Assembly Standing Committee on Budget

I think I have to get progressive ... lenses, because I can't read.

Oh yeah.

Guess what?

Oh, just that my back is to everybody. I feel like my shirt is running up.

No, that's fine. Oh, my God. I'm so glad Dr. Weber didn't see that. She was so pissed.

He was arguing with you.

Uh huh.

Can you see the red now?

What?

In my hair. Can you see the red? Can you see the red?

A little bit.

All right. Good morning everybody. Welcome to our 73rd hearing of the year. Today's informational hearing will allow us to discuss 19 budget and trailer bills that reflect our final three party agreement with the Administration. We expect to vote on these bills tomorrow and on Thursday on the Assembly floor. This hearing is informational as the bills are currently on the floor and not in a possession of the Committee. So there will be no votes in Committee today.

The Department of Finance will provide a brief overview of the bill followed by any comments from our Legislative Analyst Office and Christian Griffith from the Assembly Budget Committee and staff are available to answer any questions. If needed, at the end of this hearing, we will have an opportunity for public comment on these 19 bills. But first, let me ask our Vice Chair, Assemblymember Flora, for any opening remarks. All right, thank you. With that, we will now invite the Department of Finance to share their comments.

Good morning Chair Gabriel, Vice Chair Flora, Members of the Committee. Erica Lee with the Department of Finance. And I will try to be brief, but we do have 19 bills, so I might be speaking for--at length. Just a large overview before launching into the bills. The agreement maintains the multi-year fiscal structure introduced in the May revision, solving for budget deficits both in the budget window as well as the fiscal year that follows, 2025-26.

Beyond this multi-year structure, the agreement also includes further budget resilience and maintains a healthy reserve. While it assumes withdrawals from the budget stabilization account or the rainy day fund over the next two fiscal years, there is still $22.2 billion remaining in total reserves at the end of the 24-25 fiscal year. And additionally, the agreement includes legislation requiring the state to set aside a portion of anticipated surplus funds to be allocated in a subsequent budget act after those revenues have actually been realized. So some top line numbers.

The agreement includes total expenditures of $297.9 billion, and that's all funds. Of that, $211.5 billion are general funds. The state, the SFEU, sort of our--I like to call it our checking account--is balanced over the next two fiscal years with positive balances of $3.5 billion in 24-25 and $1.5 billion in 25-26. And as mentioned, the reserves remaining after this agreement are over $22 billion.

The agreement funds the Prop 98 minimum guarantee at $115.3 billion, of which $82.6 billion is general fund for the agreement--for the budget agreement for Pre-K through 12 schools and community colleges, maintaining education programs and mitigating reductions in the classroom.

At a high level, the agreement solves for a $46.8 billion deficit for the budget year, and this includes deferrals of $2 billion; pauses and delays of about $3 billion; fund shifts about $6 billion; reserves, as a solution, $6 billion; revenue and borrowing, $13.6 billion; and reductions of $16 billion. And also noteworthy is the agreement does maintain core programs that serve millions of Californians, particularly those most vulnerable. As I said, Prop 98, it protects education now and into the future.

For Medi-Cal, it maintains funding for the expansion of healthcare to all income eligible Californians regardless of immigration status, and inclusive of in-home supportive services. It also includes CalWORKS base grants that have been increased by over 31% since 2021, as well as the SSI/SSP base grants which have increased 3.2% and additional 9.2% of SSI and then SSP.

The agreement also identifies continued investments in vital programs, including $1 billion for Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention, $250 million in encampment grants, $103 million, one time, for victims assistance grants to backfill federal VOCA funds, and $80 million annually for two years in the nonprofit security grants.

So this was a high level overview of some of the big structural budget included in the budget agreement, and I will now briefly go into the 19 related bills. The first bill is AB/SB 108, which is an amendment to the 2024 Budget Act. This bill includes a reduction of $1.1 billion to various affordable housing programs.

It shifts $958 million general fund from the current year and budget year for formula and Competitive Transit and Intercity Rail Capital programs to the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, delays $550 million to 2027-28 for broadband last-mile. It provides $1 billion, one time, to provide local governments funding to combat homelessness.

That's through the HHAP program. Provides $250, as I mentioned, in encampment grants. It reduces the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation's budget by $750 million general fund, which includes $392 million associated with the statewide reductions. That's the vacant position reduction as well as state operations reductions.

Additionally, it deactivates housing units across 11 institutions while preserving rehabilitation space and minimizing the impact on the incarcerated and staff populations. That results in about a $82 million reduction. It provides $13.2 million, one time general fund, for the Board of State and Community Corrections to continue the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons Grant Program.

It also restores $42 million general fund for the Habitat Conservation Fund. The bill also includes an increase of about $229 million for an estimated 11,000 new state-subsidized, center-based childcare slots beginning October 1 of this year and it decreases by $306 million general fund to reflect a six-month delay to January 1, 2025 for the next step in developmental service provider rate reform.

It includes $133 million MCO, the tax funds in 2024-25, for targeted MediCal rate increases beginning January 1 of next year. And it maintains $92 million general fund and $184 million general fund for state and local public health efforts. That was the first bill. Second bill is AB/SB 109, which is--amends the 2023 Budget Act.

This bill makes technical and clarifying changes to the 2023 Budget Act. It includes an increase of $176 million for the Department of Healthcare Services to address a current, near general fund shortfall to allow DHCS to meet critical MediCal provider payments. And the budget includes $10.6--the budget agreement includes $10.6 million annually for the sorry--

The current budget includes $10.6 million annually for the Secretary of State to cover election-related activities such as printing and mailing of voter information guides. In the most recent election, these expenditures totaled $16.5 million, so an additional $5.9 million more than was allocated. So this bill includes the net difference.

Okay, moving on to the next bill, SB/AB 153, K-12 education trailer bill. This bill includes deferral, reserve withdrawals, and accruals as part of the Prop 98 agreement. Specifically, it defers roughly $2.3 billion in specified categorical funding from 22-23 to 23-24. It defers $3.6 billion Prop 98 in the Local Control Funding Formula from 23-24 to 24-25 and additional $247 million Prop 98 funding from 24-25 to 25-26.

For accruals, it accrues the accounting of $6.2 billion in previous payments to schools and community colleges to future years beginning in 26-27, without impacting the calculation of the Proposition 98 guarantee in either 2022 or the future years.

It suspends the August 15, 2024 layoff window for teachers, other non-administrative certificated staff, as well as classified staff. And it forgoes a planned $875 million general fund investment in the School Facilities Program as well as forgoes a planned $550 million general fund investment in the Full Day kindergarten, Transitional Kindergarten and Preschool Facilities Grant Program as solutions for the budget.

Moving on to AB/SB 155, higher education. This bill includes, again, deferral reserve withdrawals and accruals as part of the Prop 98 agreement, this time for the community colleges. Specifically defers about $242 million in specified categorical funding from 22-23 to 23-24, $446 million Prop 98 general fund in Student Centered Funding Formula from 23 to current year, to the budget year and approximately $244 million Prop 98 from 24-25 to 25-26.

It also establishes a student housing lease revenue bond structure to support previously approved community college student housing projects and establishes a rebuilding nursing faculty recruitment and retention program. Moving on to AB/SB 156. This is the resources trailer bill.

This bill makes various statutory changes in natural resources and environmental protection, and they include making technical adjustments to the Parks Adventure Pass Program, aligning state recreation boating safety requirements with federal requirements to ensure the state will continue to receive federal funding allocations.

It makes statutory changes related to the collection and application of the Department of Toxic Substances Control's generation and handling fee to increase compliance and address a shortfall in that account. And it makes statutory changes to align the federal--sorry to align with general fund solutions for the oil and gas well capping program and the Department of Toxic Substances Control's Cleanup in Vulnerable Communities Initiative.

Moving on to AB/SB 159. This is the health trailer bill. This bill implements the following significant health proposals. It includes a trigger regarding the implementation of the healthcare worker minimum wage increases. It exempts state facilities and makes other implementation clarifications.

It also effectuates the new targeted MediCal provider rate increases and investments from the MCO tax, including physician services, emergency department services, abortion and family planning, ground and emergency transportation, community health workers, pediatric day health centers, continuous Medi-Cal coverage for children until the age of five, and various others.

It establishes the Children's Hospital Directed Payment Program to support medical care for critically ill children. It accelerates online purchasing for the Women, Infants, and Children Program, or WIC, and it expands program eligibility for AIDS Drug Assistance, or ADAP.

It increases premium payments, modifies the formulary, and authorizes funding for various program enhancements to help reduce transmission of HIV/AIDS in California. And moving on to the next bill, AB/SB 160. This is the managed care organization tax, or MCO tax. This bill includes an increase to the MCO tax state funding to achieve additional net state benefit. This is beyond what was included in the Governor's Budget as well as early action of nearly $1.8 billion in budget year, $1.9 billion in 25-26 and $1.4 billion in 26-27. And it does this by including health plan Medicare revenue in the revenue limit calculation.

This increases the maximum allowable size of the total revenue generated from that tax, and it's important to note that this change has no impact on the commercial health plans or Medicare plans. Okay, moving on to the next bill, AB/SB 161, human services trailer bill. This bill implements the following significant human resources--human services proposals.

It establishes a permanent rate structure for foster care placements that focuses on the child's individual level of need and strengths rather than the placement type. It authorizes a CalWORKS maximum aid payment, or MAP, of 0.3% beginning October of this year.

It directs Department of Social Services to apply for the federal Projects for Promoting Accountability by Measuring Work Outcomes Pilot and codifies legislative intent to transform CalWORKS into a more family-centered program. And lastly, it eliminates the dollar-for-dollar county match requirement for ongoing funding for the Housing and Disability Advocacy Program.

Moving on to AB/SB 162, Developmental Services trailer bill. This bill implements the following significant Developmental Services proposals. It delays the next step in service provider rate reform by six months to January 1 of next year while maintaining momentum and driving toward an outcomes-focused system. It codifies the master plan for Developmental Services. It repeals the previously suspended family cost participation program and annual family program fee and it allows for individual service plan meetings to be held remotely. The next bill is AB/SB 163, child care.

This bill codifies legislative intent to add additional state-subsidized childcare slots. It establishes new parameters for the developmental and implement--the development and implementation of the alternative methodology for state-subsidized childcare provider reimbursement rates and it authorizes the Department of Social Services to develop and implement a streamlined request for application process so that current program contractors can more easily be awarded additional funding for childcare slots.

The next bill is AB/SB 164, the General Government trailer bill. This bill increases the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, or CURES fee from $9-15, starting April 1 of 2025 to support the maintenance and operation costs for CURES. It increases real estate fees to maintain the solvency of the real estate fund and requires the Department of Real Estate to meet with stakeholders and provide information prior to increasing fees in the future.

It moves programs out of the Governor's Office of Planning and Research to other departments to realign the Department with its core mission and renames the Office of Planning and Research to the Governor's Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation. And lastly, it requires the California Department of Technology, with the third-party administrator, in developing and constructing a statewide open access, middle-mile broadband network to work with Last-Mile Grant Project awardees to ensure network segments support last-mile connections. The next bill is AB/SB 166 on housing.

This bill establishes round six of the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention program to provide $1 billion to cities, counties, continuums of care, and tribal governments to combat homelessness. Round six includes additional accountability and reporting requirements to increase the state's oversight of how local governments spend this funding, and it establishes additional reporting requirements for recipients of encampment resolution grants. Okay, the next bill is AB/SB 168, the trailer bill for public safety.

This bill makes an appropriation of $116 million to county probation departments in budget year for the Community Corrections Performance Incentive Program, and that's pursuant to SB 678. It adjusts allocations to county probation departments by 5.5% on a one-time basis to provide an equitable distribution of funds in the budget year and guarantees a minimum funding level of $200,000 for each county that falls below this amount in the budget year.

It also clarifies existing processes at the Department of Justice to provide criminal records relief, provides retroactive criminal records relief for specified convictions, and extends the implementation date from July 1, 2024 to October 1, 2024. Moving on to AB/SB 169, which is the Juvenile Justice trailer bill. This bill effectuates the transfer of Juvenile Justice Grant Administration functions from the Board of State and Community Corrections to the Office of Youth and Community Restoration, or OICR. It extends and expands an existing requirement for county probation departments to report juvenile data to OICR, as was established in AB 102.

It updates the formula for the Juvenile Reentry Grant in recognition of the closure of the Division of Juvenile Justice. It provides additional time for the Administration to engage with stakeholders to support the development of a successor formula for the Juvenile Justice Realignment Block Grant established pursuant to SB 823.

Moving on to ABS B 170, the Courts trailer bill. This bill extends the sunset dates for remote proceedings for criminal and civil cases through January of 2027. It's currently 2025. It allows Habeas Corpus Resource Center attorneys to continue to represent their clients who were previously sentenced to death but whose sentences were reduced to life without the possibility of parole until July 1 of 2029. And it appropriates $100,000 general fund to support the Equal Access Fund administered by the Judicial Council and the State Bar.

The next bill is AB/SB 171, the trailer bill on labor. And this bill authorizes the Department of Industrial Relations to utilize emergency hiring authority to expedite hiring and fill vacancies to increase the effective and timely enforcement of employer labor claims--sorry, employee labor claims. It clarifies the amount of time the Workers Compensation Appeals Board has to make a final decision on an appeal. And it authorized the deferral of state employee payroll costs from June 2025 to July 2025. Moving on to AB/SB 173, the trailer bill on transportation.

This bill adds to the high speed Rail Authority Office of Inspector General Provisions. It clarifies components of the Ebony Alert process. It makes technical amendments so that the transit accountability provisions put in place as part of the current year's budget apply to all years and all fund sources of the Formula Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program and Zero Emissions--Zero Emission Transit Capital Program. And lastly, it requires Caltrans to report various data related to zero emission vehicles it procures as part of its multi-year fleet replacement plan.

The next bill is AB/SB 174, facilities. This bill provides general fund appropriations totaling $700 million over the next three years to fund the Capitol Annex Projects. It exempts the Capitol Annex Projects from the requirements under the California Environmental Quality Act, and it extends the California Environmental Quality Act statutory exemption that currently exists for specified Fish and Wildlife Restoration projects by five years. And the last trailer bill is AB/SB 175 on taxation revenues.

This bill establishes a refundability program to ensure taxpayers subject to the business credit limitation proposed by ABS 167 for tax years 2024, 2025, and 2026 can fully utilize their credits after the limitation period ends. Taxpayers can make a one-time election to receive a refundable credit equal to the amount of credits over $5 million that they would have been able to use to reduce tax liability for that tax year if not for this credit limitation--and credits can be utilized over a period of five years at 20% per year within each of those five years.

AB/SB 175 also implements a trigger mechanism for tax years 2025 and 2026 such that the credit limitation and NOL suspension will not be in effect for each of those tax years if revenues are sufficient without the revenue impact from this solution. And Chair, Vice Chair, I'm done with brief descriptions.

Thank you very much. Congratulations, Miss Lee and appreciate your partnership here on working on the budget. With that, we will turn to our legislative analysts. Any comments? Compliments? Questions?

Thank you, Mister Chair, Mister Vice Chair and Members. Nothing prepared, but we're here and happy to answer any questions if we can.

Great. Thank you very much. At this point, we will bring it back to the Committee. Seeing if there are any Member questions or comments. Mister Flora.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Once again, thank you to the staff for all the hard work on this budget. This has not been an easy year and certainly doesn't go unnoticed, even though we may not always agree on what's in it, but certainly acknowledge the hard work that's being done. I do have a few questions, and I'm just going to try to go in order through each of the trailer bills and just kind of just keep mine very brief and just--I want to respect everybody's time as well. But there's a few things I do want to get some clarity on. We're going to start with SB/AB 108. How much of this funding is in this budget is dedicated to wildfire prevention activities?

I'm going to turn to one of my colleagues for the specifics. Thank you.

Good morning. Stephen Benson with Department of Finance. So, there's a couple of different areas where there's funding for that. So, in '21 and '22, we had the really big client climate packages. And so, of that funding, there was 2.8 billion over three years for wildfire force resilience. The budget maintains 2.6 billion of that.

It spreads it over a couple more years, but it maintains 2.6, or I think it's 93%. Yeah. And then there's also significant investment in a six-to-six hour workweek for CAL FIRE that will have co-benefits of significant additional wildfire prevention activities.

Love to hear that. Nice little plug there. Appreciate that. And then one more question on this particular one. How much additional funding is in the budget for surface water storage infrastructure?

The three party deal cuts 500 million from water storage.

All right, well, that's not very fun. Thank you for that answer, though. All right, we're going to move on to resources. AB/SB 156. Might as well just keep you here for a little bit. Right on. Back to kind of the wildfire prevention stuff. Is it sort of in line with what we did with SB 901, Senator Dodd? Does it kind of?

So, the two. So, the 200,000. Sorry, 200 million annually that was going towards those SB 901 activities, that level of funding is maintained in this budget. There's a shift in terms of fund source for some of it, but the $200 million level is maintained.

And within the trailer bill, the reporting requirements that we added, that was a priority to the Legislature, particularly for the Assembly, and it's in complement with the 66-hour workweek implementation. We're trying to make sure that in adding personnel for wildfire resiliency and prevention work, that we make sure we understand what the outcomes of that work is.

And we have some pretty lofty goals of like 500 million acres to treat. Right? Do we have a plan? What's the thought process on reaching those goals?

So, the Wildfire Enforce Resilience Task Force has a set of actions that they have outlined for trying to reach those goals. CAL FIRE has a certain segment of that acreage that they're treating. They've been meeting that goal.

And then, of course, we have conservancies and other agencies and of course, private and nonprofit entities that contribute to those acreage. The whole action plan goes through. There's dozens of goals and targets for reaching that goal.

I don't know how much the detail you want on that, but the funding that's maintained from the climate packages and the $200 million annually all go towards reading that goal and CAL FIRE has been hitting its targets and I think a lot of the other departments have been as well.

Love it. And we'll talk offline more the details on some of that. So, we'll reach out as well. And then one program is obviously near and dear to my heart is the Farmer Program. Is that still zeroed out?

Sorry, we bring up some musical chairs here.

No, it's okay.

Good morning. Julianne, Department of Finance. Which farmer's program are you referring to?

The Farmer Program.

The relief for small farmers?

Engine replacement, tractor replacement program called the farmer program as it relates to cap or, I'm sorry, the Air Resources Board. The program has been good.

Shy Forbes, Assembly Budget Committee. Yes, I believe that there is no new funding in this year's budget, but it wasn't technically zeroed out because there was no money keyed for this year.

Okay, appreciate that. Next, we're going to go on to SB AB/SB 160 MCO tax.

Okay, cool.

Last summer we increased MCO tax with promises of provider rate increases. The Governor kind of withheld those rate increases and now we ask to raise those taxes again with kind of more promises. So. I guess like if we're going to continue to raise the MCO tax, when are we going to start seeing some provider rate increases?

Eric Lee with the Department of Finance. In the May Revision, the MCO package that was approved last year was not included because of the fiscal condition. As part of this three-party agreement, we do have targeted provider rate increases.

There are, there is also in AB/SD 160 trailer bill, the addition of the new additional revenues for the MCO tax that we will be discussing with the Federal Government. And I think that's part of what you're talking about. But there are targeted provider rate increases included in this three-party agreement.

Okay. Now I love to hear that because I do think you, obviously represent a rural community. I mean, these folks need to get paid, and they need to get reimbursed. And so, we need to kind of sort that out sooner than later. So, I certainly would appreciate that.

And then you also mentioned in your quick remarks, but can you please use a little bit more detail on the refundable credit and how that will work?

Sure. I'll start at a high level and then I will ask one of my colleagues for a little more detail. But the NOL and the credit limitation may rear vision proposal is essentially included in this. But it is different that we do allow for refundability.

So, credits that are above the 5 million that were not taken basically are allowed to be taken in the future, and I will hand it over to my much more abled colleague to discuss the details.

Colby White, Department of Finance. So, with regard to refundability, the credit limitation that's in effect as part of the three-party agreement for tax years 2024, 2025, and 2026, that $5 million limitation, to the extent that any company has credits in excess of that 5 million that they cannot take in any given tax year, they can make a one-time election.

And that excess credits, they're able to convert those credits to refundable credits, and in so doing, they're able to start taking those refundable credits three years following the election, and it's over a schedule over five years, 20% of that amount over the five years.

So, this provides certainty to businesses that are affected by the limitation that they will eventually be able to use their credits.

And then the Hollywood tax credit was treated differently than the R&D tax credit. Why was that?

So, the film credit was currently it wasn't treated differently. It is also subject to the $5 million limitation. And to the extent that companies are subject, film credit 4.0 has a refundability provision as well.

And to the extent that they're taking those refundable credits on the film credit side, and they're subject to the $5 million limitation, if the schedules overlap, they are able to take those credits immediately in the following year if they exceed 5 million. But I wouldn't say that they were treated differently.

Thank you for that. Appreciate that. We're going to move SB 166 on housing. Just got a couple quick questions there as it relates to the HAPP Program. In this budget, we provide an additional one billion to the HAPP P, but with new oversight requirements, state audit concerns with past findings or funding.

Can you describe how the new reporting and oversight requirements in this bill improve on prior rounds of funding?

Andrew March, Department of Finance. So, a couple of things that the Administration has taken preemptively before the audit with the Legislature last year is we transferred the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program from the California Interagency Council on Homelessness to the Housing Community Development Department, which has more capacity to administer these grants and provide the necessary oversight and accountability requirements on grantees.

And then specifically with round six, it requires monthly reporting of grantees for their fiscal data, as opposed to quarterly reporting. It also requires a corrective action plan if grantees are not meeting their system performance measures. And then for the second or for the remaining, they receive their disbursements in two tranches, 50%, 50%.

And for the second 50%, local governments, cities and counties have to have a compliant housing element. So, that also encourages accountability on that side.

Do we have a new goal that we're trying to meet as far as a reduction of homelessness? Do we have a new goal?

So, we've moved away from outcome goals for the homelessness programs and focused more on system performance measures and how overall the systems are aligning and making sure that local governments are aligning their various funding sources to address the needs of the homeless population.

Genevieve Morelos with Assembly Budget Committee. We also, in round six, we created categories of where they should spend their dollars. So, moving away from the outcome goals, we have buckets where their dollar should be spent, prevention, interim housing, permanent housing, as well as other, like another category that are non-housing.

But we really want them to focus on that interim housing, permanent housing, and prevention. So, we had never, in all the rounds that we created, we had never set a goal of, like, you have to reduce homelessness by this amount. It was more of, here's how many homeless. Here's what your numbers are.

How are you housing the people that are homeless in your communities?

Man. So we. Okay, if we have no goals, if we have no, then how are we going to measure success?

We do. We do have. We do have metrics in there. So, it's just, so when they're looking at their rounds of funding, as they go back and refine, as they go to do the check-ins with HCD, they have to look at their metrics to see how many, where the homeless, how many homeless do you have in your community? How have you reduced them?

And so, you have metrics and check-ins on these six data points that were, that really have, are tied into the HCMIS system so that we can track the number of homeless in the community and see the reductions in that. But it's by community. So, it's not by. It's not a goal across the board on it.

But there are those metrics that we were looking for that we created in rounds three through five that really are getting at those numbers there. But, you know, right now, where we are in the process is we are not at. And, you know, we're at round three as far as they're contractually obligating. And slowly the data is coming in on these other rounds.

I would just say out of this entire budget, and thank you, Chair, for the time. This will be my last question, but out of this entire budget, this is probably one of the things that concerns me the most is this funding.

Over the last number of years, we all know we spent over $20 billion on homelessness. We're putting another $1 billion in right now. We've actually seen a net increase homeless population.

And so, if we're not going to have metrics in place to actually see if the funding and the dollars that we're sending or spending are actually working, then I'm not sure why we keep dumping money into this. And so, it does concern me that we don't really have a goal.

I mean, I understand, like people in housing, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's a goal. And so, I would just leave it at that Mister Chair and I appreciate your time.

All right. Thank you, Miss Quirk-Silva.

Thank you for all the hard work for everybody who's been working tirelessly on this.

And going back to the almost $1 billion put into homeless and housing assistance through the H HAPP program and other programs, the Low income tax credits for housing, the multifamily housing program, and the REIT 2.0, we heard directly from our cities and our planning agencies that they, in fact, believe that these are the programs that have allowed them to do the work, although sometimes not feeling like it is working, but it is, in fact, those four programs they feel are working.

I want to emphasize that there is language on page 49 that allows the recently formed Housing and homelessness Accountability results and partnerships, a new unit, so hharp unit at HCD to monitor HHAPP. So a lot of acronyms there. But we heard loud and clear this investment in $20 billion, and what do we have to show for it?

And we know that we need to do more to make sure that the public believes that these dollars are not only being used, but we also have to be realists in our housing and homeless areas where we have housed people. We are moving people into shelters, sadly, at a very large number.

And one of the reasons that that is, in fact, happening is the affordability. Bottom line in California is out of reach for many people.

So although it doesn't look like there have been individuals housed, we know from many, many accountability hearings, many informational hearings, that, in fact, the data is showing that every time we house seven people, 10 people fall into homelessness. So this is an attempt to keep pace.

Really proud of us, allowing some prevention language into the HHAPP dollars, and also accountability, meaning that in the last rounds, cities will have to show that their housing elements have been approved. So we are, in fact, putting language in that make sure that there's guardrails on page 51. Sorry, not 51. Yes, 51.

We also talk about the encampment program, where many of us were critical of that program, and yet there was a lot of negotiation. There are dollars there, but there are also very specific language on reporting out on that. And again, accountability measures. So under my sub five Committee, I feel that we have shown progress.

There's more progress to make, but it's an important area using that accountability language for these new dollars coming into housing and homelessness.

Thank you very much, Assemblymember. Assemblymember Petrie-Norris.

Just, well, first, again, thank you, everyone, for your hard work on this budget. Navigating, certainly a challenging moment for the state. Just picking up on Assemblymember Kirk Silva's point around accountability and certainly appreciate what I think is a renewed focus from the Legislature and from the Assembly on ensuring that the dollars we're spending are delivering results.

And that when we're talking about accountability, it's not just about tracking where do we write the checks, but what impact do they actually have? And I appreciate all the work that you and your Subcommitee have done on that.

I think it might be helpful for all of us if we could perhaps get a preview of the reporting that's actually going to be produced, because I am a little confused about, you know, what we're going to be tracking, how we're measuring success.

And I think that as we embark upon this additional spending, understanding what we're actually going to be looking at to evaluate program efficacy, I think would help all of us.

If you have time, you can go to. Sorry, Genevieve Morella, study Budget Committee, SB 166 or AB 166. On page 24, you have the system performance measures. This is the actual Bill Language. Okay.

And so in there, you're tracking the number of persons experiencing homelessness, persons who become homeless for the first time, increasing the number of people exiting homelessness into permanent housing, reducing the length of time persons remain homeless, number of persons who return to homelessness after exiting homelessness to permanent housing, increasing successful places from street outreach.

So those are the performance metrics that we are measuring. It's a different approach than just the percentage decrease, because you really want to see where people are moving through the systems, and that is why you have these different system performance metrics that help track everything.

All right, great. Thank you for that. I'll take a closer look at that and then question about. So in a couple of places we have triggers, since there's a question about the refundability or, sorry, the. zero, my goodness. This is the credit limitations and the trigger mechanism related to those.

So we've got a couple of triggers, trigger mechanisms here. I'm pretty clear on how the trigger for the healthcare worker minimum wage will work. It's pretty specific, at least in the summary.

It says that related to the business tax incentive credit limitation, it says that the credit limitations shall not apply for each of the 2025 or 2026 taxable years if the Director of finance determines that there are sufficient General Fund revenues. So what is going to be part of that assessment? How is that determination going to be reached?

Thank you. Colby White, Department of Finance. So there, as you state, there is a determination that needs to be made by the Director of finance by May 15 that revenues are sufficient without the use of the NOL and credit credit limitation, and then it's further subject to legislation that's included in the annual Budget Act.

So at that time, revenue has been, it'll be a holistic look at the entire budget. So it'll include a look at revenues, expenditures, Prop 98 and Proposition two, interactions and things of that nature to make a determination whether or not it will be included in May revision.

And then at that time it has to go to the Legislature and be negotiated included. The Budget act.

Understood? And I'll say, I guess so. Two things. So I do appreciate the inclusion of a trigger mechanism and a look every year. I would like it if there was some way for us to make it less of a moving target. So yes, kind of. We'll know it when we see it.

And I would imagine, you know, a number of stakeholders a little bit uncomfortable. That's it.

Thank you, Mister chair.

Thank you very much, Assembly Member Lee.

Thank you so much. First, I want to thank the three parties, the governor's office, Barna finance, our legislative partners, of course, for reaching such a remarkable even though in a challenging budget year we achieved such a remarkable budget that really prioritizes human need.

And especially as the chair of human services, I really thankful reflective, excuse me, of seeing so much reinvestment back into the human services portfolio, especially, even a small thing that I noticed in the floor port is restoring the CalFresh fruits and vegetables EBT pilot program, which has worked remarkably seamlessly well for consumers and grocery chains.

So just seeing that restored back in is very good to see, even though it's a relatively small amount of the amount of money we do. I just want to commend the work of the three parties for reaching such an incredible deal for human services and making sure those in poverty are not left behind in bad budget years.

I do have some questions I would build off of what somebody Pitri Norris was saying, actually, and I agree with some of the comments she was making about some of the trigger mechanisms. I think some specificity about how in the future years, what does that mean?

Sufficient amounts are necessary would restore that, I think gives some certainty to people too. So as we work on the proposal, looking outward, maybe even the rest of the year, I think more certainty would be helpful too.

And I did want to also build upon what the Vice Chair, who's not here anymore, did allude to about how there's a difference between the film tax credit and the other corporate tax credits. So as I understand it, we are capping, of course, the business tax credits at 5 million. Right, 5 million.

And then in future years, they can do 20% equal to what they should have had in future years. Correct. But as I understand the film tax credit, there was technically no limit to how they could be refunded already. So how does the refundability aspect for future years work for the film tax credit?

It's Colby White, Department of Finance. Thank you for the question. So for the film tax credit, they are also will be subject to the $5 million limitation for tax years 2425 and 26 with regard to their refundability. That is, for film credit 4.0. That starts with allocations that begin in fiscal year 2526.

So theoretically, if they complete their milestones very quickly, there could be an overlap there where they start their other refundable credits under their normal program, while the $5 million limitation is in place. To the extent that happens, they're still subject to the $5 million limitation in 25 or 26, the schedule that they were on in 4.0.

To the extent that any credits, that they have any credits over that $5 million in 2027, they would be able to take their normal schedule plus any credits that were above that limit, and that would be based on their schedule under 4.0 under that program.

So then their future refundability, they are different than the other tax credits. Am I understanding that correctly?

It would be different, I guess different in the sense that they have this existing.

The formula of the 20% of the amount that was supposed to beimbursed for the other business tax credit, film tax credit, like we're talking about in the newest round. Right.

It's technically, they're technically, the refundability aspect was even higher because the business tax credit, you could only limit this, get to zero tax liability, but with the film tax credit, you could go beyond that. So that's why I'm just trying to understand that.

What would we do with the difference, since there is also that we're capping them and then we're saying you can refund those out years, but technically under phone tax or 4.0, you have no limit. So what is the. I'm just trying to understand that aspect.

Yeah. So they are going to have a limit to the extent that they have refundable credits in excess of $5 million in 25 or 26, it's a bit unlikely for 25 because of the timing. It's 26 is more of a possibility.

And if so, if they have a schedule, say that they were going to take $10 million in credits over five years, that was their schedule. Starting in 2026, they would be limited to the 5 million in 2026. And they would still be on that schedule of 10 million per year in the following four years.

But they would also get to take the additional 5 million in 2027.

It's just that there's two. When you're looking at the film tax credit, there's, you know, 1.0 to 3.0 that would fall under the refundability under this Bill. And then there is the 4.0 that also would fall under here. But it's very likely because of the timing.

So when you get to those tax credit, it takes a long time to get to those tax credits. So that window of these three years242526 likely won't impact that 4.0? It could, but it likely won't. And then they have their schedule for that 4.0.

Okay, so there is a possibility. But you don't think it's as likely given the scheduling. Okay. Correct. Yeah. Okay.

Well, I also just want to remark too, is that right now in the summer, you know, we're anticipating these refundability in the next out years, not this budget year could cost us $1.0 billion, but in the outgoing years could be other multiple billions of dollars.

And just something to consider as we continue to work on a very human centric budget is to also improve our tax credits for working families too, and figure out how we can directly get cash back into people in California, in sands just as readily and accessible as we do to big corporations.

We should also think about how to do that for everyday families. I did have some comments also building off my colleagues on the housing aspect of the budget too.

I just wanted to remark and comment that while I think it's really good that the H Hap dollars around six have a lot of great new criteria and stringent accountability on the front end, I noticed it's in stark contrast to the, well, much less money in the encampment resolution funding, which is accountability on the back end, which is post fact.

Right. If your city wants to take money from round six, you have to go through a litany of criteria and grant and competitive nature to get that money. When it comes to the encampment resolution program, I see the accountability is kind of like, well, what did you do with the money after?

So I'm sure there's still some aspect of vetting to get the money. But I did want to add, my question was about. So I see that half of the appropriation for the encampment resolution funding program of the 150 million. So half of that is reserved specifically for state right of ways. So would the applicant be then Caltrans?

And how would they be expected to report on the same data on a transportation agency rather than a local government?

So the 50. Andrew Marsh, Department of Finance so the 50% is a remaining requirement for the Encampment Resolution Fund program. So the parameters of the program have not changed, but it's about local governments prioritizing encampments on state right of ways. So there is a partnership with Caltrans, but the grantee is not Caltrans.

The grantee is the local city or government.

So say at a local city, they have off ramps, on ramps. But the grantee would be the city, not the state, in that aspect. So then the cities get to prioritize which off ramps in areas that they choose then, is that correct?

Yeah. And that's as the program currently functions. Okay.

Did you have a.

Yes. And just to add in, Genevieve Morelos with Assembly Budget Committee. The new housing and Homeless Accountability unit will also have oversight over the encampment grants. So, there is language that not only includes the HAEP program, it includes the encampment programs, which is additional accountability that there wasn't before.

The reporting is on the back end of how those grants were administered.

That's right. It is on the back end. So, I mean, something that interests, of course, many of us legislators. The data of make sure that we're showing data that people are being rehoused, I think is a big concern, that we're just using this as another pushing people around, evicting people.

But we want to make sure that these dollars go out to resolve encampments. We want to make sure that we're not just dissolving or making homelessness invisible. So that's really important to us. Thank you, Mister chair.

Thank you, Assemblymember. Thanks for bringing a little color into the hearing room. Let's go now to Doctor Weber.

Good morning. Thank you, chair. Well, I too, want to start by thanking the governor's office for working with our staff within the health realm, specifically around the MCO tax, which was taken out of the May revision, working with us to get some of those things put back in, understanding that this is a very challenging budget year.

However, we know that this state is in a health care crisis, with providers leaving and us being unable to recruit providers to come to California to care for our residents, especially our most vulnerable ones.

So, really appreciate the fact that we were able to put some of the programs back in, but also put some of the provider reimbursement back in. Of course, it is not where the original agreement was, but very happy that we were able to do something. And on the lines of provider retention recruitment around the issue of workforce.

One of the questions that I have deals with Prop 56 funding and understanding that those funds that were originally have recently been backfilled with the General Fund. Those Prop 56 funding, some of them went into funding some of the GME residency slots with the current Bill, there will be no more Prop 56 backfill from the General Fund.

Correct.

So, Andrew Duffy, Department of Finance I'd have to defer to my colleagues on the UC assignment regarding the backfill. What I would note is Proposition 56 does provide 28.8 million General Fund in current year 24 - 25 to the University of California for its graduate medical education program and 26.5 million in budget year.

And that funding is maintained, but in future years.

So, are they going to still have that Prop 56 Fund funding backfilled from the General Fund their GME?

So, Jennifer Pacello from the Ledge Analyst Office, the state was backfilling for Prop 56 revenue for UC. For GME, it was 13.5 million. That is out of the three-way package. It'll be ongoing. So, it would start in 24 - 25 and that 13.5 million would no longer be there even moving forward.

Right. That funding is gone. Correct. And this Prop 56 funding that was being filled went to Fund some of the UC GME slots. Is it only UC programs that were getting these funds or was it also some of the community residency slots, the children's hospitals?

UC was required under. Well, I think under statute as opposed to the measure. But they do use a group that's a nonprofit group, I think it's called Calmedforce. They issue grants to UC as well as non UC providers across the state. UC received some, but again, I don't even think it was the majority.

So it was a much broader based program. It is a much broader based program.

Okay, so we're not just talking about residency slots at UC, we're talking about outside, at some of the other private medical schools, the children's hospitals, some of the community based programs. And these GME slots or residency slots really were focused on our internal medicine, family medicine, pediatrics, emergency medicine, and I believe ob GYN.

So the ones that people generally look at as being like primary care, you know, the first kind of providers that patients go to when they need something. So in the original MCO tax that was removed out of the May revision, there was funding for GME.

I think it was 75 million which would have kind of offset this removal of Prop 56 funding. So now that they don't have the Prop 56 funding to Fund these slots, and in the new MCO tax, there is no GME funding.

Do we have any idea how many slots we're talking about that we will not be able to have going forward in these primary care areas, saying that we need more providers here in California?

Laura Ayala, Department of Finance I can't speak specifically to the slots, and I could defer to my colleagues with healthcare access and information Department to speak more, but just want to flag that there is funding maintained in the budget under other workforce training programs, such as Song Brown for similar training programs.

Right. So also want to clarify that the song Brown funding that remains is for current residents, not for future residents. So what I'm asking about is the fact is our future workforce, right, not the ones that we currently have.

And I'm glad that we talked about that in previous budget hearings and we're able to not kick out our current residents. I'm talking about future. I'm not talking about the residents that will be starting here in July 1 of this year.

I'm talking about the residency slots that we'll have in July 1, 2025-2026-2027 do we have an idea of how many slots we will have to no longer have for our primary care residency programs in the future?

So I think what the state knows is, obviously, as you're indicating, there'll be fewer slots, not fewer than we have today. As you're indicating, there would just not be additional slots that could be funded moving forward with the 75 million. I don't know if anybody's done a calculation about what that equates to in the lots of slots.

One reason it's slightly more complicated is because a resident is funded from multiple Fund sources, and so that makes it a little trickier to come up with an exact number.

Yeah. Joseph Dawson, Department of Finance so, speaking specifically to song Brown, so kind of to differentiate the funding. So the budget maintains obligated funds that were originally proposed at May. Right, Vice, but now are being retained. So that is 98.4 million for song Brown.

It's a split of 20 million for song Brown nursing, as well as 78.4 million for the residency slots. But it's also important to note that for ongoing funding and budget, and thereafter there's 31 million still maintained in the budget for song Brown.

In terms of the slots, we don't have those numbers readily available, but there is ongoing funding for Song Brown.

There is ongoing funding for song Brown so that current residents will be able to finish their residency program. However, they cannot bring in new residents under that funding. So that's what we're. I wasn't even talking about Song Brown, but that is what's happened with song Brown.

So initially, what the budget said was, we're just going to remove all this money. If you're a first year resident in internal medicine and you're being funded by song Brown, sorry, you're going to have to figure out someplace else to go. Your second or third year. With discussions, we were able to figure that out.

So if you're a first year resident, your residency is now going to be funded. You're going to have the song ground funding for your entire three years while you're there. However, if they're looking for a new song Brown to come in in 2025 with that funding, that funding is not there to Fund future ones.

My question was around Prop 56 and the lack of GME funding with backfill and now MCO, how many new slots would they not be able to Fund? And I think that is extremely important. I know with the UC's, they're talking about 90 slots. They're going to have to go back to the different residency programs and state.

Hey, you've got six incoming internal medicine residents at UCSD. I don't know how many they have. I'll just do ob GYN. I count it. We've got five coming in at UCSD, right? Or six next year. You can only bring in five, right.

So I think we need to get those numbers when we're talking about moving and not filling and taking certain funding out, because we're talking about how many new slots we would be able to Fund. And we're talking about the future workforce within our healthcare system here, especially within the primary care areas.

And so it would be great if you all looked into that understanding that this is where we are right now.

But in future budget discussions, I do think that we need to recognize that these are slots, these are real individuals, and have a better idea of the impact that we're making when we're choosing to cut and remove certain things. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Assembly Member. Any other questions or comments from Members of the Committee? Okay, seeing none. Let me just thank all of the staff from the Department of Finance are here.

And maybe just one other point of clarity, since it was something that I think you heard a lot from Members of the Legislature, across party and across ideological spectrum, was more accountability for our homelessness funding.

And I just want to clarify for everybody, that has been a major priority for the speaker, for the Assembly Budget Committee, obviously, the creation of our new Subcommitee. And we had some very Frank conversations with our partners in local government who have been the recipients of the Hap dollars which were not included in the governor's may revise.

We negotiated to put those back in, but one of the conditions was to attach some very stringent accountability measures to those. But really on four different levels.

If you come up just from the accountability that's attached to that one is a requirement that the locals could not use that to replace local funding for homelessness, that they also had to have skin in the game. The second was a sense of urgency built around that.

As we dived into the data that we already have, we found that some local governments were working to get those dollars out into the community and help people with the urgency that we know our constituents are demanding and others were not. And so, frankly, building an urgency as part of the program.

Third is all of the accountability and reporting, some of which Genevieve describes. You can see the specific data and metrics that we're looking for, the frequency with which we're requiring reports put, putting things into a statewide database so we can understand that data and use it to deliver better results.

And then the fourth is actually for the second half of the 6th round of HAPP, requiring a compliant housing element so jurisdictions cannot be part of the problem, and then come to the state and say, we want money to address this.

So we're actually requiring a lot more from our partners and local government, who are the recipients of that funding. We've also, as you heard, separately, built in additional data and accounting metrics around the encampment resolution grants. So that is foundational to our approach.

I want to have that discussion with our Vice Chair, but I think you heard from people all different reasons of the state, all different political ideologies, different parties. This is a major priority for the Legislature. We want to take a compassionate approach to homelessness.

We have heard from our partners and local government that ending that program would result in more people being pushed onto the street. We certainly don't want to have that, but we know that our constituents are demanding better results on that front.

And so we are working as hard as we can with the tools that we have available in partnership with the governor's office to make sure that we can use a data driven approach and to have accountability and have those Frank conversations with our partners. So that is something we can talk more about.

I'm sure we're going to want to have more hearings and to explore this issue with the Administration, to have more conversations about it as the years move forward. But this is something that I think is a major, major party for the Assembly, for our speaker, and for Members from both parties.

So with that, let me again say thank you to our incredible Assembly Budget Committee team. Small but mighty. We're very appreciative for your work. Thank you to the folks in the Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst Office. And now we will turn it over to public comment and I will apologize.

I may have to sneak out to go present a Bill at some point. If we do that, I will turn you over to the very able leadership of Assemblymember Ramos.

So with that Mister McKayley good morning Mister chair and Members Chris McKaylee, on behalf of the Los Angeles area, sorry, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, we want to thank you and the three parties for maintaining your $5.1 billion commitment to public transportation. Thank you Mister chair. Thank you.

Thank you. Tiffany Mock on behalf of CFT education and Classified Professional Union, want to thank you and the parties for reaching such a great deal on Proposition 98 and UC funding. And just a small note that we would have preferred also to see $10 million for financial literacy. But we appreciate all your hard work. Thank you.

Thank you Mister chair Members. Michael Pimtel here on behalf of the California Transit Association, echoing Mister McKayley's comments and showing our thanks and appreciation for for the maintenance of 5.1 for public transit, also want to give voice and give praise for the maintenance of the TRCP cycle six funding. Thank you.

Thank you Songo with the California School Employees Association, we want to express our gratitude to the Legislature for protecting our classified school employees from summer layoff. We also want to thank you for the $90 million for the summer assistance, the classified school Employee summer Assistance program or CSAP. CSAP is a lifeline for our Members in the summertime. So we really appreciate. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning Mister chair and Committee Members Malik Bynum with UW AFSCME Local 3930 representing over 171,000 IHSS and family child care providers across the state, proud to support ABSB 108 budget Bow Junior and the reflective provisions of the three party agreement protecting IHSS and the continued allocation of childcare slots in the childcare trailer Bill as well. We understand the difficult decisions you have to make this year, but appreciate you standing with IHSS and childcare again. Thank you.

Thank you Michael Jarrett on behalf of the Community alliance with Family farmers, we'd like to thank you Mister chair and Subcommitee chair Bennett and also your staff. We really appreciate your protection of programs that support underserved small family farmers, including the California Underserved Small Producer program and the Community Food Hubs program and the CNIP program.

The restoration of those programs is vital to providing food to our state and also providing support to small family farmers. Thank you. Thank you.

Good Morning Mister chair Members Alchemy Graham on behalf of the California City Transportation Initiative, just want to express our sincere thanks for including, including funding and being supportive of the active transportation program and for commitment to providing funding in future out years. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mister chair Members of the Committee. Jed Hampton with the California Association of Health Plans. I would echo many of the previous comments around thanks and gratitude around a lot of the work that's been done in this tough budget year.

However, we did want to point to an area of concern that we do have in ABS 159, the Department of Healthcare Services, the authority to enact a fee on health plans to Fund a third party contract with the state. We are concerned that that specific provision actually more closely resembles a tax than it does a fee.

And based upon the fact that SS health plans have agreed to and are paying the managed care organization tax, we are concerned about the precedent of that fee slash tax that's included and the vague and unopened endedness of, of the proposed fee language in the Bill. So just wanted to bring that to your attention. Again.

Thank you for all the work that you've done previously and happy to chat further. Thank you.

Good morning. Rebecca Gonzalez with the Western center on Law and Poverty. We want to thank this Committee for protecting safety net programs and also, especially including intent language in the budget to reimagine CalWORKS to make it a more family centered and less punitive practice program.

And we also want to acknowledge that we are very grateful that we have apparently learned the lessons from the Great Recession where we cut safety net programs very deeply and it took over a decade to recover. So I want to thank the Senate, the Assembly and the Administration for your partnership and for your hard work. Thank you. Thank you, Samantha.

Saying on behalf of next gen California and also in of the Cal grant reform coalition, I want to say thank you. We do appreciate the investments we saw in financial aid overall in the budget.

We are disappointed not to see funding for the Cal Grant Reform act of 2022, but we do believe the investments this year in financial aid lays the foundation for us to continue working on this important issue. We thank the Legislature and the Assembly especially for your leadership on this issue and we look forward to continue working together. Thank you. Thank you.

Kim Lewis on behalf of Children Now, I just want to appreciate the saving of our safety net programs and home visiting emergency childcare bridge and the FERS program, especially on behalf of CCY.

We wanted to express our gratitude for the Victim of Crime act restoration funding, as well as your housing trailer Bill, which preserves our youth experiencing homelessness to be able to get the housing that they critically need. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning. Michelle Mckay Underwood on behalf of the coalition for adequate funding for special education and nearly all of the 60 school districts and county offices of education that successfully applied for the inclusive early education expansion program. So those are inclusive dollars for preschoolers with disabilities. So I have an appreciation and an ask.

The appreciation is the restoration of $100 million for that program. It was originally at 250, then went to zero, and is now at $100 million. The ask is for all of that money to go to the school districts and county offices that successfully applied for those dollars.

We're concerned that if it is split between state level activities and the leas that applied for the dollars, they won't be able to implement with fidelity the plans that they have for inclusive practices. So we hope that all those dollars will go to the school districts and county offices that apply for them. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning. Honorable chair and Members of the Committee, Jessica Sankus.

On behalf of the California State Association of Counties representing California's 58 counties, we have much gratitude for the work of this Committee and the Legislature and the Governor to reach this final spending agreement that preserves safety net services, core services that counties deliver to vulnerable Californians such as public health services, human services.

We additionally appreciate the funding for the additional round of homelessness funding in the HAPP program and the supplemental payments for victims of crime will go a long way towards following through on our shared commitments to Californians. We also appreciate the action on the two Eraf items that preserves revenue for the core services for those impacted counties.

We look forward to implementing the items in the budget. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Good morning. Julia Lopez Greenberg charg on behalf of the California Partnership to end domestic violence. So on behalf of them and the entire Voca Advocacy Alliance, I want to express our deep gratitude to the Budget Committee for including 103 million in funding for crime victim services and the final budget agreement with the Governor.

These funds will prevent devastating cuts and ensure that victim service providers in every part of the state can continue to serve survivors reaching out for help. Thank you for ensuring that survivors continue to have access to the life saving services they need and deserve.

Thank you.

Good morning Mister chair and Members. Pamela Gibbs, representing the Los Angeles County Office of Education. I'd like to first of all align myself with the comments from the advocate from the Coalition of Adequate funding for special education related to the inclusive Early Learning Education Experience Expansion program.

All of those acronyms I was able to get out and spell out and read out for myself. So I'm proud of myself for that. First of all, thanking you for the restoration of funds there.

And as one of the largest Head Start and early learning programs in the state, we participate in those programs with numerous coalition partners and support our students with disabilities. And so it's very important that those funds go directly to the ones providing the services. Who are the leas? We are an applicant of the funds as well.

So we urge your support for making that adjustment and support the other work that you've done on the education budget this year. Thank you Mister chair and Members. Thank you.

Good morning. Molly Robeson with Planned Parenthood affiliates of California. We are grateful that the final budget includes investments in sexual and reproductive healthcare services for medi Cal patients. Really thank you for your work on that, including that. But Planned Parenthood is part of a larger system for healthcare delivery that does need sustainable investments.

One third of Planned Parenthood health centers in California provide primary care. And so we do remain concerned that this budget does not include those investments that are critical in the medi Cal System, including for primary care, community clinics and specialty care.

But we look forward to working with you all on future budgets and ensuring that we do make those decisions. Sustainable increases in the Medicare system for healthcare delivery. Thank you. Thank you.

Hello Mister chair and Members Jordan Lindsay with the Arc of California and the Arc in United cerebral palsy California collaboration, representing Californians with developmental disabilities and their families. We are very disappointed that there is a six month delay in the investment that is promised to Californians with developmental disabilities.

We know that tremendous work was done by this body to improve that, from a 12 month delay as proposed by the Governor, to a six month delay. Nonetheless, that is a half $1.0 billion that will not be supporting individuals with developmental disabilities.

We believe that the roller coaster ride in funding over the decades for this community needs to come to a stop. There needs to be a dedicated source of funding. There needs to be sustainable funding and we believe that our time to work on that is now. We hope that you'll join us in that. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning chair and Members Tim Madden, representing the California chapter at the American College of Emergency Physicians. We just want to express our deep appreciation to the Committee as well as family leadership, and particularly to sub chair Doctor Weber for their support of emergency physicians in the provider.

Rate increases within the MCO tax, especially for the 2425 budget year to be included in that smaller bucket, will go a long ways to help buttress our emergency Department. So just want to thank you for that. Thank you.

Good morning. Chair and Members of the Committee, Johan Cardenas with the California Pan Ethnic Health Network CPEN thanks the Legislature and the Governor for preserving core health and human services programs. We appreciate rate increases for community health workers. We're also thrilled in home support services will not be eliminated for undocumented people.

And lastly, thank you for preserving the Indian health program and a majority of the funding for the future of public health. But more importantly, we really appreciate state policymakers for uplifting equity as a value in this budget. Thank you. Thank you.

Jackie Gonzalez, policy Director at immigrant defense advocates I'm very grateful for hearing the voices of the immigrant community and the preservation of really critical programs, including IHSS, the CSU, Immigration Legal service services program for students across our state, and TPS and related programs.

We remain concerned about the discontinuation of CHIRP, a program that served unaccompanied minor immigrant youth, and we look forward to working with the Legislature and the Administration on hopefully finding some solution for that issue. Thank you very much.

Thank you Christopher Sanchez on behalf of Carissa and the Central American Resource center.

Echoing all the comments, previous colleague thank you Mister chair Members of the Committee, Brandon Marche with the California Medical Association. We want to thank you and the Committee Members for advocating to keep some of the MCO's intended money for their intended purposes, recognizing that it is a restoration from the governor's proposal.

So we do want to thank you for getting that back into the budget. However, we are disappointed that we have missed a once in a generation opportunity to sustainably increase access to care for medi Cal patients.

And additionally, we would echo the comments and concerns of Doctor Weber as they relate to the cutting of the GME funding, including the funding that was allocated in last year's agreement that funding is critical to addressing our physician workforce issues and we look forward to working with you there. Thank you.

Good morning chair Members Danielle Bautista with United Ways of California here. Also on behalf of the Cali IT coalition, we want to express our gratitude to the Legislature for protecting critical investments in tax credits like the Cali, IDC, young child tax credit tax credit, as well as prioritizing the income threshold alignments of these tax credits.

We know California families use these tax credits for housing, groceries, childcare, basic necessities. However, we did want to express concern about the 50% reduction in funding for Cali ITC outreach. This will really hamper the ability of trusted messengers to reach more californian families.

And no one feels the cuts of these critical state programs more than Californians with Low incomes. So we're really appreciative that the 10 million in baseline funding for Cali ITC outreach is maintained in the budget and we strongly urge the Legislature to fully restore funding at 20 million. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good morning chair Members on IOCA meetings on behalf of Los Angeles Unified School District would really like to express our appreciation and gratitude for this budget which does maintain funding for Proposition 98 without cutting into the guarantee.

We would also just like to highlight our appreciation for the inclusion of allowing schools to use excessive expanded learning opportunities program funding for the new attendance recovery program.

We think that offers a lot of opportunities for our students and also highlight and uplift the critical issue of the Assembly Bill 218, the historical sexual abuse cases which have produced great fiscal liability for districts, and really appreciate the inclusion of a report from Thickmat to identify ways that we can both provide justice to victims of these horrible past crimes while also not cutting into funding for students today.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good morning chair Members. My name is Juliette Terry. On behalf of the Child Care Resource center, we are proud Members of the ECE coalition here to just express gratitude for the Administration and the Legislature's firm commitment to ensuring our critical safety net programs, including child care home visiting, the emergency foster Care Bridge program and other CalWORKS programs have been protected during this extremely difficult budget year.

We are also very thankful for the continued protection of child care provider rates as the Administration works to implement the new single cost of care rate. Protecting these investments means child care providers will stay one step closer to adjust wage.

Families can continue to access critical programs that enable them to work, put food on the table and ultimately keep their families whole. Thank you.

Thank you Karen Members Terry Brennan on behalf of SEI California, I just want to say we are where we are. We landed here and when we looked at the budget, nobody got everything they wanted. We looked back and said, are you better off than the January budget? Are you better off than the May revision?

You've heard all the things you guys done an excellent job of protecting with a balanced approach. We look forward to working with you in the future to keep carry this on and thank you very much for your efforts.

Thank you.

Good morning Mister chair and Members Jack Anderson with the County Health Executives Association of, California, representing our local health departments throughout the state. We do want to express our sincere gratitude for the inclusion of the level of commitment for state and local public health workforce and infrastructure that was included in the final budget act agreement.

And then also we do want to express our appreciation for the robust engagement with your Committee and with your staff on throughout the budget process on items including the CDPH syndromic surveillance system as well as the transfer of the healthcare program for children in foster care. Thank you very much.

Thank you Mister chair and Members, Janice O'Malley with AFSCME California just want to echo comments made by our fellow union representatives from CSEA, our affiliate UDW Local 3930, as well as SDIU. Thank you again for your leadership on making a better budget during really tough times.

I also want to thank the Committee for maintaining the $30 million for court reporters and the work on the administration's behalf as well on remote court proceedings. And just want to make note that for CDCR we have hope to work collaboratively with the Administration and the other exclusive bargaining reps on addressing issues with retention and recruitment.

This is a major problem and there's major fines being levied against the state because of the lawsuits, the federal lawsuits, and we hope that we can solve for this crisis. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, Carol Gonzalez here on behalf have Hope east span is organized for political equality. Overall, we're just really thankful for rejecting the reduction to the UC labor centers and the UCLA Latino Policy and Politics Institute cuts and then for Long Beach City College. Overall, really thankful for the COLA and the nursing program that was included.

So thank you very much.

Thank you. Seeing no more public comment, I just want to again thank our very talented and hardworking staff. Also want to thank the Republican staff for the hard work that they put in Department of Finance. We look forward to debating these bills on the floor tomorrow and Thursday and sending them to the governor's desk. Thank you everybody.

The hearing is adjourned.