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

The Senate Budget Subcommitee number five on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, labor and Transportation will come to order. This is our first of many meetings I'm sure that we'll have. So I'm excited about working with all my colleagues in the progress that we're going to make in this very important year. Good morning.

We are holding our Committee hearings here in the Capitol and I ask all Members of the Subcommitee to be present in room 112 so that we can establish a quorum and begin our hearing. So any Members on your way, please come on down.

Today's hearing will cover the Judicial Branch, the Victims Compensation Board, the Office of Emergency Services, and the California Highway Patrol. We will take public comment on all items at the end of the hearing. This is the first of many Subcommitee hearings that we will hold this year.

And while the physical situation has improved from last year, we are facing unprecedented uncertainties at the federal level and significant out year deficits. The conversations we have in this, in this room and the other four subcommittees will set the stage for the difficult decisions the Senate is facing this year.

Colleagues, before we begin, does anyone have anything they'd like to briefly add and if we could try to stay within a minute or so? Senator Durazzo? No. Okay. Okay. Wonderful. We're off to a great start. Before we begin, let's establish a quorum. Do we have sufficient number? Okay.

[Roll Call]

The consultant notes a quorum has been established. Let's start with our first issue, an overview of the Judicial Branch budget and. And Trial Court operations funding. First, we will hear from Judicial Counsel. And please come forward. The panelists we have are Michelle Curran, Administrative Director of the Judicial Council, and Zlatko. I'm not even going to try the last name, sir. I'm going to call you Theodore. How's that sound? That looks close.

Director of Judicial Council of Budget Services, Judge Ann Moorman, Mendocino Superior Court, and Chair of the Judicial Branch Budget, Anita Lee, Principal Fiscal and Policy analyst with the LAO's office, Legislative Analyst Office, Mark Jimenez, Principal Budget Analyst with the Department of Finance, and Henry Ng, Staff, Finance, Budget Analyst, Department of Finance. All right, we will start with Michelle. Good morning.

Thank you very much for having us here this morning. My name is Michelle Shelley. Actually, I am the Administrative Director of the Judicial Council and I just got a lot louder. First, I want to thank you all for having us here this morning and providing us the opportunity to speak about the Judicial Branch budget.

I want to start by saying that we are supportive and appreciative of the budget that the Governor proposed in January. And I think it demonstrates his committed support of the branch and the important work that we do in order to provide access to justice for all Californians, all people who walk through the Court's doors.

In her statement when the budget was relieved, the chief highlighted the essential role that the courts play to ensure access to justice for all Californians, to protect the constitutional rights of Californians and to maintain public trust and confidence in our democracy, which is needed. We need public funding in order to continue to do that work.

She also expressed and I want to express our continued commitment to work with all of you in the coming months as you begin this process of looking at the Governor's proposed budget and as you ultimately make some really important decisions with limited resources and continued uncertainty in the coming months.

So I just want to start by saying that we are going to continue to work with you. We recognize that these are uncertain times. You mentioned it, Madam Chair, both with what's happening in the state, the unpredictability in the state and then also some of the changes that are going on at the federal level.

I want to highlight a few few things that are included in our budget before I turn it over to others to talk about the impacts of all of this in the day to day operations for the courts. And that is first. And I want to thank you for your support of the 42 million restoration. As you know, last year the trial courts received a $97 million cut that had significant impacts on trial court operations.

And we are very appreciative of the support of the Legislature, both the Legislature and the Department of Finance to provide some restoration in this current year and to voice our support for the continued restoration of that $42 million to make that cut be effectively 55 rather than the 42.

Also there's $40 million that are suggested for increased operational costs. It's those things along with the restoration of the $42 million that really allow the courts to continue to do the day to day operations that they need. And I think with many public servants right now.

It also provides the courts an opportunities to support their staff, which is something that's really important to courts in order to continue to attract and retain good public servants In California right now there's also a $6.3 million increased pay rate to contract for the Supreme Court and courts of appeal for court appointed counsel.

That's another issue that is really important to all of us to ensure that all people in California have access to good solid representation.

And then a regular ask that we have, and we're appreciative of the governor's support on that is continued support for our court facilities program and the importance of having safe and accessible buildings for Californians as they come to our courts. As I said, I am here today with Judge Ann Moorman, Mr. Darrell Parker.

Judge Moorman is a judge in our Mendocino court. She is also the chair of the council's judicial branch Budget Committee. So she's one of our lead judges on this issue. Mr. Darrell Parker is the chair of our court executives Advisory Committee. So he works very closely with all of the court executives throughout the state.

So I'm gonna invite them to talk about kind of more of the day to day operations in the court and what it will, what this funding really means as we work to provide access to justice to all Californians.

Thank you, Ms. Curran. Now we'll hear from. Actually I have in my order, Mr. Zlatko.

I'll be doing an overview after the.

Okay, so we'll defer then back to Judge Moorman.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you Members of the Committee. As Shelly indicated, I'm chair of the judicial branch Budget Committee, which is one of the internal committees that reports to the Judicial Council and the Chief Justice for the Supreme Court of the State of California.

Briefly, what I'm going to do today is just highlight what the restoration of these funds allows the trial courts to do and allows us things to avoid. Mr. Parker has shown indicated is our chair of our court Executive Advisory Committee.

And he's going to put some examples and give you some specifics on the subject matter that I raised. But I do invite you to either interrupt me or at the end ask either one of us or Ms. Curran any questions that you may have.

So speaking to the restoration of the funds, which means that the branch is not avoiding cuts going forward. Forward. But we're very appreciative of the proposed restoration of the 42 million plus the 40 million in court operations.

And I will tell you specifically what this at this time has allowed us to do is many trial courts were looking at furloughing employees or even laying off employees. And we have been able to suspend those endeavors by not going forward with furloughs or layoffs.

Trying to plan for furloughs and layoffs also requires courts to cut either their physical counter hours or their phone hours by which the public can contact the courts to get information.

We've been able to not only avoid the layoffs and the furloughs, but restore any cuts to our phone lines and our public counters, which allows people to come into the court, if they so choose, to ask questions or retrieve documents.

Importantly, I will say that one of the challenges the branch has been facing, as have other branches of government, is since COVID we've been really trying to recruit and retain qualified staff within our trial courts. It's been a real challenge. And the budget cuts, the $97 million cut we were facing, really, you know, no surprise, I'm sure, did sort of complicate that challenge.

And with the restoration of the funds, we can pursue recruitment of qualified employees, retain qualified employees, because our employees are often being recruited by other entities, whether they're in the private sector or the public sector.

And this, you know, this stabilization of our employee base and our expansion of our qualified employee base is one of the essential foundations to provide access to justice. Another element I just want to mention is that with the advancement of technology, the court system, like every other branch of government, has become very reliant on it.

Our court, our case management systems, now allow us to go paperless. We have, you know, remote hearings that are. That are, you know, absolutely fundamentally founded on remote technology. And there's a constant need to not only maintain our technological and our technical systems, but we need to upgrade them.

We need to upgrade them with not only software, but hardware. And the cuts that we were looking at without the restoration of funds was really going to require the trial courts to put a pause on necessary maintenance and upgrades to our technology, which, again, I can't tell you. I guess I can't emphasize enough things.

Importance of doing that so we can keep our courts not only open, but functioning smoothly. It also is the open door that we're trying to create to allow remote access to public documents. And our expansion on the technology to support that is really fundamentally based on the restoration of these funds.

These are just some of the subjects I wanted to bring to your attention. And I'm going to turn it over to Mr. Parker to perhaps provide some specific examples.

Good morning. Thank you, Judge Moorman. Madam Chair, Darrell Parker. I'm also the court Executive officer, the Jury Commissioner and the Clerk of the court for Santa Barbara Superior Court. And so when we first got word of cuts coming down to the courts, we started taking action immediately to plan. We didn't know when those cuts would come in.

We didn't know the duration of the cuts. We had some idea, but we needed to start acting Quickly and early on in the year, we implemented hiring freezes in my own court. Both a soft and a hiring freeze.

In fact, in my court, I reviewed every position that became vacant to ensure that it really was essential to provide public service before we filled it, but also get the salary savings that we needed to live through the cuts that we knew were already implemented.

We were just before the cuts, poised to extend our clerk's office hours, which were closed. They currently close at noon on any given day. In part because we had a hard time retaining employees. The turnover was very difficult.

And so in order to process the filings of a court, we couldn't attend to both the public counter and the filings that were coming in. So we truncated our public hours. And it's very frustrating for me to walk out at the noon hour and see Members of the public pulling on the doors, trying to get in.

And I would intervene when I can, but I'm one person. With the restoration of funding, we are now finding that we're able to extend our hours. In fact, I've directed my staff on March 1st of this year to extend our clerk's office hours to 3:00.

And my real goal is to go to 4:30 so that, you know, people who are working on a regular basis, take time off, can actually get the services they need. This restoration will help us in that. Judge Warman spoke about the recruitment and retention issues that we have.

And it's a real challenge because while the judicial branch took cuts, our peers in local government were not taking cuts and were actually giving pay increases. I lost staff to county government, probation, county council, the DA and municipalities who were also hiring my staff away.

If I could raise an occupancy bed tax, I would, but I don't have a source of creating revenue in the courts. I'm dependent upon state funding. And so we weren't able to give salary increases to keep up with our neighbors. In fact, in my court, we reached the fastest contract we ever had in negotiations.

It only took us three meetings to reach a no increase contract. I was grateful for the labor organization recognizing the difficult fiscal times we were in. But with the restoration, I'm able to restore some hours. I have lifted the hiring freeze in my court.

I'm still struggling to fill them, but I've authorized those positions to be filled and I'm hoping that we can fill those positions in the coming year. It's still questionable about the future. I'd like to say. zero, things look rosy, but you mentioned it in your opening remarks that we're uncertain.

So while the restoration is helpful to restoring a great deal, and we appreciate that, I guess I'm cautiously optimistic about the future as we I'm entering into bargaining again this year. So thank you for your time today.

Thank you for your comments. And now we will have Mr. Slotko Theodorvic. That's my best, my best shot.

Yes, thank you. Madam Chair Zlatko Theodorovic I'm the Budget Director at the Judicial Council and I'm going to give you a brief overview of the budget for the branch. As the agenda notes, the Governor's Budget proposes a total of $5.2 billion of funds, including $3.3 billion from the General Fund.

Of this amount, $57 million is for the Supreme Court to review the decisions from the courts of appeal. $297 million is for the courts of appeal in which they hear appeals of original proceedings and hear all types of cases, civil and criminal. 3 Almost $4 billion goes to the 58 trial courts which have obviously jurisdiction over all our civil and criminal cases.

The funds provided through the budget Fund court operations, as Judge Moorman and Daryl have mentioned, courtroom and non courtroom staff, judges compensation, court appointed counsel for children and non minor dependents and parents in juvenile and dependency court proceedings, child support commissioners, family law facilitators, court reporters, interpreters, legal aid.

But note that this funding does not Fund facilities and construction costs because those are part of the Judicial Council's budget, which I'll mention next. There's $1.1 billion for the Judicial Council, which is the constitutional institutional policymaking body for the Judiciary, consisting of 21 voting Members and nine advisory Members, with the Chief serving as the Chair.

The Council staff serve as an administrative arm of the Council and provide policy support to the Council. Administrative accountability, the operation of the courts, strategic planning for facilities, administrative support and budgets, technology, education, legal advice, human resources resources, legislative advocacy and research.

There's also $20 million for the Habeas Corpus Resource center, which provides legal representation for indigent petitioners in death penalty cases. Just to touch on the budget in terms of reductions. As noted, we have a continuing $55 million reduction, assuming that the budget does sustain the $42 million restoration.

And there's 15 million, almost $16 million for the Supreme Court Courts of Appeal, Habeas Corpus Resource center and the Council's budget to be part of the overall budget solution. I know that there was another budget reduction method, a vacant position sweep. The Judicial Branch did not participate in that. We're appreciative of that.

Also wanted to make note because this has been a particularly important issue lately is federal funds. There are substantial federal funds in the branches budget supporting appointed dependency council family law commissioners. And so again any loss of federal funds would have a significant impact on the branch.

Finally, in addition to the key proposals that Administrative Director Curran mentioned, the Governor's Budget does include funding for trial court benefits for employees and backfills for some critical construction funds. If there are any questions can pause for a moment and field any questions from the Committee.

Thank you for your presentation. Now I'd like to turn to Ms. Lee.

Anita Lee with the LAO. There is quite a bit on this issue item. So we specifically have three recommendations that we will parse out. The first two recommendations relate to the increased funding for just discretionary trial court spending and the third recommendation pertains to the proposed budget Bill Language.

So first turning to the increase in discretionary funding for trial court operations, this proposal actually straddles the current year 24-25 as well as 25-26 and moving forward.

So first focusing on 24-25, our first recommendation is for the Legislature to have the judicial branch report and Budget Committee of its process of how it goes about making mid year budget adjustments and how it ensures that the Legislature has the opportunity to weigh in on that.

As you heard from your presenters, the Governor's Budget includes a partial restoration 42 million of the $97 million ongoing reduction in 24-25. It is not an additional General Fund burden because we're going to pay for that using unspent unrestricted dollars in the trial Court Trust Fund which is one of the judicial branches special funds.

There was a little bit of confusion as this was being implemented related to whether and when the Legislature's input should be sought. And so having a little bit of this discussion would make sure that everybody is sort of on the same page moving forward.

So then shifting to 25-26 and thinking forward, the Governor's Budget includes a total $82 million ongoing General Fund augmentation. In that discretionary funding it includes the 40 million for increased costs that you heard mentioned as well as the continuation of that 42 million partial restoration. But all of this is being paid for from the General Fund.

So because this is an ongoing General Fund commitment beginning in 2526, we recommend the Legislature carry carefully weigh this against its other budget priorities. On the one hand, the monies really will impact service levels. You heard from the judicial branch on how it, you know, increased services and reduced the impacts on court users.

On the other hand, the state does have multi state multi year deficits kind of leading into the future. And so any ongoing General Fund commitment will likely require reductions in spending spending in other existing programs.

And so that's a trade off you're going to want to consider to the extent that you provide additional funding, we would further recommend that you consider providing your priorities for where you think that money should first go to. And providing those priorities would really ensure that the funding is used consistent with your priorities and your expectations.

Our third and final recommendation relates to the proposed budget Bill Language that would authorize the transfer of unspent unrestricted trial court trust Fund monies back to the General Fund. So in concept this is reasonable because it would benefit the General Fund and you would have that money available for other budget priorities.

The proposed language however, really limits legislative oversight because it's quite vague and it provides the Department of Finance with the discretion in calculating how much to transfer. So because of that, to increase legislative oversight, we actually recommend the Legislature modify the language in two key ways.

The first modification would be to include legislative guidance for what monies should be considered as part of those deliberations or how to go about making that calculation. So for example, it would be reasonable to expect the return of any unspecified General Fund monies that were provided to the special Fund for very particular purposes.

Examples of that can include savings from judicial salaries due to vacancies or monies that are not needed to backfill shortfalls in fine and fee revenue that support trial court operations.

And then the second modification to the language would be to require that the Joint Legislative Budget Committee receive 30 day notification before any transfer is made and to require that that notification clearly outline how that final transfer amount was determined.

And so in combination that provides u of you with the ability to express your priorities but also to review the final transfer amount. With that, happy to answer any additional questions you might have.

Thank you. Before we go to the Department of Finance, could we reopen the roll to give Senator Walhab an opportunity to reflect that she's present?

Thank you. Welcome. We will hear from Mr. Mark Jimenez, Principal program budget analyst with the Department of Finance and Henry Ng if you have any comments today.

Good morning. Henry Ng, Department of Finance. I would like to first speak to the current year restoration. The intent was to restore those resources to support child court operations as indicated in the Governor's Budget.

Courts were having to make difficult decisions and they've been able to avoid some of These impacts to their critical programs due to the restoration in the current year. And it's of course highlighted by my colleagues at the judicial branch.

We recognize there were concerns raised about the process and we acknowledge that there are a couple ways we could have handled it. But we do appreciate the Joint Legislative Budget Committee's concurrence with the current year restoration and then moving on to the ongoing resources for the trial court operations. The flexibility in this funding is intentional.

Every court is different and every court has its own unique set of needs. So we support the judicial branches flexibility in the use of this funding. And then finally moving on to Leo's recommendation in regards to the budget Bill Language for the transfer of funds from TCTF to the General Fund. That is something that we'll take back to our team of finance and we'll take it under consideration. Thank you.

No comments. Thank you.

With that being said, any colleagues, are there any questions for the panel? Senator Wahab

So I just wanted to highlight, you know, your budget overall has either increased slightly whereas many other departments budget has decreased just because of our budgetary issues. What have you guys done in regards to trying to implement cost savings measures internally?

Excuse me, Senator, thank you very much for that question. Any number of things. And I look at you and I immediately think technology because I know that's something that you think about.

So one thing that we have absolutely been focusing on over the course of the last several years is the increased efficiencies that we can receive through implementing technology.

Because we believe that that is a very effective way of doing that when we're in a position, when we have received cuts, it has forced us to go back and to take a look and to try to be more efficient in all of the things that we do.

And so it is a constant self examination, if you will, on these things. I think of one thing that the Chief Justice has expressed interest in and that is case flow management.

And that's an initiative that she has launched and she's asked the courts to take a clear look at and that is trying to think about ways that when someone comes into the court trying to get their case disposed of as quickly as possible while still ensuring that the justice that they receive is effective and appropriate.

We don't want to be in a spot where we just are so focused on doing things quickly that we're not doing things well. And so it's a constant examination. So those are just two quick examples that I can think of.

The things that we, we have embraced within the branch in order to address the need for additional efficiencies. So I don't know if Darryl or Judge Moorman.

I think that. I know one issue that we probably would both say is that the trial courts, as well as the appellate court and Supreme Court, our function is heavily dependent on our personnel.

And when we were looking at the budget cuts as proposed at the beginning of the budget year, every single trial court took a look at their staff, took a look at the positions that were already empty.

Did you know, as Darrell indicated, we went through a position by position evaluation about was the position necessary, could it be combined with something else, or could it be eliminated? The proposed restoration of the funds allows us to avoid actual cuts and furloughs and possible layoffs.

And we need those persons to be able to keep our courthouses open and functioning and providing access to justice. But I will tell you, and I will commit to you that every trial court, every CEO in all the 58 counties looks at our personnel, looks at what our list of positions are, and evaluates do we need it?

If we need it, who's the type of person that needs to be filling it, what do their qualifications need to be? What needs to be the pay range? And nothing, absolutely nothing is taken for granted. We want and intend to be a good partner in managing the resources available to the people of State of California, and we're committed to do that.

So my concern is, what is the number of vacancies you guys have?

Well, that would be a number we would have to get. Each county would have a different number. I don't have an overall number at the trial court level to provide to you today. I'm certain I can get that for you, if that's what you want. And we could also do it at the other levels, the court of appeal.

So when we're talking about vacancies, we talk about cost savings often, and yet we don't have the number at a statewide level. This is something I've brought up in the past as well, and I fully support funding our courts, and that's why there was no dip last year. Right.

But I also want to highlight that sometimes, unless there is a stick in place, there's no movement from the different departments and the responsibility to the public. The reality is that, you know, when I travel to some of the counties, they reference even vacancies within their judges, and that's a pretty high vacancy in Southern California. Right.

And we're not seeing any very strong movement to fill those vacancies and get some of these proceedings Done with, number one. Number two is we are also seeing bad actors in the sense that there are people that just keep delaying their trials in that sense.

I have constituents in my district that have even highlighted the fact that they have not been given justice. Right. In the sense that their son's murderer just keeps delaying their efforts and not showing up. And the courts are allowing that.

When we're talking about technology, are there shot clocks in place when we're looking at caseload and making sure that justice is served in a timely and swift manner?

Yeah, we are looking at those things. And in all of this, we're really trying to balance, and we have to balance people's individual constitutional rights and ensuring that the justice that is provided to Californians meets those constitutional standards. And so some of the things that you're getting into are continuances.

And that's something that we are having conversations about. And it's tricky because we really want to. It is imperative that defendants in matters have their ability to make sure that they are in a position where they can have the most, put the most effective case forward as possible, making sure that victims have all of their rights.

And I think about some of the things that we are looking at internally now, and absolutely, this is a big conversation that we need to have with all of you, is the complexity of a lot of the cases that the courts are looking at now.

Cases are not what they were 20 years ago, candidly, because the laws and very important laws that we have been very supportive of have gotten more complex.

And so things that were happening more quickly before are taking longer because they need to take longer because judicial officers are obligated and need to follow what is included in the law. And we're going back and having to reopen cases that we thought were complete.

And so the need to go back with some of the resentencing initiatives that you all have put forth. Again, supportive, happy to do our work, important public policy. But it just means things take a little bit longer or a lot longer than they did before.

So do we have, let's say, percentages of what types of cases we're spending the most time on? What types, types of cases do we have the most of? Things like that.

And my frustration, and I just want to say this in a lot of these types of hearings, is that the questions I ask, even as of last year, we never get updates on, number one. Number two, there's no clear, direct answer to. So, for example, okay, technology was integrated to take a look at caseload and so forth.

Is that fully implemented, or is it going to be like the DMV's effort or EDD that took four years to implement technology, which that technology most likely is obsolete at this point. Right. Because four years technology, you know, it changes. Right.

So I just highlight these things because, again, this is one of the most important institutions that we have in government. We want to fully Fund it. I personally want to fully Fund it. But at the same time, you know, what are we doing to kind of make things move faster? Our dollar goes further.

And when we're talking about vacancies, what are the vacancies? How many? What is our caseload like? Breaking it down to see really where the most bang for our buck goes. And the people want speedier trials.

Thank you, Senator. You can answer.

Yeah. Information on the complexity of cases is forthcoming. We engage in a study every several years, five years. It was delayed because of COVID but we're in the process now of looking at actually the length of time it takes to process a court. We go through a very case. Excuse me. We go through a very complex study.

And we will provide that information to you. In terms of vacancies, I can speak to the Judicial Council right now. We're right around, I think, about 20% vacancy at the Judicial Council staff organization. So we have a high vacancy rate.

And the staff in our office can attest it means a lot more work for people who are employed at the council right now. And I know the trial courts. We can get you the data on the vacancies throughout the courts on that. As far as judicial officer could wrap up, please. Sure. Yep. Judicial officer vacancies.

Very appreciative of the support of the Governor and Secretary Sesso because they have been good at filling those vacancies of late.

Thank you. So what we'll do is the great staff that we have here, both Eunice and Nora will make sure to get all the questions in writing. And if all of the panelists could submit the answers to the Committee, and then we'll distribute them out. And I don't know if we got actual testimony from everyone. Hard copies.

So if you have any notes that you're able to share with the Committee, we'd greatly appreciate it. Any other Members with questions? Senator Durazzo?

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the things I've been on this Committee four or five years now, and one of the things we were continuously talking about was the shortage of court reporters and interpreters. And we tried many different ways. The issue, very strong debates about remote hearings.

And I Just want to thank you because there's been some focus put in on that. And I understand I spoke yesterday with a delegation led by LA Presiding Judge Sergio Tapia, who talked about focusing in on current staff of the courts and offering them the opportunity to become a court reporter or an interpreter.

Careers which pay, you know, over $100,000 at least. And how you had recruited, allowed them to get trained, encouraged them, helped them get the training. And now that 25 and 25, something like that, something like 50 have been hired. But 400 people applied for the court reporters and I think 300 for the interpreters. Anyway, extraordinary number.

I just want to thank you for putting that focus in so that we could actually address it. Otherwise we'd still be arguing today about how important a court reporter is, how important an interpreter is.

And if there was any way that we could be helpful, Madam Chair, on moving forward with that kind of recruitment and training program gives an opportunity for people to move up from positions that they could linger in forever or new people. So I just want to make that comment. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. First of all, very gracious of you to thank us for only beating up half as bad this year. We recognize that we're only restoring half that amount. My concern for the branch in General is that it represents a critical part of our criminal justice system.

We have the people in the street doing the job. We have the people on the housing part doing their job. And what happens in the middle is really, really critically important. And that's where your job is. And I don't see great improvements because we keep.

We keep making your job a little harder with resentencing with CEQA lawsuits, because those have become very, very popular. And you talk about complicated lawsuits. That's where the complications are. Our labor laws are getting more and more. This of what people can sue for is getting wider and wider.

And so we're heaping a lot more on you to do the job that we would like you to do. And this isn't fair to victims of crimes, but it's also not fair to the people who sign up to be part of the program.

So they can either go to a new housing unit or they can get help for their problems. And so my question is, we have a $5.2 billion budget. What would it take to fix this? Because I know in Riverside County, we're 42 judges short in Riverside and San Bernardino. County.

We can't possibly get people throughputted when we're that short of judges. We have a brand new courthouse over there. It's awesome. But there's an amount that it takes to put this critical piece together.

And we were talking, there was a little bit of talk by our LAO and also the Department of Finance about what it our budget priorities and if we actually Fund what we need to make the judicial system work right so that we can recruit people so we can get all these lawsuits that we've invited in in and then also get people that want to sign up for the criminal justice system throughput.

How are we going to do that? And we have to prioritize from other budget sources. We have $200 billion to get that $200 billion. We have to figure out how we're going to divide that up. That's a lot of money. That is a lot of money.

There are some places we can make, we have to make this system work. And I want to know from you guys, what do we have to commit to make it work from a financial perspective? Because I'm certainly not going to go into your job and tell you how to do that part of the job.

What I want to see is people getting into the system and getting out and not waiting two years for their justice.

And so any thoughts on that about what it would really take to fix the criminal justice system, including having the amount of judges that we need in San Bernardino, Riverside counties, or you can get back to me with that number?

That is a challenging question. And it's obviously a partnership. And you know, there are many needs and many needs across the state, but we definitely can have a conversation about that. But we have not. We don't have a specific number because there's a lot of complexity to the.

It's probably not worth sitting down and coming up with that number because, you know, you won't get it. Huh? Yeah.

Well, Senator, you've identified some important areas though. Those changes in legislation that have imposed additional burdens on the court to take time are actually taking our more expensive resources.

We need more research attorneys to help read the transcripts on all of those re sentencings at a time that it's very difficult to recruit research attorneys at what we're paying. And I jokingly call it the rule of 58. There's 58 different counties, there's 58 different formulas.

So we'd have to spend some time really looking at what are those burdens and what are the price tags. But I think that's a fair question. What would it cost? And it'll vary by county We've been.

Talking about this for two years that I've been on this Budget Subcommitee.

I think also you're going to hear from some of our colleagues here in a minute about some of the other budget issues relating to representation of persons who have cases either on appeal or unhavous. And, you know, that's a piece of the budget issue too, that allows, you know, allows cases to move forward more quickly.

And so I ask you to keep your question in mind when you hear from them.

But, you know, we couldn't give you a number today, but I will tell you that the cases both in the criminal and civil arena have become far more complex and it just is taking more time, you know, than, than it used to be 25 years ago.

And I know that's a very generic statement, but, you know, I've been in the law 37 years and it's. Things are more complex and that's, you know, the devotion of time is just necessary. But all the pieces are necessary.

It's judges, it's staff to support the judges, it's having functioning improper facilities, it's having up to date technology that we can keep up to date. And we have partners in the community criminal justice system, in the law enforcement, public defenders, the private bar. They're all right, they all participate. And you know, I will try to get you a number, but I think it's an excellent question.

Well, would this characterize this? $68.7 million were taken from the General Fund and adding in, does that cover all the expenses that we have added on in the last couple of years through our legislation for the court system? No, no, we're giving you $68 million to cover about $300 million worth of stuff.

So that's the problem with our budgeting and our priorities. When we have one really critical piece that needs attention and a lot of attention in order to accomplish all of the things, the social justice, all that stuff, this has to work. And if this doesn't work, we're not going to accomplish those other things. So that's my comments.

Thank you very much. And my questions. Thank you for trying to answer them. I'll look for that number.

Thank you. Mr. Seyarto, I have one brief question. Can the Administration provide more information on how the 15.8 million in efficiency reductions were achieved at the branch level?

Henry Ng, Department of Finance. So Finance is currently working with departments and we'll provide detailed workbooks that will identify the areas of reductions. So more to come, but we will provide them as soon as possible.

When is as soon as possible.

Unfortunately, I don't have a time frame, but we will provide them as soon as they're available.

Madam Chair. Just from an operational standpoint is Senator Wahabwas asking about how we're dealing with the budget reductions. Well, our vacancies will have to fill that hole. So we're holding positions vacant to meet $15.8 million reduction, $2.4 million in other parts, and the $55 million reduction that is the ongoing cut.

So while there are some other adjustments upward in the budget, fundamentally the budget is not whole for the branch.

Thank you. Would it be fair to say for by May revise that we might be able to have the numbers.

Newman, Department of Finance. Yes, we will have that information by May revision.

Okay, thank you. All right, panelists, thank you for your participation today. We appreciate all of your work. Thank you. Next we will have our second issue, which is capital outlay and facilities. First, we will hear from Tamar Ahmed, Director of Judicial Council of Facility Services. Mr. Theodore is going to stay here with us.

I apologize for not giving you your full due. Presiding Judge Gus Barrera of San Joaquin Superior Court. We have Ms. Lee, who's staying with us. Mr. Phil Osborn, staff finance budget analyst with the Department of Finance, Koreen van Ravenhorst. Boy, I'm brutalizing these names here. Principal program budget analyst with the Department of Finance.

And the other two remain. All right, Committee Members, if we could work to. Let's make sure we keep our questions to hopefully a few in a couple minutes or so. In your responses to questions? The same. That way we'll get you out in a timely fashion. With that, we will start with Mr. Ahmed.

My apologies. We're going to switch it up and I'll start and then.

Oh, now you're really causing havoc here. All right, go ahead, sir.

Thank you. The Judicial Council appreciates the Governor and the Legislature's support for our facilities program, which has allowed US to build 32 courthouses, providing 354 courtrooms in 28 counties since 2002. The council's portfolio consists of 430 facilities with over 2100 courtrooms across more than 21 million square feet.

The program's goal is to prolong the assets that we have and the usefulness and to ensure the reliable and safe functioning of the court facilities. So that our courts can operate. During 2024, 2 capital projects providing 23 courtrooms were completed in Riverside and Shasta counties.

We have 20 ongoing capital projects in various phases to build out existing buildings and or new courtrooms. These projects will open about 213 courtrooms and vacate 31 substandard facilities, which include seismic and operational safety issues.

Just as a recap of what's in the budget, there's $9.5 million for a project to complete In San Diego, 5.4 related to lactation rooms, $500,000 for planning funding that helps us refine our costings and to determine our needs.

There's $5.4 million for Butte County hall of Justice, $18.1 million for Fresno Courthouse, $7.8 million for San Luis Obispo Courthouse, $5.1 million for Sonson Courthouse in Solano, and $2.9 million for a new capital project in Tracy. And then there's reappropriations, technical adjustments, about $82 million for existing projects.

Now I'll turn it over to Mr. Tamara Ahmed, the Director of our facilities program, to discuss the process used in prioritizing all the various facility needs and also comment on the Tracy courthouse project.

Thank you. Good morning, Senator Richardson and the Members of the Subcommitee. I'm Tamara Ahmed. I'm the Director of Judicial Council Facilities Services program. I will explain how the Judicial Council prioritizes courthouse construction when there are so many needs in the courts.

Pursuant to Government Code 7037.1.9, the Judicial Council submitted a report in December of 2019 on the reassessment of the trial court capital outlay projects. The Judicial Council conducted a reassessment of all trial court projects that that had not been fully funded up to and through Budget Act 2018.

The reassessment included physical condition assessments, security, access to the court services, and overcrowding. A total of 80 projects for 41 of the 58 trial courts were identified in immediate need Critical, high, medium and Low categories. All the capital outlay projects the Judicial Council is seizing funding for are in the immediate need category, including the new Tracy courthouse.

This assessment and resulting priority list has been the basis of the construction program proposed and funded in the budget. With respect to the new Tracy courthouse.

This project is needed because of the existing close facilities that are in an extremely poor physical condition, are difficult to secure, and are undersized with space shortfall as identified in our facilities assessment.

This poor condition and need for replacement are affirmed by the Facility Condition Index, known as FCI Facility Condition Index is an industry standard set management methodology used to determine a building condition at a point of time dividing repair costs by the current replacing cost.

I'd like to turn it over to Judge Barrera, Presiding Judge of San Joaquin Superior Court, who will provide additional details regarding the new Tracy Courthouse.

Thank you very much. Good Morning Senators, Senator Richardson, Senator Durazo and Senator Seyarto. My name is Gus Barrera. I am the Presiding Judge of San Joaquin County. I'm here today to express my strong support on behalf of the Court and the public we serve for the San Joaquin County New Tracy Courthouse Project.

Proceeding with this project will provide a vital restoration of essential services, services that were lost in our county since 2011 due to severe budget constraints and uninhabitable facilities. South San Joaquin county is home to approximately one third of our county's population. This region is the fastest growing, most underserved portion of our county.

The closure of the two temporary modular courtrooms in Tracy has forced South County residents to travel to other cities of Manteca, Stockton or Lodi to address their legal needs. This has created a significant challenge for our community and our community which continues to grow at an unprecedented rate.

Since 2003, South County's population has grown by over 90,000 residents. The City of Tracy, which is the largest city in South County, now has a population of over 95,000 residents and also serves a rapidly growing City of Mountain House that has over 24,000 residents.

Our growth can be attributed to our location with individuals from the the Bay Area seeking more affordable housing, a lower cost of living and our region's proximity to major employment hubs in Silicon Valley.

South County saw over 7,000 criminal filings, many of which of those criminal filings are complex felony cases, yet faces a severe shortage of courtroom resources.

With only two operational courthouses in Manteca and none in the City of Tracy, the proposed Tracy Courthouse would be a modern, efficient, safe two courtroom facility and that will restore services to Tracy and ease some of the calendar congestion in our neighboring cities of Manteca and Stockton Courthouses.

It will also allow us to provide self help resources and other services to that population. Our existing facilities simply are suffering from severe overcrowding and which compromises the quality of services provided. Without going into extreme detail, none of our current facilities can handle physical expansion.

We cannot add onto any of those facilities, specifically our Tracy, strike that, specifically our Manteca 2 courtroom facility is overcrowded and the Judicial Council on site cannot accommodate cannot accommodate expansion for additional courtrooms. The holding cells there do not meet Security standards and that limits the types of cases we can that can be heard there.

Proceeding with the Tracy Courthouse is the most viable solution to address these limitations. For years, state and local funding has been set aside for the Tracy Courthouse. Knowing that this project is critical to restore adequate, safe and efficient court services to the residents of San Joaquin.

Redirecting this funding would undermine the established prioritization methodology and delay addressing urgent needs for our community. I will urge you to proceed with the funding for the Tracy Courthouse project as planned. Myself and our CEO Stephanie Boer, thank you very much for your time and consideration on this topic.

Thank you. Ms. Lee, did you have any comments?

Yes. This pertains to the new Tracy Courthouse specifically. So the Governor's Budget is proposing 2.9 million in one time General Fund to get the project started. It's going to have a total cost of about 65.1 million.

So we generally don't have concerns with the identified scope or cost of the project and and it is next in line to be funded. However, for legislative consideration, we did want to mention that you might want to consider whether you want to redirect the funding to other trial court projects.

And this is because all of the Tracy Branch facilities have been closed since 2011 due to budget constraints from the Great Recession as well as the poor condition of the existing facilities.

So if you move forward and start the construction of this, you're effectively expanding service back to that area and it does provide increased access to the individuals in San Joaquin county, which is a clear benefit.

At the same time, as noted in your agenda on page nine, there are billions of dollars in unmet facility construction and deferred maintenance need, including in buildings that are currently in use.

And so I think that's something that we wanted to flag for the Committee for consideration because if you redirect the funding potentially to those that are next in line to be funded, that address needs in facilities that are currently in use, you'd be focusing those resources on facilities with the most pressing unmet need that are currently facing current court users, current staff.

And you can always come back to the Tracy Courthouse and Fund it at a later time. And this is particularly important given the multi year deficits we're facing where you are being asked to weigh your trade offs on General Fund expenditures.

Yes. Phil Osborne, Department of Finance, the Capital Outlay unit. So I can speak to all of the projects, but I believe Tracy's the one that, you know, we're going to discuss the most. So my thoughts on Tracy - being on the Cap Outlay side, I'm agnostic to the programmatic. You know, it's a building, and the need is from the program, folks. But that being said, I would say that we support the Tracy project.

And one of the reasons why is when you think about the 2019 assessment, which happens eight years after the Tracy units have closed, you know, it's reasonable to kind of assume that there was a presupposition that Tracy funds would be redirected, staff would be redirected, funds would be redirected towards that area from the existing.

So it's not necessarily an expansion. It's more of a redirection. That's my understanding of it, and I believe my support counterpart believes that as well. So within existing resources. So. So that being said, I would like to speak to two - to the LAO recommendations. And I just have two things there. One of those is that we would not support - we would not be supportive of redirecting the funding to deferred maintenance, especially because of the small size - the $2.9 million is kind of a drop in the bucket for deferred maintenance. And if it was.

If you think about redirecting the funds to the next projects in line, as the LAO has also recommended, it would take more funding than the 2.9. I just wanted to bring that up. So if you funded Kern and Tahoe, those are the next two in line, Kern or Tahoe. Kern would require about $5 million for the acquisition phase, and the Tahoe project would require $5.3 million for the acquisition phase. You couldn't just redirect that 2.9. You wouldn't have sufficient funding to take on those next two projects. So I just wanted to bring that up.

Thank you for your comment, sir. With that, colleagues, do you have any questions? Mr. Seyarto?

All right, let's talk about Tracy for a minute. So this is just the money to start this project. If this project doesn't start this year, then it starts in two years. It's gonna be cheaper. You think? Nothing in California is going to be cheaper in two years than it is today. Going back to my comments earlier, we are piling more and more activity into the court and opening the doors wide open for people to come in and sue for everything. We got PAGA lawsuits, we got CEQA lawsuits, we got labor lawsuits, we got, you know, the fly fan doesn't work. It's $3 million lawsuits.

It's ridiculous, but we're doing it. You guys have to react to it. So even though the growth in California has kind of leveled out, the growth in activity for the judicial system has not. And in fact, it's increasing. So it just seems to me that it's a little counterintuitive that we would draw back money from this and then start the project later on. And now we're even farther behind the curve and spending more money to try to catch up with all these caseloads that we're piling onto the judicial system. Would you characterize that as kind of accurate?

Yes, completely. And the building of the Tracy courthouse also addresses some of the issues that the Senators brought up. For location, really quickly. Tracy is right ... in the Bay Area. That whole area now is not served. And we can't, all of -we can't get the cases funneled through there because we have to file them in different courthouses. This would give these two courthouses would address that access to justice and at least be a start to try to push some of these cases through.

Busy area where people like to sue each other. So.

Busy area where people also like to live.

Yeah, I hear you. Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Senator. I have one brief question. Would the Judicial Council like to respond to the LAO's comments about the Tracy courthouse? Did you have any comments?

I believe we have in our - in Tamer's, Mr. Ahmed's comments about the need for the project and the prioritization.

All right, well, with that, thank you for your presentation today. We appreciate your participation and your points well taken. Thank you very much. Next we'll go to issue number three. We were quite ambitious, I think, with our agenda here. Next we have the CARE Act process and proceedings. First we'll hear from the Judicial Council.

And for that we have Mr. Don Will, Deputy Director for Center of Families, Children and the Courts, Judicial Counsel. Ms. Audrey Fancy, Principal Manager for Center of Families, Children and the Courts, Judicial Council. Mr. Theodore here is still with us. And everyone else, thank you very much. We will start with Mr. Will.

Thank you, Senator. The Governor's Budget for the CARE Act includes a 1 million ongoing General Fund for new trial court operations authorized by Senate Bill 42, which requires changes to the CARE Act, the Community Assistance, Recovery and Empowerment Act. We were also asked to provide a brief update on how CARE Act implementation is going.

The first seven courts began implementing the CARE Act as of October 2023 and Los Angeles implemented shortly after that December 23. Our next big milestone was full implementation statewide by December 2024, three months ago. All courts have have now implemented CARE Act proceedings, as of December 1, 2024. All courts now have CARE Act programs and almost all of them are reporting that they're receiving petitions. There are only 16 of the smaller courts who have not reported a petition in either December or January. We don't know yet about February counts.

The total number of CARE Act petitions since the program began in October 23 has been 1,258 and those generated about 21 court hearings held. And for most of that time, remember that was in the first eight early implementer courts. Courts reported 165 petitions in January 2025 and that is a 11% increase over what they reported in December 2024. So with that trend continuing, we expect annualized rate of more than 2,000 petitions per year. So the full implementation is going well. Petition count is not the only way to measure accomplishments.

The Judicial Council has worked closely with all the counties to help with implementation. We've had two in person convenings of the newly implementing courts. We hold office hours, conducted site visits, developed rules and forms, and we have a large number of on demand trainings, tools and resources available to courts on our Judicial Resources Network website.

We also have a bench Guide that's going to be rolling out. We're continuing to provide these services to all the courts. Courts continue to find ways of improving accessibility and enhance their user experience through collaborating with their local and state partners. Courts are reporting good collaboration with behavioral health and other system partners to make pathways for the CARE process accessible and fine tuning their business processes. A couple of examples, Los Angeles Court has established a hotline in all of their self help centers so that self represented litigants coming in can be connected directly to a behavioral health representative. Riverside is accepted accepting filings remotely through its E submit system and the Judicial Counsel is close to a revised petition form that will be - it's directly for the use of behavioral health staff who suggested some changes in our original petition form to make it easier for them to file petitions. So Senator, that is my update.

Thank you. I think for - we have quite a few members in the audience, just to briefly clarify what the CARE Act is, because some of you might be listening to this and saying what is it? The CARE Act is a new civil court proceeding that will allow specific people to seek assistance for certain adults with severe mental illnesses. So just so everyone knows what we're talking about here with that, Ms. Fancy, would you like to add your comments?

I'm here to answer questions if there are any for me.

Okay. Yes, ma'am. Thank you for being here. With that, Ms. Lee, do you have any comments?

No comments. Available for questions.

Okay, thank you. Department of Finance, any questions or comments? No? Okay. Colleagues, any questions or comments? Yes, Mr. Seyarto.

How much money do we need to implement Prop 36 requirements on the drug treatment side through courts?

Senator, we're still working with the Administration on that in terms of the figures and the actual costings. So, again that's.

Because that's another thing I don't want. And even though that was delivered to you by the frustrated voters, it's still a cost that we're going to be heaping on the court system and we need to make sure that we backfill that for you guys so that you're able to function.

Mr. Seyarto, that's actually - this issue is related to the CARE act this week.

I understand. Yes, thank you.

Just a moment, sir. This week we did actually have a hearing regarding Prop 36 and the funding and I'd be happy to share more details with you. Okay, thank you. Thank you, sir. All right, any further questions? All right, I had one. Can the Judicial Council explain the interaction between the CARE court and assisted outpatient treatment and conservatorship options? How might the courts and the public navigate these different pathways?

So we are developing resources for the courts and for our self represented litigants and justice partners to understand the different pathways to the courts. As Mr. Will mentioned, we are developing a bench guide that's going to explain to the courts these different pathways and lots of resources that will be available so that those individuals coming to our courts are finding the right path. Many people are coming to self help centers seeking the CARE Act assistance and are finding that that may not be the right place for their loved one.

And typically would someone who might be unhoused, would they be referred to one of the CARE Act court locations?

There are some members, family members of those who are unhoused who are being referred to the CARE Act and some of those that is the the right case type for that family. For others it is not the right place. And that is where as Mr. Will mentioned we're working with behavioral health and finding in some cases voluntary plans to assist those individuals.

Okay. Is there anything else we can do to help you to better serve that population?

I'm sure there is, but I think we'd have to get back to you on what the specifics would be.

It's rare someone asks you how can we help, you know. All right, with that. Thank you. Our panel number three. We appreciate your participation. Please share any of your comments or thoughts with the Committee. Thank you. All right, next we will have issue number four, which is our treatment court standards. For that we have Ms. Francine Byrne, Director of the Criminal Justice Services. We saw you earlier this week. We have Mr. Theodora. Say it for me. Theodorovic. You know I'm going to get in trouble because I live in San Pedro and we have a very large population, probably from your generational family, so. All right. Well, you're always welcome, sir. Okay. With that, first we're going to hear from the Judicial Council. Ms. Byrne.

Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Can you hear me? My name is Francine Byrne. I'm the Director of Criminal Justice Services at the Judicial Council. Thank you so much for allowing us to be here to talk about this proposal. The Council is asking for, and the Governor's Budget includes currently three positions and $1.7 million in General funds in 2025/26 as well as 1.6 million in General funds in 26/27 and ongoing to administer treatment court programs and provide support to the trial courts through technical assistance, education, training and consultation with subject matter experts.

Pursuant to SB91. Collaborative Justice Court's programs are designed to address the underlying behavioral health issues that may lead individuals to become involved involved in the criminal justice systems. They take a team based, less adversarial approach to case processing and combine intensive supervision with substance use or mental health treatment services in lieu of incarceration.

These programs have been widely researched and have been shown to reduce recidivism, decrease criminal activity and effectively address behavioral health issues, including substance use disorders and mental illnesses. And they're cost beneficial.

Because these programs have been so well researched, standards have been identified that provide courts and justice system partners with tested tools that have shown to increase the program effectiveness. And that's where SB910 comes in. Currently, each county designs and operates their collaborative court programs according to local needs and resources, which can be beneficial in many ways, but it can also result in a lack of employment of practices that have been known and proven to be effective as well as a lack of standardization statewide.

This Bill requires that jurisdictions that opt to have treatment court programs be designed and operated in accordance with these state and national guidelines. I'm not going to go into the standards. You have it in your materials. I'll just identify a few of them that have been well researched. For example, choosing the right target population with a high risk, high need person is the most effective participant to get the best outcomes for these programs. The standards addressed equity and inclusion issues to ensure that their outcomes are consistent across all socioeconomic and demographic categories. They look at incentives and sanctions and a variety of other things.

It's important to note that there's no longer any state funding for collaborative courts. And so courts and their justice system partners need to do these services by either absorbing the workload burden or looking for outside grants such as federal assistance. Because we don't have statewide funding, it's increasingly important to have a comprehensive and effective training and technical assistance program to ensure that courts are following best practices and achieving model fidelity and making efforts to standardize these practices throughout the state. This is a access to justice issue.

Prop 36 will likely increase caseloads for collaborative courts and require additional review of eligibility requirements and possible modifications to current practices within the collaborative courts in order to address the new population. This funding is needed to ensure that the courts can adapt to new legislative requirements without reducing their program effectiveness. That's all. I can take any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Theodorovic.

Just here in support and any questions and is needed. Well done. Thank you.

All right. Ms. Lee, any comments?

No comments. But available for questions. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. And no. No comments. Yes. Senator Durazo. Colleagues.

If you can please expand a little bit more on the amount of money to meet the treatment capacity for now with Prop 36.

So the funding. We're still working on the need for Prop 36 where we have some conversations right now and how that would get integrated into the drug court programs. I appreciate the questions. It's on top of my mind as well. So I won't speak to exact that number. In terms of this particular proposal. We're asking for funding to help support a statewide conference as well as regional trainings. It's very important to get justice system partners together to come up with these different procedures and practices. And that's where some support for Prop 36 could come in. Just with this alone. As well. We are asking for three staff funding for travel and for outside assistance because there are national experts who deal with all of these different staff standards throughout the country who can come in and help implement them statewide.

And Senator Durazo, because I know Mr. Seyarto is giving me the eye over there, actually, our pro tem and this Budget Committee as well, we're looking to do several hearings about the implementation of Prop 36 and the impacts of what was already happening with the work of Prop 47. So we'll continue to be seeking your counsel as the year progresses. Mr.

Sorry. I just want, when I get the chance to see somebody who's directly involved in this, it's important to be able to raise the question. So.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Mr. Seyarto, would you like to take a second stab?

No, because she answered the question.

Well, do you have another question? All right. All right. We want to take good care of you, too. All right. Thank you. Our panel for issue number four for your participation. Next we have number five, which is our Supreme Court and Court of Appeals and court appointed council programs.

For that we have Justice Stacy Boulware Eurie, Associate Justice of the Court of Appeals of the Third Appellate District Chair, excuse me, Third Appellate District, also Chair of the Legislative Committee and Member of the Appellate Indigent Defense Oversight Advisory Committee. We have also the same team for LAO and Department of Finance. And of course, Mr. Theodorovic, I got it. By the time I finish today, I'm going to be good at this. So with that, Ms. Eurie, if you'd please present.

I'll introduce the item and then we'll turn it over to Justice Boulware Euriei for a deeper discussion. So the budget proposes $6.3 million ongoing General Fund in 25/26 to support the Supreme Court and Courts of Appeal appointed council programs. Much needed increase of $4.4 million for a $10 hourly increase in the appointed council rate and $1.9 million for a 7% increase in the annual contracts for the project offices that support the panel attorneys. We'll turn it over to Justice Boulware Eurie to talk about the critical need of these funds.

Thank you very much again. Good morning and thank you for the attention being given to this critical issue of funding for California's Appellate Indigent Defense entities to echo Mr. Theodorovic. And on behalf of the Judicial Council, I would like to first acknowledge and thank Governor Newsom and the Department of Finance for their understanding and support of this issue and for prioritizing the need for recruitment and retention of Appellate Defense Counsel.

As you know, and you will hear from others, the Appellate projects and their panel of attorney attorneys are at a crossroads today. With a rapidly changing legal landscape, whether as a result of new legislation such as the Racial justice Act, multiple sentencing reform initiatives, or new laws related to juveniles, the importance of the Appellate projects and the panel attorneys who work with them could not be more important or overstated. The legislative priorities in the area of criminal law in particular simply will not and cannot come to fruition without a fully functioning panel of attorneys supported by competitive wages. And yet, the literal number of attorneys who represent indigent individuals on appeal and in capital cases is shrinking at an accelerated rate.

That Appellate projects are facing a crisis and providing constitutionally mandated, competent representation. And without the budget allocation identified by Governor Newsom, there will be even fewer attorneys who are able to ensure meaningful challenges and implementation of the laws passed by California's Legislature and to provide effective legal representation. Through the Judicial Council's Appelligent Indigent Defense Oversight Advisory Committee.

I have the privilege of working alongside the dedicated project directors and meeting with them once a quarter to review a myriad of issues, including caseloads, number of available attorneys, and number of cases awaiting assignment. And through those meetings, we know that Appellants up and down the state are experiencing delayed access to justice because there simply are not enough attorneys to represent them.

10 years ago, there were almost 950 panel attorneys, and today only around 600 remain, though there are just too few attorneys to take on the nearly 10,000 cases that our courts of appeal process each year. As noted in the agenda materials, there are 372 death row inmates who are awaiting assignment of counsel. Some of those individuals have been waiting for up to 20 years for an appointment. The need is desperate and quantifiable, so we are fully supportive of the funding identified in the governor's January budget for these dedicated attorneys. We know that this is not the end of the conversation. As in future years, you will surely see us back through the normal budget process as we strive for greater parity for the panel attorneys and the instrumental projects that oversee and support them. We thank you for your time and happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Ms. Eurie. Justice Eurie. Thank you. Ms. Lee.

No comments, but available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you. And our Department of Finance. No. Okay. Colleagues. Mr. Seyarto? No. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your - the data that you provided. My only question is, although we're grateful for $10 more per hour, where really do you think the number should be? To make sure to attract sufficient judges who could be appointed - excuse me - attorneys who could be appointed for this process.

So I think Mr. Theodorovic and I can both answer that question. I know that the original ask was a $40 increase per hour and part of the reason or the way we came up with that number as referenced earlier. To the extent that local trial courts are losing dedicated, experienced attorneys to city and counties because of greater pay, we are losing panel attorneys to city, county and other entities because they are able to provide a more competitive rate. So, again, we are fully supportive and grateful for the first $10, but the identified original need was a $40 increase per hour.

Thank you. All right, thank you. Our issues number five, for your participation. Next, we have number six, which is an overview of the appeals workload. We're certainly getting lessons 101 in this, which I greatly appreciate. So for issue number six, overview and appeals workload, we have Ms. Lynda Gledhill, Executive officer of the California Victims Compensation Board. Ms. Heather Gonzalez, Principal Fiscal and Policy Analyst with the LAO's office. You're joining Ms. Lee over there. And every. Oh, we have a new person with Anthony Franzoia What? Okay. No one told me being Chair would require. Great pronunciation here. We'll get it. All right, let's start with Ms. Gledhill.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I was also told you may want a brief overview of the Victim Compensation Board, but I do not want to waste your time, so please tell me your preference.

It's not a waste. Just if you could summarize to the best of your ability.

Of course. So, CALVCB compensates fee victims of violent crime for expenses that other sources of income cannot pay. We have a maximum of a $70,000 reimbursement rate, and each year we again provide - for instance, in 23/24, we had 40,000 applications, provided over $47 million in compensation, and had a 77.2% approval rate. So we are total.

Our expenditures come from three sources. The Restitution Fund, which is fines, penalties and assessments leveled on persons convicted of crimes. That was $51.9 million in fiscal year 23/24. General Fund transfers into the Restitution Fund of $39.5 million. That General Fund money is necessary because of reductions in fines and penalties and previous sweeps of money from the Restitution Fund. We also do receive a portion of the Federal Victims of Crime Act Fund that is split between compensation and assistance. We received the compensation grant in fiscal year 23/24. That was $33.1 million.

The compensation funding in the voter grant is based on a formula. We received 75% of the certified state payments made to all victims in California the two years prior. While we don't anticipate changes on the federal compensation grant levels, we are of course keeping a close eye on federal grant funding and conditions that might go along with that gran. CALVCB also processes claims from erroneously convicted persons. We run the Trauma Recovery Centers which is a grant two year grant that can be applied for.

We currently Fund 24 trauma recovery centers throughout the state and we also recently completed the Forced or Involuntary Sterilization Compensation program. As far as the VCP is concerned, we are requesting $4.4 million ongoing to provide necessary resources to our legal division. This stems from a lawsuit last year, the Mothers Against Murder court case, which mandates that CALVCB provide in person hearings for all of the victim application appeals. Appeals must be processed within six months of a claimant filing.

So unless CALVCB lacks the sufficient information to make a decision, we've established new processes to facilitate in person hearings which has increased our workload. Currently, the average processing time for an appeal is longer than we would like it to be. And we know that that front both victims and their advocates. This VCB will help us address some of those increases so we can help victims in a more timely manner. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for your presentation. From the LAO's office. Do we have any comments to add?

Heather Gonzalez with LAO. No comment.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Finance?

Franzoa, Department of Finance. No additional comments but available for questions.

Thank you colleagues. Any questions? Yes, Senator Durazo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've been working on Victims Compensation Board.

Issues and benefits for several years. You mentioned the trauma recovery centers that have been providing services to crime victims, again, for many years now. How do you... I understand that we will have significantly less funding, if that's correct. Talk to me about that. We will have less funding coming from the Safe Neighborhoods and Schools Fund. So how do you propose, from Prop 36, how do you propose addressing that?

Thank you for the question. So if I may, trauma recovery center funding comes from currently three different sources. There is $2 million from the Restitution Fund that is always guaranteed. And then the next largest chunk of that money is, as you mentioned, the savings from Prop 47. CalVCB receives a 10% distribution of that money.

We expect that to be about $8.8 million this year. For example, in fiscal year 22-23, it was $16 million, so there has been a decline. And of course Prop 36 may impact that even further. The reality is that this is a grant based program. So organizations apply, we, you know, score their grants.

We looked at the funding available and then the board, our board makes a decision about who receives an award and in what dollar amount. With the recognition, and we have said repeatedly throughout the past year, there will be less money this year for the number of trauma recovery centers that will likely apply.

Currently, we fund 24 trauma recovery centers throughout the state. You know, we, the board will face a choice of either not funding some current existing trauma recovery centers or reducing the amount of fund funding that they receive. Perhaps reducing from what they have requested or even what they received last grant cycle.

It is a two year grant cycle. So every two years they come back and try to compete for a grant. The reality is that is fortunately a case. In the Budget Act of 2022, the Legislature did provide General Fund money for trauma recovery centers. There was $2.2 million for three years of each cycle.

So this is the last cycle that that $2.2 million will be available. There was also at the time one time funding for pilot programs, $5 million for TRC to be in Northern California and the Central Valley, and also $2 million for flexible emergency cash assistance program.

All of those temporary one time funds are expiring. Of the $23 million in additional funding that was provided in 2022 budget, 19.3 million has already been expended or encumbered. So we have taken, we have used that money. And so again as you mentioned, it will be just be decisions that the board will have to make about how to fund trauma recovery centers as we move forward.

Thank you for your work. Also, I have just one more other question. There was an investigation that found that Black applicants represent 14% of people who applied for compensation, but 22% of them, the applications were denied. What changes in policy do you think or practices are needed to address that racial disparity?

So I would note that demographic information is voluntary when people apply for victims compensation. So while we understand that those statistics are available, we don't know, quite frankly, if they're fully representative of the population. What I would say is that there are disqualifying factors to be eligible for compensation through our program. Those are written in statute.

Those include being involved in the crime or cooperation with either law enforcement, giving a statement. Again, there does not need to be a charge or a prosecution or conviction in order to receive compensation. There just needs to be cooperation with that effort or cooperation with the board. And so I would say that those are our largest categories, other than perhaps not being actually a violent crime. Those are our largest denial categories across the board. And those are some of the areas that I think could be looked at.

Thank you very much. And maybe we can do further follow up. Thank you very much.

Mr. Seyarto.

Spurred my interest. So in the last few years, because we're running a structural deficit on the Victim Compensation Fund, but in the last few years we've actually expanded the scope of access to the Victim Compensation Fund. Is that true? In terms of restitution and things like that. Restitution has been added into it. In other words, this is a self inflicted wound that, that this program is starting to balloon up into something that we can't afford or we've gone beyond the original scope of what it was supposed to be and added to it. And now it becomes...

I would say that the trauma recovery centers are a separate program where there is 2 million, as you said, from the Restitution Fund. The other programs that we run, for instance, Erroneously Convicted Persons is 100% General Fund. And the forced involuntary sterilization program we ran had separate funding for it. So the Restitution Fund itself is, while it previously was large enough to support the work that we did, it's no longer... It no longer supports the work. Not because we expanded what we do so much as that there was a decrease in that fund

Finance, do you want to... Would you like to chime in?

Yeah. To Senator Seyarto's question. Just generally across the board, the amount of criminal fine and fee revenue that has been collected has decreased over time. So the condition of the Restitution Fund is similarly faced by other state funds, some of which this committee has or will be hearing about.

And so you have been hearing about fills other actions that are taken in terms of are there efficiencies, et cetera. So I think just want to flag that where it's not something that's unique to this fund. It's just coming to you this year kind of as the first one up up to bat.

So just wanted to kind of clarify that. I did, if I may. I had kind of a follow up for Senator Durazo as well, just as a comment on your question related to the Prop 47 relating savings related to the trauma recovery centers. So some of the Senators were at the earlier hearing on Prop 36, and I just wanted to kind of flag that my colleague in that hearing had raised the comment that we actually found that the administration is kind of underestimating kind of the amount of revenues that would be available. And so our recommendation was to actually direct the Department of Finance to readjust kind of how they did their estimates and account for some of those issues that we identified. So just want to flag it as you're considering the issue. Thank you.

Colleagues, any other questions? Any comments?

Justin Adelman, Department of Finance. To follow up on Ms. Lee's statement. We are planning to update those Proposition 47 adjustments. We do it in May Revision as part of overall population adjustments. So we will have revised estimates and figures for Proposition 47 savings.

All right. Well, thank you very much for your presentation, Ms. Gledhill. Thank you for being here. And I'm sure we'll be reaching out to you more throughout the year.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. All right. With that, we have issue number seven, department overview of emergency response and mutual aid. We have Mr. Eric Swanson, deputy director of finance and administration with Cal OES, and Ms. Tabitha Stout, chief disaster, financial recovery, and reconciliation representative. And then we still have our two LAO and Department of Finance representatives.

If I could take a point of personal privilege and on behalf of not only this committee, but also the Members of the Senate, please do share with Cal OES our grateful thanks for all the hard work that you guys have done over the last couple months. It has been quite commendable.

And I always say we need to say thank you more than just when you're out there, but when you're here and you're asking for help that you can continue to do the work. But please make sure that your entire teams know that we're very grateful for the work that you did both with Palisades and the Eaton Fire and what you continue to do as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning. I'm Eric Swanson, and with me today is Tabitha Stout. I won't repeat our titles. You got those well. And normally, I want to apologize too because normally our director is here for this first hearing, Nancy Ward, and she would be here, but she is actually still in Southern California coordinating recovery activities.

So you got the fiscal people, which is still good, but it's not the full picture. So she hopes she can come in another hearing and talk to all of you as well. We've been asked to give an overview of Cal OES, which I'm going to shorten a little bit in the interest of time.

But we'll also provide an update on recovery from the fires and then we'll finish by outlining our some of our, one of our fall proposals reauthorizing the law enforcement mutual aid program and fund. Cal OES protects lives and property and builds capacity capabilities and supports our communities for a resilient California through various programs.

You have a great chart in your agenda, which we provided and you guys put it in. But it kind of shows how incidents begin and end at the local level. Local representatives are considered the most trusted messenger in their community. Federal and state efforts rely on local support and expertise. In its role of statewide coordination, Cal OES supports local jurisdictions and communities through planning and preparedness activities, training, and the full cycle of emergencies from immediate response through long term recovery.

During this process, Cal OES coordinates the response actions of state government and serves as the state's overall coordinator to secure federal government resources through FEMA and resources from other states via EMAC, which is sort of a process whereby we ask other states to help with incidents and then we also provide help when they have incidents in those states as well. Tabitha is going to talk a little bit about... She's our funding guru so she's going to talk a little bit about disaster recovery response from a funding standpoint.

So in advance of a disaster, Cal OES coordinates pre-positioned state and local resources in areas of high hazard threats. Local resources are may receive reimbursement for these costs depending on eligibility through Cal OES appropriations that are dedicated to prepositioned activities. During the active disaster response, state agencies report all of their disaster response costs to Cal OES.

We consolidate and review and discuss with them to make sure that they're appropriate costs for disaster activities and then we coordinate with the Department of Finance on potential supplements funding allocations to support some of those activities.

If the disaster is federally declared, then we continue the coordination with those state departments to ensure that they're applying for federal reimbursement to maximize the federal funding coming back to the state for activities such as the disaster response, debris removal, and various recovery programs in public assistance. And we also are helping to communicate out the FEMA hazard mitigation programs. Reimbursements for the state agencies themselves may be returned to the state agency or it may also be returned to the General Fund if they had received supplemental funding to initially front those costs when they occurred.

The Governor's Budget proposes 7.4 billion for Cal OES, and our General Fund budget is 563 million. From those figures, you could see the vast majority of our budget is Federal Trust Fund with General Fund a close second. And the most significant federal funds would be FEMA as FEMA reimbursements, as Tabitha mentioned, and our Hazard Mitigation Grants, which go through FEMA, our Homeland Security Grant Program and the Victims of Crime Act as well. The majority of that funding does go out through both grants and reimbursements.

Your consultant asked us to talk a little bit about the state operations and vacancy reductions, which actually we planned for and were assumed in the Joint Legislative Budget Committee letter that came out with the Governor's Budget. But because of what happened in in January, we were exempted from those drills because we not only have folks that do in their regular jobs response and recovery operations and they continue to do that in a disaster.

We also redirect folks that work for me and work for other areas that are not typical response and recovery jobs so that they can help out in terms of disaster recovery. So I'm going to talk a little bit specifically about LA if we can for a minute. Cal OES launched an immediate whole of government recovery effort to support the Los Angeles area as soon as these fires began. On January 8, 2025 the president approved a major disaster declaration making federal assistance funding available to help state and local governments cover emergency response costs related to the Los Angeles fires.

This action formally began the extensive recovery operations that would follow and also allowed for individual assistance and public assistance programs to be initiated. Knowing that recovery efforts needed to occur concurrently with response operations, Cal OES worked with FEMA, and what we did was we established what was called a Joint Field Office where we work alongside FEMA in Pasadena. And we did that during the early days of the disaster.

The Joint Field Office, or JFO, serves as the coordinating hub for recovery operations for the disaster's lifetime. Cal OES is working actively on many fronts in partnership with local, state, and federal partners led by Cal OES, FEMA, and the Los Angeles County Office of Emergency Management on a massive recovery operation at the moment.

I want to mention also disaster recovery centers, which are a key component of the initial recovery phase and serve as a central hub for survivors to access more immediate services. Survivors can apply to receive personalized assistance in navigating FEMA's Individual Assistance Program and access other available resources from local, state, and nonprofit agencies.

So these are sort of like a hub where it's an all when service provider, both federal and state, some nonprofits, local assistance can be received at these centers. Currently there are two disaster recovery centers, or DRCs, open near the impacted areas. One is in Altadena and the other is at the UCLA Research Park Westside Pavilion.

To date, more than 32,000 households both new and returning have received assistance across the DRCs. FEMA have some direct to survivor assistance programs, one of them which is FEMA Individual Assistance. And today there's been, to date there's been a total of 133,000 valid FEMA registrations and a total of 77.9 million in survivor assistance through that program.

They also have, the Small Business Administration also provides low interest disaster loans for businesses and homeowners. And to date SBA has approved over 1 billion for homeowners and 107 million for businesses for both physical and economic injury disaster loans. Getting a little bit into recovery. The first step of recovery is debris removal.

And so debris removal provides the safe and efficient removal of hazardous materials and debris resulting from the wildfires, ensuring public safety and facilitating rebuilding efforts. And the top priority in this area is hazardous material identification, which includes hazardous trees and electrical vehicles.

Phase one involves the removal of this household hazardous waste and others by the US EPA, and that phase one has already been completed. Phase two is led by the Army Corps, and they need to receive right of entry forms. To date we've received 9,000 right of entry forms for that second phase of debris removal.

To support long term recovery efforts, Cal OES in partnership with FEMA has activated all six national recovery support functions under the National Disaster Recovery Framework, and these are crucial for support supporting long term recovering efforts and ensuring coordinated sustained recovery.

These are sort of task forces that address different areas of recovery including community assistance, economic, health education and human services, housing infrastructure, and natural and cultural resources. State and federal partners are using, are in these task forces reinforcing the locally led task force forces to address short, intermediate and long term recovery needs.

These task forces collaborate with state and federal agencies to identify resources, fill gaps, build local capacity, and offer ongoing support as requested by county officials. Tabitha is going to address a little bit about what's been spent so far, which was part of the request for the committee.

So to address what we saw as a critical need with the fire efforts, the Legislature approved a $2.5 billion allocation for state agency costs supporting emergency protective measures and expediting recovery. This could include activities such as sheltering, traffic control, evacuations, personal protective equipment, pre-positioning, firefighting resources, support from other states, debris removal, and watershed protection. To date, we have allocated approximately 246 million of this for the various state agencies to support their efforts, and we continue this allocation to continue to increase.

We have seen both progress and challenges with the recovery operations following the devastating Los Angeles wildfires. While significant strides have been made in debris removal, infrastructure rebuilding, and community support, continued collaboration and sustained joint efforts will be essential to ensuring a full and resilient long term recovery plan.

And as we move forward, we remain committed to working with all stakeholders to restore impacted communities and build a stronger, more resilient future. And I should just mention too that the scope of this disaster is such that this process will take longer than we've seen before in prior disasters. It will take, you know, years to complete some of the recovery efforts associated with it. Finally, I wanted to talk about one of our budget needs, which is kind of a tough segue here.

But finally your agenda notes, Cal OES requests the reappropriation of approximately 22 million General Fund with an extended encumbrance to June 30, 2029 to continue to support and assist local law enforcement agencies that are deployed through the law enforcement mutual aid system. And I should say too that we used this system during the LA wildfires as well.

The LEMA, or again the acronym there is LEMA for Law Enforcement Mutual Aid System Reimbursement Program was established as a three year pilot program in the 2022 Budget Act. This allowed local law enforcement agencies to request reimbursement for mutual aid costs such as traffic controls, evacuation support, or the prevention of looting during and post a disaster to alleviate some of the financial burden for requesting and donating local law enforcement agencies.

All eligible costs are submitted by the state to FEMA for eventual replenishment of the General Fund. And we are here to answer any questions you may have. I realize that was a big scope of things we talked about there, but we are here to answer any of your questions.

Hi, yes, Heather Gonzalez with the LAO again. Our recommendation is that the Legislature specify program goals and direct OES to track and report on outcome measures if it decides to approve the request for reappropriation. And our thinking on this is as follows. The Assistance Fund, as we noted, it was established as a three year pilot project.

This is the third year of the pilot. As such, this would typically be the point at which the Legislature would assess the program and decide whether or not to make it permanent. In this instance, for a variety of reasons, the rollout was a little slow and the program has only recently reached full operation.

This means that we don't currently have the types of data that might help us evaluate from a program management perspective. Moreover, when the funding for this program was first approved, the administration did not provide legislation language specifying outcomes or goals, so we can't really say if it's fully aligned with the text of the law either.

Therefore, if the Legislature approves the reappropriation, we recommend that it establish the program, including specific outcomes and goals in law. This will provide you with a more rigorous fact base on which to assess performance at the end of the extended pilot period and provide the Legislature with better mechanisms for program control and accountability.

Thank you for those comments. Thank you for joining us today.

Thank you very much. Tess Scherkenback with the Department of Finance. Just wanted to take a moment to respond to the LAO's comments on the LEMA reappropriation request and just note that I think the administration is open to a conversation on additional reporting requirements that might include those goals and outcomes for LEMA.

We would just want to make sure that we're looking at that within the context of existing requirements, reporting requirements that the department is already kind of subject to and see where it might fit within the scope of something existing. But yes, certainly open to a conversation. Looking at that as we go forward.

Colleagues, any questions? Mr. Seyarto.

Thank you. The scope of this fire in LA was huge, but we've also had other fires in the state, and OES has to go into some of those fires additionally. How do they determine which ones they're going to be going into to assist fire victims and which ones are not?

Because I have an area, the Airport Fire, 165 homes burned down to the ground, and they're still looking at the pile of rubble and they are no closer to getting rid of it than anybody else. In the meanwhile, other larger fires are being cleared away. It's like, how is OES positioned to assist those smaller incidents? Is that just left entirely up to the counties to try and do or the local authorities? Or does OES have a role in those?

Yeah, I think. And I think you probably are helped a little bit because I know you have a background... Yeah. In this area. But as you know, the way Cal OES views these incidents are, you know, it starts at a local level. We ask the that locals provide their own resources and then when they can't, they ask their neighbors, and the system goes on and on until it reaches the state level. If there are things that cannot be done, then the state provides resources. Even when there isn't a disaster declared that happens.

We provide pre-positioning resources or we provide resources when requested for those events as well. But that's sort of how the system operates. We try to start at the local level. To the extent counties that can help other counties solve the issue, then that we use that. But then, and then, as you know, there are definitions that are at the federal level for what constitutes something we can declare as a disaster and be accepted by the federal government.

So we have to stick to those strict definitions and try to work with the federal government on that so that we can, when that happens, we declare, do whatever we can to get the federal government to recognize it. And then the resources come pouring in from the federal government as well.

Right. And I understand that, but I think somewhere in California, with OES especially since you are the overall responsibility for coordinating all this, is that when we have wildfires, all these major disasters like this, they all need to be treated somewhat the same. You know, people need to expect from their taxpayer dollars the same level of service.

Whether it's 165 homes or it's, you know, 16,000 homes, they need help. So anyway, I think that's a different conversation that we can have about building OES's infrastructure so that they can look at all of these in one, in kind of a one view type of thing in California so that everybody across the board is able to access the help that they need that our taxpayer dollars pay for. Thank you.

Senator Durazo.

Thank you. And again, thank you for all your work. A couple, two different areas. One is about the labor standards for the people who are doing removal or anything. Any other work that comes out of this is, what's the... Can you give an overview of how you handled labor standards?

And I ask you, because I got, I don't know, maybe a week or two later I saw this on the Internet, and it says Los Angeles fires clean up jobs hiring 1,000 positions immediately. And when it came to requirements or it was reliable and honest, able to follow instructions, prior experience and no experienced crew members needed. I mean, this is about wildfires and all the dangers that come with cleaning up after a wildfire. So I'm curious to see. I've spoken to others and gotten some answers, but I just wondered if you could summarize the labor standards.

Yeah. And I think I'll probably have to get a little help from our legal folks at Cal OES to give a more thorough answer. But I can say in general, there are different hiring authorities in the middle of this disaster, you know, because the federal government has taken on some of the recovery aspects.

They are responsible for their hiring standards. And then, of course, we have a lot of emergency hires we're doing as a state. And we will, you know, we follow all state guidelines and rules and regulations associated with that as well. But I can give you a more thorough answer once I talk to our folks back.

Okay, thank you. And the reason I ask that, obviously, and you know, there's lessons to be learned of prior disasters and whether they're wildfire or whether it's a flood, whatever it is, and it always seems to come up and nobody really has a clear cut scenario as to what protocol they're gonna follow. So I'd love to have the follow up on that. Thank you. And the second is regarding disaster assistance. What services or assistance is OES offering to Californians who don't qualify for the federal assistance?

I think there is... When you go into the... If the disaster recovery centers do provide a number of services, both at the state and private level, that are, that may be for folks that don't qualify for the federal. As you know, they have strict, they have their own rules associated with who can get FEMA.

And some of it is income based, some of it is based on, some of it is based on citizenship and that as well. So we, there are other programs not just provided through Cal OES. And to really give you a thorough answer, I think I'm going to need to go through. Because we are sort of the coordinating of the recovery side, but Department of Social Services and there are a lot of other departments involved in this as well.

Yeah, well, anything that you could give to give guidance on that. People who lost their homes or people who lost their jobs. There's so many circumstances in which they really need the assistance but don't qualify for federal assistance. So I think that would be really important to clarify and make that available. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Well, one of the reasons why I got this assignment was, when I served in Congress, I was on the Homeland Security Committee, and I was Chair of Emergency Communications, Preparedness, and Response. So this is an area I feel pretty good in, a good wheelhouse.

A few months ago, there was a question about whether there was a need for FEMA, and maybe you could just share with us how you coordinate more generally with them and why you view FEMA as an important partner in the work that your organization needs to do?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, from our experience, FEMA has been amazing in this effort. They've been a partner in everything we've done. They, we are, as I mentioned, we put our leadership together down in Southern California with them so that we can plan all activities associated with that. They have, the federal government...

You know, it's interesting, there's sort of a dichotomy. The federal government has been very generous in this disaster and that's, you know, over a period of time in terms of providing funding. But as you know, I think you're alluding to risks that are out there that are associated with sort of a lessened role, a lessened role for FEMA, which we are very concerned about. You know, we don't have the infrastructure to take on everything that they do. And so...

Could you describe further what that means, what you're saying so people understand?

I think there are... They have come in with a massive amount of help in this disaster, and they have helped to coordinate and taken on the recovery role to a degree we haven't seen in a lot of other disasters. And so... And because the scope of this is so huge, it's different than a lot of other disasters in that way. And so for us to take that on as a state would be a huge ask and would require a lot of resources.

Thank you. Thank you very much. All right, thank you. Our seventh panel, we appreciate your presentation. And if you could please provide the answers to some of the things that was asked to the committee. Next we will have issue number eight, which is our California Highway Patrol.

And for that we have Robin Johnson, assistant commissioner of the California Highway Patrol, if you would please join us. And if, again, I could take a point of personal privilege on behalf of the Members of this Committee and the Members of the Senate, to thank you for the men and women of your organization, for all the work that you did in these last couple weeks.

I know many of you assisted in evacuations, in transporting and direction, and everything that's probably some things not even within your jurisdiction, but you did it quite boldly and effectively. So on behalf of all of us, we thank you. And please share with your organizations how grateful we are for your work.

Thank you very much. And thank you for your support.

Yes. All right. We'll have you proceed. Thank you.

We have now gone to good afternoon. So I'll go with good afternoon. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm Assistant Commissioner Robin Johnson from the California Highway Patrol. With me is Captain Tye Meeks.

He's your special representative to the Legislature for the California Highway Patrol. I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the California Highway Patrol's budget proposals. As always, I'd like to first thank your committee staff members for their assistance in preparing for this hearing. I'll be discussing a few proposals that I hope you will support.

All are crucial to our mission of providing the highest level of safety, service, and security to the people in California or Californians. I welcome any discussion or questions you may have. The California Highway Patrol is a department of the California State Transportation Agency.

The California Highway Patrol is commanded by Commissioner Sean Duryee, who's appointed by the governor and confirmed by the State Senate. The California Highway Patrol's headquarters is in Sacramento, and we oversee nine field divisions plus five headquarters support divisions. The mission of the California Highway Patrol is to provide the highest level of safety, service, and security to all Californians.

This includes not only patrolling the roadways as the state police, but protecting the state infrastructure. The California Highway Patrol provides security for the governor, state constitutional officers, state Supreme Court justice, appellate courts, and various dignitaries. In addition to those duties, we also assist our allied agencies in times of need, as you had mentioned, and an example of that is the recent fires.

The CHP assisted with patrolling road closures, provided traffic control, positioning personnel at fixed post closures, looting patrol for evacuated areas, assisted with evacuations, and providing general law enforcement support to various state and local agencies. CHP has also been mission tasked by Cal OES to assist with the adjudication of vehicles burned in the wildfires. The California Highway Patrol employs more than 11,000 personnel, approximately 7,500 of which are sworn peace officers. Ultimately, we exist to protect life and property. Thank you.

Thank you. Did you have anything you wanted to add, sir?

No, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Okay. Any comments, Ms. Lee, or your team? No. Department of Finance, any comments? Okay. Did I hear you mentioned you had some specific requests? Did I hear them? I've had a flu for most of the week. When you started your comments, you said there would be... I thought you said there would be a few points you wanted to make sure that we supported.

Those are our budget change proposals that we'll be hearing.

That we're already. Okay, gotcha. Colleagues, any questions? No? All right. I believe I have one for you here.

What has the CHP cut as a result to the state operations and vacancy reductions, and if you could share if any programs have been affected as well, and how have these reductions impacted your uniform personnel?

Thank you for the question. CHP is working with Finance and will provide detailed workbooks that identify the programs where reductions will be made consistent with the document posted on the Department of Finance's website. Once approved, Finance will process an executive order to direct the State Controller to reduce the department's 24-25 budget to ensure the plan savings in the 25-26 Governor's Budget will be realized before the end of the current fiscal year. Consolidated information will be shared at a later time.

Okay, please make sure you let us know. I know it's not always, I've been in these hearings before and typically when we ask folks, your answer is, you know, we adhere to the budget that you've been provided by the governor. But we here, we honestly want to know how these impacts are affecting you. So however your department feels to share that information, please do so we can make sure that you have the resources that you need.

I appreciate that. Thank you.

Thank you. Any other questions or comments? No. Thank you very much for your participation in wading through our multiple issues here. Thank you very much.

No problem. Thank you.

Yes, we have a final presentation, issues number nine, that covers the California Internet Crimes Against Children's Task Force and the child sexual abuse investigations. We have Eric Swanson, deputy director of finance and administration with Cal OES returning.

We have Ms. Gina Harrington, acting assistant director of grants and management of Cal OES, and the other members are here behind the dais to assist us. Oh, and Ms. Johnson, the assistant commissioner, will continue to stay with the California Highway Patrol. Is there an order any of you would prefer?

All right. Okay. We'll start with our proposal. Cal OES requests 5 million General Fund ongoing for the Internet Crimes Against Children Program and a two year encumbrance period. The ICAC program was created in 1998 by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which funded 45 regional task force throughout the nation including the four task force in California, San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Sacramento. The California State Legislature authorized funding for the first time in 2007 for these four California task force.

And in fiscal year 2012-13, the Fresno region was added as a subrecipient. In this initiative, federal, state, regional, and local law enforcement agencies and community based organizations work together to investigate, arrest, and prosecute cyber criminals who prey on children and youth. These task force each currently receive a 950,000 General Fund per year. And with me today is Gina Buccieri-Harrington, our acting grants chief. We can answer any questions after we, I think, hear from the CHP on their proposal.

Thank you. Commissioner Johnson.

Yes, thank you. The California Highway Patrol requests a permanent budget augmentation of $5 million and 12 positions from the General Fund. These positions will be assigned to the California Highway Patrol Computer Crimes Investigation Unit to assist in combating child sexual abuse material and human trafficking throughout California. You're probably asking, why the California Highway Patrol and why now?

As the state police, the California Highway Patrol's Computer Crimes Investigation Unit identified a significant gap in enforcement regarding the distribution of child sexual abuse material. Given the high volume of distribution across California and the inability of local law enforcement agencies to address the issue effectively due to the high volume, the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit investigates these offenses as a secondary priority when resources allow.

In reality, given the vulnerable nature of this population, the California Highway Patrol strongly believes this needs to be moved from a secondary mission to a primary mission. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children cyber tip line reported an increase from 29.4 million cases in 2021 to 36.2 million in 2023, a rise of over 20% in suspected online child exploitation cases.

In recent years, the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit has significantly heightened its focus on the alarming rise in child sexual abuse material distribution, a disturbing trend that often intersects with human trafficking networks. The Computer Crimes Investigation Unit actively monitors Internet traffic to identify the most prolific child sexual abuse material distributors in California.

Focusing on offenders engaged in large scale trafficking, the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit utilizes advanced digital forensics, cyber intelligence gathering, and expertise in encryption and anonymization tools to uncover and prosecute these crimes.

These efforts are supported by the strategic issuance and execution of search warrants, which are crucial in gathering evidence and dismantling networks involved in child sexual abuse materials and human trafficking. These warrants allow for the thorough investigation of both digital and physical premises.

The offenders frequently exhibit behaviors that escalate to hands on offenses, making it imperative for the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit to intervene swiftly and decisively. The California Highway Patrol's Computer Crimes Investigations Unit proactive investigative measures typically result in a 90% admission and conviction rate among offenders.

The linkage between child sexual abuse material and human trafficking is undeniable, as exploitation often extends beyond digital abuse to physical and psychological harm exploiting vulnerable populations. By strengthening the Computer Crimes Unit with additional personnel, resources, and capabilities, the unit will enhance its ability to combat these intertwined threats, safeguarding the community from both cyber and physical exploitation.

This proposed expansion is not just an investment in capacity, but a necessary response to the growing sophistication and pervasiveness of cyber threats impacting the State of California. The current staffing level of the Computer Crimes Investigation Unit is inadequate to maintain established levels of service to state and allied agencies, given the rapid rate of increase in cybercrime related incidents.

By securing the requested resources which are outlined in the governor's 25-26 budget, the California Highway Patrol will be positioned to comply with all statutory requirements, respond to criminal cyber related investigations throughout the state, satisfy the request for services from local, state, and federal allied agencies, and provide safety and service to one of California's most vulnerable populations.

At the end of the day, the real decision we need to make is how many kids do we want to save. And I'd like to... There's many, many cases. It's unbelievable the amount of cases and the amount of potential cases that are out there. But I'd like to share one that is very, it was very significant.

It came out of Elk Grove, California. In January 2024, our Computer Crimes Investigation Unit identified a high volume child sexual abuse material distributor operating outside out of Elk Grove. Using advanced investigative techniques, the unit traced the activity to a residential address and executed a source search warrant on March 6, 2024.

Investigators discovered over 100,000 images and videos of child exploitation, with victims ranging from 3 to 13 years old. The case also exposed a new and troubling trend, AI generated child sexual abuse material, which was legal to possess in California at that time. The suspect was identified, interviewed, and later charged with possession of the child sexual abuse material.

He surrendered to law enforcement and was booked into the Sacramento County Jail on May 28, 2024. This case revealed a critical loophole in California law allowing AI generated, what we call CSAM, to circulate without consequence. Our Computer Crimes Investigation Unit played a key role in supporting Assembly Bill 1831, which criminalized AI generated child sexual abuse material, closing this gap in 2025.

Well, that's quite telling. It speaks a thousand words. Anyone who did not present, did you have any adding comments that you'd like to provide? Okay. Ms. Lee and your team?

No concerns.

Okay. Finance? No. Okay. Members? Senator Durazo? No. All right. My, first of all, I was not aware that actually CHP did this type of work. It's actually pretty amazing. So we have to do a better job of making sure people know all of what you do. We certainly will take the comments into consideration. And as we bring forward with our budget priorities, we will certainly keep this in mind, as we all agree that our children certainly deserve our protection.

So thank you for your participation today and any notes and stats and things that you have, please share with the committee. With that, I think I have survived my maiden voyage. Oh, public comment. You can tell I'm the rookie in the room. All right, thank you very much for your participation. We are moving on to public comment. To ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard, please limit your comments to one minute. Thank you, and let's begin. And again, one minute, please.

Natasha Minsker for Smart Justice California. Speaking to Item 5, the Court of Appeal Attorney Appointment Program. Smart Justice California strongly urges you to adjust this item up to the actual need of $25 million a year. Imagine if you were an innocent person who had been wrongfully convicted or if you had been convicted because racial bias impacted your trial, and you sat in prison with no one to help you. Our courts of appeals correct the largest mistakes made in our justice system.

And without a functioning system for appointment of counsel, people do not have access to justice. Only the wealthy have access to justice. Smart Justice California strongly urges you to fix this problem. Ensure that every person in California has access to counsel and access to justice. Thank you.

Thank you for staying and providing your comments.

Good afternoon. Jonathan Soglin, I'm the executive director of the First District Appellate Project, and I'm in the helm of a sinking ship. I'm here to speak in support of the funding for the Court Appointed Council Program. We are grateful to be on the agenda. We understand it's a tight budget.

We're grateful for the governor to put us there and for the funding that's proposed. But we, too, urge you to provide the funding that's actually needed. After 18 years, in which we've had two funding increases, we are at a crisis. The system is falling apart. We are hemorrhaging attorneys, and we can't recruit and retain attorneys without proper funding. The $10 increase that's provided for in the proposed budget does not even bring the top rate for our attorneys as high as what is paid for attorneys doing misdemeanor appeals.

So attorneys who are doing representation of individuals serving life without parole will still be paid less than attorneys doing misdemeanor appeals. In those 18 years that we've had those two hikes, the CPI has gone up 60%, the state budget has doubled, and we just can't keep pace. We cannot recruit and retain attorneys. It's an access to justice issue, and it's a constitutional imperative. So we urge you to provide the funding for that $40 increase and the full $25 million originally proposed by our justice partners. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Monique Boldin. I'm the incoming executive director of the Central California Appellate Program. I'm here with Mr. Soglin and also all the executive directors across the state of our sister projects. I am here in support of the budget change proposal for the Court Appointed Council Program, which is issue number five today.

I'd like to give you an idea of the number of cases that we have that are awaiting appointment of council. As of this morning, we have 328 cases waiting for appointment of counsel. And this is only in the 3rd and 5th Districts Court of Appeal, which are the courts that we serve.

And that encompasses 32 counties across the State of California from Siskiyou, Amador, all the way down to Kern County. That number was unheard of six months ago. That number was unheard of two years ago. Two years ago, that queue, which is now 328 cases, was only about 5 to 20 cases waiting for appointment of counsel.

We are at a crisis and it is growing and it is getting out of control. In the past, when we offered cases to our panel attorneys, the rejection rate averaged about 23%, and there were fluctuations in that, but it went no higher than about 28%. As of this past quarter, that rejection rate is now 48% and climbing.

It is not uncommon for us to offer cases to 5, 6, up to 10 attorneys for a single case, getting rejection after rejection because they are just incapable of handling any more cases. They are at the brink of capacity. You may have heard of the graying of the panel.

That term means that the panel attorneys, who are slowing down their practice, they're retiring, or they are sadly dying before the completion of these cases. And usually these are the most skilled panel attorneys that we have handling the most complex cases. There is a massive amount of institutional knowledge among those attorneys that are retiring or passing away. And the applications that we have for new admissions to the panel are extremely low, historically low at this point.

Please summarize.

Yes. In order to rebuild a healthy panel, we are asking for funding increases for both the panel to be able to attract these people to this work and keep them interested in the work and also for the projects to provide the infrastructure and the training to make sure that this is a healthy panel and a knowledgeable panel. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Members, please try to stay within one minute. I'll start saying please summarize.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. Usha Mutschler on behalf of the California State Sheriff's Association. Under issue number seven, Office of Emergency Services, the Sheriffs would like to lend their support to the reappropriation of the Law Enforcement Mutual Aid funding that's been proposed in the Governor's Budget. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. My name is Alex Munoz. I am a courtroom clerk for the Alameda County Superior Courts. I've done that job for about 19 years. Last year, the judiciary faced a $19 million budget cut, forcing furloughs and worsening understaffing.

The 40 million restoration is a necessary first step, but it doesn't fully undo the damage. We continue to lose experienced staff, new hires leave for better paying jobs, and longtime employees retire because it's financially smarter than hanging on. This has created a massive knowledge drain, exacerbated workloads, and continues to crush morale.

As a result, courtrooms are closing, cases are being delayed, and access to justice is diminishing. People seeking restraining orders, handling family law issues, or resolving probate matters have to wait even longer to get their cases heard. This isn't just happening in Alameda County. Los Angeles, Santa Clara, San Francisco have all seen worker strikes in recent years.

This isn't just a coincidence. It's really a warning sign. We urge you to continue restoring the judiciary budget with oversight and ensure funding goes directly to staffing and court operations. The public deserves a functioning justice system. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair and Committee. My name is Kasha Clarke. I am also a courtroom clerk with the Alameda County Superior Court. I also serve as the court's industry chair for our Local SEIU 1021. Right now, the court can't hire employees as fast as it loses them. We're understaffed and underpaid. And we are grateful for the $40 million that have been restored, but there needs to be more oversight for the court recruitment and retention practices. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Lynelle Hee. I'm the executive director of Appellate Defenders. We are the first appellate project that started this system over 40 years ago, and we serve all the communities South of LA, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange County, and San Diego.

Today, we're at a crisis because we don't have enough attorneys to handle the caseload that we have today. At ADI, we have 300 clients that are waiting for appointment of counsel. 100 of those are directly related to the recent legislation that's been passed in the last few years.

Our clients are waiting about three months for an available attorney. We also regularly offer cases out five to six times with rejections. Three years ago, those cases were taken the first or second time. Over the last 20 years... Sorry. Over the last five years, we've lost 20% of our panel, and our staff attorneys are difficult to retain. Last year, I lost three staff attorneys to the Court of Appeal and to the City Attorney's Office, all making more money than they do at ADI. So I'm asking the committee to restore the 25 million to support the project offices and the panel. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Jennifer Peabody. I'm the acting executive director at the California Appellate Project in Los Angeles. We administer the court appointed council system for the largest appellate district in the state, the Second Appellate District, which serves the largest court system in the country, Los Angeles County, as well as San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, and Ventura County.

I recognize and appreciate that we are one of the organizations where there has been a proposed budget increase, but that is not going to be enough to save the sinking ship. In the Second Appellate District alone, we have seen a 43% increase in the cases where we have actually found attorneys to represent our clients.

We've gone from 2,800 appointments to 4,000 appointments, but we still have 1,000 clients waiting for the appointment of counsel. And that's because in the Second Appellate District, we've seen a 35% decrease in the attorneys available to take our cases. Our clients are waiting four to six months to even be assigned an attorney.

These are children who should be reunited with their families. These are children who should be adopted. These are juveniles who are facing prolonged detention in facilities. These are individuals who may not be serving a lawful sentence. Without the additional funding, we will fail. Our clients will not get access to justice. Therefore, we need the increased funding of $40 an hour for our panel and a 30% increase from the project to keep this very important part of the justice system alive. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, I'm Jonathan Grossman from the Sixth District Appellate Program. We are another appellate project. We are in the San Jose area, and we also in support of the California Appellate Attorney Project. The way the projects work, we are private organizations. This was set up about 25-30 years ago.

And it's done specifically because it saves the state a lot of money in dealing with appeals. Appellate projects can be more nimble in trying to find cheaper rents, cheaper this, cheaper that. And so we're cheaper than having a state agency. But we're sort of too good at what we do. We've been ignored throughout our history.

In the last 17 years, we've had two minor increases, and our expenses have gone up dramatically over that time. And the pay that attorneys expect to receive, even for public service, is not keeping pace. And as a consequence, it's a system that's on the verge of collapsing now. And we are so impoverished, it costs the state money.

There are people who are staying in prison longer than they should because we can't get their appeal processed fast enough. Over 50% of our staff attorneys have left in the last 20 months. That requires expenditure and trying to recruit and find new replacements. It disrupts the representation of clients. It slows down the appellate process.

It costs the state money because we're too poor to be more efficient. The increase that was originally proposed, that's been, we're very grateful for what the governor has proposed. We desperately need it. It's less than what the Judicial Council originally asked for. And frankly, that's only beginning to make up for what's been lost over the 17 years. It's not so much we're asking for additional funds. We're asking for what's been effectively been cut from us over the last 20 years. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Scott Cameron. I am an appointed appellate counsel. I'm that guy who wants an extra $40 an hour. I've only had two increases for those 17 years that I've been on the panel. Keep in mind that, while I do appointed cases for the State of California, I also do appointed cases for the federal government in the Ninth Circuit, and they pay $45 an hour more than the State of California. So obviously, when I'm offered those cases, I turn down the cases that these project managers or directors are offering. Thank you.

Thank you for your work.

Hi, my name is Jeremy Price. I'm a deputy public defender with the Contra Costa County. And when the project directors speak of a crisis or hemorrhaging attorneys, I'm one of the people they're talking about. The appellate projects, I'm very passionate about. I started as a law clerk in 2005 at the First District Appellate Project.

I then spent nearly the next 20 years as a staff attorney and then became a supervising staff attorney there. But having two kids, living in the Bay Area, unfortunately, there came a time where I could no longer afford to work there. I left to join the Contra Costa County Public Defender, where I do fairly comparable work. And yet, from day one, my salary increased 55%. That is, I am not doing work worthy of 55% more than the colleagues that I've worked with for all this time.

And when I was at the appellate project and my family was growing and I decided I wanted to buy a home in the Bay Area, the only way I was able to do it as an appellate project staff attorney was by early withdrawal from my pension, which I did then. And so the appellate projects are wonderful, and I'm here as a former staff attorney to urge the Legislature to support the Court of Appellate Council Program and specifically for the projects. Thank you.

Thank you for your work.

Hi. Thank you for hearing us. I, too, am a panel attorney. My name is Candace Hale, and I've been doing this work for 32 years. And when I first started doing it, I was a fourth year partner at a very fancy San Francisco civil firm making more money than God. I knew I would never make anything like that in this practice, and I didn't care. I did not join this practice to make a lot of money.

I believed in it and I believed in the public service, and I still do. But I will tell you that everything you've heard has changed the nature of the practice. The pressure on those of us who are still doing this is so high. Last year, I thought the top of my head would explode because the pressure to take cases, the difficulty in getting extensions, it's just the nature of the practice has changed.

And we've got clients with real relief sitting there in prison waiting for me to do their resentencing appeal while I'm doing LWOP appeals. I represent the graying of the panel. I represent the people who can stay or go. And with this kind of pressure, because there's no one new coming up after me. And with such a small increase... We appreciate it, we're grateful, but it's so far not enough. A lot of my colleagues at my level have left. So I don't want to go, but please help us stay. Thank you.

Thank you for your work.

Good afternoon. Excuse me. My name is Sangeeta Sinha, and I'm a panel attorney. I have represented indigent defendants for almost 30 years. I have been on the panel for seven years. I enjoy the work. The work is valuable and so important. And I'm here to say that the only reason I can do it is because I have financial support from my partner and from the work I did previously. Otherwise, at the current compensation rates, I simply would not be able to afford it.

One minor point is, I think the criminal justice system is strengthened when there is diversity and when it hears from attorneys who represent a broad spectrum of background and experience. However, recruiting a young and diverse population of attorneys who want to make this a career is difficult if not impossible if they cannot earn a living wage. The current compensation levels make it almost impossible to do so. I am grateful for the proposed $10 increase, but I am advocating for the original $40 increase that was previously proposed. Thank you.

Thank you for your work.

Hello, I'm Christopher Stansell. I'm a panel attorney as well on all five non-capital panels in California. I love the work I do and I first of all want to say I'm in support of the proposed $10 an hour increase, of course, but like everybody else has said, it's not enough.

And there are a couple points I just wanted to briefly make. One is, as far as over detention, I had a case actually just recently where I obtained a reversal of an eight year sentence. It should have been a maximum of six years under the laws passed by the Legislature. And clear cut case, in my opinion. And so because of the delay in the appointment of counsel and because of extensions of time that I needed to take because of my caseload, there was an unavoidable delay of at least three or four months, probably more.

If you calculate out the cost in terms of the over detention of my client in CDCR, it's something like 34,000 or $40,000 just in terms of detention, let alone him being out in the community, being a productive member of society, when he should have been under the laws passed by the legislatures. So it's counterproductive. It's costing the state money.

The other thing is, and also in terms of finality of judgments, there was a comment earlier about shot clocks and keeping cases moving. At the appellate level to the extent that judgments are affirmed and we want closure for victims, you could say, there's also an interest there in terms of keep moving cases along.

We can't do it without a much bigger increase. Training. I went through a year long appellate development clinic. Huge. It was inspiring. I was trained by people who are very good at what they do, including Jeremy Price. And it was a huge loss for project staff to lose him. Learned so much, and I might have to take that training with me elsewhere eventually. Again, I'm here doing what I do because I love it for now. But in terms of if I have children someday, I don't have children now.

If I want to buy a house, I can make multiples of what I make now on the panel in private practice. And I just want to keep doing this work. So, yeah, I would urge you all to support $40 an hour increase as a start to parity with the federal levels with Alameda Misdemeanor Appeals, et cetera. So thanks for what you do. Thanks for listening.

Thank you for your work.

I'm Ray LeBov, representing California Appellate Defense Counsel, the group that most of the panel attorneys belong to, and here to just reinforce some of the statements that were made before regarding recruitment and retention, which has reached crisis stage in terms of inability to operate that properly. Also, to reinforce the point that was made earlier regarding that we need the panel attorneys to be sufficient to implement the criminal justice reforms that the Legislature has passed.

In addition, many appellate justices have told us that, in order for them to do their job really properly, they need to have a panel, a set of panel attorneys that really do the work properly so that that reflects on their ability to do their work properly. We have reached crisis stage. As you've heard numerous times already today. We're thankful to the administration, thankful for the Judicial Council for what they've been seeking, and to this committee and the Legislature generally for the work that you've been doing in support. So thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Sarah Brennan on behalf of ValorUS, the state sexual assault coalition that represents 84 rape crisis centers across California. Every program heavily relies on the Victims of Crime Act funding to support survivors of sexual assault in their communities. Federal funding is at risk of being cut for a second year in a row, and a large coalition of over 200 supporting organizations is respectfully requesting 176 million every year for the next five years to support critical services for these survivors of crime. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Kim Lewis representing the California Coalition for Youth. And I want to talk about two minor programs at OES, the California Youth Crisis Line, which has been operating since 1986 to support our young people in crisis. We're answering calls for around anxiety, family health conflicts, suicide.

We really need some additional resources to be able to, additional 600,000 ongoing, to be able to hire more behavioral health clinicians to be able to support our callers and the call volume that's coming in and the over 100 volunteers that we have so that they can be able to also get crisis or their hours toward their licensure. The other item is the Homeless Youth and Exploitation Program that's been at 1.1 million ongoing for the last 40 years that I'm aware of. It supports four programs in San Francisco, LA, San Diego, and Santa Clara.

We really do not have a lot of resources or safe spaces for young people who are under 18 to be able to lay their head at night. And they're at risk for exploitation, trafficking, other unfortunate issues I don't really want to talk about. But we've got over 8,800 young people in schools who are experiencing homelessness on their own and are in unsafe spaces.

And we need to be able to have at least a third of our counties having some safe space for them to go so we can work on either family reunification and figure out a long term plan or figure out if we need to bring them into the child welfare system, if that's why they're really there on the streets in the first place. And so we're asking for 31.5 million ongoing to ensure that we can have at least a third of our counties with some sort of support for our most vulnerable young people on the streets. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Sandra Barreiro on behalf of SEIU California, representing court employees. We support the 40 million restoration and $42 million increase to operational costs and the 30 million for court reporter recruitment and retention. But we urge you to consider additional oversight of how courts are using these funds.

You heard from our clerks from Alameda Superior Court earlier. One of the things they reported is that the court claims that they are overstaffed because they have about 100 positions. But it turns out that more than twice that amount, more than half that amount, are unfilled. So I think there needs to be more oversight to make sure that dollars are actually serving the priorities of the Legislature and not being spent or moved to technology for courtrooms that are closed because no one's there to work in them. Thank you.

Thank you. Having heard from all members of the public, Members, are there any additional questions? No, seeing none. Thank you to all the individuals who participated in the public testimony today. We'll certainly be sharing all the information with the other Committee Members as well. If you were not able to testify today or you had additional comments, please submit your comments or suggestions in in writing to the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee or visit our website.

Your comments and suggestions are important to us, and we want to include your testimony and your thoughts as we review the upcoming budget in our official hearing records. Thank you everyone for your participation. We have concluded the agenda for today's hearing. The Senate Budget Subcommittee Number 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor, and Transportation is now adjourned. Thank you.