Assembly Standing Committee on Budget

All right, good morning, everybody. Welcome to our Budget Committee hearing today. We're delighted to have all of you here. We are going to start by establishing quorum. Madam Secretary, will you please take attendance? Present.

[Roll Call] A quorum is present.

Thank you very much, Madam Secretary. A quorum is present. So today's hearing marks a key step forward in our mission of crafting an on time, balanced budget that delivers for hardworking Californians.

I'm pleased to share today that thanks to the hard work of our talented Subcommittee chairs and our dedicated staff, we have reached agreement with the Senate and have a proposed legislative budget to consider today.

I want to start with a few high level comments about the budget before us, and then I'm going to invite each of the chairs of our subcommittees to speak as well.

After that, we're going to take comments from the Department of Finance, from the Legislative Analyst's office, and then we will bring it back to the Committee for questions and comments, as well as a motion on the plan before us today. At the end of this hearing, we will have an opportunity for public comment.

But first, and most importantly, let me welcome our new Vice Chair, Assemblymember Flora. We don't always see eye to eye on policy, but it has always been a pleasure to work with you. So welcome to the Committee, Mr. Vice Chair.

Before we begin today, I want to share a few thoughts about how we arrived at this moment and also thank those who helped us to get here. As you will all recall, in November, shortly after I became chair of this Committee, our delayed 2022 tax receipts were far below projections.

By the end of January, it became clear that our state was facing major budget challenges. But rather than shy away from this challenge, we decided to face it head on with clear resolve to do right by the hardworking Californians we are privileged to represent.

Our Budget Committee began this year by grappling with these challenges with an understanding that we must be prepared for an uncertain future that may bring further challenges down the road.

To that end, we took decisive early action in partnership with the Governor and the Senate, and we agreed that to deliver real results, we need to dig in and do the hard work.

From the beginning of this process, Assembly Democrats have been united in our goals of protecting classroom spending, critical safety net programs, and key efforts to address California's housing and homelessness crisis. But we also understand that such an effort must go hand in glove with a clear and unwavering commitment to smarter spending and real accountability.

We recognize that in these times, the people of California expect government to tighten its belt and balance the budget just like families do every month. And that's what our legislative budget does.

The process of crafting this budget began almost five months ago, and our mission, as directed by the speaker, was to make this a transparent and inclusive process that would deliver a budget that reflects the values and priorities of our caucus and the communities that we serve.

I'm proud to share that today is our 71st hearing reflecting a robust and inclusive public process to build a common sense budget.

We were fortunate to work closely with our partners in the Senate and the Administration to embrace our goals, and I want to thank the Governor for his thoughtful may revision proposal that sets for division to balance the budget for both 2024 and 2025, and to retain significant reserves for potential future challenges.

I want to thank the thousands of advocates and ordinary Californians who made their voices heard and helped us grapple with the impacts of the difficult choices we face. And I want to thank our partners in the Senate for agreeing with us to retain this architecture and to craft a legislative budget that reflects our shared priorities.

I'm confident that we can work together with these partners over the next few weeks to craft a final budget that delivers real results for California. I thought it was appropriate as we begin to share a few thoughts about the major themes of our legislative budget.

As I mentioned, it balances the budget in both 2024 and 2025 with slightly higher projected reserves than the Governor for both years. At the same time, we restore many of the most painful cuts to safety net programs, housing and health, including rate increases for health providers.

We also mirror the governor's recent agreement with education stakeholders to protect classroom funding now and in the future. And finally, we provide 1 billion next year to continue the fight against homelessness, but with facts based, real accountability measures so that we can meet this challenge with the urgency that it deserves.

We were able to accomplish these dual priorities in a number of ways, including by starting the net operating loss suspension proposed by the Governor one year earlier, and also with new cuts, including approximately $1 billion in correction cuts and an additional $1 billion in painful but necessary cuts to climate.

These were difficult choices, but we had to set priorities and create a plan of action because that is what this moment requires.

This budget would only be possible throughout the incredible hard work of both members and staff, and I want to particularly thank all the Members of this Committee, and in particular our budget Subcommittee Chairs, for the hearings and the meetings with public stakeholders and recognize them for their leadership, which we really relied on our Subcommittee Chairs throughout this process.

I also want to thank all of the offices for each of those Subcommittee Chairs. I know how hard you have worked to help craft this budget agreement, but also since this is our last hearing, I also want to recognize our very talented Legislative Analyst for his work and for the work of his office.

We're very grateful for your guidance throughout the year, and you have always kept our members focused on what is right for the state, even if it wasn't what we always wanted to hear. I also want to thank the Department of Finance and the Administration for their professionalism and collaborative approach.

Your dedication, your willingness to come to the hearings and engage with us is deeply appreciated, and we look forward to working closely with you in these following weeks to craft the final budget. I also want to thank the Republican policy team, which has to staff all of these hearings on top of their bill load.

So we appreciate your constructive role in this process. To Jason Sisney, who is the Tom Brady of budgeting, to Nick Miller, to DCO, to the speakers policy team. Want to thank you for your important work in all of this.

And also, of course, want to thank my team, both my Capitol and district staff, whose life has really been consumed by the budget since I took over as chair. I want to thank you for your help in this process.

And last, but most importantly, I want to thank the amazing Assembly budget team for their extraordinary work and dedication. They are exemplary public servants. I can tell you that the average hours of night sleep among this team often is below 4 hours a night.

These are folks who are deeply committed and dedicated to helping to do what's right for California. So let me thank Christian Griffith, Nicole Vasquez, Aaron Gable, Mark Martin, Shai Forbes, Christine Mashiro, Patrick Lee, Genevieve Morelos, Jennifer Kim, Bernie Orozco, Irene Villarouse, Marco Rodriguez, and Alexa Contrell. We are deeply, deeply grateful for all of your hard work.

And I will note they are all wearing polka dots today in support of this important final hearing. And finally, before we conclude, I want to take some time to recognize some individuals that we may not always thank at our hearings, but are critical to this process.

So first, let me thank the Assembly sergeants for your work helping to facilitate this hearing. I want to thank the Legislative Council and the legislative data center, who have been working behind the scenes on crafting all the bills and making sure that remote testimony is possible.

The Assembly television crew who allows this to be broadcast, all these hearings to the public and of course to the Department of General Services whose support and maintenance of this hearing room and all of our Assembly facilities.

So please know we don't always say it, but we deeply appreciate all of the staff whose work has made today possible. I have always said that public service, like life, is a team sport. And I am really grateful for the dedicated and professional team we have here in the Assembly.

So with that, we look forward to beginning the hearing and I will turn it over to Mr. Flora for any comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a privilege to serve on this community. And when I was asked to take over as Vice Chair, one of the first things I said is I don't even know what. I don't know yet. This Committee is unbelievably challenging.

The state, the budget that we deal with is far more complex than I think most people give it credit for. So I just wanted to say thank you to the budget staff, both Democrat and Republican Budget Staff, Department of Finance, LOA on all of your hard work because this is not an easy product, you know, an easy job.

It's one thing to have a budget surplus. It's entirely different when we have a deficit and there are going to be hard cuts, hard decisions. And I can't even imagine the phone calls the chair has taken over the last number of months as we try to deal with this. But it's an honor to serve.

It's an honor to serve the state. And I look forward to being collaborative and working with you my friend.

Thank you very much Mr. Flora. We're very excited to work with you as well at this point. Now we're going to turn it over to our Budget Subcommittee Chairs who are going to provide us with some comments regarding the work of their subcommittees. And so let's begin with Subcommittee one and Doctor Weber.

Thank you Chair Gabriel. Well, we have had a very challenging year in sub one. Fixing the budget deficit required some very difficult decisions. We've held 12 hearings and I want to thank Assemblymembers Mia Bonta and Jim Patterson for their contributions to the discussions.

And I also want to give a special thank to Assemblymember Jim Wood for his participation in our last hearing. The May Revision included over 30 major new proposals to bridge the budget cap. With over $1 billion in reductions proposed. We had no choice but to agree to many of those reductions.

But our legislative plan does protect some key areas. One of the things that we kept in mind are the promises that we've made to the residents of California to not just provide medical insurance, but to ensure that they have providers that they can access.

Therefore, we have restored the MCO funded rate increases. Starting in January 1, 2026 for providers whose rates increase were eliminated in the May Revise. Some of those rates will start earlier in 2025 and we are continuing to work on that framework.

We've protected those programs that were working to prevent hospitalizations, decrease ER visits, decrease the cost of healthcare overall, while increasing the quality of life and life expectancy for some of our most vulnerable residents. We are funding the Indian Health program, the acupuncture optional benefit and the free clinic funding, to name a few.

We remember the commitment that we have made to those who are currently training to be our next healthcare providers and will not eliminate the funding and allow them to finish their training. And we've retained California's ability to be prepared for protecting our residents for the next pandemic by continuing the critical 300 million of recent public health investments.

I want to thank our Chair Gabriel and our speaker Rivas for their support and partnership in this process. I want to thank the LAO and finance team for engaging in some very difficult but very important conversations.

I want to thank all of the stakeholders and the residents of California who've come to our hearings to express their support or concern for various proposals.

And I also want to thank my staff, specifically my Chief of Staff, for all of the hard hours and meetings and along with the budget staff for their hard work this year in crafting this plan.

I too must give a very special thank you and shout out to Christian Griffith who doubled this year as not only overall staff for the budget, but also staff for sub one budget. I stated our work is not done, but I am proud of what we have done so far.

Given these very difficult times and challenges, we have kept in mind to always keep the health and well being of our California residents first. And with that, I thank you.

Thank you very much Doctor Weber. And I just want to say thank you. It has been such a privilege to have you leading our Subcommittee and someone with your talent and experience and all these an incredible perspective on all these issues. So thank you for your hard work.

With that, we will turn to Doctor Jackson who is going to present on the work of Subcommittee number two.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Sub two on human services also faced difficult cuts across all parts of the safety net, posing great threats and risks to vulnerable Californians. We held eight hearings and I want to thank Assemblymembers Lee and Waldron for their membership and participation on this Committee.

During this entire process, Mr. Chair, with your leadership we promised a fair, honest and transparent process that was rooted in justice with thorough examination of the impacts of any proposed cuts. And thankfully, Mr. Chair, the Legislature has delivered that to the people of California. Our plan responded to what we heard from many hours of testimony and public comment over the spring.

This plane rejected the delay for Developmental Services rate reform, which will now take effect July 1, 2024 as planned. It rejects the multiple program threats to CalWORKS programs and instead adopts right sizing reductions to take savings and match to utilization, preventing the most damaging of program reductions for vulnerable families with children in deep poverty.

It rejects the majority of cuts in foster care, including the proposed elimination of the family urgent response system, the proposed cut to caregiver approvals, and the trigger for the pending permanent rate structure.

It rejects the elimination of in home supportive services for undocumented Medical recipients, the reduction to senior nutrition services, and the cuts to adult protective services as proposed by the Governor. It also temporarily pauses our progress to serve 200,000 more children in childcare, but ensures that all awarded programs are fully funded.

I too want to thank the LAO, finance, my team and budget staff for their hard work this year crafting this plan. Surely, Mr. Chair, we have ensured that the budget is not balanced on our most vulnerable populations. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Doctor Jackson. And I too want to thank you for your exceptional leadership in these difficult times and leadership which is rooted in empathy and a focus on helping our most vulnerable communities. So thank you for your hard work this year.

Members, unfortunately, Mr. Alvarez is not able to make today's hearing, but he has also done a lot of important and difficult work in Subcommittee three and done it well, and he asked me to present on his behalf. So Subcommittee three had 14 hearings.

Much of them were focused on balancing the need to protect core educational programming amid this challenging budget environment.

The Legislature's package will allow for a higher Proposition 98 guarantee than the May Revision, with nearly 114 billion ongoing for 2024-2025 and this allows the modest ongoing increases in local assistance to schools and community colleges outlined in the governor's proposal.

The package also preserves 1.1 billion in reserves for education by the end of 24-25. For the University of California and the California State University, we delay the deferral of a 5% base increase by a year, which gives each segment more time to adjust to lower state support.

Both segments would therefore see a 3% increase in the budget year.

We also reject proposed cuts to the UC labor centers and the UCLA Latino Politics and Policy Institute. At the same time, we begin a phase in of Cal grant reform and reject cuts to the middle class scholarship, providing more financial aid for community college, UC and CSU students.

And we also reject a proposed cut to the Golden State Teacher grant program, which provides financial aid to students getting their teaching credential. This program is a key tool in addressing the teacher shortage in our state.

So I want to thank Mr. Alvarez for all of his hard work, as well as the Members of that Subcommittee that I know spent a lot of time grappling with these tough issues and are making sure that we protect classroom funding and provide the support that our educators need.

With that, next up is Assemblymember Bennett to discuss the work of Subcommittee four.

Thank you very much, Chair Gabriel. The State of California, the nation, the world is going through the most historic transformation in energy that we will certainly see in our lifetime, but historically has actually happened in the world.

To move from a carbon economy to a carbon less economy is a huge transformation and it is hard to overestimate how the magnitude of the transformation that we have in front of us.

So in budget sub four, we have had a critical responsibility to try to identify the funding that is necessary for California to do its share in terms of addressing the climate crisis that faces the world.

It's also, in budget sub four necessary for us to fund the programs that are necessary for us to sustainably manage and protect California's very unique and diverse natural resources that we have here.

So it has, just like it has been for my fellow sub chairs, extremely challenging to identify the cuts that we have to make to such important programs and such important efforts. What that has required, like my fellow sub chairs, is for us to evaluate literally the effectiveness of every program against every other program that is out there.

There are no programs that we found that we just said, hey, these are not effective programs, these aren't good programs. But relative to the effectiveness of how well a dollar would be spent someplace else, that was the standard that we had to use for this particular cut, for these particular decisions.

So the magnitude of the deficit just compelled us that we had to make reductions at this point in time. And in our current fiscal responsibility, in our efforts to try to respond to the public's request, to the analysis, to the great input that we have had, we realized that for every time we wanted to restore a dollar for a program that was proposed for a cut, we had to find another program that needed to take a cut.

And I can't underestimate, I can't overestimate the magnitude of the difficulty of that. So, after 10 weeks of Subcommittee hearings and hearing at each hearing we had many dozens of public speakers comment.

And with the partnership and sage advice that came from Assemblymembers Conley, Assemblymember Petrie Norris, and Assemblymember Wilson, who served on the Subcommittee along with me, we were fortunate that we were able to, in spite of the reductions, restore some funding for water recycling and dam safety, sustainable agriculture, ocean protection and sea level rise, equitable building, decarbonization, extreme heat and active transportation.

So those were all issues that came forward for us from our conversations with fellow Assemblymembers, and again, the good advice of both our staff and the other Members of the Budget Subcommittee. So I'm thankful for all the people that participated in those hearings to share their perspective and who came to fight for those important programs.

But I would like to take a minute just to use one program as an example of the challenges that we have ahead of us, and that is that I've been contacted many times about the OTC plants that we have in the State of California.

Those are plants that are burning fossil fuel that we are spending $1.2 billion on this year in the budget to hold those plants in case of emergency and to protect us from a, a potential blackout if we have an extreme weather crisis in front of us.

But that $1.2 billion was, those are precious dollars that we could also look at and use for demand side support or reductions of demand side energy, distributed energy, increased battery storage. In fact, one of the very plants could become the site of battery storage.

So it is a challenge for all of us, in spite of the fact that we have identified those plants. It's a challenge for all of us each year.

And the challenge for the Department of Finance, the Administration, and all of us in the Legislature is to look and see how quickly we can move away from fossil fuel uses of those energies and move towards all of the renewable energy sources that we know we need for this historic transformation.

So with that, I'd like to thank the LAO and the Department of Finance. I've, at the Committee hearings, have been particularly impressed with the professionalism of everybody from the LAO's office to the Department of Finance's office in terms of handling themselves in these conversations to our staff.

And I particularly want to call out Shai and Christine, working just endless hours. But more importantly, they're very wise insights into how these various programs all interact with each other. And then finally, there has been a significant commitment by Chair Gabriel and Speaker Rivas to make this as open and as transparent a process as possible.

And I think that is essential for us to try to maintain the public's trust at the same time that we're asking the public to be recognizing the public is going to be disappointed with many of these changes. So thank you very much for that.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Bennett, I just want to thank you. We called on you to do a lot of difficult and challenging work, and you conducted yourself with incredible professionalism.

And I know that you are such a passionate advocate for a lot of this work, and just very, very grateful to have you in this important role. With that, I want to turn it over to Assemblywoman Quirk-Silva, who will present on the work of Sub Five.

Good morning, everybody. I got the Polkadot memo. Perhaps that is because with our great consultants Genevieve Morelos and Patrick Lee, we kind of became symbiotic. Because when you're working together so closely, you start to think alike. No, not really. It was an accident. But actually, there is truth in this.

Our Committee took this task seriously, as we know from hearing from constituents throughout California that some of the key areas under Budget Sub Five are vital to our communities. Budget Sub Five, for those of you who aren't following as closely, deals mostly with state agencies, but veterans, EDD, GO-Biz, so many areas, arts, arts council, labor, tax.

It's a very vast Committee. And with that we had very robust discussions. We had 10 hearings, with an additional three hearings with our Budget Sub Chair. I want to thank our Budget Sub Chair, Avellino Valencia, as we had three joint hearings that added to a total of 13 hearings that we worked on.

In addition to that, many of you may not know that not only all the Budget Sub Chairs and our Budget Chair met regularly, almost weekly, to begin to discuss how our priorities would be moving forward. I do want to thank Assemblymember Ward and Assemblymember Patterson for their participation in Budget Sub Five.

I also, of course, want to thank the LAO and the Department of Finance, of course, Jason Sisney and Christian Griffith. As what has already been mentioned, when you are new to a Budget Sub, you're working with new individuals that maybe as an Assemblymember, you haven't had as much contact. I was always struck with their professionalism.

Some of the Committees asked very provocative and direct questions, and they all came prepared and ready to answer. We appreciated that. As I mentioned, this Committee, so many issues, from labor to taxes to veterans' affairs. And we knew from the very beginning that there were going to be very tough choices.

We also heard from our cities, from counties. We heard from artists, car dealers, small business representation, foster youth, and more. Our legislative plan focuses on restoring housing programs, including the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, Multifamily Housing program, REAP 2.0, and the Housing Navigation and Maintenance Programs.

We heard loud and clear from our cities and counties that they valued these programs. They felt they were working. And yet we will be adding language to make sure that accountability is nestled in the language so that we can go to our public where these tax dollars come and let them know.

We hear you about data and about accountability. The programs are not just numbers on a spreadsheet, they represent. These programs represent real hope and opportunity for countless Californians seeking a stable place to call home.

Our plan has allocated 1 billion for an additional round of HHAPP funding with guardrails as mentioned, focusing on efficiency, accountability and urgency from local governments. Again, I want to mention our Accountability Committee as that was vetted through that Committee of we have to have data, we need urgency and we need to build these units.

We are restoring critical labor programs, fully funding the Women in Construction program, the High Road Training Partnerships, and Health and Human Services, and bolstering the California Workplace Outreach program. We know that our investment in jobs in California is exactly what we need to do in dire times, and bringing these programs back is essential to this work.

Our plan restores the technical assistance dollars that are vital to our small business communities are also an economic engine in our state, better known as the TAP program. And we heard from you loud and clear over 2000 letters presented to us.

Our plan also restores some funding for the arts grants that were proposed for cuts and provides a pathway to fully restore our investments in the arts by 2026. I know there's some artists out there. The arts are the soul of our communities and by restoring this funding, we are nurturing the creativity and spirit that make California unique.

This legislative plan adopts the governor's proposal to suspend the net operating loss deductions and cap various business tax credits for three years. I know we're going to hear more about that, and this has been an extremely challenging discussion.

But the legislators plan starts the three year period earlier than the Governor so that the suspension in cap will be in place for tax years 2024, 2025 and 2026.

Our plan also includes adopting all other tax and fee proposals from the governor's January and May Revisions, including changes to oil and gas taxation and corporate tax laws. I know it has been a very difficult budget year, but California has faced challenges like these before and has withstood them all.

Californians resilience, innovation and our unwavering spirit have seen us through tough times. This year will be no different. Again, I want to commend Speaker Rivas, Budget Chair Gabriel, and all of the Budget Committee Members for their work to create a budget that honors Californians, promises, and upholds the value that are so important to our great state. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Assemblymember, and I want to thank you. I know how personally passionate you are about a lot of these issues, and thank you for conducting the Subcommittee with such professionalism. You've done an excellent job.

I do just want to I know that we have a lot of folks in the hearing room that are either pleased or upset about various decisions that are included within the legislative button.

I just respectfully request that you postpone any expressions of those until public comment, and there'll be an opportunity there for you to express your pleasure or displeasure with various items. With that, we're going to turn to Subcommittee number six.

Unfortunately, Mr. Ramos is unable to attend today as well, but he also asked me to present the summary of his Subcommittee's actions in the legislative plan. The public safety plan includes about a $1 billion reduction in corrections in order to increase the efficiency and accountability of the most expensive prison system in the nation.

This includes an estimated baseline reduction of approximately 500 million ongoing. And we also include guardrails to ensure that the reductions don't negatively impact rehabilitation programs and family connection programs.

We reject a number of proposed reductions that would negatively impact recidivism, such as the Adult Reentry Grant that supports housing for people coming out of prison and the elimination of third day of visitation in some prisons. We also reject reductions to legislative commitments to supporting indigent defense and ongoing support for court reporters in family and civil proceedings.

And finally, and I believe one of the most important investments we are making in public safety is $103 million ongoing to address the budget gap from the federal Victims of Crime Act so we can maintain our current level of service for victims and survivors of crime to support their needs at a time when they're experiencing deep trauma and vulnerability.

And really to support some incredible organizations and programs across the state that are doing work with those who have been the victims of crime. So I want to thank Assemblymember Ramos for his steady leadership of this Subcommittee. I know that he cares a lot about these issues, and we're very grateful for his hard work.

With that, we will turn to our newly created Subcommittee Seven and an Assemblymember, Valencia, to present us with a summary of the work of that Subcommittee this year.

Thank you, Chair Gabriel the Subcommittee on Accountability and Oversight had three hearings that helped shape this year's budget discussions. Committee Members were specifically appointed to this Committee.

Yes, appointed to this Committee given their expertise in the subject and allowing them, which allowed them to ask very hard hitting questions about implementation or lack of progress in meetings while the programs were being deployed, the state's efforts to deploy broadband serviced.

The hearings consisted of the deployment of broadband services to underserved communities, the state's investment in affordable housing and barriers to construction, and the state's efforts to address California's homelessness crisis. From these hearings, we learned that our investments have had shortcomings in desired results.

That being said, I am proud of the work that we have done this year to set a foundation moving forward that will yield the expected results by Californians.

Additionally, we have learned that past spending and recent budget swings that the state should we've learned from past spending and recent budget swings that the state should be more mindful during budget surplus years, therefore increasing focus on savings and future fiscal planning.

Because of that, I'll be introducing an Assembly Constitutional Amendment with the goal of it being placed on the 2026 ballot to increase the rainy day reserve cap and make changes to the Gann Limit in order to better position the state's financially situation for future generations of Californians.

Lastly, I'd like to thank our Speaker, our Budget Chair, our Sub Chairs, and then of course, our caucus for their continued commitment on accountability and oversight. Creating an equitable budget is challenging, even more so when we have limited resources.

And of course, in closing, I'd like to thank our incredible Budget and Assembly team, who is foundational to our success. I actually wear this pin, which is a gear that has engraved the phrase it takes teamwork. And I think this process has been a wonderful example of just that.

It takes us all to make sure that we move California forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember Valencia. Yeah, we are all on message here with the theme of teamwork, and I want to thank you for your contributions to this team. As you know, and we have discussed many times that smarter spending and real accountability are foundational goals for Speaker Rivas and me.

And part of what we are really trying to do is we create a culture change here around the budget. And I want to thank you for so ably leading Subcommitee seven as we do that important work.

Before we turn it over to other Members for comments or questions or a motion, I do want to give the Department of Finance and the LAO the opportunity to make any comments. And so let's begin today with the Department of Finance.

Good morning. Chair Gabriel, Vice Chair Flora welcome. And Members of the Budget Committee, Erica Lee with the Department of Finance. And I'm here to provide the Administration's initial remarks on the legislative budget plan that was released yesterday. We are currently reviewing the details of the Legislative Budget plan.

However, our initial assessment is that we are very much encouraged by the plan that it maintains the multi year fiscal structure of the May Revision. As Terry Gabriel mentioned earlier, solving for budget deficits not only in the budget window, but also in the fiscal year that follows 2025-26.

We are also encouraged that the legislative plan maintains many of the solutions that were presented in the Governor's plan, both at the Governor's Budget and at the May Revision, including a sizable amount of reductions, which begins to address the issues that we're seeing to better align our expenditures with our revenues.

Importantly, the legislative plan also proposes several budget resilience tools. For example, while it does utilize some of the state's reserves, like the May Revision, also like the May Revision, it maintains over 20 billion in reserves that can be tapped in future years if necessary, and we see this as an important tool to address the state's volatile revenue stream.

Additionally, the legislative plan supports a concept of the Administration in regards to establishing a temporary holding account to store a portion of future projected surplus until such a surplus actually materializes, and lastly, it supports changes to the state's Rainy Day Fund to save even more in reserves.

However, as I stated, we are still reviewing the details of the legislative plan, including both the new reductions as well as new spending proposals.

It's not clear yet how the overall plan will impact fiscal years beyond 25-26 and it will be important for the Administration to know that there are not significant increases in those projected deficits in 2026-27 and 27-28.

But with that, we look forward to working with the Legislature toward achieving our shared goal of delivering a balanced budget in June that aligns spending with revenues, makes government leaner, and preserves the ongoing fiscal integrity of the budget so that we may maintain and protect our core programs. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you for that initial feedback. Thank you for all of the important opportunities for dialogue this year.

And I know that many of you heard where we talked about some of the differences between the legislative plan and the governor's plan, but I do want to also underscore that there's a lot of similarities, and we do adopt many of the proposed solutions that were put forward in the May Revision.

I think there's actually a lot that we're aligned on. And so we appreciate your work on this, the Administration's work on this, and look forward to the conversations ahead. With that, we will turn it over to our very talented Legislative Analyst.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Mr. Vice Chair, welcome to the Committee. At this time, we don't have a prepared analysis of the legislative package, and so I don't have comments to offer, but I'm here clearly, and I have several of my colleagues available as well, in case you have any questions that we can be of assistance on.

Thank you very much. And thank you again for all of your hard work over this year. And we look forward to continuing that opportunity to draw upon your wisdom as we move forward here.

And I also just want to recognize, as I did before, we have our Chief Consultants of the Assembly Budget Committee, Christian Griffith, who's put extraordinary hard work, and I would call him the Patrick Mahomes of the Budget. So we're very grateful for his hard work is there. Yeah.

With that, we will bring it back to the Committee for comments or questions or perhaps somebody has a motion.

I'll move the budget.

All right, so we have a motion by Assemblymember Bennett to adopt the Legislative Budget. We have a second by Assemblymember Wilson. Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call] Ayes 18, Nos four.

Thank you very much. And with that, the Legislative Budget is adopted, and we will leave the roll open for folks to add on. With that, we will now entertain any additional Member comments or questions. Are there any questions or comments from the Members? Mr. Flora.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's great to be with you once again. I just had a couple comments and observations and some things I do want to run through Committee or Department of Finance as well.

And one of the big things that we talk a lot about is creating a budget that is good for all of California and representing a rural community. At times we feel overlooked just because we focus on some things that, quite frankly, maybe people aren't quite as in tune with.

And so one of the programs I really want to talk about right off the bat is the Farmer program. The Farmer program is an entry placement program for the Ag Community, one of the most successful programs that the Air Board has ever put together, and just would like to get a little bit information on the Farmer program.

Shy Forbes, Assembly Budget Committee. There is no new funding for farmer in this budget, but there were also no cuts.

And I believe over the past few years, I forget sort of when that number starts, but I have an email and can send it to your office, that there was about $760 million funded for farmer over the past few years.

Is there anything in farmer for this budget? You said there was no cuts. Is there anything allocated for that now?

No, there is no new funding for it this year.

Okay, thank you. One more question or a couple more questions. You know, over the last really five years, I guess we spent roughly $24 billion on homelessness. We've seen roughly a 20% increase. I know we talked about trying to hold people accountable where this money was going.

Are we setting tangible goals to figure out what this money is doing? Are there goals that are being set to track where this money is going?

Genevieve Morelos, Assembly Budget Committee. We have, last year in the HHAP program, we set a number of goals in statute. And one of the things that we found this year when we were doing accountability is that a lot of those goals weren't being, the data wasn't being processed over at the Cal ICH.

And what we did this year through the budget process and last year through the budget process was move the HHAP program over to HCD. And the Governor, as part of his budget, expanded the Housing Accountability unit to now use the homelessness accountability.

And through that process, we'll be able to have those, the accountability metrics that we put in the budget, have a better eye on them.

HCD will be able to use the data that they know that's coming in from funding from different programs where local governments are with housing element compliance to really take a better look at how local jurisdictions are being held accountable to those metrics.

So, Mr. Flora, I'd also add, we did have a Subcommitee seven hearing on that very question because that is a shared concern that we've heard quite a bit.

And in this budget package, if you look at the funding that we have at this next round of HHAP, which we have $1.0 billion, there's guardrails that are in there on purpose because we learned from, were informed from the conversations because expressing, because the Members had very similar concerns to what you just expressed at that hearing.

So we are trying to make sure that any further investment has that in mind because the accountability is really critical, so we can go back to California to say, this is what we did with our money. Here's how it was used. Here is the results you got for your investment.

No, and I appreciate that because I completely agree. It's very hard to justify continuing to throw money down a hole without really any tangible goals, measurable achievements, especially when we talk to our constituents and they're like, really? We're doing - we're doing this more? So I appreciate that. I think we'll turn it over to, we'll get down.

Yeah. Thank you very much, Mr. Vice Chair. And I just want to echo the comments of staff. You know, I think that a top priority for the speaker, for me, for Miss Quirk-Silva, for Members of this Committee, is ensuring that there is really strong guardrails around homeless funding, really strict accountability.

I have had very, very frank conversations with our big city mayors about the expectations of the Legislature, both around making sure that spending is spent in a way that's going to move the needle, that this is going to be approached with the urgency that it deserves, and that we're going to have a very much clearer understanding of exactly the results that we're going to see with taxpayers hard earned money.

So I appreciate you raising that issue. I want you to know that is a concern that I believe is shared by every single Member of this Legislature as we confront this monumental challenge facing our state. So thank you for, thank you for raising that. With that, I believe we had Miss Petrie-Norris.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I'll just begin by thanking you and all of our Subcommitee chairs, certainly the incredible staff, for all of your hard work on this proposal. I think we all recognize that California's yawning budget deficit represents a tremendous challenge for our state.

Recognize that in many of these situations we have been grappling with and kind of making decisions between several bad options. And I do find myself those, as we're having this conversation and as we look to June 15th, kind of asking myself two questions.

Number one, is this deficit just kind of part and parcel of the volatility that is to be expected given California's tax system and the ups and downs that we have historically seen? Or are there some real warning signs here that we need to be cognizant of and mindful of?

And I think related to that, I then find myself asking, how best do we position California's economy for recovery, for growth, for expansion, rather than continued shrinking?

And as the budget sub chairs outlined, a significant way in which we've been able to, to navigate this deficit has been to suspend business tax incentives and net operating loss deductions for California companies for three years beginning in 2024. And as I've shared with many of you,

I just, I do worry that that decision will ultimately prove to be short sighted. I know that cuts are incredibly, incredibly difficult, but I do worry that we risk shooting the golden goose that we're counting on to lay the golden eggs that are going to enable us to grow and to recover.

So industry and a number of sectors have provided a proposal that would make this suspension somewhat more palatable.

So I do hope that we can continue a conversation around the possibility for some measure of refundability and to also clarify the way in which these trigger mechanisms will operate to provide a bit of a measure of certainty for the business community.

So I think it's really, really critical as we chart California's recovery, that we're creating a business climate that encourages investment, encourages innovation, encourages expansion and job growth here in the State of California. Thank you, again, and look forward to continuing that conversation.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Assemblywoman. I just want to thank you for your really incredibly thoughtful and principled advocacy and for reminding us that we need to be mindful about the business climate we have here in the state.

That's a state, that's a concern that I certainly share as well, making sure that the most innovative companies want to be here in California, that they want to create more jobs here and grow their businesses here, and I just appreciate you consistently reminding us of that.

So thank you for everything that you have done as part of this process. With that, I believe that Assemblymember Muratsuchi wanted to make some comments.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair.

I wanted to first of all say that, you know, I feel like this Committee, after, you know, we've had so many Subcommitee hearings that, you know, this discussion today almost seems kind of anticlimactic in that, you know, we have hashed over these specific line items over and over and over again in all of our Subcommitee hearings that we didn't have much discussion in terms of adopting the Assembly budget proposal.

But I want to make sure for anyone in the audience, as well as those that may be watching this broadcast, that this is a result, as the chair and all the subcommittees have indicated. I know the Subcommitee that I sit on, education funding, we had 14 hearings that went over all of these details.

And so I just wanted to make sure that people didn't feel disappointed with the lack of a conversation on our adoption of our legislative proposal today. Having said that, I believe this is my 7th or 8th year on the Budget Committee.

This is indeed perhaps one of the most challenging budgets that I've had to deal with. But this reminds me of, I like to say that I survived the Great Recession budgets of the late 2000s, where we not only had a significant drop in our state budget revenues, but we did not have the rainy day funds, we did not have the General Fund rainy day fund, we did not have the Proposition 98 rainy day fund.

And so those cuts were much deeper, much more painful, and so I really appreciate this Budget Committee's ongoing focus on making sure that we do everything we can to provide stability in terms of education funding.

Mr. Valencia's proposal about the ballot proposition to further strengthen the rainy day Reserve Fund is, you know, I certainly welcome that the proposal, you know, as part of our ongoing efforts to provide stability, you know, for me, my priority is K-12 education.

And I know that stability for our schools statewide is so critical, not only for our students, but for our teachers, our classified staff, you know, our families, making sure that, you know, we have that stability.

And finally, on that theme of stability, I would just like to say, you know, while this Committee is still reviewing the details of the Memorial Day evening announcement of the budget deal between the Governor and the California Teachers Association, my initial review as Chair of the Assembly Education Committee is that the budget deal, it protects this year's classroom funding, but it also recognizes the critical importance of, of Proposition 98 and its fundamental mission to provide that funding stability using not only the minimum guarantee going back to 2022-2023, but for the subsequent years.

And I believe this deal, it strikes that balance. It's not ideal, given this challenging budget year, but it proposes to rebench the, or to readjust the minimum guarantee going back to 2022-23.

It recognizes the importance of Proposition 98, you know, allowing for that readjustment of the prior year, Proposition 98 minimum guarantee going forward with the additional, I believe it was a $5.5 billion figure in terms of the maintenance factor being promised and agreed upon, and most importantly, again, respecting the integrity of Proposition 98 with the minimum guarantee with the maintenance factor, so that schools throughout our state have the predictability not only going back, but moving forward in terms of protecting classroom funding.

Mr. Chair, I just wanted to express my appreciation and support for the deal struck with the Governor and our teachers, and I look forward to our further conversations in this Budget Committee. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Assemblymember, and I do appreciate your, your comments around this. I know that the tough challenges we've had have forced people to make a lot of tough choices.

And we asked, you know, particularly of our budget Subcommitee chairs and our Budget Committee Members to really dig in here and wrestle with those tough choices, a lot of which have the potential to have profound consequences on Californians from in all corners of the state.

And I know people have really wrestled with the moral weight of those choices. I've seen people, I know that folks have had sleepless nights as they tried to think way, think about how we can best approach this problem, so I do want to just lift up what you said.

And again, thank the Members of this Committee, as I know our partners in the Administration, the Senate, have done as well. Really think through deeply the choices we make because we know that they can have profound impacts on folks. With that, I believe that Assemblymember Patterson had a comment.

Thank you. I wasn't finished getting together my thoughts, but I am always ready to go. A few questions on a variety of issues. The first one, just to go off what Mr. Flora was saying, our esteemed Vice Chair right now, he had asked about the homeless housing assistance and prevention program.

I actually have legislation on that that would require annual, it would require an annual report, essentially, to be evaluated annually to see if it's, you know, what the metrics are, and it's a great Bill that should be put right into the budget.

But I'm curious about more details on the guardrails, but also the reporting back to the Legislature and whether, you know, there would be an evaluation on an annual basis of that funding.

Genevieve Morelos, Assembly Budget. In last year's, in last year's statute, we do have a lot of metrics that are in there. I can get your staff where those are exactly in the statute,

but I think one of the things that we're trying to do, and one of the things that HCD is going to do is they're going to start putting that reporting data back up on their website. And so, what you'll be able to see is the metrics of where, the different categories of where the dollars are going.

You'll be able to see how many people you're moving out of homelessness. All of those, all those metrics that everybody, you know, that we created for this specifically so we knew how the dollars would go, are going to actually be hosted on HCD's website for us to have that transparency in the dollars.

And it'll also includes the dollars for unobligated and expended and expended dollars for each recipient of the HHAP dollars, and you'll be able to see where the dollars are going, how much people are using, how they used it over time, because I think one of the things.

the nuances in the law that we wrote for HHAP is that we gave one time funding, but it was programmed over a period of three years. And so, there's a lot of the numbers that you want to look at are not the, not necessarily expended, but the unobligated, because unobligated means they haven't programmed it yet.

But if it's obligated, then we know where they're going and where they're dedicated over the next three years.

Okay, perfect. I'm just trying to see if my staff is going to be able to do less work this year. I'm trying to get rid of bills and into the budget.

We're happy to share the language we have with your team.

That'd be great.

Because I think we have two things going on here. We have language from last year with money that's going out now, so we'll get better accountability, and then we're going to have language for the money we're proposing for the budget year, too, which will have even more guardrails, so we're happy to work with your office to make sure that they see their language.

Okay, great. Thank you. Just staying on the housing topic, I'm very curious about what programs, the Governor proposed significant cuts to housing. And at the last hearing, we talked about some of those, and I was curious what's happening generally on housing programs, but also in particular, I think he also proposed $152 million cut to CalHome.

And I was wondering exactly, that program specific, but maybe just a higher level on housing in general.

So on housing, what we did is we program over, a little over $1.0 billion, and we ended up cutting $1.0 billion in housing programs.

So on the high level, key programs that we kept in, we earlier had a Subcommitee hearing that evaluated programs on, you know, which ones are creating the most units, which ones are the most efficient, and that's kind of the criteria that we looked at when we were reinstating the key housing programs.

And so with that, we had the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit that got reinstated, the Multifamily Housing Program, which is necessary, really to help the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit get those units off the ground.

We dedicated 250 million out of the 300 million for the REIT program, which we know would be the farthest in building housing and units out there, and we also saved the Housing Navigation program.

One of the reasons that we didn't Fund the CalHome program is that there is currently from Proposition 1, about $120 million that are still available, which would equal two NOFAs worth of CalHome projects. So, I think that's one of the only housing programs that really had significant funding still in there.

And that was one of the reasons why we didn't put additional dollars in that program.

And I'll just say that on page 93 of our report, it details the cuts and the items that were retained.

Great. Thank you. Got some reading to do this weekend when I'm not on dad duty. Just a couple comments, and then I don't think I have any more questions unless some more. Oh, you know, one more question.

What's up with, you know, the Governor proposed some cuts to preschool programs for individuals with children for disabilities, and I was wondering. I'm just trying to get all your steps in.

Thank you. Erin Gabel, Assembly Budget Committee staff. So there are two reductions that were in the May Revision to services, proposed services for students with disabilities in preschool.

The one is we created a statutory goal to serve up to 10% of all students in our state preschool program and to provide those spots to students with disabilities as required under IDEA. School districts have to offer students with disabilities with an IEP starting at age three. That includes preschool.

They need to provide them with a preschool opportunity. We do not change that requirement, of course, but we are keeping the current set aside that we have fully funded at 5% and repealing the future goal that would have had additional General Fund and Proposition 98 costs of growing up to 10%.

We have removed that from the statute in this proposal. That does not preclude a school district from creating more inclusive classrooms, nor receiving the increased reimbursement rate that the state is offering for students with special needs.

So it just is, in terms of the set aside that's required in our state preschool programs has been removed under this proposal. The second thing is we did have some reversion account funding from Proposition 98 for incentive grants to build inclusive classroom environments for school districts.

Because of the lack of funding in Proposition 98 one time, the proposal to not use that funding for that purpose has been approved as part of this proposal. However, it is to backfill the shortfall for Local Control Funding Formula, not for electric school buses as proposed in the May Revision.

Okay, great. Well, thank you for that. So the set aside that you had mentioned, are you saying that, so that from 5% or from 10% to 5% in statute for the set aside? Is that what you're saying?

Statute and the budget currently fully Fund the 5% set aside. So that remains. That is current law.

But you think with maybe the way they're able to get the funding through Prop 98 or, you know, essentially there could be no cuts to this if a school district wants to continue to do it. Well, are you saying funding is available for it or, I was kind of

No, that's a great question.

I'm not really. The education funding is obviously very confusing to me, so, and anybody outside of maybe you and my colleague to my right here, but, so just help me understand what the bottom line is, I guess, on that.

Sure. So the bottom line is there are no cuts to special education, ongoing support funding for preschool students as part of the May Revision budget or the legislative budget. What it is, was the intent to grow the amount of funding set aside for those services.

We have a number of different ways, as I was saying, in which we serve children with special needs and then specifically children with special needs in a preschool setting. All of those resources remain, including approximately $260 million set aside annually specifically for preschool with special needs.

Okay, great. Thank you. Just two comments real quick. Generally on the budget, obviously, I haven't had time to review the agreement between the houses or, you know, in full, full detail, so appreciate the hearing. I've really enjoyed being a Member of the Budget Committee and the subs when I can actually attend.

I'm in two other committees at the exact same time, sometimes three. So obviously, I really appreciate the opportunity, and I like how the, it's really an opportunity, I think, even for Republicans, to, you know, influence the process and what gets in there.

I think, I think the Governor's Budget, frankly, had some draconian cuts that I object to, like the programs for individual children with disabilities to fund electric school buses, so I appreciate restoring things like that and those kinds of programs, but looking forward to reviewing it more.

I'm sure we have our own share of draconian cuts in the budget as well. But I know, you know, difficult budget year and appreciate the work staff, both, you know, Committee staff and also our Republican staff have done to keep me up to date.

And thanks for your work, and good luck on the trailer bills, and maybe I'll be able to support one this year. So.

Thank you very much, Assemblymember Patterson. Appreciate, as always, your constructive approach here, and we will be sure to let the Senate Appropriations Committee know you're looking to lighten your bell load. So don't worry. With that, any other Members that have questions or comments?

All right, well, I want to say thank you to all the staff for your excellent hard work. To the LAO, to the Department of Finance, we appreciate you very much. We are going to now turn to public comment. We're going to ask folks to respectfully to limit their public comment to 1 minute each,

but if you can do it more quickly than that, and you can certainly feel free to, if you agree with the speaker in front of you, to just say that you echo their comments.

Good afternoon, Chair Gabriel, Vice Chair Flora, Members of the Committee. David Nelson with the National Small Business Advocacy Council. Grateful and appreciative of the rejection of the governor's proposed cuts to small businesses and the protection of the Technical Assistance Program funding. Many special thanks to--

Excuse me for a second. I'm just going to respectfully ask those who have conversations if you could take them outside of the hearing room so that we can have an opportunity to hear comment from members of the public. Thank you very much. And please sir, continue.

Many special thanks to Subcommitee Chair, Sub 5 Chair of Quirk-Silva for her attention and her support and leadership on this matter, as well as the membership of Sub 5. We really appreciate it. Our coalition will do our best. We are here enlarged today. We split our time between the Senate and the Assembly today.

We'll do our best to keep our comments brief, but just want to acknowledge that businesses from as far south as Los Angeles County, as well as far as Siskiyou County have come just today to show their support for this funding and we appreciate seeing this in the budget and hopefully for reconciliation on the Senate side. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair and Members, Chris McKayley, on behalf of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, wanted to express our...the NOL suspension and limit on tax credit utilization. You just did this in 2020 and 2021 tax years and are proposing it again. Historically, we've done it every 10 to 12 years with an economic downturn.

The limitation on the NOL suspension is at a million dollars in income, which definitely impacts small businesses. What exacerbates the proposal is, is that it's being made retroactive to the first of the year, which means taxpayers have already been relying upon existing law the last five months, and now you're going to retroactively change it.

So just as businesses are able to utilize their NOLs and credits that were previously suspended in 2020 and 2021, now you're going to suspend them again. The governor's proposal is the same, except that is prospective and application. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much. And thank you also for your emails that are very helpful to the entire capital community. We appreciate you.

Ken Hartman, Transformative Programming Works. The Rehabilitative Investment Grants for Healing and Transformation, the RIGHT grant, is a non-competitive grant vehicle championed by Assembly Member Bonta, and we thank you for your continued support, Ms. Bonta. That has equitably funded more than 100 community-based organizations that collectively work in all the CDCR's prisons.

There is $12 million in unused funds from the San Quentin Outlay project that needs to be redirected to community-based programs. Programs keep our communities safe, and off script, speaking from the heart as someone who was in prison for 38 years, this is a tragically bad idea to not fund the RIGHT Grant. This is going to harm a lot of people. And I just, I can't tell you how sad I am that this is happening. It really should be funded. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Mariko Yoshihara on behalf of the California Coalition for Worker Power. I just want to thank the Legislature and Sub 5 Committee, and Committee Chair, Assembly Member Quirk-Silva in particular, for supporting worker education and outreach by funding the California Workplace Outreach Project, also known as CWOP, and also want to thank the Legislature for restoring funding for the UC labor centers. Thank you.

Thank you.

Rebecca Gonzales, Western Center on Law and Poverty. We want to thank the Assembly and staff's work to protect key safety net programs, stopping harmful cuts to low income Californians. Specifically, we appreciate preserving key CalWORKS programs and authority to apply and implement family center changes as part of a federal pilot program.

We also appreciate foster care programs, nutrition benefit, and safety net reserve was preserved. Want to also thank the Legislature for not moving forward with the discriminatory cuts to IHSS so that people can stay safely in their home regardless of immigration status.

Finally, as the Legislature considers modification in the MCO tax, urge timely implementation of share of cost to ensure seniors and persons with disabilities are not forced to live off $600 a month to access Medi-Cal. We stand ready with the Legislature to maintain critical safety net programs. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Krista Colon with the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence. Want to thank the Chair, the Committee, and Sub 6, in particular, for the Crime Victim Services funding to protect services and survivors from facing devastating shortfalls.

I really just want to appreciate the time that the Committee, the staff have put into really hearing us and hearing survivors who at the end of the day, these dollars go to support. So thank you all so much.

Thank you.

I'm Vicki Nelson from Kids Club Veg. We applaud and thank Assembly leadership and the members of Budget Subcommitee Five for their attention to this critical matter for small businesses. As a teacher of 26 years, I began a nutrition education business last year with the help of experienced mentors from the SBDC.

It takes a village to support a business, and they have been mine. With their support, I develop business practices for writing proposals, contracts, and keeping accurate financial records.

Their guidance in helping me hire staff to teach children how to make healthy food choices based on the California health content standards for nutrition has been instrumental, and I thank you for maintaining this funding for TAP into final negotiations with the governor's office.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Shira Lane with Atrium 916. We're a creative innovation center for sustainability. We have a circular economy marketplace that supports the intersection between creativity, sustainability and economic development. We help businesses really thrive and build products that are made here in California that build a circular economy.

I stress the urgency of maintaining funding for the California Arts Council because we are here because of them. The creative economy in California contributes almost 15% to the state GDP directly, and in numbers that comes to $507.4 billion. For perspective, California agriculture, the largest in the nation, isn't even at 3%.

Yet California Arts Council receives a measly 26 million a year. Cutting 5 million is a significant cut. It's not even budget dust. And that's going to bring California to 45th in the nation in state arts funding. 45th. The arts drove us out of the dark ages into the Renaissance, a period of unparalleled innovation and cultural growth. I appreciate you. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Hi. Eric Henderson on behalf of Root & Rebound and Initiate Justice. We want to thank the Assembly for voting to reject the proposed cuts to the Adult Re-entry Grant and visiting at level four institutions.

We also want to acknowledge and thank Assembly Member Bonta for her leadership on behalf of the community-based programs in CDCR and urge that the remaining $12 million of money allocated to the capital outlay of San Quentin be reallocated to the right grant to support over 100 community-based organizations providing rehabilitative programming across the entire system. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Pamela Couch and I'm here today with Boundless Freedom Project. And I definitely want to speak on the fact that community-based organizations within CDCR and corrections, and how important it is for the safety of our public and the rehabilitative issues that happen within the incarceration.

I am someone who worked within CDCR as an officer and a counselor for 24 years and I know how important these programs are to everyone. My family deserves safety and those incarcerated deserve these programs and I just ask you to consider that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hannah Hennessy with Transformative Programming Works. Rehabilitation and preparation for re-entry into society should start the first day an individual is incarcerated. Through engagement of trauma-informed programs, this way of self discovery can play a really crucial role in understanding the infractions made that the individuals made.

The prison programs are designed to prepare incarcerated Californians to return to their communities ready to lead constructive lives. And I thank your Assembly Member Bonta and Chair Ramos for the support. Please protect those and support the funding of the RIGHT Grant 3.0 to redirect the $12 million from the San Quentin Overlay Project to these vital programs. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I want to thank the Legislature, and particularly Chair Jackson and the Subcommitee 2, for their work on restoring funding for programs that impact our most vulnerable children and youth. I'm Chris Stoner-Mertz. I run the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, representing non-profit, community-based organizations serving children, youth, and families.

We appreciate the restoration of the FERS funding as well as the restoration of CalWORKS supports. We also appreciate the work that the Legislature continues to do on the foster care permanent rates proposals, and we look forward to continuing to engage on details, especially for bridge funding for our foster family agencies.

We're also grateful for the restoration of some of the workforce proposed reductions, especially those that have already been awarded under HCAI. We do continue to be disappointed in some of the cuts to the CYBHI and particularly suicide prevention funding through DPH. Thank you so much for your attention to the safety net and particularly our children, youth, and families.

Thank you.

Hi Justin Garrett with the California State Association of Counties. Counties are grateful to the Legislature for the many budget actions that preserve the safety net and core programs and services that counties provide to Californians. This includes rejection of the cuts to public health infrastructure, CalWORKS, foster care, and APS.

It includes providing $1 billion for a sixth round of HAPP, restoring the REAP 2.0 funding and the $500 million for low income housing tax credits, backfilling $100 million to the Victims of Crime Act and rejecting cuts to the Public Defense Pilot Program and actions on the two ERAF items that preserve revenues for impacted counties.

Finally, CSAC is reviewing the impact that the Assembly's proposal to shift active transportation program funding to the state highway account could have for counties. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Bill and Myesha Kroma here, owners of Gifted Hands Cleaning Services. We would like to thank the Assembly leadership, especially speakers Rivas, Chair Gabriel, Vice Chair Flora, Assembly Member Quirk-Silva, and Budget Subcommitee Five Members and staff for their attention to this critical matter for small businesses.

We believe that small businesses are the backbone of our economy, but lack advocates. Our company, with over 10 employees, have benefited from this TAP program for seven years and we are so appreciative of it. This program provides essential resources and training. Thanks for keeping the TAP funding, which is crucial for creating opportunities for businesses like ours. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Ronald Coleman Baeza here on behalf of the California Pan Ethnic Health Network, CPEHN. We very much appreciate the work of the Committee to push back on the cuts that would have devastated low income families and disproportionately impacted people of color.

We very much appreciate the rejection of the elimination of IHSS to the undocumented community. We appreciate the Legislature pushing back on this discriminatory cut that should have never been in California public debates. We also very much appreciate the rejection of cutting funding for the future of public health.

And we very much appreciate also that there may be modest adjustments to the MCO tax. We encourage you to look at investing resources for community health workers to increase reimbursement rates for this population who's mostly women, mostly people of color. And they were left out of the reimbursement rates from last year. It would be less than 1% of the MCO tax to increase reimbursement rates for this population. And we urge you to make sure that they're included. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Micah Doktoroff, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Northern California here today on behalf of ACLU California Action. We are very grateful to you for your leadership in rejecting the governor's proposed cuts to the Public Defense Pilot program.

And we urge the Legislature to continue to retain this funding in the final budget. We also urge the Committee and the Legislature to continue to prioritize prison closure in reaction to CDCR's bed excess. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Honorable Chairs and Member, my name is Doctor Michelle Lau. I representing the American Alliance of Acupuncture and Council of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Associations. And today I'm here to really appreciate that.

I heard that we tried so hard to try to keep the California going and that's very important is acupuncture into the California Medi-Cal systems of almost 40 years now. We have been serving the acupuncture treatment to California people for millions of the people who need it. So if we cut it then all this patient will lose their opportunity to have the treatment that will be really increasing a big expense for the government.

Now we have a lot of hospital already have an acupuncture department and they helping a lot of people. Today, I'm here representing not only for the acupuncture profession but a lot of community in the whole California. Thank you for your support. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Assembly Chair, the Committee, and staff. I'm Nucero De Leon, Program Director at the Renaissance Women's Business Center in San Francisco, and we urge you to oppose the governor's proposed budget cut for the Small Business Technical Assistance program, TAP, at Gobiz. Our clients are the backbone of California's economy, as you've heard.

Renaissance organizations served 400 entrepreneurs last year with 90% being lower income, 76% women, and 84% people of color. They increased sales by nearly 1.8 million and secured 3.9 million in capital. Every dollar invested in TAP generates significant taxable revenue, directly contributing to reducing the state deficit.

Please maintain current funding for TAP to continue supporting these critical programs and many local entrepreneurs who are vital to California's economic growth. Thank you.

Thank you.

Lena Mills with Creative Ideas Catering and Cafe in San Francisco, also part of Renaissance Women's Center in San Francisco and SBDC client. I want to thank you, Assembly leadership, Members, staff, and Budget Committee for maintaining the full funding for TAP into final negotiations with the governor's office. This program helps women own business like mine. So thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Committee Members. Natalie Spievack with Housing California. Also on behalf of the California Housing Consortium, the California Housing Partnership, the Southern California Association for Nonprofit Housing, Nonprofit Housing of Northern California and San Diego Housing Federation. We want to express our deep gratitude for restoring funding to HAPP and MHP.

These programs are absolutely critical to ensuring continued affordable housing production and that local governments can continue to provide services that prevent and end homelessness, and really appreciate your continued advocacy as budget negotiations move forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Melanie Kim from the San Francisco Public Defender's Office. Thank you for rejecting the governor's proposed cut to the Public Defender Pilot Program. Through PDPP funding, my office has reunited 88 families so far and has prevented over 1,000 years of prison time, saving California approximately $150 million.

My office also supports prison closures, opposes cuts to visiting on level four yards, and supports maintaining funding for for victim services programs. Thank you for all of your work and support for these items, and we are hopeful to see them in the final budget.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Members, I'm Dominique Donette from Ed Voice. Also here on behalf of 20 other organizations. We appreciate your leadership and that of Subcommitee Three for the rejection of funding cuts to the Golden State Teacher Grant program. And we ask that you conform to the Senate action by also rejecting trailer bill language and maintaining the program as is.

Trailer bill language would make changes to the program, including reducing the total grant awards from 20k to 10k, reducing commitment to work at a priority school from four years to two years, would require prospective candidates to meet Pell Grant income eligibility requirements, which would exclude DACA recipients and excludes intern credential programs. Thank you for prioritizing children from low income communities.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. Carol Gonzalez here on behalf of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality. They're very appreciative and thankful for the inclusion of the UC Labor and the Unseen Latinas Initiative funding that was included in the Assembly budget.

They're also appreciative of the inclusion of the Cal Grant reform and on behalf of Vest West, they're very thankful for the CSU and UC compact funding. And Long Beach City College is extremely appreciative of the COLA and categorical funding. Overall, all the organizations are very thankful for your leadership, Chair Gabriel, and Assembly Member Alvarez for his leadership in his Committee. And overall, we just really hope that they make it through the final budget. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, Members. Cathy Senderling-McDonald with Catbird Strategies. I'm here for two clients. First, on behalf of the County of Alameda, I express our thanks and strong support for the restorations of the Public Defense Pilot program, the Women in Construction Project, the Future of Public Health Funding, and numerous other county administered health and human services, as well as housing programs detailed by Justin Garrett from CSAC, as well as Ron Coleman Baeza from CPENN.

On behalf of the California Association for Adult Day Services, we very much appreciate the MCO tax package that's being still worked on by the Legislature. We urge inclusion of a rate increase for the community based adult services, or CBAs, program. This program has 300 sites that serve 40,000 individuals.

Those are older adults as well as adults with disabilities, and an increase is urgently needed to avoid program closures. Both of my clients stand ready to support as the process moves forward. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members. Martha Guerrero representing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and we are greatly, we are grateful and appreciate the robust conversations in all the subcommittees and the work that we have engaged with the Department of Finance and with the Subcommitee staff as well, and the effort that you have accomplished here to identify solutions that avoid some of the most drastic budget cuts that would harm our community. So we are grateful and thankful for all the hard work you've accomplished.

Thank you.

Katie Hardeman with the California Teachers Association in support of the alternative Proposition 98 agreement. Thank you.

Excellent. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Committee Members. Dr. Jeff Bohm of the Marine Mammal Center, representing some 12 organizations that do the work in caring for marine mammals from San Diego all the way up to the Oregon coast.

We appreciate, especially the Committee here, but the work of the Subcommitee and Sub Chair Bennett and especially Assembly Member Connelly for their leadership in urging the rejection of the deletion of funds for our important work. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Leticia Saucedo I'm a co-director of the UC Davis Labor Center. I want to thank you for restoring the proposed cuts of all $13 million in recurring funding for the nine UC labor centers in the Joint Legislative budget plan.

Your support to the labor centers is going to allow us to continue to provide our path breaking labor research and education programs throughout California. We encourage you to maintain the funding in the final budget and look forward to working with you in the years to come to address the vital needs of California's workers. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Diana Douglas with Health Access California. Thank you to the Chair, Committee, and especially the Chair's members and staff of Subs 1 and 2 for all your work to preserve many of the proposed cuts in this year's budget.

Health Access appreciates the Legislature's rejection of the administration's unjust elimination of IHSS benefits that were specifically targeted at the undocumented, continuing this goal for all to have access to this essential care and keep people in their homes. We also appreciate the Legislature's ongoing commitment to protect the individual mandate penalty funds collected from the uninsured.

We support the Legislature's rejection of the ongoing sweeping of 109 million annually from the Affordability Reserve in favor of a one time loan. Funds collected from those without insurance should be preserved to make care more affordable, especially while over half a million uninsured undocumented Californians are still excluded from the Covered California marketplace. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Juliette Terry. On behalf of the Child Care Resource Center, we are a proud member of the EC Coalition. First, I'd like to start by thanking the Legislature and especially Assembly Member Jackson, Chair of Subcommitee Two, for hearing and listening to the voices of families and advocates to stop the harmful proposed cuts to CalWORKS programs.

We also want to express our deep gratitude for the creation of a reversion account for all childcare programs and the Legislature's firm commitment to see through the promise of 200,000 slots for child care. As the Legislature works to create trailer bill language for the full adoption of the alternative methodology for child care provider rates, we do ask that this includes clear language that creates a very clear timeline for the full implementation of rates. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, Members. Darby Kernan on behalf of Nourish California, we support the Subcommittee's actions and the Budget Committee's actions on maintaining the Calfresh minimum benefit pilot, your action on the CFAP expansion. On behalf of First Five Association, we support your action in rejecting the CalWORKS home visiting cuts and your actions on adding childcare slots.

And lastly, uh oh, we have a second here. On behalf of Leading Age California, we'd like to express our support of the Legislature's budget proposal that rejects many of the governor's proposed cuts to services and programs directly serving older Californians, including the Home Safe Program, multifamily housing, and the Older Californians Act. Thank you.

Thank you.

Michael Jarrett on behalf of NextGen California and the Community Alliance with Family Farmers, we'd like to thank the Committee and also particularly Subcommitee Four and Chairman Bennett and staff members for the restoration of the California Nutrition Incentive Program is a vital food security program and it supports our farmers markets and small farms.

We also like to thank for the restoration of the California Underserved Small Producer program that provides relief to farmers who have been impacted by climate impacts, and for the restoration of the Food Hubs program to create a more resilient food system. Thank you so much for your work on this budget.

Thank you very much. Vanessa Cajina on behalf of the Nurse Family Partnership. We greatly appreciate the work that Sub Two did this season to ensure that the most vulnerable families in California were made whole through what could have been a very, very difficult budget. With the CalWORKS Home Visiting program, very much appreciate that work.

In terms of the rejection of the $45 million reduction, we'll be working with the department to ensure that families who are currently served by home visiting don't lose access to services. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Ryan Souza on behalf of the Public Health Institute, just want to align our comments to the colleague before us on the inclusion of the CNIP program. Really appreciate that.

Also, on behalf of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and APLA Health, I want to thank the Legislature for their work and collaboration on the AIDS Drug Assistance program, inclusion around the modifications to the program and the loan itself, and look forward to working together to include this in the final budget. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Chair and Members, Kathy Mossberg on behalf of the Public Health Institute. Want to thank both Subs One and Sub Two on all the work in maintaining all of these vital services, but particularly in maintaining the California Cancer Registry and leaving that whole.

Also maintaining the California Bridge program and also maintaining the Future of Public Health Funding. Lastly, on behalf of the area agencies on aging and Meals on Wheels, truly thank you for all the work in maintaining senior nutrition. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Mark Herbert with Cameo Network. Just want to thank the leadership of this Committee for restoring the small business TAP cuts. We look forward to working with you as you engage the Administration but appreciate you supporting California small businesses.

Perfect. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Ruth Delaidy here with Transformative Programming Works. Community based organization in prison programs make rehabilitation and personal transformation possible, improve reentry outcomes, make prisons safer, and provide the state with substantial short and long term savings.

I want to highlight that 95% of people incarcerated go home to their communities and people who participate in these programs in prison return at a significantly lower rate of 21% versus the CDCR average of 42% of recidivism. We're asking that the remaining $12 million from the San Quentin project be directed to the RIGHT Grant for in prison community based organizations programs.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon. Ken Jacobs, co-chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center. I want to express my appreciation for your rejecting the cuts to the UC labor centers and labor occupational health and safety programs and for all the work you've done in supporting other vital labor and social service programs, including CWOP. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jason Whistler. I'm a senior research specialist with UC Davis Labor Center. I just want to echo co-directors Jacobs and my director, Professor Saucedo, in thanking you for your work to reject the governor's proposal to cut the labor center funding. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Nick Hancock. I'm a licensed acupuncturist faculty member and associate dean at Five Branches University, a historic institution for the education and licensure of acupuncturists in the state of California. I want to thank you on behalf of our university and all Medi-Cal recipients of acupuncture benefits for protecting the proposed cuts.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Chair and Members. Jonathan Munoz on behalf of Inland Empire Health Plan, the public health option for San Bernardino Riverside County serving 1.5 million Medi-Cal Members. IHP is very appreciative of the Legislature's preserving the funding to support providers where Medi-Cal Members, particularly in areas with shortages. We really appreciate that and hope to see that all the way through. Thank you.

Thank you.

This is Philip Young from California University, Silicon Valley representing all the acupuncture schools in California. I want to express our strong voice of preserving the budget of acupuncture in Medi-Cal program. Small budget amount can promote the public health to avoid the side effects of the opium drugs for the pains.

Acupuncture has been tremendously benefiting the low income communities and seniors and lower down the whole Governor's Budget cost. I would like to express our special thanks to Assembly Member Evan Low, Phil Tin, Alex Lee, and Mia Bonita and all the other Assembly Members. Thank you for your effort of rejecting the reduction and elimination of acupuncture in the Medi-Cal program. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Naru, I'm a California acupuncturist. I support the restoration of the acupuncture treatment in the state Medi-Cal bridges. Medi-Cal treatment is not provided to traditional Chinese medical institution. Minor illness may develop into major ones which will increase California fiscal medical budget expenditures. Thank you.

Thank you so much. I'll just note I'm hearing that there's still a very long line of folks outside, so if you want to just agree with the people who've spoken ahead of you, you also have that option.

Hi, my name is Jasmine Yatin Chen. I'm here on behalf of student in traditional Chinese medicine medical school, getting a master degree and trying to be licensed as a licensed acupuncturist in traditional Chinese medicine, learning acupuncture and many other traditional treatment methods.

I want to thank Subcommittee One to support keeping the acupuncture in California's low income Medi-Cal insurance. Acupuncture help patients in an inexpensive way. Especially acupuncture can truly work to relieve pain for those in need of pain relief.

I'm here to support acupuncture to be covered in Medi-Cal to support Medi-Cal coverage for all general public, including those who cannot afford private healthcare and not only be able to receive acupuncture through the California so much supporting medical insurance.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and the Subcommitee One, supporting like others for restoring the funding for acupuncture on behalf of all the thousands of families and the supported by our FQHC Northeast Medical Services. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Jessica Ho and I also representing Northeast Medical Services and we're here with a big contingent and I agree.

Perfect. Thank you.

Chair and Members, I'm Tom Knox of Valley Clean Air Now. I'm here in strong support of the proposal to reallocate existing funding at CARB to the Clean Cars for All program, a proven program that is delivering Zev equity to 85% of the state population.

This is a fair and equitable proposal that leaves enough funding for CARB to launch their new programs while letting these good existing programs thrive. Big thanks to Sub Four Members and staff.

Thank you.

Asha Sharma on behalf of Leadership Council for Justice and Accountability, APEN, NRDC, NextGen, California Central Valley Air Quality Coalition, Physicians for Social Responsibility LA, California Environmental Justice Alliance, California Housing Partnership, California Green New Deal Coalition, and Greenlining Institute and Rising Sun Center.

We appreciate the partial rejection of cuts to the equitable building decarbonization program and urge the Legislature to restore EBD to the January 10 funding level and recommend that all funds go to direct install. We also urge the Legislature to fully restore the SGC programs, Transformative Climate Communities and Community Resilience Centers program.

Leadership Council looks forward to working with the Legislature to develop a climate bond that is more critical than ever to support climate programs and ensure drinking water and wastewater infrastructure is fully funded. Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Thank you.

Hello, Chairman and Assembly Members. Thank you so much for your hard work. And my name is Hong Li Cheng. Come from the Academy of Chinese Culture and Health Sciences. We are the oldest acupuncture school in California, has been around 40 years supporting the community, and we know acupuncture and it is preventive care. So we strongly thank you and support the restoration of the acupuncture treatment back to Medi-Cal. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Zach Close with Root and Rebound, statewide re-entry legal services nonprofit, thanking you for recommending the restoration of the adult re-entry grant funding levels for entry services for formerly incarcerated individuals. Also, we strongly urge you to fight for continued funding for RIGHT Grant which supports vital programming to meet the unique needs of incarcerated Californians.

Without reallocating the $12 million from San Quentin, over 100 critical programs will no longer get funding. Ending this funding will harm rehabilitative opportunities and compromise public safety. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Please thank the cart. Acupuncture acupuncture is very important for people's health. Thank you so much for your help and support.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Aiming Huang Liu I have been acupuncturist in California for 30 years. Medical acupuncture benefits helped a lot of my patients. Could you keep that benefit for Low income and senior people? Thank you.

Thank you Mister Chair and Members, Michael Pimentel here on behalf of the California Transit Association, representing 85 Trans and rail agencies in the state and 220 Member organizations nationwide.

Just showing our thanks and appreciation to the Legislature for reaching an agreement to maintain the $5.1 billion in funding for the Transit inner city Rail Capital program and zero Emission Transit Capital program.

Both of them are going to be critical for moving projects and services forward in communities across the state and appreciate certainly the backfill of support from the GGRF to get that done.

Final point is an acknowledgement and thanks also for the maintenance of the funding for TIRCP cycle six, ensuring that projects that received awards previously can move forward as intended. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm just going to respectfully ask if folks can try to really limit their comments. I'm informed we have something like 200 people outside that still want to speak. And on a point of personal privilege, I have three little boys at home and I would love to make Mike Floyd and kiss them good night tonight.

It would absolutely make my day. So if you're able to share your perspectives with us in a really quick and succinct way, you would earn our incredible gratitude for that. So thank you.

Hi, Kimberly Sanchez with Next Gen California. Just want to thank you for funding the including the school meals for all, and on behalf of the Cal Grant Coalition, thank you for finding solutions for Cal grant reform and including it in the legislative budget plan. Thank you.

Great. Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon, Chair, Members. My name is Tiyesha Watts with the California Academy of Family Physicians. Thank you so much for preserving the song Brown funding to maintain current awards, and we ask that as future conversations arise, that the song brown funding be preserved.

Additionally, for the MCO tax, we ask that the primary care provider rates be maintained, and lastly, that the EPT payment grants be restored for primary care physicians. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Alchemy Graham on behalf of the California City Transportation Initiative, very thankful for rejecting the governor's proposal to cut funding from the act of transportation program. We will be respectfully urging that the Governor do the same.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. David Chase with small business majority and we thank you for your support for rejecting the governor's proposed cuts to the Small Business Technical Assistance program and for supporting California small businesses.

Thank you

Thank you, Mister Chair. Members of the Committee, Yvonne Fernandez of the California Labor Federation, here to share our appreciation for the Legislature's decision to require the augmentation of the appropriation from the Healthcare Affordability Reserve Fund for the Healthcare for striking workers program as well.

Here to voice our appreciation for the Protection of UC labor center funding funding for the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute, as well as protecting the high road training partnership funding as well. Lastly, we like to urge the Legislature to consider increased transparency for the millions of dollars provided through the California Competes program. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Nina Wyla Harwell with AARP California. We're here to express our deep gratitude for the rejection of cuts to the senior nutrition program, to adult protective services expansion and training, and to rejecting the delay in home safe.

We are also grateful for the inclusion of the budget proposal to augment funding for the long term care long term care Ombudsman program, and very grateful as well for the rejection of the elimination of the active transportation program, as well as preserving critical housing programs.

Finally, we just ask that you all reconsider the fact that the Medi Cal share of cost reform was not included in this budget. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Bonnie Lynch. I work at a federally qualified health clinic serving Contra Costa and Alameda counties, and we want to thank you so much for supporting our patients in providing acupuncture care. Most of our patients are Medi calm and we want to know that we are doing everything we can to help keep California healthy.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mister Chair. My name is Chad Zellinger, President of California Music Educators Association. We support the rejecting of the CTE elementary teacher supplementary authorization in the arts. We want to thank Assembly Members Alvarez and Meritsucci budget and Committee staff for listening to our significant concerns regarding this proposal.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Laura Cole-Rowe, Membership and Rural Exchange Coordinator for the California Association for Local Economic Development in Sacramento. As you know, the value of small businesses to California's economy is important. The state's small business technical assistance program has been supportive in helping business owners grow or start a new business in today's competitive market.

Thank you for your recommendation to restore all funding for the technical assistance program.

Thank you

Buenas tardes, soy Jenny Linares del San Barndino Country Warehouse Workers Center, somos parte de una red de 150 organizaciones comprometidas con la creación e implementación de beneficios de desempleo para trabajadores indocumentados en California, solicitamos que la asamblea incluya en su propuesta de presupuesto estatal un requisito para que la EDN integre elementos de un programa de trabajadores excluidos en las actualizaciones del sistema siempre que sea posible. Lo más importante es que esta petición no tiene ningún coste para el actual presupuesto del Estado y proporciona un bien público a los trabajadores, a los empresarios que aportan al Estado de seguro de desempleo. Gracias.

Gracias.

Would you like me to translate for her?

We're good. Thank you.

Okay, my name is Maria and I'm with Jobs with Justice San Francisco and the Safety Net for All Coalition , and I just want to say that I support our program being included in EDD next. Thank you.

Mi nombre es Susana y también estoy aquí apoyando a EED Next. Gracias.

Perfect, thank you. Gracias.

Hi, my name is Sada Amado, I'm from the organization MCTF and I in support for to add to the EDD and thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hi, Saba Waheed, Director of the UCLA Labor Center. Thank you for your continued funding of the UC labor centers, the California Worker Outreach Project CWAP, and other important labor and social programs.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Doctor Lili Qiao, I'm the Director of the Integrated Medicine at Northeast Medical Services. We are a federal qualified health center. We serve in San Francisco, San Mateo County, and also Santa Clara Counties. And really appreciate you preserving acupuncture from the Medi-Cal again. And we have.

This is really good for AAPI community and also our senior patients. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Xiao Xing and I'm here to thank you, you saved acupuncture for the Medi-Cal, so thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Kelly Longo Flores with the California Association of Food Banks. Just a resounding thank you, specifically for the permanent authorization of the state emergency Food Bank Reserve. Thank you to Dr. Jackson for your leadership on that. This will allow food banks to quickly meet the needs of their communities in a time of crisis.

Thank you for rejecting the elimination of the CalFresh minimum benefits pilot, for fully funding School Meals For All, supporting CalWorks and protecting our safety net reserve, and for rejecting the elimination of the Wins program. We know ten dollars doesn't sound like a lot, but that means a lot to many in California.

Lastly, for your support in rejecting the elimination of the IHHS benefits based on immigration status, all Californians deserve to live in the least restrictive environment possible. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon Chair Gabriel, Members of the Committee, Christina Boss Hamilton here in this context, I'm representing CCPU, thanking you for funding the 11,000 child care slots and urging the Legislature and the Governor to continue working towards the goal of 200,000 slots and supporting rate reform based on true cost of care.

Now putting on my UDW cap representing 171,000 IHSS and family child care providers, we are grateful for your opposing and rejecting the cuts to IHSS.

We do want to call that we are still pushing forward asking for your help to raise the wage cap for IHSS providers in San Diego and Riverside counties because unless you do that, these workers will not get a wage increase on January 1. Chair Gabriel, we would love to talk to you about this.

This continues to be a high priority for our union. Thank you Mr. Jackson for your leadership on this. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Yasmin Peled with Justice and Aging, thank you for rejecting many of the harmful cuts to health and human services programs from the May revision that would impact older adults. Specifically, I want to thank the sub the Committee for rejecting the proposed elimination of IHSS benefits for undocumented Californians and maintaining the IHSS backup provider system.

We also appreciate the rejections of the cuts to APS, Homesafe, CalFresh, and senior nutrition programs. We urge the Legislature to maintain these programs in the final deal with the Administration.

And finally, as the Legislature considers modifications to the MCO tax, we encourage timely implementation of share of cost reform which currently leaves adults and people with disabilities trapped in poverty. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Jessica Moran with the California Dental Association, appreciate the Legislature for rejecting both the elimination and delay of the specialty dental clinic grant program, urging the Legislature to keep that on the table as you enter final budget negotiations.

In terms of the Office of Oral Health Funding, understand that difficult cuts need to be made in a difficult budget year, hoping we can work with the Legislature in restoring that continuous funding in future budget years. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee, Brandon Marchy with the California Medical Association want to thank you for your work and Dr. Weber's works, particularly on the MCO tax. However, we would request and are happy to work with the Legislature to send that money out the door on the original timeframe of 2025 as opposed to 2026. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Molly Robson with Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California, echoing the comments from my colleague before me, but we I appreciate that the proposal rejects elimination of investments in Medi-Cal. However, agree that these investments cannot be delayed to 2026.

We would respectfully urge that you all in the Administration restore the investments of the targeted rate increases in 2025 as originally proposed. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon Chair and Committee Members, Sabrina Bradbury with the California Association of Councils of Governments just want to express our sincere appreciation for the Assembly prioritizing the REAP 2.0 program and restoring 250 million in funding to metropolitan planning organizations and regional transportation planning agencies.

We are confident this funding will be used to advance the state's climate and housing goals. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And I'll just remind folks one of the strongest ways you can show your appreciation or express it is with brevity. So thank you.

Good afternoon, Assemblymembers Dax Proctor on behalf of California's United for Responsible budget, many thanks to all of you for your leadership and concerted effort to tackle this complex budget deficit while protecting funds to some essential services that strengthen our communities.

I would like to especially thank Chair Ramos for his leadership in reducing CDCR's budget as a necessary first step to address long-term spending. Substantial reductions to CDCR's baseline budget is a step in the right direction. However, baseline cuts like this are challenging to implement because the Department isn't being told what or where to reduce.

We need detailed, actionable plans in order for these cuts to be effective. In the past, CDCR has historically stonewalled and failed to deliver on plans such as these, even when they've been mandated in the final budget. The last thing we want to do is balance the budget on paper only for those savings to never materialize.

Thank you again for your leadership.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Stephanie Estrada with Cruz strategies on behalf of Mayor Matt Mahan and the City of San Jose, we're appreciative of the legislators support of $1 billion in HAPP round six funding. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair and Members, Nick Rome, on behalf of the Southern California Association of Government, deeply thankful for the restoration of REAP 2.0. Thank you to Sharon Quirk-Silva, Assemblywoman Sharon Quirk-Silva and on behalf of the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, grateful for the Cal Grant reform phasing and the transfer entitlement to our institutions. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Chair and Members, Ross Buckley, on behalf of the City of Sacramento, would thank the Legislature for funding HAPP round six and for rejecting the 2.0 cuts. Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you.

Jamie Minor on behalf of Giffords, asking to reject the cuts to the CalVet program, very grateful, obviously, for AB 28 and your leadership. But that won't come into effect until later this year, leaving some of the programs and already oversubscribed programs stranded for this fiscal year. So thank you and thanks for your leadership.

Thank you, Chair and Members, Mark Farouk on behalf of the California Hospital Association. We appreciate the out-year restoration of the MCO tax funding, understand the extremely challenging budget situation we're in. However, we are disappointed with the lack of funding for 2025 rate increases to protect and expand access to healthcare for MediCal patients. Thank you.

Thank you.

Kelly Larew, with Resilient Advocacy on behalf of PHI Air Ambulance and also the air ambulance industry. We're hopeful. We appreciate the work on the MCO tax and are hopeful to be included in the legislative rate increases of choice.

As of right now, a fee ended on traffic tickets in California that fed into a supplemental payment for air ambulance transport. The current reimbursement rate for air ambulance transport, including the rural north where PHI primarily operates, is 20% of the cost of a transport. So we'd appreciate your help in supporting these crucial services. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Sylvia Solis Shaw, Shaw Yoder Antwih Schmelzer and Lange here on behalf of a few clients, San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, thank you for your efforts to provide sustainable funding for the Clean Cars for All program operated by local air pollution control districts.

On behalf of the City of Santa Monica and their big blue bus, we thank you in support for maintaining the funding for the TIRCP and this will help us achieve our zero emission fleet transition goals in a timely manner.

And on behalf of the California's Faculty Association, we thank the Assembly for supporting the budget funding and for your continued work on that issue. On behalf of Advanced Energy United, we ask that you reconsider the cuts to the DSGS and DeBA programs in the clean energy space. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I just was informed the line continues to wrap quite with quite some length and we want to give everybody an opportunity to express. So if you could really try to limit your comments to 30 seconds or less, you would have a lot of gratitude.

Thank you. Tracy Hudak on behalf of California Arts Advocates commending your tough, hard work and tough decisions. Thank you for storing funding for the Performing Arts Equitable Payroll Fund and the arts jobs that will sustain.

And we will continue to gently oppose the $5 million cuts to the California Arts Council over the next couple of years because the council is already functioning at cut levels and the $26 million is stretching to reach every corner of the state. And that is critical funding for marginalized, low-income, and rural communities. Thank you.

Thank you.

Jackie Gonzalez, Policy Director, Immigrant Defense Advocates. Deeply grateful for the rejection of cuts to IHSS, TPS, and the CSU. Today we feel like the voices of the immigrant community were heard. We are sad that the Chirp program for unaccompanied children is not slated to continue, but we'll continue to advocate for that population. Thank you again.

Thank you.

Jaime Asdan on behalf of Luma Action, echoing the comments of my colleagues, thank you for protecting immigrant legal services, particularly as we face down the prospect of Trump returning in 2025 and conducting mass deportations. Also emphasizing the need to find solutions for the Chirp program. While that program may be ending, the needs of unaccompanied minors remain. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello Nika Maslin on behalf of the immigrant Legal Defense and the Loyola Law School Immigrant Justice Clinic, and I just want to echo the comments of the people that came before me. Thank you.

Thank you.

Christopher Sanchez with the Mesa Verde Group representing CARECEN, the Central American Resource Center, an inclusive action for the city, echoing the comments of my previous colleagues related to immigration legal services and for inclusive action for the city, supporting the legislato's version for the UC labor centers, the Small Business Technical Assistance program, and supporting the Safety Net for All coalitions requests.

Thank you.

Good afternoon Sara Bachez with Children Now. Thank you so much for the ECE Coalition's strong advocacy and support in demonstrating that our families with children have all the opportunities to thrive with childcare services, as well as the restoration to the Golden State.

Teacher Grant Program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Kim Lewis, also on behalf of Children Now. I want to greatly appreciate Chair Jackson's leadership on restoration of the FERS cut, the Emergency Child Care Bridge Program, and the CalWORKS Safety Nets Programs, and especially the Home Visiting Program, and on behalf of the California Coalition for Youth, thank you for round six on HHAP funding, the Housing Navigation and Maintenance Program, and the Victim of Crime Act restoration. Thank you.

Thank you.

Tiffany Mok, on behalf of CFT. Thank you for the legislative proposal to fund part time office hours at 100 percent, as well as rejecting the UC labor cuts and rejecting the UC labor comp. We support the UC labor compact funding and would like to minimize cuts in the future. Thank you. And the Proposition 98 plan we support as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Eileen Cubanski with the County Welfare Directors Association. Deep gratitude to the Assembly and especially to you, Assembly Member Jackson, and the other members of Sub Two and your staff. The restorations to CalWORKS, IHSS, adult protective services, foster care, and the housing programs have literally saved the social safety net. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

Kim Rothschild, California Association of Public Authorities for IHSS. What Eileen just said, and thank you again for the restoration of the IHSS cuts and the backup provider program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Chris Lee, on behalf of the Sacramento Area Council of Governments, the Sonoma County Transportation Authority, the Merced County Association of Governments, the Tulare County Association of Governments, and the Coachella Valley Association of Governments, echoing the comments of CalCAC, thankful for the REAP 2 restoration and look forward to working to get that across the finish line. Thank you.

Thank you.

Kat Deburgh with the Health Officers Association of California, here to thank you for including the future of public health funding, all 300 million dollars in your budget that funds not just the future of public health, but also the present of public health. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Kimberly Rosenberger with Service Employees International Union. We are appreciative of the protection to child care, restoring some of the slots, as well as protecting the worker compacts and Prop 98, CSU, and rejecting the UC labor center cuts. Thank you.

Thank you.

Michelle Gibbons with CHEAC, representing local health departments throughout the state. Just express gratitude for protecting public health funding to you all on the committee and to your staff. Also want to just say on the syndromic survey in the trailer bill, appreciate the actions. We'll work together to figure out the interoperability language and appreciate the actions taken on CHDP and on the CalWORKS Home Visiting Program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Kelly Brooks, here on behalf of several clients. First, on behalf of the Urban Counties of California, the Rural County Representatives of California, and the Boards of Supervisors of Riverside, Ventura, and Santa Cruz. Thank you for all of the restorations in the health and human services space, particularly the future of public health and the human services items.

Second, on behalf of the California Community Living Network, thank you for rejecting the Developmental Services rate reform delay. Third, on behalf of the California Association of Public Hospitals and Health Systems, we appreciate the restoration of the provider rate increases from the MCO tax revenue. And finally, on behalf of the California Association of Diaper Banks, we're disappointed there's not funding and we're going to keep fighting on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Beth Malinowski with SEIU California. As a proud partner of the California Can't Wait Coalition, want to thank you for protecting the investments in public health, future public health funding in particular. Especially want to thank you for your investments in physician workforce, restoration of cuts, the Song-Brown Program, and the Legislature's overall commitment to lifting up the health care workforce with a commitment to fund the health care minimum wage. Lastly, the labor partners want to thank you for committing to our striking workers and their health care needs. Thank you.

Thank you.

Tiffany Whiten with SEIU California. Thankful for your commitment to protect our families, our children, aging, and our foster youth by rejecting the proposals to CalWORKS, in particular Family Stabilization, rejection of your cuts to Child Welfare, in particular FERS, as well as IHSS APS, the delay to IDD rate study as well as the immigration legal services, and appreciate maintaining funds in the safety net reserves. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Just like to echo comments made by our AFSCME affiliate UDW Local 3930 on IHSS and child care. Thank you. Also echo the comments by our labor partners at SEIU and California Labor Federation on Health and Human Services, and appreciate the preservation of UC labor funding.

Thank you for the bold approach on CDCR and listening to frontline workers in the agency providing medical, mental health care, and rehabilitative services by rejecting continued privatization of jobs while also balancing the preservation of rehabilitative programming. We do have concerns about the elimination of state vacant positions.

Want to make sure that those decisions being made are done in consultation with the exclusive bargaining reps. Appreciate the Legislature rejecting the telework stipend, TBL, and respecting the collective bargaining process. Lastly, want to share our appreciation for the Legislature respecting the negotiated agreement on the MCO tax and in particular the funding towards ground emergency transportation. Thank you.

Thank you. Always good to see you.

Taylor Jackson with the California Primary Care Association. We want to thank you for your commitment to rejecting cuts to Health Center Outreach and Enrollment efforts, the Medi-Cal acupuncture benefit, and the Indian Health Grant Program. We are concerned about target provider rate increases being pushed back another year.

Last year TRIs were pushed to 2025 and now they're once again being delayed. We are also concerned with continued reductions to the Equity and Practice Transformation Grant Program as well as training of community health workers. CPCA looks forward to continuing to work with you all in the coming weeks.

Thank you.

Mr. Chair and Members, Cory Salzillo, on behalf of the California State Sheriffs' Association, grateful for and supportive of the inclusion of 103 million ongoing for Victims of Crime Act funding and particularly victim notification services. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Sandra Henriquez, CEO of ValorUS, California state sexual assault coalition, here on behalf of the 84 sexual assault programs in the state and the 35,000 plus survivors of sexual assault in the state and the 300 at least survivors that showed up here at the Capitol today to ensure that their voices are heard.

I want to start off by thanking the Chair, Assembly Member Gabriel, also Chair Ramos, for ensuring that the 103 million is in the budget. We want to just say that it shouldn't have taken all this time to get there and that we cannot have survivors burying their souls and going through this year after year. This funding has to be ongoing and we need this state to make a commitment to survivors of all kinds of crimes in California. It's not the federal government's responsibility, it's our state's. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Tina Rodriguez, Executive Director for Beloved Survivors Trauma Recovery Center in Fresno, California, and I'm a survivor of childhood sexual assault. I came here today with over 200 survivors terrified that the thought of the funding used to support crisis intervention was in jeopardy.

I know you want us to keep it short and sweet and, you know, ten months was very frightening. Everything was in limbo. We've had people that have left shelters to come here today and be here before you. Respectfully thank you for the 103 million. This process of survivors pulling off their bandages to beg to be a priority in this every budget season needs to stop, but I do thank you for the 103 million and hopefully we could change this process.

Thank you.

[Testimony in Spanish].

Good afternoon. My name is Anabella Aguile. I am a member of SEIU USWW. I'm a janitor for over to 20 years, and I'm also a survivor of rape on the night shift. I was raped twice.

[Testimony in Spanish].

I'm grateful for the 103 million, and I am hopeful that Governor Newsom will also approve that because we needed to have those services available to us as survivors in order for us to break the silence.

[Testimony in Spanish].

Muchas, muchas gracias.

Those are the resources that we need in order for us to break our silence and to have that bridge from victims to survivors.

[Testimony in Spanish].

Gracias.

Do you need translation?

I don't. I'm good. Thank you.

Thank you. Gracias.

[Testimony in Spanish].

Gracias.

[Testimony in Spanish].

Gracias.

[Testimony in Spanish].

Gracias, Veronica.

Hello, Assembly Member Gabriel. My name is Sarah Dunbar-Riley, and I'm actually an assault victim, as well as a mother of an assault victim, and I'm here today to just thank you so much for the funding that you have provided, and please continue that because it is very, very hard to go through this and not have those services in place is a terrifying reality. So thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Tamara Knox. I'm a domestic violence survivor, and thank you for the 103 million.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee Members. My name is Cynthia Rodriguez. I'm a sexual assault survivor and an advocate with the East LA Women's Center from Los Angeles County. I want to ensure the committee includes 103 million in ongoing funding for crime victim services.

By including ongoing funding, survivors of crime in California will be able to access the necessary and life-saving services to support their healing and recovery journeys, which are very important, and we will ensure that California safety net will stay intact. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Chyna Davis, and I'm a full time sexual assault and domestic violence advocate for the Riverside Area Rape Crisis Center, and I want to thank you sincerely for the 103 million dollars you put in the budget. We are the only rape crisis center in that region, and without that money, we would have--we would have had to shut our doors.

And I'm also a rape survivor and a survivor of child abuse, assault, and I just--I could not thank you more for the funding. I'm also a mother, and we know that when a mother has been victimized, the chances of a child being victimized is astronomical, and so we need these services and these funds are crucial. So thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for the important work you do.

Hi. My name is Elvira Herrera, and I'm with Líderes Campesinas, and I'm an advocate for domestic violence, but as well, I am also a survivor of domestic violence. I was held hostage, beat, raped, and tortured and shot, and I was pronounced dead at arrival to the hospital, but again, the services, victim services helped me to be where I'm at right now, and I thank you for the fundings and I hope that they have those fundings to help us navigate to healing. And again, I don't feel like we should be begging for this money to be--to heal in the future. I think I did a lot of begging when the shotgun went off me. Thank you.

Thank you.

[Testimony in Spanish].

Gracias.

[Testimony in Spanish].

Gracias.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Tim Madden, representing the California Chapter at the American College of Emergency Physicians. We're appreciative of the Legislature's actions around the MCO tax and the rejection of the May Revise.

Specifically with the legislative proposal for 24-25, we ask that the emergency efficient be included in the additional investments, particularly in light of some of the unfortunate cuts that we'll need to move forward. We're anticipating more Medi-Cal patients coming in in the emergency department.

And then quickly, I also represent Grossmont Healthcare District. They're looking to establish a new Song-Brown primary care residency program, so they're appreciative of the funds being maintained there and hope they will extend out to the new programs. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Cindy Vasalo, a student of traditional Chinese medicine at Five Branches University in Santa Cruz. First of all, I'd like to thank you for working through your lunch break, but I'd just quickly like to thank you and express our continued gratitude for your commitment in restoring and protecting the acupuncture benefit for Medi-Cal patients. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Thank you again for staying and working with us. My name is Dr. Marilyn Mariposa Bernstein, and I'm grateful for including acupuncture back into the budget. It is safe and cost-effective. We not only treat pain, but many mental health issues and are excellent at prevention of serious illnesses that cost the state so much money in medication and rehab, such as cancer and diabetes and so forth.

Please encourage Gavin Newsom to think of the long-term implications of cutting primary health care to the underserved, hard-working communities, especially our farm workers. I'm a survivor of assault as well, and the Victim Witness Program helped me get acupuncture 40 years ago. Please also recognize the legacy of Governor Brown, who legislated acupuncture in and we want to honor him. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Tony Anderson, Association of Regional Center Agencies, and I want to thank you for your time today. We want to thank you for rejecting the Governor's proposal to delay the community services rates. We know that you are very aware of the needs of our community, and we thank you for listening, and we stand ready in our advocacy to support your actions today. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. I'm Brandon Tate with the Youth Mental Health Equity Coalition. I want to thank the work of this Committee and the staff as well in rejecting the cuts to the Children Youth Behavioral Health Initiative at the Office of Health Equity. These are really important programs.

I represent 35 organizations around the state that are doing vital work with youth mental health, particularly for our LGBTQ youth, who are the most disproportionately impacted. We appreciate you restoring the funding, and if there's anything our coalition can do to be helpful as this fight continues, we'd love to see this continue. Let us know if there's anything we can do to help.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Vanessa Orozco, on behalf of Golden State Opportunity and the CalEITC Coalition. We'd like to thank the work of this committee and the Legislature for recognizing the critical importance of free tax prep assistance and education and outreach programs by helping to lessen the impact of the Governor's plan to ten million cut.

Unfortunately, the remaining funding gap remains means that our community partners cannot operate their community engagement and tax filing support at the same scale as they have been, creating pressure for them to cut hours in programming. We respectfully urge this body to continue finding ways to help source the additional funding for this vital outreach work. Thank you.

Thank you.