn't know. I only see the MIU. But you could talk about the sweep of vacant positions as well.

Okay, so my understanding, I really have to defer to Department of Finance on that aspect. The sweep. We added a number of positions to monitor the Department of Corrections staff, misconduct, allegations, issues. Right. So we. Oh, a number. We have. I don't know the total number. We currently have 62 vacancies to fulfill in that position.

So I can tell you that we.

How many vacancies would be taken away eventually by the 3.9 million?

I can tell you that as of today, we've filled 185 positions. And that's across the board. We currently have 62 vacant positions. And they are. But that is a blend. There are people. Positions we have committed. I'm gonna ask my question again.

So there's a 3.9 million proposed reduction. How many positions and what positions would be impacted?

I think that pertains to the MIU. Correct. So that would be. I believe it's nine positions in this year and nine in the next. So 18 total.

And what do those 18 positions do?

Those positions are all dedicated to our medical inspection unit. So they prepare.

So would that mean that there be prisons. Fewer prisons would be inspected every year? Would it be they be inspected less frequently? Would it mean that it would take longer for their reports to come out? What would it mean?

Well, it would really be dependent on how it's metered out. So our current system is to do cycles and review every single prison.

Why don't you give me your best guess of how it would be metered out?

Well, I'm hearing today that there's discussions about delegated and undelegated prisons. So a delegated prison has been sent back to the Department of Corrections. Undelegated is still with the receiver's office. I do not have any direction on that other than I've been hearing that spoken about.

So you have no sense of how the. Would impact the Department outside of the 18 specific positions?

Well, it would impact. Right. It would impact the Department is we would lose 18 positions I understand that.

But how would it impact me in terms of me as a state citizen, in terms of the work that would be.

Maybe Department of Finance could chime in.

Yeah. So just very quickly. So there's the proposal that's in front of you that we're discussing, and then there's some statewide reductions that I'm happy to give some more information about. And so this proposal is. The intent of this proposal is to. Again, we looked at the Administration wide for all departments.

We looked at recent augmentations of which increasing staffing for the medical inspection unit was one. Also the staff complaint unit, which remains untouched in this proposal, just to be clear to Assembly Member Lackey's question.

So these are 18 positions that we added with the idea that the OIG would be able to complete medical inspections of all institutions within a two year period. And we did not differentiate between delegated and non delegated.

What this proposal, from the administration's perspective does is it allows, it would, even though it's a reduction, it would still allow the OIG to create or to complete more rapid inspection reports for non delegated institutions which have not been delegated back to the control of the state. And maybe the delegated institutions, they would have a longer timeframe.

Got it.

But finances assumption is that they would still be able to complete all the inspections within those two year.

Ideally they were. Previously. We brought forward an augmentation in 2022 budget act to increase the frequency for all institutions to every two years because they were at 3.5 to four years, and that is potentially too long. And there is. So we see these, the medical inspections have a benefit. It's not to say it's not.

This proposal is not about eliminating medical inspections. It's about just trying to be strategic in terms of where medical inspections may be most effective. Given that these are one thing that the receiver considers within the scope of delegation. Got it.

How many positions would remain in this area, in this unit?

Oof. I don't have that on hand.

Neil, do you know the 56 that we added to.

You can get that back to you?

Yeah, I can give that back to you for sure. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah.

Thank you, Mister Ting, any other questions with this panel? So, thank you. And I too am concerned with. We had a hearing on the different components of the. Looking at the oversights of those positions, the collective impacts, reductions, OIG's auditing functions that are there.

We've seen that when CDCR was moving forward with some investigations that deemed them out, the office of the inspector moved in and actually found some merit in those.

So those are areas that we're concerned about, that we're going to be looking a little bit more deeper, too, because I think we need to make sure that everything's moving accordingly. I want to thank you for your discussion in this panel.

As now, we move on to issue number three, which will be the Department of Finance, CDCR and LAO.

Good afternoon. So my colleague and I are going to be providing an overview of the May revision proposals for the Department, and our CDCR colleagues are also here to answer any questions you may have.

So, to address the projected budget shortfall, the May revision proposes General Fund solutions for the Department, which result in a reduction of $169.2 million in the budget window and $117.1 million ongoing starting in 202526.

As noted in the agenda, these ongoing solutions include a reduction of 80.6 million for deactivating various housing units across 13 prisons, a reduction of 8.5 million in 202320413.8 million in 2425 and 22.6 million ongoing to reflect a reduction in annual training for correctional officers and the discontinuation of the use of the California Reality based training center a reduction of 4.1 million to reduce number of COVID tests at reception centers, a reduction of 4.1 million to reduce visiting from three days to two days for individuals in level four housing units and a reduction of 4.8 million for the proposed cancellation of the fire suppression service contract with Los Angeles County.

Additionally, the May revision proposes a reversion of $54.8 million from prior budget acts for expanding the managed access system, the parolee data outcome project, and also estimated current year savings for both COVID-19 mitigation and the transmetro bus contract.

Patrick Plant, Department of Finance.

May revision also includes various workload proposals for CDCR, and we highlight the following 26 million ongoing to address the increased costs of renegotiated sex offender management treatment contracts 7.5 million in 2425 and 14.4 million ongoing to support continued implementation of CDCR as revised staff misconduct processes 1.5 million growing to 3.3 to 3.3 million to support peace officer death benefits consistent with AB 621 of 2023.

$4 million in 24 - 25 and 25 - 26 shifted from capital outlay to continue the Hope and redemption team, through which formerly incarcerated staff lead weekly rehabilitative programming and serve as mentors to those currently incarcerated savings of 49.81,000,001 time in 24 - 25 related to the accelerated closure of Chuckwalla Valley state prison.

Savings of 8.5 million in 25 - 26 and ongoing to reduce CDCR's downtown Sacramento headquarters lease a reduction of 6.3 million ongoing to better reflect anticipated ongoing needs associated with COVID-19 mitigation, may revision also reflects a net decrease of 21.2 million and 2425 and 13.5 million ongoing associated with updated population projections for the adult incarcerated and parolee population and turning it over to Amanda Garcia, our colleague.

Amanda Garcia, Department of Finance on the capital outlay side, we have two proposed adjustments to the $20 million that was included in the 2023 Budget act for the San Quentin Rehabilitation center improvement projects.

We propose reverting 8 million to the capital outlay from the capital outlay side and shifting that for use on the support side, as discussed by Patrick. In addition, we propose re appropriating the remaining $12 million to be used for improvements to the upper yard, consistent with the California model and recommendations by the advisory council.

Additional details will be presented for this project as part of the establishment package at the June 14 state Public Work.

Board meeting, and with that we'll turn it over to the Department for questions.

Go ahead, CDCL. No additional comments. I do want to begin with the agenda with our first reduction, which is the closure of several housing units across 13 institutions. We're anticipating scoring approximately $80.6 million in savings and 2425 and ongoing associated with these closures, and more than happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, LAO

Drew Soderborg, Legislative Analysts Office we'll have comments on two of the different proposals presented today, and we'll present additional comments in the coming days. First, I want to turn to housing unit deactivations. We do appreciate that the Administration is proposing to achieve some savings by reducing prison capacity.

However, we do recommend rejecting this proposal in favor of a plan to reduce prison capacity through full prison deactivations. So when the state deactivates a prison entirely, it saves about $50,000 to $60,000 per bed deactivated.

Each prison is made up about four to six yards, and when the state deactivates a yard, as it's done in the past, it saves on average, about $29,000 per bed deactivated. Now, under the governor's plan, about 46 different housing units, which make up the yards I spoke about earlier, would be deactivated, comprising about 4600 beds.

Under the governor's plan, this would result in savings of only about $18,000 per bed. We note that reducing a similar amount of capacity by deactivating full prisons and yards would create over $100 million in additional savings for the state.

Moreover, even after the governor's planned reductions, the state would still have about 10,000 empty beds in the budget year, a figure that would grow in future years. If the state were to reduce this capacity through full prison closures, it would save hundreds of millions of dollars in additional funding.

These foregone savings are notable given the state's budget condition and could result in the Legislature needing to make greater cuts to other programs in order to make up for it. We'd also note that the Administration has raised concerns that closing full prisons could reduce access to rehabilitation programs.

However, we find that the Department could mitigate these concerns, such as by using a portion of the savings created from the deactivations to increase access to rehabilitation programs, such as by building additional classrooms.

Accordingly, we continue to recommend that the state close full prisons and that it require the Administration to identify which prisons it would prioritize for closing what issues could be created by those closures and strategies to address those issues by January 1, 2025.

The second issue that I will speak to today is the San Quentin Rehabilitation center improvement projects.

As you heard, the Department is planning to repurpose $20 million that was originally budgeted to improve the San Quentin Rehabilitation center, with 12 million of this amount being re appropriated for unidentified projects at San Quentin Rehabilitation center and $8 million being earmarked for the hope and reconciliation program that was mentioned before.

Because the Department has not identified how it will use the $12 million, we'd recommend that the Legislature reject this funding and the Department is always free to come forward once it's identified how that funding would be used and request that funding in the future.

Thank you. Thank you so much. CDCR, you have any comments on the beds and the prison closures versus the housing?

Sure. Justin Adelman, associate Director of Budget Management branch for CDCR. We believe that closing housing unit, closing the housing units as opposed to full institutions is a better priority right now. We can realize the savings quicker. We can realize them in the budget year. There's lesser impact.

As the Legislative Analyst Office noticed, there's reduced impact to programming space. Although these 13 institutions that are impacted will have significant crowding associated with closing these units, people will be living in reduced housing units. They'll still be able to maintain that programming space, which we believe is essential for rehabilitation.

Okay, thank you. I'll open it up for any questions from the dais. So, Member Lackey, you have to excuse me.

I might have a little rant here. It has to do with this whole prison closure discussion. I feel that the whole closure circumstance is not rooted in public safety. We're not having this huge wave of peaceful lawful compliance. That's what it's trying to infer.

I think it's a hurtful gimmick, but if we're going to do closures, I much prefer that we do it in the way that's being proposed. To some degree, yards or housing units as opposed to prisons.

I think that that is a logical step, but I'm still frustrated because as I look at these budget considerations and the cuts that are being proposed, I look at also some of the other cuts that are being proposed, for example, to the programming of the developmentally disabled funding. Their proposed cuts are 1 billion.

Not with an m, with AB plus 8%. These people rely on this government assistance to their day to day function, but yet we have a $14 billion budget here to CDCR, and their cuts are not even close to that same consideration. That is not only demoralizing, it's disgusting.

And so I don't expect you guys to answer to those, to that logic, but I am going to say in public that I find that disgraceful. And so I will do everything I can to try to balance some of these considerations because I think that that's why I'm elected. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that Assembly.

Thank you, chair, for allowing me to participate in this hearing. I just want to get a recap from the LAO first on, on just a couple of basic facts. How many current beds do we have that are in excess of the mandated cushion that we need?

For right now we're around 14,000 to 15,000 beds below the mandated level.

And the governor's proposed closure, or yard closures is 4600 beds, right? That's correct. So in theory, there are still 10,000, roughly 10,000 beds.

That's correct.

Are there any prisons right now that are the equivalent of 10,000?

So most prisons tend to be around, have a design capacity adjusted to account for the federal population limit of around 3500. So 10,000 prisons you're getting towards or, sorry, 10,000 beds gets towards about two to three prisons, certainly more than two.

So in addition to the 4600 bed budget solution that would close some yards, we, in theory, still have the ability to close two to three prisons.

That's correct. I should also note that we are still in the process of trying to project the number of empty beds that will be available in the future. But 10,000 is the budget year number and that amount could actually grow and.

The savings associated with an all out prison closure. And I really appreciate the suboptimized savings.

Essentially, when you're only focused on closing or deactivating a yard or housing units versus the entire deactivation of a unit, it's almost like a one to, it's 50%, it's 50% to 60% additional savings that you get when you actually close the whole institution, right?

That's correct, yeah. So it's from 18,000 for housing unit and that goes up to 50 to 60 for entire prisons.

So while we're cutting disability programs, I just came from 4 hours of riveting conversations in budget sub one, talking about all of the horrible cuts that we are going to need to make for basic core services, for medi Cal recipients, for suicide, for behavioral health, mental health needs of everyone.

We essentially have the ability to close two to three prisons in the State of California. And what would be the savings associated with that be?

It would depend on the specific prisons, but it would be hundreds of millions of dollars. Typically the amount of savings associated with one prison is around 130 million annually. So two to three, you'd be looking at two to 300 million or more.

And recognizing, and recognizing that we are going to have ongoing out year structural deficits that we need to address if we're able to deactivate whole institutions that, you know, in this budget year wouldn't have an impact, but certainly budget year plus 234 and out years, that would have a significant impact in terms of overall savings.

That's correct.

Fair to say. So I'll bring it back to CDCR and DOF and I heard very clearly this concern, purported concern around overcrowding and also the concern around the minimizing of programming that will happen right now. How much does CDCR, how much of CDCR's budget goes towards rehabilitative programming right now? What percentage?

I know that a lot of times its reference is about 5% and that's specific to the division of rehabilitative program. I think CDCR would argue that that doesn't include other ability or other initiatives, things like Calpia, vocational, other educational opportunities that kind of pervade the entirety of the department's budget.

So, I mean, again, the division of Rehabilitative programs, specifically that one division is about 5% of CDCR's budget, but we believe that there are rehabilitative initiatives and resources across the budget entirely.

Okay, I was spent a whole year asking that question and I'm pretty sure that the response is essentially 5%. I'll give you 2% just for good measure. So let's even say it's 7% of our total budget. And that's a stretch for me.

Why are we making an argument that it makes sense to spread our rehabilitative dollars across more institutions in a way that actually doesn't provide the kind of support and programming that we need for any individual given the fact that an incarcerated person can wait up to 8910 years to be in their first program, which is the key for them to engage in parole, the key for them to be on a pathway towards rehabilitation, why is the assessment that it makes sense to deprioritize rehabilitative programming across prison, across prisons that don't need to be open, that will and still would provide us the kind of cushion that we need?

Why are we prioritizing buildings over people? That's definitely my question.

I don't think we are prioritizing buildings over people to the point, again, that we need the spaces in those institutions for the rehabilitative programming. It is one of the contributing factors for things like wait lists as far as that is concerned.

And we're concerned that by reducing the overall capacity would impact those programming slots available, there would be basically more people competing for the same slots.

Wouldn't there be ability to move rehabilitative programming to the existing prisons? It's a basic concentration issue. If you have a set number of programming dollars that you're able to spend, you're spreading them across more number of institutions.

If you have the ability to reduce the number of institutions and you're still focusing on the same number of rehabilitative programming dollars, you have the ability to take and reallocate those programming dollars to the smaller number of institutions.

So at the end of the day, we are making a value statement in the State of California that we're prioritizing keeping an institution open as opposed to saving the money that we need to in the hundreds of millions of dollars per year over making sure that we have adequate funding for rehabilitative programming and over all of the other things that we know our dire core needs in the State of California.

Again, I don't necessarily agree with that. I understand there are some efficiencies with kind of minimizing and kind of consolidating, as you said. I would argue though, that there are other impacts. You know, there are local communities that are affected and impacted by prison closures.

It's not necessarily the case that just because an institution has programming that it would be able to transfer to another institution. So I think there are a lot of complicated considerations about what we maintain and what we are able to close for efficiency purposes.

I'll stop my questioning there.

Thank you. Subamari Banta, super Member Ting.

Thank you, Mister chair. I just want to, again, thank you. Thank our former chair for being here. I just want to make a quick point. Why the 4 million reduction in visiting?

I believe it's part of, it would be level four visiting for the third day. So we would still maintain the Saturday and Sunday visiting at those institutions that are impacted. We believe that it would be an incentive as part of that programming, which is why it's focused on level four institutions.

It's part of a General progression so that as individuals come into the system that they're, you know, incentivized to program in and move to lower level yards so that they can receive that third extra day visiting. So it's a penalty. Not a penalty, an incentive.

I will also note that if they don't have programming.

Hold on. Some Member Ting, I'll come back.

Go ahead.

If they don't have programming at a facility, and quite frankly, the only thing that they have available is one additional day for visitation. We have a Legislator here who is not going to be able to visit his sibling because the visitation day that's going to be taken away is the one day that he's available to go visit.

If people are only hanging on to that one day to be able to visit as essentially their only opportunity to be connected and rehabilitate, why is that a reasonable thing for us to do in the State of California?

Well, again, I want to emphasize too that we've recently rolled out tablets at all institutions. So there is free phone calling available and there is video calling available. And again, I understand it is a hard cut and it is a difficult decision in reducing that third day. But again, we believe that it is a reasonable initiative.

The third extra day of visiting was only somewhat recently added a few years ago. And again, we think it would be a good incentive to programming and promoting for individuals to reduce their level.

Any follow up to somebody. Member Bonta.

I think myself and Mister Ting, former sub chair, are in the same place. I think this is sort of cruel and unusual punishment. I mean, this is ridiculous in a $15 billion budget that this is $4 million a year cutting when there's so many other areas to cut.

I want to ask La, how many prisons do we have.

Right now? We have 32 prisons.

32 prisons, right. And what's our CDCR budget? $14.5 billion. 14.5 billion. So how come you're only saving 130 million per prison if I divide the 14.5 by 32? I'm just. I know that math is pretty simplistic. It comes with a much higher number than 130 million.

That's because there's a lot of fixed costs that occur outside of the prison. For example, there's headquarters costs. The other thing that's important to take account of is that budget also includes the parole budget, which wouldn't be affected by prison closures.

How big is the parole budget?

Offhand, I want to say it is approximately four or $500 million.

So not even a billion. Right. You know, if I do your math, if I times 32, times the 130. Right. I get $4 billion. You're telling me there's 10 billion in overhead?

Yeah, we'd be happy to look into the numbers, but that is what the Administration has been scoring on average with prison closures made to date.

Yeah, but does that make sense to you? Does it make sense? You got 32 prisons, the budgets 14 and a half billion. I'm trying to figure out where the other 10 billion is going.

Yeah, we'd be happy to look into it and identify where the delta is there. And work with you, too, because to.

Me, the 130 seems like a pretty Low score. How did you get the 130 million?

I agree with the legislative analysis office. That's roughly $130 million. 130.

But how did you arrive at that number?

It's roughly the equivalent cost of the institutions we've closed so far. I will add, though, in addition to the. Laos identifies fixed costs, that one of the significant costs is health care, which is not necessarily reduced when you close a prison.

We still have those populations and they still require health care, and it is a pretty big budget driver for the Department.

What's the cost of health care?

I don't have the exact number, but it's. I want to say maybe six or 7 billion, but that's, again, speculation. We can get back to you on the agreement. Exact numbers.

So you think healthcare is rough?

Lynne Ishimoto, Department of Finance. 5 billion. 5 billion.

5 billion. Got it. Thank you. So 5 billion. There's 5 billion. I'm still looking for five more billion. If someone could help me find it.

I'm sorry. 4.1. Sorry, 4.1.

Okay, so I'm still looking for 6 billion. Yeah.

Just caution. If numbers are going to start to be, you know, shot out there, let's make sure that they're correct numbers, because there's calculations that are going on five.

It's just simple.

Versus 4.1 is a big gap.

So if I do 32 times 130, I get 4.1 billion.

Get 500 million for parole. I got 4.0. I feel like an auctioneer. You got 4.1 billion for healthcare. I'm still looking for a few billion.

Correct again.

Most of the billion that you do identify in those prison closures, specifically that 130 million those are going to be costs like infrastructure because, again, the population doesn't necessarily decline. So it's things like staffing overall for the Department and just kind of other costs, you know, feeding costs.

Would those decline, though?

Not necessarily because the population technically would stay the same even with a reduction. We would just, again, crowd in more, the same population of individuals into fewer institutions. So those costs necessarily don't decrease.

But there's still capital costs. There are capital costs. There are still maintenance costs.

Those would decrease. And that is where you get roughly that 130 million per institution.

I see. Okay, so I guess you mentioned earlier that we're closing yards because we can get immediate savings. Why wouldn't you close yards and then close prisons, too, so you can get the out of your savings?

Again, it's very difficult with the population. I think it's hard to kind of gauge exact trends. I think, as Senator Lackey noted, that there are uncertainties with sentencing issues and things like the COVID pandemic, you know, were big, but we can't necessarily predict.

But we heard from Lao, I mean, even by your numbers, you got 15,000 empty beds. It's, you know, roughly five to six empty prisons.

Again, I think one of the distinctions worth noting, too, is when they say empty beds, that doesn't necessarily mean, like, empty space that we don't use. A lot of times those empty beds are double bunks. So it's, you know, single spell, single cell occupancy kind of issues. As far as the utilization of what we can operationalize.

It's much more difficult to kind of say what isn't. Isn't an empty bed to the Laos point, too, as well as far as that.

Yeah, but these are very like, you know, you mentioned you're cutting somebody's third day of visitation, but you don't want to do building consolidation.

It'd be like having, you're not your housing unit conversion.

Those individuals, they're having empty yards. Right.

We're taking those yards and moving that population into existing housing.

But again, the savings is so minuscule because roughly the cost per inmate is, you know, 100 plus $1000. And then your savings is only about 17,000 per bed.

That's correct. Roughly what the Laos is.

I'm sorry.

We agree with the Lao's assessment that it is lesser savings, but again, we can.

But why wouldn't you, in tough budget times, why wouldn't you go to try to get greater savings?

We believe that the savings right now that we are operationalizing will maintain that programming. So again, we're trying to. What programming is there?

Do you have a plan that you haven't, that you released, that we haven't seen?

No, it's just to maintain the current level of programming that individuals, again, we're trying to reduce the impact, but if.

You'Re doing the current, are you using. You said, you said, okay, so you're contradicting yourself. You basically said, okay, some of these rooms are double bunks. Are we doing programming in someone's bunk?

No, the programming space is different from the housing units it's in usually facilities.

So why do you need the 10,000 extra beds?

Then again, I don't necessarily know that we would say that they're extra. There are housing considerations.

10,000 empty beds. Why do you need the 10,000 extra beds and empty beds for rehabilitation?

Because I think to close facilities or institutions entirely, like the Lao said, to reduce some of those bed levels, we would again have to impact programming.

Right. So what program are you doing in those empty beds?

All sorts. It's educational.

Okay, I'm picturing you got a double bunk cell. Are you doing programming in the cell?

No, I mean there are educational programs.

What program are you doing in these empty beds?

We're not doing programming empty beds. There are.

That's what I thought. So why do you need the empty beds?

Then again, it's, it's not, you know, it's not a fungible resource in the sense that one empty bed doesn't know.

It'S an empty bed. And we got people who are disabled, can't get food, can't get service, but we got empty beds. We gotta. Is it because I need to watch the empty bed?

Well, to that point, I think one of the issues is that we do have disabled inmates. And so one of the issues with the incarcerated population is that although their maybe 2000, that has nothing to do.

With the empty beds. So you got empty beds, has nothing to do with programming. There's no correlation. That's your excuse, but there's no correlation to the programming. So why can't we sweep. You're sweeping these. It's like vacant positions. We're sweeping all these vacant positions. Why are we sweeping the vacant beds?

Well, again, it's not necessarily that you can sweep that vacant bed. If a cell has designated for the, the court ordered capacity that it can house two individuals, but say that individual has a wheelchair, they have some limitations. That bed necessarily in that same room could be scored as an empty bed.

However, that individual told me you have.

10,000 inmates in wheelchairs who need single bunks.

I don't know the exact population, but there are individuals that do need single cells.

I'm sure there are individuals. Are there 10,000, you think?

I can't speculate.

Sorry. My guess is probably not right. I mean, that seems pretty high.

Again, I can't speculate on the exact needs of the population.

But again, what programming do you need to do with the empty bed space?

Again, I don't think it's quite the same that an empty bed is necessarily equated to programming. It's more, again, the facilities.

No, no, but you equated it to programming because. Again, because you said, hey, we need the empty bed space to do programming. That's how you started off.

Well, those beds are in facilities, and those facilities have fixed programming space. And so to reduce those empty beds, as you suggest, would require closing that space to close the facility.

Okay, so it's because if you close the yard and the yard had classes, the classes were the yard. So the entire yard could be empty, but the classrooms would stay open.

No, those classrooms would be reduced with that facility if we closed the entirety of the facility, so we would lose the programming space.

But you don't have anybody in that yard to teach or to provide programming to.

Well, no, they would be moved into other institutions or facilities that would have the same number of populations. And as this new group comes in, they would have that reduced space. So they would be competing for the.

Same space and they'd have programming there.

Yes, but it would, again, be limited by the space capacity, so there would be additional people involved.

But you got fewer people over a.

Long period of time. Yes, but currently the population.

I guess your logic makes absolutely no sense to me, so I'm just trying to. You know, it makes. Again, it doesn't make any sense that you want to do only the short term gains for this year and not take the long term gains.

It doesn't make any sense that you would have leave 10,000 empty beds that have nothing to do with programming open. So it does. I mean, why would you be cutting $1.0 billion and not doing the DD rate increase, but you only cut $80 million here.

I can't speak to the holistic state budget picture.

So across the board cut. Does that apply to CDCR 7.5%?

I would have to defer to Department of Finance, but we are working with the Administration on realizing those cuts. I can't really hear you anymore. Zero, I'm sorry. We are working with the Administration and the Department of Finance to incorporate those proposed cuts and we will be working with them ongoing.

Lenny Schmetta, Department of Finance CDCR is not exempt from it. There could be certain portions of the budget, as you're well aware, it's a 24/7 operation, so there could be certain portions that could be exempt from that.

What would a seven and a half percent budget if CDCR were to get cut? Seven and a half percent. What would that look like for the overall budget?

I don't have that f two.

Yeah, I'm just gonna go crazy here and use a calculator.

But, you know, while you're doing that, can we have Assembly Member Bonta ask question?

Yeah, yeah. We had a hearing last year about the legal fees that CDCR expends annually. And I can easily find you $4.1 million to make sure that we are not acting in a way that is inhumane.

We spend, we kind of, during that hearing, realized that we spend anywhere between 126 million to $134 million annually on legal fees.

Those are the people that are within CDCR, within our other agencies, and the outsourcing that we do to, in one judge's opinion, essentially said to have a scourge to earth approach to actually providing defense against on behalf of CDCR so that CDCR can continue to act inhumanely in violation of the Constitution.

Has in the budget proposal recommendations, has CDCR looked at the amount of funding it spends on legal fees for essentially supporting a way for it to act inhumanely as probably more reasonable budget solution than cutting a day of visitation?

I will note that one of the proposals that is before you today is a request for additional resources for our staff misconduct process. And we are working diligently to kind of mitigate and reduce allegations of staff misconduct that would lead to those legal issues?

Okay, so that's to mitigate additional staff misconduct. It is possible, though, to go line item by line item and look through the legal fees alone and probably come up with significantly more than 4.1 million of annually of waste that we spend to defend ourselves for bad actions that we take.

Is it possible to look through and comb through the legal budget?

I don't know what I can speak to because I don't know what those court requirements are. So I'm not sure that I'm in a position to say, but it's not.

The court requirements, it's just the, it's the money that we spend defending what is indefensible. Ultimately, is it possible that we could spend less on outsourcing and working with other agencies to defend the CDCR's actions.

I don't know if I can necessarily confirm that again, because I don't know what those labor negotiations or union agreements state. As far as what's required for legal.

Representation, I would suggest that the there is significant amount of savings potentially in just looking at one item related to the legal fees and spending that CDCR does as a budget line item that might make it possible for us to not reduce the very limited visitation schedule that would be happening with level four prisons if we accept this proposal put forward by the Administration.

I just want to point out that your argumentation that somebody would be incentivized to participate in programming if we reduce a day of prison visitation is for me, it is incomprehensible, particularly when we know that people are not able to access that programming.

So what we are incentivizing, essentially, supposedly with this additional day that was recently provided back, is the longing and the desire to participate in a program that is not available to them.

So I don't know how we take away the one thing that ensures that people have contact, familial contact, with their families, to be able to ensure that that's something that we prioritize as a state for those people who are incarcerated. And the response that video and telephone visitation is an adequate subject supplement for that is just.

It's incredibly unreasonable. Time and time again, data shows us, and research shows us, that when we allow for in person contacts, it actually reduces recidivism.

Not phone and video, but being able to have familial contact, and that we're taking that away so that people can have the only thing that they can hold onto while they're not receiving programming in level four prisons is unconscionable. My estimation.

Thank you. Is that it? Assemblymember Bonta? Any quick follow up before we go to the Vice Chair? And if you can please speak clear into the mic for us.

Thank you. I'll be quick. So I have to get to Utilities Committee. So I did rough mass. It's about $1.0 billion for 7.5%. Does that seem about approximately correct? 7.5% or 14 and a half billion is one about 1.08 billion. Sounds about right. Approximately. So you know, I do.

I do think again that $80 billion to $80 million 4600 bed reduction is a start. I think there's a lot more.

I think that during this very tough budget time to leave 10,000 empty beds where we could be doing immediate cost savings absolutely makes no sense when we are cutting people's foods, cutting people's healthcare, really cutting people's care.

I would also say that I think that the way the numbers are calculated seem extremely conservative and very, very low based on the overall budget that the Department has. That doesn't really add up quite so.

I don't think that the cost savings only 130 million per prison and it seems like having a savings of 17,000 per bed seems low. And so for me all I would say is this is the perfect time to.

Again, all we're talking about is, right sizing the system it's using, being more strategic with our buildings and being more strategic with our services. So it doesn't impact who's getting out, who's getting paroled, what else is happening inside each of those structures.

What it is saying is that we're using and maximizing each of those facilities significantly better at a time when we're asking people to give up education, give up food, give up healthcare. It makes complete sense to be doing a lot more reductions of empty beds, again, empty beds than what you've proposed.

I really would hope that you would revisit that. Take a hard look as well as really sharpen your pencils on the estimates because I think the estimates seem fairly Low.

Thank you Mister Ting. Mister Vice Chair. Mister Lackey.

Yeah, well, I'm sorry if you feel like a boxing speed bag, but that's kind of what happens when we have these budget cut discussions. Trust me, legislators get that treatment on occasion as well. So, sorry about that. But in the same right I feel compelled to ask you a question as my colleague was addressing misconduct issues.

Misconduct issues not only have a dollar impact, but also an emotional impact that's pretty hard to ascribe a value to. But I see here that one of the cost saving attempts is to close a training facility. And I can just tell you as a retired peace officer, there's nothing more impactful to a peace officer than meaningful training.

Meaningful training. Because in circumstances that require reactions, you don't have time to think. As an officer, you resort to your training. And if you have not had that training, then you're left to sometimes emotional responses that are a bit inappropriate.

And so I find this as a penny rich and nickel poor perspective that the long term impacts of cutting training are well beyond the dollar amount.

And so I would hope that that particular matter would be reconsidered because I could tell you cutting training is really, really, really a bad path, especially when it comes to peace officer obligations and the way that they manage difficult circumstances. And few people, unless you're actually in that arena, understand what that means.

I do, and it's very, very impactful. And so I would hope that they would. The small amount of, well, relatively small amount of savings, I mean, millions of dollars to most of us is an unfathomable amount.

But when you consider the amount of people that we have in our prison system and the amount of officers that need this training, they need it. And when you're starving them of that training, there's going to be negative outcomes and those outcomes can be more costly.

As we ascribed, some of these settlement circumstances are very, very, very expensive. And yeah, I think I made my point and I would hope that you would reconsider that. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any further comments from Members? I have a few here for you again. And this is a topic that's been garnering a lot of attention, certainly looking at the different closures that have been discussed, but also some of the hearings that we had prior that centered around some of these areas.

And with regards to the 7.95% across the board, looking at those reductions, we know that we're still are in dialogue finding out how that truly does impact CDCR, knowing that there's 24 hours programs there.

But we do believe that it does impact some components and we're still working through some of those calculations to make sure that we're on the same page for that. Now talking about the housing units deactivations, looking at those, and it's been talked about how the savings for those beds.

And do you believe that those savings there equals that $18,000 a bed that was thrown out here?

I haven't done the exact specific math, but again, the total reduction for those housing units is 80.6 million ongoing.

Okay and what about.

About 4600 beds.

Okay, 4600 beds.

And LAO put beds at 50 to 60,000 for total prison closures. Right. And what you're, what's here being proposed is the deactivation, but the bed cost that was identified with prison closures to this. Why is there such a big disparity in that?

Again, I think it largely has to do with kind of facility maintenance and operations. So although we do close that housing unit, it still exists in a larger facility that has to have maintenance ongoing, maintained. When you're able to close a facility, you only have a relatively small footprint in warm shutdown mode to maintain that facility.

But again, with a lived in housing unit or facility, there's significantly more costs for things like utilities, electricity, things that aren't required when you close an entire institution.

Part of your comment was by moving in this fashion, you see the savings quicker than closing a prison straight. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

Yeah. So one of the major components of the costs of maintaining a housing unit is staffing. So when you close that specific housing unit, you can reallocate staffing into other vacancies or move the population. So it's a much more nimble move. It doesn't require the timelines that are required for a full institution closure, but.

The $18,000 bed versus 50 to 60 for straight up prison closures is a disparity between some of the ideology. I mean, calculations. I'm not sure if LAO would like to speak a little bit more to that.

Yeah, I think the main reason that there's such a significant difference is that there's a lot of fixed costs associated with running facilities. For example, when you have, you'll have a prison yard, for example, that's composed of multiple prison units.

If you just close the housing units without closing the yard, there's going to be some base level of security and staffing that still needs to remain for the yard. Likewise, if you just close yards rather than entire prisons, there's going to be base levels of staffing, like the administration, the perimeter security, that sort of thing.

That's going to remain. And so that's why by deactivating entire prisons, you're able to eliminate those costs, like the perimeter security, the administration, the plant ops, and those sorts of expenditures as well.

And so also a statement that was made that if you close, straight out close a prison, that it's about $100 million savings.

About 130 million has been the average for recent prison closures. I would note that the level of savings per prison is going to depend on which prisons and the prisons that have been closed recently tend to be some of the less expensive prisons. So if you were to identify other prisons, it's possible that the savings could grow.

What is the current deficit of the budget?

Right now, our office is still in the process of honing in on what the exact budget deficit is under the May revise that will be coming next week, but it's in the tens of billions of dollars.

Tens of billions of dollars and $100 million for a prison closure. So I just want to make sure that transparency is there as far as we're putting things forward. Right. And every, across the board, everyone's trying to make sure that they're adding to the deficit that's there.

But we want to make sure that what is reality and what is being discussed, certainly, I think there's questions, disparity that the Committee's gonna be reaching out on, on the $18,000 bed versus the $50 to $60,000 a bed to find out where that truly is there.

But then you also move forward in accelerating the closure of Chuckawalla Valley State Prison for a savings of $44 million. So does that go against the argument of closing prisons? We see things quicker as far as a savings and reduction versus closing housing units and not a total closure of prisons.

Well, I think it's not just a matter of being able to do it quickly. It's also a matter of flexibility. So once CVSP is closed, it doesn't have the same flexibility of coming back online again because there are fixed costs, there are administrative issues.

It's a lot harder to bring back up, to use the terminology, as opposed to something like a housing unit, which can be relatively quickly adjusted back if there's population needs.

Thank you. And those are some of the questions we're going to be asking for follow up information on to find out the great disparities there and how the acceleration of the closure of Chuckawalla does add. And that's a total closure of a prison, is that correct?

That's correct.

Okay. So we want to look at the different quantifications of those areas to make sure that it's all, that we have all that information there. And another area, we did have a hearing in this body with Office of Inspector General and CDCR on some of the different investigations that were going on inside prisons.

CDCR investigating and Office of Attorney, Inspector General investigating, found that there was disparities in some of those complaints. Right. And some were revealed, I guess, with the Inspector General's Office to find merit in some of those cases versus others within CDCR's investigation of their. And part of this is increasing some money for those ongoing investigations there.

But we found in that hearing, or we seen in that hearing that the Office of Inspector General, when given the opportunity, actually brought some resolve to that.

So the question is, without having the overhaul of making sure that you were proficient in those investigations that are there, would this money that's being proposed now in CDCR be better spent in the Office of Inspector General?

I'm not sure I understand the question, necessarily, but the resources that we're requesting in our proposal to increase resources for misconduct are, again, to kind of reflect the higher levels of intake and the number of allegations that we've received.

It's largely a request to maintain existing staff that we had that we were awarded limited term because over recent years, we've been kind of implementing and developing the staff misconduct process.

So initially, those positions had been provided limited term, and a large part of this request is to maintain that because, again, we have seen higher levels of misconduct inquiries coming in.

And has there been an overhaul or implementation of areas that need to be improved upon for the ongoing investigations of those complaints?

I can't speak directly to that, but I do have Director Chambers who spoke previously to this Committee, and he can kind of again address any issues or concerns about, you know, what's been developed.

Certainly. So you were here for that hearing.

Good afternoon, Chair Ramos. Chris Chambers, Director, CPRIO Division, CDCR.

We have had the opportunity now to meet with the court expert and Armstrong plaintiffs on several occasions related to necessary changes within the staff misconduct process. While we are making progress in those negotiations, we are still under court order and regulations that require, require us to maintain a certain level of activity within our investigations.

As Associate Director Adelman had mentioned, the positions that are being requested are turning limited-term positions into full-term positions, and I believe that there is an addition of five new positions. This will keep us balanced and ensure that we are not falling further behind while these negotiations take place.

Once these negotiations are resolved and if there are any significant changes related to the staff misconduct process, we would work with our partners and stakeholders to readjust the amount of resources and funding that we would require for the project.

Well, thank you, and we'll be looking forward to that information as it becomes available. Thank you so much for that. And also, if you could explain to me now, I know we went through a whole dialogue on the visitation and limitation of the third day. It's for level four inmates.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on the population there and how that will impact the prisons and the morale on both sides.

Good afternoon. Ron Broomfield, Director of Adult Institutions. So the scope of this reduction, it's about. It's approximately 23% of all Friday visits. So this reduction would reduce 23% of all Friday visits, 6% of all visits statewide. This reduction impacts 6%. This proposal impacts 19% of the total population in CDCR.

Okay, and how did we come to this conclusion of eliminating this third day?

I wasn't privileged to the decision on how we came to this conclusion, but I think Mister Adelman did articulate why we made that decision.

And so, is their visitation still ongoing on the weekends?

Yes.

Whether without the third day?

Yeah. Visiting typically is Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. So we propose eliminating Friday visiting for level four inmates. They will still have opportunity to visit on Saturday and Sunday. And as mentioned earlier, we have to. Assemblywoman Bonta's point, we have video visiting through the tablets and phone calls.

Not that that's a substitute for in person visiting, but there are options to maintain family ties pretty consistently throughout the week.

Well, thank you for that. And before we move on to the next issue, is there any other questions from the dais? I want to thank you all for this robust discussion. As now, we move on to issue four. Board of State and Community Corrections. Who is it?

Who's on this one?

Well, thank you so much. We'll start with the Department of Finance.

Hello, Chair and Members of the Subcommitee. My name is Skylar Miles Cobb. I am representing the Department of Finance. And today I will provide an overview of the May revision proposals for the Board of State and Community Corrections.

So, to address the projected budget shortfall, the May revision proposes General Fund solutions for the board of state and community Corrections to achieve the balanced budget. These solutions for the Board of State and Community Corrections, or BSCC, result in a reduction of $81.7 million in the budget window.

And these proposals, these solutions include an additional budgetary loan of $75 million in budget year 2024-25 from unobligated funds from the Cannabis Tax Fund to the General Fund. These resources are not currently projected to be used for operational or programmatic purposes in the coming year, and this loan is proposed to be repaid in 2025-2026.

Is this. Can you hear me? Okay. I don't know.

Speak a little louder. Yeah, we can hear you.

Ok, good. So, additionally, we have the adult reentry grant, and that's going to see a reversion of $54.2 million General Fund in 2023-24 and a reduction of $57 million that was proposed to be delayed in the Governor's Budget.

Then we have a reduction of $9 million General Fund in 2024-25 for the California Violence Intervention and Prevention grant program. So that's also colloquially known as CalVIP. This will be. Okay.

This will be replaced by funding from the newly created Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Fund starting in 2024-25 per Assembly Bill 28, statutes of 2023.

And then we're going to also have an elimination of $4.4 million in the General Fund that was proposed at Governor's Budget for additional payments to counties that may be still experiencing impacts resulting from any additional incarcerated individuals released to post release community supervision as a result of Proposition 57, which was approved by voters in 2016.

And then we have a one time reduction of $3.6 million in the General Fund in 2024-25 from the organized retail Theft Vertical Prosecution grants, which represents the remainder of unallocated grant funds from a total of $30 million that was appropriated in 2022-23.

And then we have a reversion of $10.5 million in the General Fund that was appropriated in 2022-23 for the Medication Assisted Treatment grant program. Furthermore, we have budgetary adjustments coming down the pipeline.

The May revision also includes a workload proposal for the BSCC, which includes funding for chaptered legislation to establish a new in-custody death review program for SB 519 or Senate Bill 519 from statutes of 2023. We are proposing to phase in $3.3 million General Fund and 15 positions in 2024-25.

Then in the next year we will go to $7.7 million, and then that position count will go up by 20. So then we'll have 35 positions total for this new division in 2025-26 and that will be to implement the in custody death review program. This program will investigate deaths that occur in local correctional facilities.

In addition, we have the transfer of juvenile justice to the Office of Youth and Community Restoration. The May revision includes trailer building, which to shift Administration of 2011 realignment grants from the Board of State and Community Corrections to the Office of Youth and Community Restoration. I am happy to take any questions now.

Thank you so much. LAO.

Drew Soderborg, Legislative Analyst's Office. We're still putting together our specific comments on the Board of State and Community Corrections, and we'll release those in the coming days, but we're happy to answer any questions that you have.

Thank you so much, BSCC.

Happy to take any questions you may have. Good afternoon.

Thank you. Any questions from the dais, Mister Vice Chair.

My frustration has to do with the medication assisted treatment program, and that was actually, as you recall, part of the 22-23 budget cycle. And when we asked about it, you indicated that you were somewhat overburdened and had too many grants. And so this got put off.

And I don't know how much money was spent in the bidding process, but I know that's an expense. I don't know how much. Maybe you couldn't. It really doesn't matter, because now the proposal here is to slice the whole thing. $10.5 billion.

I find that to be hard to understand because it's a program that has proven to be highly successful in reducing recidivism, which is one of the main goals of our process. So why would it be the target of slash when first off, it was put off, which was unfortunate, but sometimes that's the way the cookie crumbles.

So then we put out to bid, and everything looked good, and all these awards were announced, and not so much. Now we're going to claw it right back and say, so sorry, Charlie. Help me understand that. What's the justification for that? Can somebody answer that?

Cynthia Mendoza, Department of Finance. It truly is a difficult decision. We do recognize that. And these were funds that had not yet been dispersed, so.

No fault of their own.

Correct.

Because of mismanagement. Yeah.

I don't. I wouldn't agree to that at all.

What would you call it?

I think there are delays with many different activities, and especially when an organization.

I think those delays are unjustified, ma'am. I'm so sorry.

Understood.

I just do. And I think the public would also think that. And I think that this is an unfortunate circumstance because it's penalizing something that's successful multiple times. I don't understand that because it's one of the things that's working.

Why do we slash something that's actually working? Working to the fact that it's one of the priorities of this process? I have a hard time understanding it, and I guess there's really no answer for you to give me. I'm not soliciting an answer.

I'm just trying to make my point that I think it deserves an answer in a correction and looking elsewhere. That's my comment.

And this is our proposal, and we are open to these negotiations and discussions.

That's why we're having this discussion. Right?

Correct.

So I'm just very. I don't know, emotionally trying to tell you that I think that this is misplaced. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your question. Assemblymember Bonta.

I first want to align my comments 150% with my colleague Mister Lackey, on the reduction or the elimination of the medical, the medication assistant treatment grant program.

At some point you have to kind of look at what the bottom line is when we're doing these kinds of budget reductions, they're painful, but there are some that we're making that are actually incredibly problematic because they do the exact opposite of what they. Of what we want and intend to happen.

The point of going into either jail or prison is that you are accountable for the crime that you've committed, the community harm that you've committed, and that you have an opportunity to rehabilitate what percentage of the population is known to experience substance abuse or use issues.

There are a variety of different data sources on that. Assemblymember Bonta, as you know, I think in very general terms, the frequency of people coming into county jail who do have substance use disorder issues is very high. I mean, I've heard numbers in the range of 40% to 60%.

I'm not prepared to give you a specific site right now, but I know it's very significant.

And that is kind of in the realm of what I believe to be true as well, 40% to 60%. And what, from a kind of a research perspective, do we know helps to reduce recidivism when there is a drug abuse or use involved?

The study that comes to mind immediately is the one that we, the BSCC, released earlier this year, looking at the results from people who had participated in Prop 47 treatment programs. So they were formerly system involved, people with issues involving either the need for mental health treatment or substance use disorder treatment.

And the results were very, very positive. Recidivism rates dropped considerably. Housing. There were very positive housing and employment outcomes as well. And be happy to talk to you more about that after, if you'd like.

Right. So again, we're going to be cutting $10.5 million from an incredibly successful strategy to reduce recidivism. It is the entirety of the program that is doing the exact opposite of what we should be intending to do.

What we're doing is essentially effectively increasing the likelihood of recidivism, increasing the likelihood of people coming back into the jail system when they get released, because they're released without this programming, and we're saying that's okay, that's reasonable, from a budget perspective.

It's a very difficult decision. I don't want to describe it as reasonable. It's very tough for all of us.

I will move on to the other kind of very similar programs in 324 and 325 here, the adult reentry program. Can you give a little bit more texture to the $54.1 million suggested cut for the adult reentry grant programming? What that is?

Sure. Yes, I'll start with that. My Department of Finance colleagues may have thoughts to add. This is also a difficult reduction, but there's a blend of news here because there are some very effective adult reentry grant cohorts out in the field operating right now.

This has been a relatively well funded grant program, and we had not yet put that current year allocation out into an RFP. So there is no impact in terms of grant reductions.

Yes, it's funding that would have been available to go out sooner in an RFP, but given the difficult budget times and the funding that was available and not yet obligated, the adult reentry grant was a source that was identified.

And what we're planning to do is release an RFP next year so that the timing of the beginning of a new cohort will coincide with the end of the current. So we're not going to have a gap in services with adult reentry grant programs across the state.

What is the total amount that will be available for the. Is it essentially a deferral?

There had been. The adult reentry grant funding has a pretty interesting history because the baseline was 37 million annually. But over the recent years, on a number of occasions, the Legislature has provided larger amounts of funding, an additional one time 10 million in one year, and I think maybe 30 or 40 million in a different year.

So it has been a really well funded grant program. The simple answer is that the ongoing annual funding is 37 million. That's what we would expect to have next year. I see my colleague nodding, so I think that's right.

That's correct. Thank you.

So effectively, this reduction is representative of the one time funding. What is the waitlist associated with reentry programming? I'm trying to get a sense of demand versus supply.

Yeah, I certainly understand that question. I don't have, you know, a clear sense of the unmet need out there in the field. It is a great question. I'd be happy to ask our team if there's a sense of that, that we can get from our current grantees that are operating.

There are, of course, reentry needs across the state, and I just don't happen to have the information right here about what's the extent of sort of wait times to get into those programs out in the field.

I think through the Chair, I think it would be incredibly helpful if around one of these what feel like, I know, very difficult decisions that you're making, but at least for these that are really around very productive, highly effective opportunities to be able to prevent recidivism, which is costing human life and costing capital around these, that we do a little bit more analysis that really focuses in on the scope of need, so that if we have to be in a position of making these cuts, at least we're doing so with a sensibility around the consequence of that.

So it might be that this proposal has, we have the ability to make more intelligent decisions around these kinds of cuts.

Thank you for your comments, and thank you for the deliberation here around some of these topics. Certainly some of those were questions we had. One, though that we still have is the transfer of the juvenile justice programs to the Office of Youth and Community Restoration.

We had a hearing on this topic during this year, and part of the question is with the implementation that's being offered on page 12, item two, would that be a total conversion of all those that are out there, and if not, which ones are still left to be transferred over?

The change that is reflected in May revise encompasses the youthful offender block grant, the JJCPA, Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention act, and the juvenile reentry grant. Those were the three main ones that had been in consideration earlier in this year for transfer, and the discussions have carried on. There's some trailer bill language to address the outstanding questions.

So this does, at least in my view, reflect the transfer of the remaining JJ grants from our office over to OYCR.

So that would be 100% grants transferred over after this.

Of the juvenile grants, yes.

Any other comments? No. Well, thank you so much. As now we transition to issue five. We have the judicial branch, Department of Finance, and LAO.

Thank you. Department of Finance.

Good afternoon. Henry Ng, Department of Finance. I will be going over a few of the notable adjustments proposed in the May Revision for the Judicial Branch's budget.

The May Revision includes early reversions of current year savings identified by the judicial branch for the following these include 20 million from one time funding that was provided for court interpreter grants, thank you, and a reversion of 5 million in operational savings.

The May Revision also includes a one-time 25 million unrestricted fund balance transfer to the general fund in 2024-25. This brings a total up to 105 million, 80 million of it, which was included in early action. The May Revision does include the funding for proposals to support the judicial branch.

This includes 21 million in general fund ongoing for trial court employees health and retirement benefits and also ongoing resources to implement the chapter ledge SB-331. Those resources will allow the courts to expand on educational programs and materials related to domestic violence and post conviction probation supervision. I have been asked to also highlight the following issues.

The first is the reduction to court operations. The May Revision does include a 97 million ongoing reduction to trial core operations. This is consistent with the statewide approach to reduce state operations by 7.95%.

This is something that the Administration plans to work with the departments in the fall to better figure out how these reductions will be made and operationalized. The May Revision also includes a reversion of 16 million in 2023-24 and then ongoing reductions of 10 million to the funding provided for court reporters.

The district council had anticipated savings of 16 million over the previous two fiscal years, and then the 10 million ongoing reductions to this program is to really align with the actual expenditures of the trial courts. However, we understand the importance of court reporters and the budget still maintains 20 million for this program.

Finally, the May Revision includes a reversion of 17.6 million from the trial court for the implementation of care court. This is really to align with the updated caseload figures. They came in lower than expected. So really this is just an adjustment to align with that. That concludes my overview.

I'm joined by my colleagues at the judicial branch and finance. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much. Judicial counsel.

Good afternoon. Maria Hernandez, Presiding Judge, and I sit here as a Judicial Council Member, as Chair of the Trial Court Presiding Judges Advisory Committee. First of all, thank you for allowing us to be here to share with you this afternoon.

We are very committed to maintain our partnership with the Legislature as well as the Governor's Administration to solve these problems.

We understand the crisis that we're in, but we also want to share the importance and the concerns that we have of these reductions to trial court operations, the impact that that has on, what you've all been speaking about, the most vulnerable populations that need to access, providing access to justice for those who need to come through our doors, that means reductions of hours.

That means shutting closed doors. Those are all concerns that we have as a branch, and we want to make sure that we are maintaining our access to justice.

That's it? Thank you. LAO.

Anita Lee with the Legislative Analyst Office. We have some high level preliminary comments on two of the proposals that are before you. The first one is the proposed reduction to trial court operations, the 97 million reduction.

So absent any specific direction from the Legislature, Judicial Council will generally have flexibility in how those reductions are distributed to the individual trial courts. One possible way is through the judicial branch's workload formula, which is generally based on workloads. So that could be reasonable, but it could go out in different ways as well.

So to the extent the Legislature has clear priorities for how you want the reductions to go out, we do recommend that the Legislature adopt language specifying those priorities, because in the absence of those priorities, each of the individual trial courts will be implementing the reduction in different ways, and that could have the impact of different service impacts, workload reductions, backlogs, et cetera, by individual trial courts.

The second piece that we wanted to highlight for you is the action related to court reporter funding. So as part, in 2021-22 the budget included 30 million in ongoing general fund support with the goal to increase the number of court reporters in family and civil proceedings.

The individual trial courts have used that money in a variety of different ways, for example, using the funds to supplement or increase existing court reporter salaries, but also offering retention and hiring bonuses. Our understanding is that in some of those cases, the courts have entered into labor agreements that kind of dictate how the money would be used.

And so that's something that we wanted to flag for the Legislature because, because of those agreements, the extent to which the desired savings are achievable is unclear. And so it is an example of that. The may revision budget proposes reducing the amount by $10 million in 2024 and on an ongoing basis.

In a survey that the trial courts conducted, the trial courts reported that only 6.4 million was estimated to be unspent at the end of 2023-24. And so you can see there's already a difference there.

So if you were going to increase the amount of savings that you wanted to achieve, we just note that that might be a little bit challenging pending any labor renegotiation agreements, because those agreements would remain in effect until they were renegotiated. Thank you.

Thank you so much for the presentations. Assemblymember Lackey.

Yeah, I just, excuse me. My remarks have to do with a plea more than anything else, that when making these cuts, I would hope that caseload would be a consideration in the degree to which these cuts are distributed, because, for example, part of the area that I represent, San Bernardino Count has, in my opinion, and I think it's easy to justify and explain, been under prioritized during surplus years.

So you could just imagine the fear that in the hearts of those, in those judicial circumstances, because they've been under delivering, because of a number of reasons, nonetheless. But I just hope that you would consider the caseload when mitigating understanding how you distribute these cuts.

And Assemblymember Lackey, This is Zlatko Theodorovic from the Judicial Council. Excuse me. We do consider equity and where courts are funded oftentimes in our allocation process. And so that has been something that's been a hallmark of the branch for the last decade, looking at funding equity across the courts.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. And we did have a hearing also with the Judicial Council here. And I believe we identified the ongoing recruitment and the need for court reporters, so much so that incentives were being talked about. And yet here we see part of that is a reduction to the ongoing court reporters budget here.

First year, 16 million, then ongoing, 10 million, 10 million, 10 million. If there is a shortage there. And we see that as a vital need within the courts, how are we getting to the decision that now that's being put forward for the Legislature to vet through.

Henry Ng, Department of Finance. So, again, 16 million was savings captured in the previous two fiscal years, and the 10 million is really still aligned with the child court exponential. So we looked at the past expenditures for the funding for the court reporters and believed that this was reasonable.

And is that just the discussion being done with the voice of the courts themselves at the table, attesting to the need for more court reporters or the ability to go without?

Yeah. Again, Henry Ng, Department of Finance. So we understand that there's a need for court reporters, and the reason why this is being proposed is really just to address this budget deficit that we're in right now. But this is just a proposal and something that we still can work through. And can have these discussions?

Well, thank you. Yeah, we did have a hearing prior. We did identify that there was a greater need in this area. So it's something that we're deeply going to be looking into. Any other comments? Questions? Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you very much.

Now we'll move to issue six.

Mr. Chair, if I may?

Go ahead. Can you state your name.

Sorry. Noelle Fa-Kaji, Department of Finance. Did you want a presentation on the Juris Retirement System Contributions?

Not today. Unless, Assemblymember Lackey wanted. Thank you. We're moving on to issue six. Victims Compensation Board, Military Department, Department of Finance, and LAO. Go ahead, Department of Finance.

William Flores Jones, Department of Finance. Today I'll be providing a brief overview of proposals included in the May Revision for the Victims Compensation Board and the Military Department. We're going to start off with the California Victims Compensation Board.

The first item is a workload BCP for 350,000 ongoing general fund for CalVCB to pay the Attorney General's Office for legal services provided during erroneous convictions cases.

The second item is a chaptered legislation BCP for 1.46 million general fund and two positions in 24-25 and 1.42 million in 25-26 and ongoing to implement the requirements of Chapter 702, Statutes of 2023, SB-76. Now transitioning over to the California Military Department.

The May Revision includes four workload BCPs to provide continued support for the military department's operations. The first item includes a 554,000 general fund and seven positions in 24-25 and 539,000 general fund ongoing, to meet the security and safety requirements and cover unanticipated costs for utilities and maintenance at the department's new consolidated headquarters facility.

The second item includes 3.4 million general fund and 2 million in reimbursement authority ongoing, to provide the operations of firefighting hand crews within task force rattlesnake by providing required pay and benefit adjustments for all emergency state active duty crew members and resources for industrial disability leave as is required for all hand crews.

Third item includes 264,000 general fund, 637,000 federal trust fund, 14,000 mental health services fund, and 4,000 in reimbursement authority ongoing, for an annual adjustment to align the pay of the military department's state active duty employees to the pay of service members of a similar grade in the federal armed forces.

This adjusts the proposal that was included in the Governor's Budget following the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act in January. The fourth and final proposal includes 2.9 million general dund, 4.6 million federal trust fund, and 285,000 reimbursement authority and 105,000 mental health services fund.

Ongoing to provide resources to cover costs for benefit adjustments for state active duty employees that were not addressed in recent years. Open for any questions the Committee may have.

Thank you so much. LAO.

Drew Soderborg, Legislative Analyst Office. Happy to answer questions.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Any others?

Michelle Loper, with the California Military Department. I can answer any questions regarding programs or any other questions you might have.

Thank you so much. Any questions from the Dais? I want to thank you for your presentation and knowing that the budget constraints are tough across the board. So thank you for your presentation. As now, we move on to issue seven, Victims Compensation, or Department of Justice, LAO, and Department of Finance. Department of Finance.

Good afternoon, Chair Ramos and Assemblymember Lackey. My name is Anthony Franzoia, from the Department of Finance and I will be highlighting a handful of the adjustments included in the May Revision for the Department of Justice.

First and foremost, as you may recall, at Governor's Budget we proposed a $100 million budgetary loan from DOJ Litigation Deposits fund to the general fund.

However, given some statutory changes, we're now proposing to switch the fund source to the Unfair Competition Law Fund and then the May Revision also proposes an additional $30 million loan on top of that in 24-25 for a total loan of $130 million.

In terms of workload BCPs, the May Revision includes ongoing resources for six workload BCPs in 24-25 these BCPs amount to $30.7 million and 93 positions. The general fund component is $12.8 million and 8 positions, and the special fund component is $17.9 million and 85 positions.

For chaptered legislation, the ongoing resources included in a revision for 13 chapter legislation BCPs amount to $17.45 million and 47 positions and again splitting it between general fund and special fund. The general fund component is just under 16 million in 41 positions, and the special fund component is about 1.5 million in six positions.

Moving on to general fund solutions there are two solutions in the May Revision four DOJ. I'll cover the larger one, but I'm happy to answer questions on the second, smaller one.

So the larger one is a $15 million ongoing reduction for the Division of Law Enforcement and the Division of Legal Services, and that will be a $10 million reduction for the Division of Law Enforcement and a $5 million reduction for the Division of Legal Services. DOJ has the flexibility to determine how it implements this reduction.

We're not being prescriptive in terms of telling DOJ which programs or operations to cut, given the fact that the May Revision has only just been released. I don't think DOJ has specifics on what they will reduce to meet this target.

But DOJ is working with Department of Finance and having their own internal conversations to come up with specifics for this. And we're committed to staying engaged with the Legislature over these next weeks.

And then lastly, just touching on the vacancy sweep and the 7.95% state operations reduction, again, we don't, similar to the $15 million solution, we don't have specifics on what exactly this will look like for DOJ at this point in time.

Again, the May Revision has only just been released, but Department of Finance and Department of Justice will continue to have conversations over the summer and into the fall to operationalize both of those, the vacancy sweep and the reduction in a way that is minimally impactful to DOJ's operations. So I'll close there and happy to answer questions.

Thank you so much. Department of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Chris Ryan. with the Department of Justice, Division of Operations. We appreciate and we acknowledge the gravity of the current budget environment and we understand that the cuts are needed across the board.

We will do all we can to maintain our mission critical programs in light of the proposed cuts. And at this time we do not have the details, as finance explained, about the specifics about the Division of Law Enforcement or the Division of Legal Services that were mentioned.

We note that over the past few years we have often talked about hard to fill positions in our mission critical programs, and these proposed reductions may make it even more challenging to address our legal and law enforcement operations.

We will, of course, do all we can to carry out our constitutional and mandated duties, and we appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's hearing, and we're here to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you so much. LAO,

Anita Lee, with the Legislative Analyst's Office. We will have additional comments and recommendations coming to the Committee in the coming days, but for the purposes of today's hearing, we have two kind of big picture preliminary comments that we wanted to bring to your attention.

The first is related to the proposed 10 million ongoing reduction to the Division of Law Enforcement, or DLE. DLE generally supports DOJ's task forces and investigation teams, as well as the Bureau of Firearms, the Bureau of Forensic Services, and the Bureau of Gambling Control.

All of these, with the exception of Bureau of Gambling Control, receive general funds support. And so the Legislature might want to consider whether they want to provide direction for how the reduction should be implemented.

So an example of that is the Legislature might think that certain investigation teams or task forces should be prioritized to be maintained over others. And so that's the first comment related to that. Within DLE, as I mentioned, there is the Bureau of Forensic Services.

As part of your deliberation, we wanted to remind the Committee that the state has provided general fund support to support the Bureau of Forensic Services, or BFS, since 2016-17 to backfill a decline in criminal fine and fee revenue that supports the bureau's operations.

Specifically, in the most recent action, the 23-24 budget included a 46.1 million general fund backfill annually for three years and also authorized the Department of Finance to increase that amount if more was needed through the section letter process.

And so we would note, given kind of the state's budget situation, that our office has made prior recommendations in this area to reduce the amount of general fund that is potentially needed to support BFS. And specifically, we recommended requiring that users of BFS services be directed to partially support its operations.

This would have the impact of minimizing the general fund needed, but also encouraging users to prioritize the workload that they were sending to the department to get done. And so, given the state's budget situation, the Legislature could consider whether or not it was interested in doing this in in lieu or in addition to the proposal before you.

The second series of comments that we provide is related to six firearm related proposals. These six proposals total 15.5 million general fund in 24-25 and then that declines to a total of 8.1 million annually beginning in 27-28.

While we generally don't have concerns with the dollar amounts, we do question whether the general fund is the appropriate fund source to support those costs.

Specifically, it does seem as if these costs could be supported by the firearms special funds, most notably the Dealer Record of Sale special account, or DROS account, which is authorized to support a variety of DOJ firearm related programs and activities.

As an example of that, one of the six proposals is funding for the next step of an IT project, the Firearms IT Systems Modernization, or FITSM.

The May Revision proposes to fund that from the general fund, but all prior iterations of funding for this project have actually been from DROS, and so that kind of gives you an example. And so if we're funding them from firearm related fee revenues, that potentially merits consideration, given the state's budget situation.

We do note that DROS solvency may be of concern, and so the Legislature might want to consider whether to increase the fee or to offer a general fund loan that would then be repaid by DROS revenues. We'd finally like to conclude that specifically related to FITSM.

You do not have a proposal for the next stage, the next few stages, which would involve the build out, but to build out the system, the upcoming forthcoming cost is potentially in the hundreds of millions of dollars. And because of that potential ongoing cost.

The Legislature might also want to consider directing DOJ to do an assessment of how much the DROS fee revenue might need to be increased to basically fully pay for that cost. The Legislature could take that information to then decide how much of a fee increase it would want while balancing its priorities.

So, for example, ensuring that there's sufficient money available for enforcement activities while not putting a huge burden on firearm purchasers. And so that's just an example of balancing the priorities. And so that looks a little bit to the future in terms of a cost that is coming down the line.

Happy to answer any additional questions you may have.

Thank you. Thank you so much for that. Any questions from the Dais? Mr. Vice Chair, Lackey?

No. Excuse me. All I have is a congratulations, because it looks like you got a slight increase as opposed to cuts. So well done, you and OES. That's all I can say. Well done.

Well, thank you for that brightening enlightenment here today. I have no further comments. Thank you so much for your presentation. As we move now to issue eight. Office of Emergency Services, LAO, Department of Finance.

Hello. Good afternoon. Tess Scherkenback with the Department of Finance. I'm just going to provide a brief overview of the General Fund solutions in Cal OES's budget.

There are five total, and the proposed solutions in the May revision result in a total of 142.8 million in General Fund savings from 2023 to 24 through 2027 to 28, and that includes 7.3 million in 2023-24, 22 million in 2024-25, 69.5 million in 2025-6, 22 million in 2026-27 and in another 22 million in 2027-28. Now I'll go individually through these.

The first solution is for the state disaster warehousing operations, 2022-23. Unencumbered balance. The mayor revision proposes reverting 640,000 General Fund, maintaining 99.5% of the total original appropriation for this program.

Next is the Firefleet vehicle replacement, and this proposal is reverting the remainder of current year funding for fleet vehicle replacement, which results in 6.62 million in General Fund savings.

Next is the Leastos California Emergency preparedness campaign, and this proposal results in a reduction of 12.5 million General Fund ongoing, maintaining 50% of the total original appropriation for this program.

Next is the warehousing Operations solution, which proposes a reduction of 9.5 million General Fund in 2024-25, 2025-26, 26-27 and then also 27-28 and this maintains 82% of the total original appropriation for this program.

Lastly is the flexible cash assistance for survivors of Crime program, and the Governor's Budget proposed reverting the remaining 47.5 million for this program in 2023 to 24 and delaying this funding to 2025-26.

But, however, given the magnitude of the budget problem that we're facing in the May revision, the may revision proposes to remove the delay and instead result in a straight reversion of program funding. That's it. Happy to answer any questions you have on solutions.

Thank you. Cal OES.

Eric Swanson, Deputy Director of Finance Administration at Cal OES. Here to answer any questions.

Drew Soderborg, Legislative Analyst Office. Also available for questions. Thank you. Thank you so much. Any questions from the dais? Senator Lackey?

Excuse me. How often does Cal OES replace vehicles and what do you do with the used ones?

We have an annual budget for replacing fire engines and water tenders. We follow the guidelines associated with what the usable life of these vehicles are. We did this.

We got this sort of shored up in a budget change proposal a few years ago as far as what we do with them afterwards, I'll have to get back to you. I don't know that answer. Okay.

Thank you. I'm very familiar with the Highway patrol and what they do with theirs, so I wondered if it would be similar to what they do with their vehicles.

I'm happy to point up a little point of clarification on that. So these vehicles are part of the law enforcement mutual aid system. So they are relied upon by local entities who don't necessarily have vehicles at their disposal. And so it's part of the larger mutual aid system. So local entities rely on these vehicles.

I just wonder if there was an auction process to where they auction off the vehicles like the I patrol. We'll follow up with you.

Well, thank you so much for those questions. Just one question or clarity. The justification for the significant reduction for the Listos California Emergency preparedness program. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that, and how does that affect the local governments and their response?

Sure. I'm happy to speak to kind of the framework that was used by the Administration in looking at the least dose proposal. So the Administration used a framework that was assessing ongoing General funds program expansion across all departments, not just Cal OES.

And we're specifically looking for investments that were scalable, you know, given the magnitude of the budget problem that we're facing as part of may revision. And so Listos was identified as one of those programs.

As you'll see, it's a 50% reduction, and, you know, preserving as much of, you know, the integrity of the program as we can while also making it scalable, given the budget condition that we are in.

Well, thank you. And Listos program helping to let local governments be ready, as well as the State of California be ready under this Listos California Emergency preparedness program. So I want to thank you for that. Any further questions from the dais? Thank you. Now we're going to move on to issue number nine. Same panel, I believe. And we'll start with Department of Finance.

Actually, with this one. We'll start with. Start with me. Well, thank you. Yes. We'll start with you then. Cal OES. Yes. I get to talk about the BCP. Who's next?

Just kidding.

I'd like to, if we could. I talked to your consultant about this combine issues 9 and 10 because they're both BCP proposals. One are sort of augmentations, the other technical fixes. Okay. There are two proposals related to chapter legislation, and they add up to about 900,003 positions.

The first is 666,002 positions related to the California firefighter cancer prevention and research program. The second is one position and 234,000 related to chaptered legislation that changed how we did the California State nonprofit Security grant program.

We have a capital outlay proposal that is a net increase of 3.2 million general fund. This is related to moving some radio towers that are in Del Norte county that serve both Del Norte and Humboldt County. There are increased construction costs associated with the construction phase of this project. We have a request for 15.8 million related, this is all federal funds, related to another round of cybersecurity grants.

These go both to the state and to locals for these grants. And then finally we have 23.7 million in state emergency telephone network account funds that we're requesting for four years. This was an inadvertently left off of a January proposal.

This is for equipment associated with replacing both local and state 911 public safety agency equipment, as well as implementing our California Radio interoperability system. And with that, I'll wait. Any questions you have.

Thank you. Department of Finance were available for any comments or questions you have.

Thank you. LAO. And this is both issues 9 and 10.

Any comments from the dais on issues 9 and 10? No? Well, thank you for your presentation. As now we move on to public comment. As we move to public comment. We will now move to public comment. Each person will have up to 1 minute. Please state your name and the issue that we covered here today. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Chair Member Janice O'Malley with AFSCME California just in regards to to the CDCR proposals, really thankful for Assembly member Bonta's remarks on contract medical services. Again, this is an issue that AFSCME California has raised before this Committee multiple times over the years.

We really think that there are true cost savings available during these down budget years to save money and in source work that the medical staff can provide within the agency. So really hoping that the Legislature and this Committee reviews that in earnest and returns the work to the appropriate state employees. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. Duke Cooney on behalf of ACLU California Action related to the CDCR proposal we heard today, but also that's not currently in the May revise. We specifically referring to the Public Defender Pilot Program. As I mentioned, currently not in the revise, but we're hoping that it will be included in this year's budget.

The public Defender pilot program is a moderate short term investment that's already saved over $94 million. Retaining this last year of funding will yield additional savings for the state. The second item that we're requesting today is the closure of five additional prisons.

As we heard today, there's a lot of funding related to operating these, and we feel that closing five additional prisons will help close the gap in our budget and also yield an annual cost savings of nearly $1.0 billion. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments.

Good afternoon, chair Members. My name is Ed Little. I'm with Californians for Safety and justice, and I'm speaking in opposition to the May revision proposal to completely eliminate the funding for Crime Survivors Flexible Assistance grant program. Providing urgent help without red tape to survivors is a critical part of the state's safety strategy.

Survivors have waited long enough for a program that meets the immediate needs, and Cal OES is ready to begin distributing the FAST grant awards. We are also in support of closing five additional prisons. We believe that would be a more prudent way to balance the budget. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you. Chair, Committee and staff Ryan Moore Muni with the California State Association of Counties, here to provide brief remarks on a couple of issues.

First, I know we appeared before this Committee before on the public defense pilot program, but we urge that you fully Fund the third and final year to ensure that counties can successfully implement recently passed legislation and provide those critical postconviction services.

Second, as it relates to Volca or the Victims of Crime Act, I know it wasn't specifically touched on, but we are definitely concerned with the historic shortfall and would also respectfully urge that the Legislature and Administration consider supplemental funding, given the shortfall. And then lastly, two quick items.

The elimination of the funding for post release community supervision is something that we oppose and as well as the reductions to the medication assistant treatment grants. So thank you for the consideration. Thank you for your comments.

Natasha Minsker, Smart Justice California we urge you to close five additional prisons and use those savings to reject the proposed cuts to medically assisted treatment. Reject the limitation of visitation for individuals in level four prisons. We urge you to reject the proposed cut to the public defender pilot program.

We urge you to reject the proposed cut to the victim's flexible cash assistance. We urge you to reject the proposed gut to adult reentry, and we urge you to address the shortfall in the Victims of Crime Assistance Fund. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Krista Colon, with the California Partnership to end domestic violence speaking to the Cal OES budget and the need for the state to provide augmented funding to address the shortfall in Victims of Crime act funding to prevent really devastating cuts to domestic violence shelter programs, rape crisis centers, child abuse programs and so much more. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments, Mister Chairman.

Cory Salzillo on behalf of the California State Sheriff's Association, just very briefly would echo the comments about the Victims of Crime act funding the need for a state backfill for that federal cut.

And then I would note two things referenced in the hearing today, specifically one in reference to the LAO's comments on the Bureau of Forensic Services and the notion of user pay. That means local law enforcement agencies would pay for the forensic services like DNA testing and things like that. So just making very clear what that entails.

And then without a position specifically on closures, we would object to the full closures of five additional prisons. We're still considering the proposal. Revise. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Kenneth Hartman, Transformative Programming Works three things. One, regarding the CDCR, it feels like what can be cut, what can't be cut, what might be cut down the road seems very unclear and maybe the Legislature needs more information. Also really strongly oppose contracting on visiting and jeopardizing family connections.

And finally, really are really concerned about continuing the progress that the Assembly and the Legislature has made on rehabilitative programming availability in CDCR. Thank you. Thank you so much for your comments.

Hi, my name is Misty Hasan. I'm here on behalf of Creative Acts, a community based organization. Echoing on the comments made before me. I'm opposed to the proposal to cut Friday visitation and the support to community based programs.

We do not want to sacrifice the family connections and rehabilitative programming within prisons that are cultivating community safety and generational healing. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello. My name is Major Bunton. I'm with Made New Foundations, the co-founder. In opposition of the proposel to cut a third day of visiting in level four yards, urging you guys, to ship the funding designated to the projects to San Quentin, to support to community based organizations. State wide.

Hello. Tana Opliger with Californians United for Responsible Budget or curb speaking to CDCR budget cuts if the proposed 7.95% budget reduction is applied to CDCR as a flat cut, we know it would amount to a significant $1 billion in savings.

However, the DOF states that portions of prison could be exempt from these cuts and that these exemptions won't be determined until fall. So we want to ask, how is this Committee supposed to identify savings and balance the budget in June when we don't receive this data until the fall?

We want to highlight the urgent need for improved transparency and access to information. And we also call for the closure of at least five prisons, which would save $1 billion ongoing, as well as the protection of rehabilitative programming. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Good afternoon, Emily with the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. I want to appreciate the conversation that the Committee was having around the consolidation and closure of the prison beds.

And the Ella Baker center would urge you to close five prisons instead of deactivating individual beds to see the most amount of savings so that we can reduce cuts that are happening across the state, particularly to services that are vital to prevent people from going to prison.

We're also strongly concerned about reducing visiting on level four to two days and urge you to reject that item. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello. My name is Felicia Montero. I'm the wife of a lifer who's been inside for 24 years for crime committed when he was a youth where nobody was hurt. Despite the reductions in prison populations and occupied prison beds, spending on corrections has continued to increase over the last decade, reaching an overall 19 billion.

While the Governor proposed massive reductions to education, health, and other services in the revision, the proposed budget for corrections has actually grown since the January budget, with an increase of $58 billion since then. Finally, I wanted to respond to the repeated fact that the loss of one visiting day will only affect 19% of the population.

Doing this to even one family is cruel and shows zero care for public safety. It's not just one family, though, is it? 19% or 17,000 plus incarcerated people? And that number doesn't include the larger number that it affects, including family Members and children.

When I visit my husband, sometimes Jada can't go on Friday. Jordan can't go on Sunday. Maybe Kalei has basketball on Friday. So pulling one of these days away is cruel. I don't understand why we would do this to children or families. Excuse me.

We urge the Legislator to save prison visits, cut parole funding, and close at least five prisons as a responsible approach to offsetting cuts to other vital services. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Good afternoon, Chair Members. Thank you for your time. And I'm impacted directly for a level four. My husband has been in prison for 30 years. He's got life without the possibility. Many people with life without the possibility on level fours.

What I want to say is, on behalf of the families, Fridays are vital to us because Saturdays and Sundays, those level fours are overcrowded. We're supposed to get 6 hours of visiting, and on Saturdays and Sundays, we're lucky if we get two. So those Friday visits are vital to us.

So I also ask you to oppose the public defender funding that you guys want to take away from them. We need the public defenders. They need more funding. If we can take some from the DAs, that would be nice.

Also, a suggestion would be to find CDCR when they come to these hearings when they don't have the information requested. I'm tired of coming for years as well as you guys are tired of being here for years and not getting the answers that we need. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello. Good afternoon. Thank you, chair and Committee Members, for this time and this space and allowing us all to join and be part of California's budget hearing. My name is Kerry Arzate, and I strongly oppose the governor's proposal to remove the third day in visiting in level four prisons.

My husband has been impacted as well as our family and all the children that are impacted. He's been on a level four prison and we did Friday visiting for 15 Fridays in a row. My husband is now on a level three prison with no write ups. So that's important and it's vital.

Also, prioritizing empty buildings and empty beds over people and rehabilitation does not help support public safety. So in joining all these organizations and family Members and our youth that are impacted, please remember I'm 1 and 4 women with a loved one in prison.

And my son Nico is one in every 28 children with a parent in prison that's impacted. And visits mean everything. Thank you for your support to our families in California.

Thank you for your comments.

Hello, my name is Eugene Dey. I'm with the Crop Organization, and I would like to thank this Committee for the robust and vigorous debate around the CDC and our budget. I had three comments. I'm very concerned about the lack of clarity about where the budget cuts originate.

Another concern in opposition would be any severance of close family ties through visiting. And lastly, very concerned about any cuts in rehabilitative programming. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your comments.

My name is Lawrence. I'm here with All of Us or None LSPC and also the Coalition for Family Unity. Of course, we want to oppose and object the removing of the third day of visiting for level four yards.

I want to point out that we all know level four yards are some of the yards that have some of the most violent and some of the most depressed inmates, some inmates that, excuse me, incarcerated individuals that deal with the most mental issues and taking a rehabilitative program or a rehabilitative mechanism from them for punishment is not fair.

It's not conducive to recidivism rates would actually in the long rate causes our society more when we fail to rehabilitate individuals. I do also want to uplift that we should close five prisons like LAO suggested. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Nicole Wordelman on behalf of San Bernardino county and Orange County also disappointed about the lack of restoration for the public defense pilot program and urging support for that for San Bernardino County. It's 2.6 million and it is delaying access to justice for a number of people.

Thank you for your comments.

Good afternoon Committee Members. My name is Dax Proctor and I am a constituent of Assembly District 51 and a Member of SEIU 2015. I'd like to note that for four years my elderly mother was an in home supportive services recipient and I was her IHSS provider for those four years.

I am dismayed and angered, frankly, that the May revision seeks to dismantle this crucial program. It is heartbreaking to think that my friends and neighbors may not be able to access this life sustaining program in the future. The budget cuts to social safety net programs in the May revision will jeopardize our children, seniors, our workforce.

They will also exclude immigrants from critical care and support needs. It is not an exaggeration to say that these cuts, if approved, will plunge our communities into overlapping labor, public health, and public safety crises.

If we enact a budget that prioritizes incarceration over the core needs of people, then we owe our vulnerable community Members, those who will bear the brunt of these budget cuts and who do not have the luxury of attending hearings like these today.

An explanation as to how our operating prisons, with a 15,000 bed surplus for billions of dollars, contributes to their public safety. How do empty prisons contribute to their public health, to their economic stability? Operating a leaner corrections budget to protect our social safety net is something both lawmakers and everyday people like me could get behind. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Hi, Alyssa Moore, Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. All of us are none, and we support the closure of five additional prisons. Soft closure is lie and a band aid CDCR is using in the hopes of reopening those outdated aforementioned prisons.

Essentially, soft closures are a bad joke that isn't going over well with our currently and formerly incarcerated people, especially because some level fours, for various reasons, cannot lower their score due to a point that would make them level three and eligible for those visits.

In addition of those of us here, I've been in the midst of a soft closure in the California State Department of Corrections. And it is a joke. The only way to save money with that is to close all the prisons that were mentioned.

And we also oppose removing the third day of visiting for level fours, as they are the most vulnerable demographic and already very vulnerable population. If I want anybody to have those access to family and rebuild those bonds and have a buy in for public safety, it's those individuals. I was there. I was housed with them.

And I'm here to tell you it doesn't make public any safer to eliminate those visits. It actually does more harm than good. And then also, we absolutely, unequivocally opposed the cuts to in prison programming. As CDCR has been given millions in the name of rehabilitation. So what sense does it make to remove that rehabilitation?

Thank you for your comments.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Grace Glazer. I'm here on behalf of Valor California Sexual Assault Coalition, and I'm speaking out of deep concern for the lack of up to 200 million in the May revision for crime victim services, rape crisis centers, domestic violence shelters, children's advocacy centers are preparing for a devastating 44.7% funding cut beginning in July.

Our programs are looking at closing their doors, laying off their staff, and at the end of the day, it's a survivor that's at the end of that line. So I really want to strongly urge this Subcommitee to include up to 200 million in their final budget deals. Appreciate you all taking this time.

Thank you for your comments.

Hi, I'm Holly Fleming. I'm with Children's Advocacy Centers of California. We support the folks who are the first response in allegations of child abuse in the state. I'd like to echo the call for up to 200 million in backfill for that federal funding.

For many of our centers, it's 100% of their budget, which means that without it, they'll have to close their doors, and children and their families in the worst moments of their lives, will not get access to. To those life saving services. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Good afternoon, Committee Members. My name is Kelly Walters. I'm a Staff Attorney with Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. Although they're not here, I do want to specifically thank Assembly Members Banta and Ting for their robust comments concerning the third day of visitation and the threat of taking that away.

At the risk of reiterating what they said, reducing visiting days for level four incarcerated individuals contradicts rehabilitative principles that emphasize the importance of maintaining connections with family and community support networks. Research consistently demonstrates that regular contact with loved ones not only improves an inmates mental well being, but also contributes significantly to their successful reintegration into society.

Post release. By limiting visiting opportunities, the proposal effectively hampers these essential avenues for rehabilitation. Further level four incarcerated individuals for so long have struggled to obtain and access effective rehabilitative programs, contributing to an increase in hopelessness, idle time and violence.

Now that these facilities have recently begun to offer and facilitate essential rehabilitative programs, our Administration wants to curtail access to one of its most powerful and effective rehabilitative tools, which is visiting. We can't ignore the economic costs this will entail for years to come.

We urge the Committee to follow the Laos recommendation to close at least five prisons, which would save $1 billion ongoing and could prevent many of the proposed cuts to social programs that keep our communities healthy and safe. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments.

Sandra Barreiro on behalf of SEIU California, commenting on the proposed reductions to the trial courts, a lot of the problems with staffing and backlogs occurred during the great Recession due to staffing cuts. So we don't want to undo the progress that we've made.

And in regards to the court reporter recruitment and retention funds, those funds, the expenditure of those funds, it was hard fought by my Members at the table to get those funds into MOUs and we shouldn't be penalizing the courts that did the right thing and use them on compensation. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments.

Good afternoon. Chairman and Members Nick Brokaw from Sacramento Advocates here on behalf of the California Public Defenders Association, wishing to align our comments with those made by the ACLU and counties throughout the state, calling on the restoration of the third year of funding for the public defense pilot program.

And we greatly appreciate the bipartisan comments and support previous hearings recognizing the great return on the state's investment here. Two out of the four pilot programs in place, according to our calculations of anywhere between 94 to over $700 million in savings. So it's quite significant. Thank you.