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. Good morning, all. Thank you for coming to this very important meeting and participating.

I ask all Members of the Subcommitee to be present in room 112, if anyone's listening, so we can establish our quorum, which I believe we have at this point, so we can begin our hearing.

This will be the first hearing covering the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, also known as CDCR, which has a total budget of around $14 billion. Today we will hear an overview of the Department, including some of the operational challenges and new projects.

And next week, we will cover CDCR's health care budget and re entry, among other issues. We will take public comment on all items at the end of this hearing, and all items today will be held open. Colleagues, before we begin, does anyone have anything they'd like to add? Okay, before we begin, let's establish a quorum. Consultant, would you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Let's start with our first issue, which will be an overview of the CDCR's budget and efficiency reductions with Secretary. Oh, my goodness, here we go again. McComber. Okay, Ma. Ma Comber. Okay. We will begin with your testimony, sir. Thank you for being present.

The only thing I'd like to ask is if you could make sure to stay around for a few questions. And we'll make sure to take those right after your presentation in case you have another engagement. All right, sir. With that, we will begin with your presentation, Mr. Secretary.

Well, thank you, Madam Chair. And good morning. And good morning to the Committee Members. See a lot of familiar faces from last year. I will keep my remarks brief. CDCR is comprised of 31 prisons throughout the State of California. We have just over 90,000 incarcerated individuals in our custody and about 35,000 parolees.

CDCR, as most folks are aware, is undergoing a culture change. We're adjusting to a reduced population, and at the same time, we're exploring avenues to improve our system. We sent a lot of staff to Norway, and I think some folks in this room have also had the opportunity to go as well.

And we're trying to adopt some of those principles within our system. You know, we're committed to reimagining correctional practices to improve the safety of public, the staff and the incarcerated population, improve the success of those individuals in our care through education, treatment, active participation in rehabilitation and restorative justice programs.

We call a lot of Our effort, the California model, which has, you know, four different pillars. I will not go over them in this meeting because I know it's in your briefing material and I think it's important. There was a lot of questions and I read some of the information provided of the Department of Corrections plan.

Where are we going with the California model? And it took Norway 10 to 20 years to develop their system on a system that is a fraction of our system within CDCR. So we want to be thoughtful in our approach. So we're piloting a number of different initiatives to test their effectiveness.

Quite frankly, you know, we don't want to come for a large ask or a reboot of the system till we know what works and what doesn't work. We want to take best practices in California. We're not going to be Norway.

Our system's different, our facilities are different, and quite frankly, we do things better in California in a number of different areas. We've achieved a lot. During my time in the Department. I started in 1993 when we had 120,000 inmates and we quickly grew to 173,000.

And when the Department was expanding, obviously it was in the tough on crime era, three strikes era. Prisons were built for warehousing individuals. We weren't looking at rehabilitation. We have things like swamp coolers rather than air conditioning. And so we're now kind of paying the price for some of those things.

As we try to improve our system, we have some challenges we need to get through, but we've come a long way. You know, we don't house inmates in triple bunks in our gymnasiums anymore. Now they're used for recreation and things like self help groups.

We were housing inmates in day rooms that were meant for inmate recreation because we were so tight on housing. So we're in a much different place now. And it's not just the numbers, it's the feeling in our prisons have changed. It's particularly our lower level institutions. They feel a lot like a prison in Norway now.

And I will tell you, from my perspective, I know we've changed because a dozen years ago I didn't shake hands with the incarcerated population. We just didn't do it. You were considered over familiar. It was actually against the rules.

And now it's not uncommon for folks to walk right up to beyond the yard, introduce themselves and shake their hand. And I'm. This may sound trivial to you, but a dozen years ago this was unheard of. And I'd like to thank the Legislature too.

I mean, you've been Great partners in investing in some of the efforts we're going through. We now have all of our incarcerated have tablets where they're allowed to call home whenever they like. We have three days of visiting Friday, Saturday and Sunday for the population. And we've also improved our family visiting units.

We do face to face community college at every prison within the State of California. We saw about 800 AA degrees earned just last year. And a lot of folks asked, is that a wise investment? Why are you sending incarcerated to college? Well, it's a wise investment to me because those folks have an 8.5% recidivism rate overall.

In CDCR, recidivism rate is about 40%. So we're, we want to continue to invest in programs that work. We all know it costs a lot to house an inmate per year and that is a great return on investment. We also have a significant number of volunteer programs and again, we've received funding to provide self help programming.

And that could be violence reduction, Alcoholics Anonymous, naa, those types of programs. And again, I'm in favor of those programs because number one, it keeps folks busy. And I know from our data that folks that participate in that program have a recidivism rate of 21% versus 40% for the other group.

So I guess my point in this is rehabilitation is public safety and those investments do pay off in terms of improving our outcomes for the communities. We are also appreciative of legislative investment in our reentry programs in the community. We'll be bringing up another 400 beds in 2026 and we'll look to continue to build on that.

And again, those allow individuals in the last two years of their incarceration up to the last two years to do their sentence in the community where they can do jobs and other rehabilitation activities while they're out there.

And again, that's another program where if folks participate for a lengthy period of time, we see an 8% fewer recidivism rate for that group. We also see folks releasing with job skills and money in the bank to get their life started upon release. You've also probably heard a lot of talk about single selling and overcrowding.

We are pursuing normalization within a Department where we're trying to make life within the prison similar to the community.

If you've seen our cell facilities that typically are about 60 square feet, I can tell you if I went to prison, I wouldn't want to live with another individual in that size room in a double bunk with a bathroom in that space. So we're trying to move towards normalization. And it's not just the living arrangements.

When we have significant overcrowding, it means I can provide less programming. And I'll give you an example. Our average prison holds about 3,000 people. We close a prison, what I do is I send an average of 100 people to every other prison in the state. So I increase the overcrowding in other places.

Those individuals go on a wait list and program backs up. My goal as secretary is to keep people involved in at least two activities per day. And what I mean by that is maybe if you have a mental illness, you go to mental health group in the morning, but you go to the GED class in the afternoon.

Or maybe you go to college class in the morning and you have a job in the afternoon. Depending on whatever your needs are or what skills you need to develop. And that could be vocational programs. It could be a whole host of items that we offer. So we're trying to move in that direction.

And I think in the talking points there was information that we're going to slowly over time move towards single selling at San Quentin and both of our female prisons. That will take a couple of years. We're not going to involuntarily transfer people out unless there's a need to do so for other reasons.

And we've also heard the concerns regarding CDCR's budgets and calls to reduce spending. I will point out that at one point you know, CDCR's budget was about 11.47% of General Fund a dozen years ago. Today we're about 6.6. We've also seen when you back out, employee compensation.

CDCR's budget continues a downward trend that has been on for several years. A lot of that's driven by obviously our POP reduced via Covid. And we've also closed four of our institutions. So we obviously saw there was an expectation that CACR save about 392.1 million due to savings.

To date, CDCR has identified reductions totaling 267 million in 24-25 and 185 million in 2526. We obviously had to make some difficult decisions in that and some unpopular decisions. We've done things like eliminated our entrance gate officers as you drive up to a prison.

We completed multiple housing unit conversions and closures and made reductions to our academies and contracts. CDCR has also eliminated 441 positions as part of the vacant position reduction drill. And then finally we have deactivated various facilities as a budget reduction. At Kalipatria High Desert North Kern and Wasco State Prison.

I am happy to report, and I see it's on the agenda today, that the San Quentin Rehabilitation center project is on schedule for activation in spring 2026. So I'm happy to report that. And as I wrap it up, you know, CDCR is not an entity without its challenges.

Our percentages of incarcerated with mental illness and disabilities continue to increase. It's no secret that our population is aging and the medical issues that come with that. We have persistent and ongoing challenges with litigation, some of those stretching back class action cases for 34 years. Infrastructure investment in CDCR is sorely needed.

If you've been to our facilities, we have leaky roofs. We have heating and cooling needs and fire alarm needs as well. And those will need to be addressed going forward. So we continue to look at improvement in those areas wherever we can. And I'll close with the Department does take the need for reduction seriously.

We're going to continue to evaluate our Department operations to identify any additional reductions we can achieve moving forward with the cuts the Department has made. It's reflective of of our serious efforts to achieve efficiency while prioritizing expansion of programming and services. And that concludes my remarks. I'd be happy to take any questions or comments, and I am also always available to take questions offline via phone call or otherwise.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

Before we move on, have questions for the Secretary. Yes, Senator Wahab, thank you.

You know, I, I wanted to highlight a couple of things. So yesterday there was a riot that took place in Folsom. I wanted to ask and inquire a little bit about that. Five inmates were stabbed, 40 Member riot in the main yard. Would you be able to explain what kind of led to that?

So it's very recent that just under investigation as we speak. And that facility has been placed on modified programs. So you had two groups of individuals who have formed gangs within our protective custody units or SNY facilities that had a disagreement and chose to handle it the wrong way.

Okay. And the reason why I bring that up is because my concern is that one of the proposals is also to continue to close some yards up.

And when we're talking about capacity of inmate per unit, 23 of the 31 are, which is basically 75% of all our prisons are over capacity, over capacity, over 100 plus percent, some hitting 157-160%. This is roughly about 1,000 individuals more than the facility can handle.

And the reason why I highlight this is because one of the concerns I have is that the more people we put in tighter and closer quarters. I think things like this tend to happen. People need their individual space just for mental health, well being, things like that.

I understand what prisons are utilized for, the capacity, the limitations, the jobs that you guys have, which are very difficult. But I want to flag this because one of the reasons why the Norway model seems to work even more is because of the individual unit for an individual human being. Right. It's just pure dignity. Right.

And when we're seeing suggestions of closing yards, I also want to see what type of yards are you guys closing? Because oftentimes we see that the A plus rehab yards are closed and yet the D minus rehab yards are left open with drugs and violence. And this is, you know, things that are, are out there.

So I'd like to understand that a little bit about one of the proposals that.

Yeah, and I share your concerns on the overcrowding. Obviously the Department was asked to take a very large cut that was equivalent to four or five prison closures. Very challenging for us in that we're 80% of our operations are largely driven by personal services cost.

So we had to make some difficult decisions to try to achieve those budget targets which included some of those facility and housing unit closures. We're hopeful as the budget improves there's an opportunity to relook at those issues down the line. And I think this ties a little bit to my discussion of trying to move towards single selling.

Less overcrowding, less density. It's not just a violence issue. You brought up the mental illness piece. More dense. The more challenges we have with things like Covid. You know, it's no secret prisons are the optimal breeding ground for things like that. So we do want to work towards single selling and getting there.

And I'm open to suggestions and discussions on how we get there.

Yes. And I'm very supportive of a dignified effort for the prisoners as well as the guards. And I will say that if you are over capacity with amount of prisoners, it stresses out the guards as well because they are outnumbered across the board. Right. And so for me, and I've also gone to Norway, I've seen their model.

I also feel like there is a difference between the United States and Norway. And let's be very honest about that. So I'm a very realistic human being on this issue. Right. I do have significant concerns with the approach on. On a number of issues. One, the yards, the closures, things like that.

The programming that we have seen be cut, the lack of programming for all inmates, the requirement to work or educate yourself, you know, the eight hours per day, which I think the Norway model has it on lock and the fact that we have seen a failure.

So, yes, Covid is brought up and I understand with tight quarters and basically filling up the prison like a can of sardines. Covid is still a concern, but Covid also. The height of Covid was four years ago. Right. So I'm very frustrated constantly hearing about Covid when it's.

I'd love to see the numbers on the COVID risk, but I also want to highlight the fact that the budget that we have suggested last year to really. Right size. What is going on, the downward trend.

And I'm not talking about the new implementation of Prop 36, which the Legislature has fully announced that they were fully in support of funding and much more, but they were supposed to achieve $400 million in savings and have only reported roughly 200 million. Right. There's plenty more to do.

And then you highlighted the calls and the tablets and this was something that I raised last year as well. The calls, the one, the. The calls from the. The phones to their loved ones. 100%. The Legislature has passed the Governor sign that it should be free for the inmates.

The tablets, the zooms, the facetimes, the things like that they are charging per minute when many of us have plans that it's Basically a monthly flat fee for unlimited usage. So I don't want to get into a position where this is what I'm in fear of. We put more and more people in tighter spaces.

We then highlight the fact that there have been inmate stabbings, there have been riots, there have been these things. And it be an effort to kind of highlight that more money needs to come to this particular industry. Right. That is my concern. It's the optics of what is being handled because we are creating this.

If we're putting more and more people in tighter quarters for longer periods of time with a lack of programming, a lack of support, that's one piece of it.

Number two is the fact that if we can't hit and achieve what we're trying to save money on to potentially utilize the funds for something else, especially where we're seeing significant cuts and we're not even hitting those targets that are mandated by the Legislature and agreed to by the Governor, it's a failure. Right.

So I highlight this as a deep concern of what is next to come. Right. Because we don't know where the funding is coming from the federal side or what's going to happen with, with the delayed tax filing in California. All of that is critical to you doing your business and us making sure that people are safe.

So I highlight that. I appreciate, you know, the Chair giving me time, but I just want to say that I expect more. Thank you.

Mr. Secretary. Did you want to respond or continue?

Just real quickly, I wanted to thank Senator Wahab for recognizing the staff. First of all, our staff do have very difficult jobs. And there's multiple studies that show our staff have higher PTSD rates than Gulf War veterans. It's a difficult job. It's one where you often spend Christmas at work, not at home with your families.

It's a 24/7 operation. And we're really trying to improve the lives of our staff. And I do think we share the same goal to increase programming. And I know the Legislature has invested a lot in our self help programming. We run probably the largest ISUDT substance use treatment disorder program in the country.

Legislature invested I think over 200 million for that. We now have over 18,000 inmates on Medicaid assisted therapy on that program. And so some of our budget increase are driven by things like that. Also hepatitis C treatment. That was about $100 million investment. We virtually cured hepatitis C within the prison system as a result of that.

So I don't want folks to think funding is going to waste. And I think I share that goal. I Don't want to have overcrowded prisons. I want to move towards that Norway model, recognizing that there's difficult budget discussions and decisions that must be made.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. So I wanted to talk a little bit about, you know, how we are. You know, we have this emphasis on we need to do mental health treatment, we need to do drug treatment. And you had alluded to we probably have 18,000 inmates that are in some form of drug treatment.

What is the efficacy of having specialized prisons? That that's all they do. Because it seems to me that we're mixing in the drug treatment people with the mental health people with the regular General population. And it's a bad mix. It doesn't allow these people to be, to have targeted treatment where and probably more normal living conditions.

Because I think people that are on drug treatment and have hope they're getting out are less likely to, you know, be. We don't have to worry about them trying to escape or trying to do things that are going to add to their issues. So, you know, we have 31 prisons.

If we have 18,000 and 3,000 people in a prison or less, it just seems to me that we should have facilities that are specialized for whatever it is that we're bringing people in on so that they don't get caught up in the cycle of being exposed to, you know, people that are, have.

No, no, I don't think they have any. They're not ever going to rehabilitate themselves. They just want to, you know, continue to do the things that got them there. Because I think we all recognize that sometimes people are in trouble because of their drug use and some people are in trouble because of their mental health.

So have there ever been any discussions about maybe dividing it up so that we're giving people a chance when they actually do get incarcerated? Because that's part of the Prop 36 thing is, hey, we're going to send everybody to prison.

Well, not what I would really like to do is send people who won't get treatment to do the time for their crime and while they're doing that, get intense treatment. So when they're done, they're not that person anymore. They're not that person that's influenced by drugs. So you're.

Yeah, we have a classification model that, you know, strives to get the lower level and the more programming folks to the lower level beds which typically have enriched programming. We have done historically, we, we had our substance abuse treatment facility at Corcoran that had 2 yards of just substance use disorder treatment.

And we do have higher, larger programs at places with a larger need. I will also point out that some of our inmates with mental illness often have co occurring disorders, meaning they also have a drug problem, so they self medicate with drugs. And so we not only get mental health treatment.

And that kind of aligns with what I kind of opened with earlier is if you have a mental illness, I want you to go to mental health groups and go to substance use program. In fact, some of our mental health programming does count or our substance use program does count for mental health.

So I don't disagree what you're saying. It's incumbent upon us to align our programs for those that are getting out, much like we try to prioritize people that are releasing that may not have a high school diploma or GED to get those first. So I think that's something we can continue to look at.

And I appreciate the points because I.

Also feel like they need the facilities to be able to be successful in either getting their ged, AA or bachelor's degree when we're doing those programs, because that matters too.

And so if we're not making, we're talking about cuts, but I feel like we also have to look at do we have to make investments in order for whatever model we're trying to do works. And it's not just about, you know, cutting the budget. We want it to work.

And so we need to know from you guys what it takes to do that so that we can make sure that we're considering that when we're allocating monies in the budget.

Real go. Sorry.

No, go ahead, Mr. Secretary.

We're also going to be looking at over the next year or two the concept of progression, which means as you do better in prison and programming and behavior that you get more things, you get more benefits in prisons, you get more activities, much like they do in Norway.

And I think that fits with what you're saying is we have a group of our incarcerated that are largely want to program become better citizens when they get out. We also have another contingent that is not interested yet in those things. They want to do the gang behavior. They want to do drug smuggling.

We arrest people every weekend, a handful for drug smuggling. We have drone drops probably every day with drugs and other contraband. So I share your where you want to go.

Thank you, Senator Seyarto. Thank you, sir. Senator Durazo, thank you.

Nice to see you. Secretary, thank you for all that you've done in your career for California. And I specifically want to thank you for your help on the Family Dignity Act. You know, sometimes really what appear to be small things make a huge amount of difference.

And that relationship between family, friends and their loved ones who are incarcerated, how they get to see them, how often they get to see them, makes a big difference in their lives and their hope they have for the future.

So thank you for helping us with that, with something as simple as, you know, how much food, formula and diapers the families could bring in to, you know, be able to last the whole day and the limit behind that or traveling away because they didn't have a birth certificate, being turned away.

So those things, I think they're small, but they're very, very big in terms of impact. So. So thank you on that. I guess just generally what you're juggling, you know, we want to continue to see a decrease in the population as we have over the years. So we don't want to lose sight of that goal.

We want to increase rehab programs, reentry programs, pre release, post release programs, education programs. We want to do that. At the same time, Prop 36 is definitely going to have an impact economically. Right. In terms of funding and costs. And then there's the Norway model, which I got a chance to go to.

The most impressive part of the Norway model was the care and the programs for the officers. That was really the most impressive part is how it handled that and the training that went behind that. So I guess you're juggling things that at times are very contradictory and conflicting. Incarcerate more? No, incarcerate less. Close down the prisons? No.

Keep them open. I mean, how are you approaching this in this General terms? And then I have a specific, specific question.

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head and I think you captured some of my concerns that I, that I tried to articulate earlier. We do expect the population continue to trend downward even with Prop 36 at this point.

It's not going to trend down as quickly as a result of that, but it's still on a downward trend, as is our parole population. And you know, my goal again is we did a capacity report at the request of the Legislature in fall 2023 where we kind of laid out our plan.

My, my goal is to keep the incarcerated busy folks do better. I rattled off some recidivism statistics. We know we do better with folks in programs, so I want to keep them busy, not just hanging out in the yard all day. You know, if you have a drug problem, I want you getting treatment for that.

You know, if you have don't have a ged, it's very hard to get a job. Let's make sure you're leaving CDCR with a high school diploma or ged, for example. So we try to be mindful of that. And really it's unfortunate with the economic downturn that we had to take down some of our housing units and facilities.

Senator Wahab, you know, articulated that we've compacted people more than what we wanted to. We've moved away from where we were in the capacity report. We had to make some difficult decisions based on the fiscal reality. So I think you articulated my challenge and my struggle perfectly well.

I think the more we have the understanding of how you're moving towards these particular goals, we've got to work with each other on how to handle the conflicting pieces of it so that we're not left with either one or the other. Something's got to give on both sides.

With regards, if I could just ask you one question on the efficiency reductions ideas. The CDCR uses some sort of program called the potential ICE hold and resources that I use. I guess I want to get to the bottom of the kind of resources that are used or needed to carry that out.

And maybe you could describe the potential ICE hold as what it does and more importantly is what are the resources that are used and needed to carry that out.

So generally that's handled by our case record staff within the institutions that also calculate, you know, release dates and credit earning and things of that nature. And you know, CDCR, we continue to follow penal code 5025 and 5026, which governs our interaction with ICE.

And we now afraid of misquoting this, but we basically contact ICE twice, once when they come in and once before release to see if they are going to pick those individuals up or not. And so that's our typical involvement with ICE. We've also included information on our public facing website to describe our policies, so it's transparent.

But that interaction with ICE typically is with our case records staff.

So I guess I'm just trying to get the resources. Do you keep the. The incarcerated person, do you keep them in longer in order to accommodate?

We will not hold anyone past the release date whether there's an ICE hold or not. If Ayes is picking up, they need to pick them up on the day of release. Otherwise we release that individual.

Okay. And just to keep in mind, concerned about some of the information that ACLU brought up about how an inmate is identified as being a potential ICE hold and some very disturbing things. That were uncovered. Yeah, I could read them out to you. But, you know, it was very racially biased.

Yeah, we saw a few staff make inappropriate comments which we addressed with those people and took action to correct that behavior. But I don't think that's the vast majority of our staff, I don't think think that way or handle things that way. And so I'm confident we're following current penal code language.

Okay, thank. Just one more comment on the. I noticed here in the. As we were talking about what's good for inmates and what's good for the officers as well, it's a very small thing.

But in the third watch, yard standardization to eliminate a shift in which then decreases the amount of time or the ability of incarcerated to do other good activities.

Yeah. And kind of to put it in perspective, when you talk about a $750 million reduction, you're talking about 5,000 positions.

And so we're left with very challenging decisions on what to make is almost all the activities we do is to support the incarcerated population, whether that's, you know, feeding, releasing the yard, escorting them to programming, taking them to medical appointments. So we heard the Legislature loud and clear that they didn't want us to impact rehabilitative programs.

So we did our best to do that. But again, we're faced with very difficult decisions in light of us wanting to move towards Norway S and single selling. Unfortunately, we've moved away from that a little bit.

Thank you, Senator Durazo. Mr. Secretary, in light of the last question that Senator Durazo just asked, you mentioned that you have a goal of two activities a day. How close is the Department to meeting that goal in light of your simultaneously looking at doing third watch reductions?

So the third watch reduction should not impact our goal to keep incarcerated involved in two or more activities that's limited to just yard activities. So recreational yard two afternoons a week would not be available. And so that should not impact, you know, education, vocational programming, drug treatment program. It will not have an impact on those items.

And we're not able right now to provide two activities to all of our incarcerated population based on our current population levels and the facility and housing utilization closures.

So could you provide the Committee a little more details of who's actually receiving the two activities a day and what your anticipated schedule or rollout would be?

Absolutely. We have data on that. And if you have not seen, we did a capacity report in fall 2023 at the request of the Legislature that kind of laid out this plan and where we can do it. And where we can't.

We'd be happy to provide the Committee further information on that and what we would need to get there.

Thank you. And I also want to join my comments with Senator Wahab in advocating on behalf of the staff that's working in the prison. I would venture to guess it's probably one of the most difficult jobs that people do.

And in light of what happened last night, you know, anybody can be a morning, you know, Monday Night Football quarterback, you know, afterwards, but when you're caught in that position of having to make a decision, it's pretty tough. So we look forward to, with all these enhancements and how you implement reductions that we're also keeping in mind.

You know, the staff, people that have to do the work. That being said, I'm sensitive to your comments about, you know, cuts and so on, but I want to make sure that you understand that we have a pretty difficult task ahead of us. We have now the increased costs with the fires and the impact of that.

We have Administration, federal potential impacts that may impact California of what we have to backfill. And actually, the CDCR, you receive more General funds than the entire UC and C. CSU system combined. And so although we also.

We certainly believe, and I believe that if someone has committed a crime, certainly they need to pay the punishment for that. But I think we also believe that we need to educate our young people in order to avoid them going into the prison system.

So with that in mind, the CSU and UC are being asked to cut four times more than you are. So just to kind of paint a picture, keep in mind that we don't know what's going to come down the pipe, unfortunately, but we might even have to trim further.

So I just wanted to say that as a point of comment, finally, can CDCR talk a little bit more about its memory care and palliative care units and what determines if individuals participate or if they're qualified for compassionate release?

So we have palliative and memory care units, I believe, at both our facility in Vacaville and our facility in Stockton. And we move patients there that meet the criteria for those programs. And I just blanked on the second part of your question, Center. I apologize.

Well, what's the criteria? That's.

The criteria is if the Doctor says you meet the criteria, it's. It would be similar to what the community standard would be. Okay, so we don't. As a. On the custody side, we would not say you can't go. It's. We follow what the Doctor says. If you meet the criteria you're eligible to go.

And I understand that some of these individuals might be eligible for compassionate release, but in fact, that percentage is not very high. Is there a reason why that's the case?

Well, compassionate release Legislature passed new bills where it's basically handled through our healthcare side of the House where they're reviewed. If they meet the criteria, it's referred to the courts to make a determination if it meets the criteria from the penal code, whether that individual gets released or not.

And so I think you've seen areas where we ended a contract with Golden Legacy where I think 75% of those folks were eligible for compassionate release. You also see a lot of folks that we do have sick people in prison.

And I alluded to it in my comments that for those that meet the criteria, we don't want to stand in the way of moving them to a less costly option because prison is the more costly option.

Okay. Thank you, sir. With that, if you wouldn't mind hanging tight for a moment. I just like to we want to hear the comments of LAO and Finance and if there's anything interrelated that Members may have a question.

So with that, next we're going to hear from Cynthia Mendoza, our Deputy Director and Office of Fiscal Services at CDCR, and then also Orlando Sanchez Zavala from the LAO's office. So why don't we start first with Mr. Zavala.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Orlando Sanchez Zavala with the Legislative Analyst Office. I'll be providing brief background on what was assumed on last year's budget in regards to the statewide efficiencies, and I'll tailor my comments to the administration's approach to this exercise for CDCR.

As a reminder to the Subcommitee Committee, the 24-25 budget assumed ongoing savings of roughly 10% for General Fund state operations expenditures nearly for nearly all state departments. The budget also assumed that these savings would be achieved by identifying efficiencies and eliminating vacant positions.

The budget the budget package reflected an agreement that the that the Administration would target about 392 million for CDCR, and this is about 3% of its budget. In addition, it included provisional language that established limitations as to where these reductions could be made for CDCR, such as no reductions to reentry or rehabilitation programs.

The Department of Finance was given the responsibility to determine how to achieve these savings, and on January 10th, they provided an update on how it achieved those savings. So where we are now, the proposed 25-26 budget that's before the Legislature assumes that a lower level of savings than what was previously assumed.

Specifically, the statewide Savings as of January 10th represent about 2.4% of General funds state expenditures. Similarly, the budget reflects lower levels of savings for CDCR. And specifically the budget assumes CDCR achieves 2/3 of its 392 target in the current year and about half of that target in the budget year and ongoing.

So compared to the statewide, CDCR had a smaller target relative to its overall budget, but it also came closer to meeting that target. In addition, when compared with the amount of information that other departments provided, CDCR provided more information, but some of it is still missing.

For example, it's not clear which classifications or which programs are affected by the elimination of the vacant positions. Based on our review of the information provided, the savings appear consistent with the direction provided through the provisional language I mentioned just now. The identified savings seem to be a mixture of true efficiencies.

Some affect service levels, others cost delays. And some of the savings are one time and likely would have happened on the natural and still others are ongoing and then as the Legislature may want to pay close attention to those that affect service levels.

We've already heard some of those, the third watch standardization and the other one being the Golden State legacy. This appears to mean that a small number of people that would have been placed in the community in a nursing facility through the state's medical parole program will remain in prison.

As the Legislature continues to it's oversight in this area, we've prepared some questions that could aid the Legislature. So some of those include what service level impacts does CDCR expect from these savings? How did the Administration settle on these specific savings? What alternatives are there?

What prevented the Department from reaching its full 392 target and what changes would need to be made to reach that target? Also, what classifications and programs are affected by the elimination and what others are there? I'm here with my LAO colleague to answer any other questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Those are all excellent questions. Maybe that we could submit for the record and the Secretary could submit responses back to the Committee in order to save time and also give you an opportunity to work with your staff to respond.

Okay with that be the next person we'd like to hear from is Cynthia Mendoza, our Deputy Director of the Office of Fiscal Services.

Good morning Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. Cynthia Mendonza I just wanted to piggyback on the Secretary's discussion of reductions and get to some of the challenges that CDCR faces and I think this goes to one of the questions that Mr. Sanchez Zavala put forward. As well.

In terms of CDCR getting to the reductions and expectations set in that 2024 Budget act, the Department of Corrections made concerted efforts to identify more reductions.

The Department has worked throughout this fiscal year to identify efficiencies while protecting vital medical, mental health and rehabilitative programs and maintain the safety and security of the state and incarcerated persons in our institutions. Additionally, CDCR abided by the requirements to make cuts without impacting state employees, labor agreements or collective bargaining rights.

However, due to previous cuts over the last four years and the need to improve conditions, cost increases, we've experienced staff costs and further and healthcare costs costs. Further cuts were not attainable. So what led to this? What are some of the challenges we face with these historical reductions? We've closed prisons since 2021. We took. We.

We've closed four prisons since then. DVI was our first. That was we've closed the Division of Juvenile justice in several facilities. We've also tried to close housing units to limit the impact on state staff and communities as a way to also keep the incarcerated population closer to their home when possible.

In 2023 and 20202022 and 2023, CDCR also reduced several operational areas, resulting in roughly 315 million, including reductions to comprehensive health programs, employee health programs, and a reduction of the off site training facility and job shadowing program.

In 2425, CDCR initiated ongoing administrative staff reductions associated with prison closures and additional baseline reductions, reducing 26 million and 139 positions. CDCR has also experienced more staff costs. We do have 60,000 staff. An analysis of CDCR's budget was performed where 2 billion in increases related to bargained agreements since 2022-23 was excluded.

We actually saw our operational budget decrease by 1.6 billion or 12%. With health care, it's difficult to make any health care cuts at this point. Much of health care is under court oversight. It makes it a challenge to reduce expenditures without jeopardizing or impacting litigation. And then there's the improved conditions that we're trying to do.

We're trying to work on environmental and correctional practices to make this a more rehabilitative environment to rehabilitate individuals so when they go to the communities, they're not committing crimes, which is a huge expense to all of us outside of prison costs. And lastly, CDCR has experienced the same inflationary costs that everyone else has felt in the communities.

In California. It's increases like cost of food, cost of utilities, gas, waste disposal and the General cost of supplies. Things have just gone up. Similar issues exist with overtime utilization for medguarding, medical guarding sorry and medical transportation, legal settlement costs and lump sum payouts which are like workers compensation payouts or when people retire.

So we are continuing to work on finding these efficiencies. We hear you. We know you have to have priorities and there is a finite amount of money. We are trying to do our best within our means and working to make further reductions.

Thank you. Finally, if we could have Justin Adelman and Lynn, if you had any comments that you wanted to add.

Thank you. Good morning. Justin Adelman, Department of Finance I just wanted to add some additional kind of Overall comments. In 2024 Budget Act, CDCR's overall budget was 14.3 billion in a 2526 proposed budget. At January, it's down to about 13.9 billion.

I know the Secretary mentioned that the overall share of CDCR's budget had declined to about 6.6 of the General Fund Percent of the General Fund. With the cuts for 2025-26 that declines to 5.9%.

And I also wanted to note that the control section 4.05 and 4.12 reductions that we've been discussing, those aren't actually reflected currently in CDCR's budget. They were carried in a statewide item. So those additional reductions will decrease CDCR's budget further in the May revision.

Thank you.

Any Members with questions.

I don't have a question.

Mr. Seyarto.

You know what, I feel for you guys because a lot of what you're talking about are the self-inflicted wounds that the Legislature has given everybody with our energy costs, our food costs, our medical care costs, our Medi-Cal cost, all of those things. I mean, we got $9.5 billion for Medi-Cal and we're upset because you didn't do $200 million in cuts while we're raising the price of everything. So I get that. And I think we as a Legislature need to do a little bit better job understanding how these dots connect because laying it off on all the agencies is to me, kind of ridiculous.

And Ms. Mendoza, thank you for your time. Thank you for answering questions and the information you provided. More will come. I would, in final comment though, say I'm a new Chair of this committee. And actually my, I'm, you know, you have a job to do and we've asked you to do it. And so to the best of our ability, we're going to assist you in doing that. And, but likewise, any areas where we can adjust, we need to adjust. But thank you for being here. We look forward to working with you, and we'll see you again very soon.

With that, we're going to hold this item open and move on to issue number two, which is population projections. The the individuals. First, we will hear from Cathy Jefferson, the deputy director of the Office of Research at CDCR. Please come forward. Next we'll hear from Caitlin O'Neil with the LAO's office with feedback on that. And then finally we will have Patrick, and Patrick Plant and Justin Adelman from the Department of Finance, who will chime in if they deem necessary. With that, Ms. Jefferson, the floor is yours.

Hi. Good morning. Good morning, Madam Chair. Good morning to the Members of the Committee. Again, Cathy Jefferson, deputy director for CDCR Office of Research, and I'll be providing just a brief overview of the CDCR's Fall 2024 pot projections. CDCR prepares projections twice per year in alignment with the state budget cycle.

For the past four cycles, since fall 2022, our projections have performed very well over a 12 month period with an error rate of just 1%. To predict future populations, CDCR utilizes historical trend data, including data on court commitments. The fall 2024 projections are provided through June 2029, and the estimates include actual data as well as the estimated impact of any legislation, policy, or process changes up through June 30th of 2024.

So based on recent trends, we had expected a net five year decrease of 9% to our institution population from June 30, 2024 to June 30 of 2029. However, after developing those estimates, Prop 36 passed. So to capture an estimate of the Prop 36 population impact, we provided a below the line adjustment in our population estimates.

Though we had very limited historical data on this, we wanted to make sure to provide a preliminary estimate for the Governor's Budget. So our total incarcerated population as of February 28th was was 90,934. With the Prop 36 estimate included, the institution average daily population for current year is estimated to be 91,672 and 93,278 for budget year.

By fiscal year 28-29, the institution population is expected to decrease to 88,787. Our total parole population as of February 28 was 34,583. The average daily population for current year is estimated to be 34,490 and 34,671 for budget year. By fiscal year 28-29, the parole population is also expected to decrease to 34,241. So CDCR appreciates the Prop 36 Joint Informational Hearing you had last week. We heard a lot of great information to inform some of the adjustments that we can, you know, put into our May Revision.

But I would emphasize that there are still a lot of unknowns right now, but CDCR will continue to monitor the Prop 36 implementation closely and update our impact estimates to to provide a more accurate projection as the data becomes available. And that'll take some time. But as mentioned, we will be providing updated projections as part of the May Revision to the Governor's Budget. Thank you for your time, and I'm happy to answer any questions you have.

Thank you. Ms. Caitlin O'Neil with the LAO's office.

Thank you. Caitlin O'Neil with the Legislative Analyst Office. This committee did hear our comments on the administration's estimates of the impact of Prop 36 on the prison and parole population at last week's joint hearing. So I'll just be very brief today and remind you that some of, we found some of the administration's assumptions to be not plausible and that those assumptions result in likely them overestimating the impact of Prop 36 on the prison and parole populations in the current and budget year and caused CDCR to be over budgeted by millions of dollars in the current year and potentially tens of millions of dollars in the budget year.

So we recommend directing the department to address these flaws in its methodology by the May Revision. And I would note, the department, after last week's hearing, did reach out to us and we had a conversation. And so it seems like the department is taking steps to clarify its estimates.

Thank you. And next we have Patrick Plant and Justin Adelman with the Department of Finance.

No comments, but happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. Any Members with any questions? No. Okay. Well, we look forward to, as the LA office mentioned, it's really important that we do have those accurate numbers, especially for May Revise. So we look forward to that, and thank you for working with them. I did have just two questions. The state helps to finance county correctional facilities. Since 2007, the state has provided over 2 billion to 53 counties for jails. All while the jail population has dropped by over 20,000 people. Do you understand that to be correct?

Justin Adelman, Department of Finance. CDCR doesn't have responsibility over jails. So that would be a question either for the administration or the Board of State or Community Corrections.

Okay, thank you. All right, and then my last question is, statewide, the jail population is also significantly down, as you mentioned, over the years. According to the BSCC, in 2024, the average daily jail population statewide was 58,000, which was a number slightly different than what I heard you say. In 2019, it was 74,000. And in 2006, before realignment of Prop 47 or any of that, it was around 81,000. So we generally concur, though, that the population has been decreasing.

So I think those numbers were jail population that you were quoting.

Yes, yes.

So our numbers were just for the prison population. State. State level.

Okay. So if we could forward those, I guess, to whoever the appropriate individual. With that, thank you for coming. Thank you for your time, and I'm sure we'll be in touch over the next couple months.

Thank you.

Next, Members, we're going to move to issue number three, which is facilities and infrastructure. First, we will hear from, again, Cynthia Mendoza, deputy director of the Office of Fiscal Services at CDCR. And then we'll also have LAO and Department of Finance chime in if needed. Ms. Mendoza, welcome again.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation proposed several items related to facilities and infrastructure, both in efforts to find savings and also to address critical facility issues. There are savings of almost 1 billion from prison and housing unit closures and facility deactivations, a reversion of 114 million of funding for roof repairs and replacements.

However, funding is requested for 25-26 to address accessibility improvements and to address water systems for various prisons and other budget and planning issues. With that, I'll turn it over to Dave Lewis, Director of Facilities, to answer any questions from the committee.

So I think it's been made clear, I think the discussion regarding the status of CDCR's institutions has been pretty clear throughout this hearing that we face a lot of challenges related to infrastructure throughout all of our institutions. Our newest prison that was built as part of the new prison construction program was the substance abuse treatment facility in Corcoran, which was built in 1997. That's 28 years ago at this point.

Most of our institutions are older than 30 years old, with the exception of Kern Valley State Prison and the California Health Care Facility, both of which are somewhat newer but still face infrastructure challenges, as seen through the proposals that we have here related to CHCF and the need to address the water situation around Legionella disease at that institution. Those are just reflection, kind of a tip of the iceberg of kind of what we face as a department.

We have well over a billion and a half dollars worth of backlog special repair projects that we're unable to address, and we have $26 million a year to address those projects. As you, you know, math just tells you that that's not a lot of money to address that.

And we know that that's a significantly under reported number related to the fact that people recognize the frustration in getting those things addressed, so they just don't submit requests to do it. And we see a lot of, let's just make do with what we have throughout our institutions.

As pointed out, we did revert some money related to roof replacement. And that really is just reflects the fact that there's limited bandwidth to accomplish some of those projects and some of those were deferred to out years. We still need to replace those roofs.

Our roofs are in particularly poor condition throughout the state and need to be addressed. And that is causing significant issues in programming space, kitchens, and in other spaces. That really, you know, having a leaky roof causes significant problems and significant issues related to the quality of life of our population and also our staff throughout the state. So we face a number of challenges. We're committed this year to really examining all of those issues and really finding where we need to start really focusing our attention to address our infrastructure issues throughout the institutions.

As a point of reference, most of our institutions really have most of the services of a small town or city, including in many where we do our own water treatment and our own wastewater treatment and energy generation. Those are significantly complicated systems. And the age of those systems is starting to become apparent through failures, including significant power failures and water issues and lawsuits related to water quality throughout our institutions.

Okay, great. Thank you. Any Members, questions or comments? Yes.

Okay, so looking at the... for the leaky roofs, does that mean we didn't use the money and it's going back and then we need it someday in the future? Because if the money's there, my question is how did, what happened? How come it didn't get done?

So the way that roof projects were previously funded for the department is that an entire institution's funding was provided. We're not able to do that many roofs at one time. So those generally were long multi-year projects, five or six years to accomplish that many roofs.

And so you have funding that was not projected to be spent until, you know, as long as 2030. And so yes, we will likely need to seek funding to replace this in the future to reflect the completion of that work. And we've also approached roofing differently where we're fixing roofs on a priority basis, on the statewide basis, as opposed to just the institutions that were funded.

So the money was there, but the ability to get it done outran the money. And so...

That's correct.

So is it more appropriate for us to be budgeting a certain amount and making sure that it gets budgeted every year going forward to cover so that these projects don't get stalled waiting for money later or so the money's certain? That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah. I think it would be better for the department and for fiscal projections to provide the funding that can be spent in that fiscal year. And that's really what we're trying to do. We've retained enough funding to do roof projects for the next two years in both 25-26 and 26-27. And what's reverted reflects what would have happened post that period.

But there's so much that needs to be done, it'll be several years of doing that that we need to make a commitment to doing so that we can get the roofs fixed and so they won't be leaky. Correct?

I think that reflects our situation throughout our infrastructure.

Senator Durazo? Okay, I have a couple questions. Do you have any idea how much money has was diverted to assist with the San Quentin new project from the budget of facilities that needed work?

Last year we diverted about 1.3 million. This year, it's around $670,000. And then obviously there's the ongoing the two projects related to the education center and also the upper yard project. But most of those funds are going to address things that needed to happen to reflect the changes in environment, such as removing holding cages, removing barriers that reflected the max security environment when the condemned inmates were that location that are no longer needed and really needed to be addressed to really bring it to a rehabilitation center as directed by the governor.

Thank you. And I was surprised Mr. Seyarto didn't mention it. It's kind of interesting that you're not able to repair more roofs. Is there a problem with the contract or... We got a whole lot of roofers out there who would love to do work. And I did a little dibble dab of real estate investment myself. I've stood on about 20 roofs. Most guys are surprised when I want to climb up and look and see the work. But what's going on with the contract that's prohibiting us from getting the roofs done?

So this work has been done by what was previously the Inmate Ward Labor Program. We've changed the name to the Correctional Construction Mentorship Program. And the fact is, with the reduced amount of the reduced incarcerated population in the department, the number of available workers has also reduced significantly.

Prior to the pandemic, we averaged somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,300 inmate workers, and now we're around 400-500. And so that just influences our ability to accomplish that workload. Certainly, as we move forward, we're looking at different modalities that provide more of an ability to accomplish more work.

So I don't know what the process will be, and I'll follow up with staff, but I would think maybe some of our labor unions that have apprenticeship programs may want to participate. I've participated in those types of programs, and one of the key things they teach you is about roofing. So we'll follow up as appropriate, and maybe they could help to backfill some of those positions. Thank you for your time. Ms. Durazo.

Yes, I'm sorry, I just want clarification. Isn't reversion a term that was used in our budget talks? Was it last year or the year before? Where we were looking to different kinds of ways to address the budget deficit? It was, you know, hold it, don't spend it, but you have it committed, or you don't have it committed? I mean, I'm trying to remember the other terms that were used to try to address the budget. We had never used them before. I don't know. Ms. Caitlin. Ms. O'Neil.

That's correct. There's a number of different types of budget solutions, as we call. That's kind of the general term for ways to fix a budget problem. And reversions were one of those types of actions.

Do you remember what it meant when we used it in our budget?

Basically, reversing an appropriation, pulling back the money that was appropriated for something. Finance may have a different have a more technical definition.

Lynne Ishimoto, Department of Finance. No, we concur. It means giving the money back to the job.

Okay. So I only ask that because I don't know if it had so much to do with a roof and how many workers are available for a roof as much as it was used to address a particular to address the budget deficit in a way that we had not done before. New term. Am I correct in that?

I think reversions do happen. I mean it's certainly not as common because you would essentially be giving back excess funding. But it is used. Maybe it wasn't talked about as much as last year.

Definition. It's to revert the money from whence it came. So it came from the General Fund, we gave it to them, and now we're putting it back in the General Fund.

Right. But I think it was more the way Ms. O'Neil is saying is it was used in a way to address a budget, it was a budget solution.

Thank you. Oh, go ahead. Yes.

Oh, I was just going to say that there are case, like it's, I believe not uncommon for at the end of the fiscal year there will be some amount of money that departments just didn't spend for whatever reason. Maybe the position they were unable to hire to fill a position or and then that the the money will revert unless it has a long encumbrance period, a longer than usual encumbrance period. So it just it does happen regularly.

But in the context of the budget problem that we had last year, as you noted, there were cases where the administration proposed to or the Legislature may have taken action to revert something earlier than it otherwise would have reverted on the natural as a, not necessarily just because the money wasn't needed, but because it was more of a choice to not pursue something or to revert it earlier than otherwise in order to help with the budget situation. Hopefully that helps.

Thank you, Senators, and thank you for your participation today. This is great. We're now moving on to issue number four, which is air cooling pilot program, and we actually have the same panelists who are remaining. So that'll help us to to move through. First, we're going to hear from Ms. Mendoza again, and then the LAO and Department of Finance. So, Ms. Mendoza.

So the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation requests 23.6 million one time in 25-26, and 45.4 million one time in 26-27, which will be available for encumbrance or expenditure until June 30, 2028 for a pilot program to install and evaluate air cooling alternatives to improve indoor environments at four prisons. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Dave Lewis to speak to the details.

Hi, Dave Lewis, director of Facility Planning and Construction Management for CDCR. So CDCR's indoor standard for temperature in the summer is 89 degrees in our housing units. And frankly, with climate change and other issues, we have struggled to even meet that temperature often inside of our housing units.

And you will see temperatures that far exceed that temperature well into the 90s and even, on the worst days, over 100 degrees inside. Additionally, due to the construction without any insulation and just using thick concrete, what happens is you absorb heat throughout the day, you get solar heat gain, and it absorbs into that concrete structure, and at night it will dissipate the heat back into the cells again.

And so we struggle even at night to provide adequate cooling in our institutions. Our institutions, approximately 52% of our housing units use only evaporative cooling for temperature control in the summertime. Evaporative cooling becomes less effective when the temperatures exceed 100 degrees outside.

And on top of that, it adds humidity to the air in its cooling environment so it can make it actually feel less comfortable than it will feel outside because of the humidity on the inside of the housing unit. So 52% of our housing units use that as a cooling method.

Approximately 24 use some sort of mechanical cooling, though with the exception of the California Health Care Facilities and some units at CMF, those same standards as far as temperature at 89 degrees also exist in those housing units. And we struggle again to cool to that temperature even in those housing units.

Approximately 19% of our housing units use no cooling whatsoever and just have air handler units that push air, uncooled air, into a housing unit. And 5% have nothing except for fans to provide any sort of air movement, though that's generally at the California Rehabilitation Center in Norco.

And so what we're trying to do here is examine options to address indoor temperatures. The DIR, Department of Industrial Regulation indoor heat regulations were passed last year excluding correctional facilities because of this issue and a recognition that this is a significant issue that will take a long time to address to be able to meet any standard related to indoor heat. We're working closely with DIR on how to establish a standard that we can follow using operational means in the short term.

But obviously the long term solution is to address the temperature itself. And this is an attempt to find the best, most efficient solution to address the temperature and reduce it to a more normal standard. And we're working very closely with various stakeholders to find the best solution.

And the reason we're trying to do this as a pilot is to avoid situations we've found in the past. Because largely a temperature, that's just a mathematical equation that you could do to determine what the load is to meet your standard.

But what we need to do is find all of the engineering challenges, the voltage draw and other things that need to be found. Because this is also likely, when you do an entire institution, going to result in a need to do electrical infrastructure upgrades and other things as well. And all those things need to be established before you could roll out a long term program. And so this is an attempt to really establish what those things are and also what a rollout schedule might be.

Because for example, we might be able to get part of the way there using insulation or maybe all the way there in some institutions. If insulation is a valid solution, that can probably be done quicker than needing to do mechanical solution, which will really require a lot of ventilation upgrades as well.

Just due to the primitive nature of our ventilation systems that was expected exposed largely during the COVID outbreak. We've, again, we've been talking to stakeholders and various interested parties about how to best approach this solution and then how we can develop a long term program to impact indoor heat temperatures.

And there's starting to be some research around violence and heat in prisons. And that clearly shows, I mean, as you can imagine, it'd be very difficult to sleep in an environment that exceeds 90 degrees at night. And the lack of sleep is going to drive violence issues and other concerns that we need to address.

Thank you, Mr. Lewis. Any comments from LAO?

Yes, thank you. We do recommend approving this proposal given the serious health risks for incarcerated people and staff associated with extreme heat, as well as the potential for litigation. However, in reviewing this proposal and in conversations with the department, it became clear to us that this proposal is really about figuring out how to begin tackling the problem. The actual installations that will result from this funding are just a very small portion of the overall facilities footprint of the prisons.

To actually scale this statewide could be a very significant undertaking and costly undertaking. Potentially in the low billions of dollars, taking many years, and present various project management, population management, and other challenges. So given that, we think it's important for the Legislature to have information to help it provide oversight over this issue and to gather that information. We recommend requiring two reports.

So the first report would be to have the department submit the results of its assessment that is done through this pilot project, as well as a statewide strategy for scaling up these interventions, should they be found to be effective. And we recommend, given that it will have take a few years to install these pilot options as well as some time to test them, we recommend having that report due by January 10, 2031.

And to ensure that the Legislature has a sense of what this assessment will be, what kind of evaluation essentially it will be getting back at that time, we recommend using the subcommittee process to get a better understanding of what that assessment will entail. For example, what factors would it be focused on, who would be who would be doing it. And in some cases, we think it's still a little bit unclear how the department will evaluate success in the pilot project.

For example, with the insulation only option, there hasn't been, the department hasn't set a temperature, a specific temperature goal for that because it acknowledges it's unlikely that insulation only will be able to meet the 78 degree threshold. So it's not clear exactly how the department will be determining what amount of improvement is success in that case.

So just, you know, recommend making sure you're comfortable with kind of what the evaluation is that will be done. And then the second report we would recommend having due January 10, 2026, given that the results of this pilot will not come back to the Legislature for quite a few years. We think it's important to have an interim report, and we detail the information in our publication that we think would be helpful to gather through this interim report.

But in short, we think this is an opportunity for the Legislature to gather information to help it understand the scale of the problem, as well as steps CDCR is taking or planning to take to identify solutions to cool housing units that are not of the four design types that are included in the pilot, as well as what steps CDCR is taking in the interim to provide some heat relief in the facilities before it is able to install long term solutions, such as considering cooling centers or portable air conditioning units or painting roofs to reflect solar radiation. Thank you.

Thank you for all those excellent recommendations. Department of Finance, any comments?

Lynne Ishimoto, Department of Finance. We do not believe formal reporting language is necessary, but we definitely respect the Legislature's desire for information. We're open to discussing useful reporting metrics that may help inform you. And we would want to evaluate what data the department is currently collecting as well as consider any fiscal impacts as a result of this. The department is obviously very committed to the successful implementation of this pilot and looking forward to what a larger expansion plan would look like. Thank you.

Thank you. Any Members? Ms. Durazo.

Yeah. Just a question. The Federal Bureau of Prisons says inside prisons should be no lower than 68 and no higher than 76. So considering we're not going to be able to do this as fast as we all want it to happen in the meanwhile, what are the protocols when these temperatures are not met?

So the department has a fairly structured heat plan that it follows as temperatures rise. They start when temperatures reach 90 degrees outside to really try and provide more options, especially for people that are particularly sensitive to heat, including people that are on medications that are sensitive to heat or have health conditions.

And those also increase, like, the level of effort increases as the temperature increases on the inside. As far as when it reaches 90 degrees on the inside, trying to increase the use of showers for opportunities to cool down, ice water, and other things to help cooling.

And then when it reaches even higher temperatures, then it has to find alternatives to try and get people to a cooler space on the inside. That may include program spaces that are mechanically cooled or other options to try and provide an ability for, especially people, again, that are particularly sensitive for health reasons to heat, an opportunity to get to a cooler space.

I guess I'm asking the question because we do have, you know, constitutional rights, you know, impacted here of the, of the incarcerated. So kind of reminds me, if we don't address it sooner than later, then we're going to be met just like our healthcare, just like our disability rights litigation. I'm not hoping for that, but we could face that if we don't have something that is both short term and long term.

We agree. We've already had some discovery requests around heat and temperature or more Public Records Act requests on cooling options in our institutions from our plaintiffs in our litigation. There was extensive touring from the Coleman court or the Coleman monitors last year related to heat and our ability to respond to the heat plans.

And following the heat plans. We clearly expect that there's going to be some future action related to litigation. Whether that's separate litigation or attached to some of our current class action lawsuits. We do anticipate that this will become a subject of some attention in the future related to litigation.

Mr. Seyarto.

Question concerning the potential for retrofitting entire prisons with HVAC systems, given the building construction materials that have been used in the past. And over the years, HVAC regulatory requirements have increased and are becoming increasingly hard to make, which means really much higher costs. So have you guys done any preliminary figures of how much it costs to retrofit an HVAC system in a prison of these sizes?

Yes, and that's reflected in the costs in this budget change proposal. We have had experience recently. We changed from evaporative cooling to mechanical cooling at Ironwood State Prison, for example. That was over $170 million for the institution. And again, that was to a temperature standard of 89 degrees inside. And so to a lower standard, it's certainly...

And you're going to have to have a mix, realistically, of insulation and mechanical cooling to be able to meet the standard. Otherwise, it would be too expensive to install and to operate in the long term if you relied solely on mechanical cooling. And so we've been looking at that.

We've had some discussions, again, with outside entities, including Cal Berkeley, about cooling and how to best cool our institutions. And we'll continue those conversations because I think part of what we need to find is the most efficient solution that won't require as many upgrades to our electrical infrastructure to go with it.

You said $170 million?

That is correct.

We have 31 facilities, so it's like $54 billion. We might as well build new prisons. That's all. Thank you.

Any other questions, Members? Okay. As I mentioned earlier, I dibbled and dabbed a little bit in this business and I look forward to the options that you'll come forward with. My family, we just got air conditioned for the first time about two years ago.

And because I have lower roofs, we had to put in the individual units versus replacing your entire HVAC system. So although, you know, we can be concerned for alarm, we do have to remember though that there are options. Mr. Seyarto, I was mentioning the fact that there are individual units that can be placed in certain rooms.

I didn't have air condition for the first time in my life only two years ago. And I have a unit in the living room and one in each bedroom. So what they were referring to of cooling centers, cooling sections.

And I'm sure you're going to be doing the appropriate pre data to look at locations and where is it heating up the most, how many days. So with that being said, who will be responsible for recording the temperatures and keeping all this data?

Currently, temperatures are recorded by hand by officers in the housing units on an hourly basis. And for this pilot and these housing units and probably some control in the same area, we will provide automatic temperature monitoring.

The Department is already piloting that in a few institutions now, again, related to litigation from the, you know, and interest from the courts related to temperature.

So our anticipation, we want this to be an automatic thing, not rely on, on an already overworked correctional officer that's even more overworked when it gets hot and he has to take steps to address the heat in the housing unit. We want to be able to monitor the temperature without putting more of a burden on the staff.

And in addition to temperatures, what other data will be kept and what will it be compared to?

Well, we'll also need to examine again the electrical load related to this, especially at the peak temperatures where the system, the overall electrical grid is also very stressed during those times. So that will also inform our solutions as well.

Because we have to be really cognizant of the ability for the electrical infrastructure, both for the Department and the surrounding area to handle the additional draw of doing this. So certainly electrical load will need to be done and it needs to be from a temperature standpoint.

I believe that we really need to look at like the wet bulb temperature, so the temperature that takes into account the humidity as well, because humidity will have a significant impact on the comfort level that exists.

So we'll do indoor, outdoor temperature reflecting humidity and we'll also examine the electrical load and then a lot of what we're looking at is the ventilation issues that would exist. Our ventilation systems and our housing units are relatively primitive, we would say, not having a lot of dampers to control temperature in various sections of a housing unit.

It just dumps air. And then whoever is the furthest away will get the least air. And that balancing is an important component of cooling. And heating, for that matter, is being able to balance those temperatures throughout a housing unit.

And, and so that will be important for us to assess as well, which will likely lead to the need to address the ducting situation as it exists today.

And then I have a follow up question for lao. This particular program, did it include reporting requirements and things like that?

This pilot project as proposed doesn't include any reporting language. So we do recommend adopting language to explicitly require the submission of the evaluation and plan, statewide plan, as well as additional information to provide oversight in the. In the near term.

Well, I think if there's one thing the public has asked us for is accountability. So I look forward to working with your office and our team on how we would go about requesting this interim report for 11026 and also 11031. Thank you for your time. Yes, Mr. C, of course. Thank you, sir.

With that in mind, it looks like, Ms. Mendoza, you're. You're here with us for the. For the further duration, which we are. So that's good. We. We welcome your participation. So next we're moving to issue number five, which is the San Quentin Rehabilitation center, also I guess, affectionately referred to as the California Model.

So for that we're going to have Ms. Mendoza, who's here present. We have both LAO and Department of Finance. And I see you have another individual who has joined us. Do you want to introduce her as well?

Zero, I'll have her.

Zero. Huh. It's on. Genevieve Chandleri. I'm the Superintendent for the Office of Correctional Education within the Division of Rehabilitative Programs. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

All right, we'll start with you, Ms. Mendoza. \

CDCR requests 7.8 million and 33.6 staff in 2526 and 12.5 million and 73.7 positions in 2627 and 13 million 74.4 positions in 2728 ongoing to take the next step in the transformation of the institution into a rehabilitation center embodying the principles of the California model.

In March 2023, Governor Newsom announced San Quentin State Prison would transform into the San Quentin Rehabilitation center, which will be focused on improving public safety through rehabilitation the 2023 Budget act allocated 20 million to be used for preliminary plans, drawings and construction phases. However, this amount was reduced to 12 million in the 2024 Budget Act.

Additionally, CDCR was allocated 239 million from the public Buildings Constructions Fund, which is like a lease revenue bond financing for the pre construction and design build phases. The new construction is expected to be completed by January 2026.

And this current request will establish the rehabilitative and correctional staffing and resources needed to take the next step in transforming San Quentin into a center focused on re entry normalization and establishing a correctional culture of rehabilitation.

With that, I will turn it over to Dave Lewis, Director of Facilities, to provide further information on the construction components of the project.

So, as mentioned, we have $239 million to build our education center at San Quentin. An additional $12 million to improve the upper yard at San Quentin. Both of those projects are on track to finish on time for the education center.

We're looking at finishing, as mentioned in January, the structure will be complete as far as the structural elements by next week. And at that point we'll start hanging the skin and working on interior. Excuse me, construction at the. At the Education Center. This is about.

Well, it is the fastest we've ever done a project in CDCR and we remain on track to accomplish all of our goals related to that. In addition, the. The upper yard is on the same time frame for completion around the early part of 2026.

And what we're trying to do is create an environment where the goals of the Education center extend through the entirety of the campus of San Quentin and really try and find solutions that make it a more normal environment as you can be in a prison environment. Recognizing the limitations that exist in San Quentin.

Other efforts have included removing holding cages throughout the institution that really were reflective of the old model of corrections. That's not really reflective of where we're trying to go as a Department and especially in San Quentin as an institution.

Also removing increasing visiting opportunities for people as we recognize that family connections are vital to impacting their ability to reenter the community.

And so everything we're doing is really focused on trying to create an environment where the rehabilitation center is really reflected throughout its entirety of its campus as a rehabilitation center, not just in a little corner where this project exists.

Thank you. And we'd like to turn it over to Genevieve to speak to the rehabilitative efforts.

I've had the opportunity to work closely with the project planning team as a conduit with DRP leadership and Other stakeholders Stakeholders to support the efforts of the San Quentin Rehabilitation center as an emerging vision of the California model.

As Director Lewis has described, this isn't just a building in one portion of the institution, but it's a very strategic plan that maximizes rehabilitation opportunities throughout the entire campus. Positively and safely throughout the campus. The primary objectives of the Advisory Council report are to focus on re entry rehabilitation, robust rehabilitation programs and normalization.

And this BCP embraces these goals with what we know works, which is education. Education transforms the student. It reduces recidivism. It increases earning potential once they leave and join our communities. It changes the culture of the facilities. It changes the interactions between our incarcerated and visitors and staff and teachers.

It also extends beyond our gated communities to loved ones and can break cycles of intergenerational incarceration, which is our public safety mission. Right now San Quentin has 432 students that they can serve coming to class every single day. There still leaves 1,200 additional incarcerated students.

Students, individuals that have the ability to access our programs and can't because we do not have that additional space, mind you. They are also consistently enrolled 98 to 99%. So our students are coming to our programs. Statewide we have 32,400 incarcerated people without a GED or high school diploma.

The additional eight teachers would allow for an additional 432 students to come to our programs. That almost cuts half of our unmet need at San Quentin in half. As Secretary McCumber mentioned, our students who obtain GED or high school completion have a recidivism rate of 32.85%. Which is almost 10%, 9.9% lower than those who do not.

Those who have employment needs. Right now we have career technical education at San Quentin. We have three programs that serves 81 students. The additional two programs, Electrical Works and Barbering, will increase to 54 additional positions that students can become a part of. It also adds a career sector to what's already offered at the institution.

And at San Quentin they have 251 incarcerated students with an unmet CTE need electrical works. Keeping in mind our population is a high paying trade and it also is not as labor intensive. So we are keeping in mind the population that we're serving as well. Barbering is an additional career sector that we would be adding.

This one is a very intentional program. It draws upon our international best practices of creating intentional spaces where there's opportunities to engage as a community. So similar to, you know, places that we go, barbering shops and salons.

There's a salon training space so students are required to provide service to clients so they there will have the necessary hours to complete their state licensure.

In addition, they'll be practicing not only their trade skills, but what they're learning from their in person programs, their community based programs, their volunteer groups, peer staff mentoring, which includes that casual formal conversations, customer service, resolving conflict, also building confidence and self esteem through good grooming and appearance.

We were touring the other day and an officer mentioned, you know, we're donating a lot of barbering tools. And I said, why? And he says, you know how important it is to feel good. It feels good when you have a good haircut and can walk around and engage with people.

It changes how you walk and how you talk. And that's part of the education too, those little things. Our CT achievement rate have a recidivism rate of 28.2%, which is 14.5% lower than those without a CTE. Trade Secretary McCumber did share the recidivism data of our college graduates. We have robust AA programs.

Our associate's degrees is throughout all of our 31 prisons. So we offer community college in person. Community college throughout all institutions with an 8.5% recidivism rate. So we are seeing the trend. The more education, the higher education, the more opportunities where folks are not returning.

Our CDCR and California Community College Chancellor's office data shows that we have about 850 to 900 community colleges students earning an AA degree each year. Our enrollment trends are approximately 10,000 students a year.

Going through our program of college, it just makes sense for us to want to further transform San Quentin and build the capacity in our students to become these lifelong learners.

We are very excited about the idea of having California's amazing public higher education system join this work along with our valuable partner Mount tam to serve more students and bring them to bachelor's degree completion. Our students, per our agreement, they are working towards their associate degree to meet the academic requirements for bachelor's degree for transfer.

So we have a very strong, robust pipeline that's waiting for seats and opportunities. Our fall 2025 cohort has already completed and we have filled all of our seats, which is approximately 265. And we did have a number of students that were unable to be placed.

So our our space is dependent upon the college and also the institution based on how much space they have available to accommodate. Mount TAM is our valuable partner at San Quentin. We continue to look forward to our work and our partnership with them. They do offer a high quality associate degree pathway.

And this would be in addition to the next step for our students. Our structure is that we are not only looking at our eligibility at the institution, but we look at our statewide data to determine what our pipeline is.

So we have an opportunity to first support the students at San Quentin and then for additional seats we will look throughout the state for those who have a need. The operational vision at San Quentin is not concentrated to one specific building. As I opened with it permeates throughout the campus.

And the California Model aligns closely with our adult learning principles and recommendations of the Advisory Council. San Quentin is mirroring life outside and allowing the individual to have autonomy throughout their day. Offering mentorship throughout shared life experience is a way to enhance the learning process and the California Model.

And community resource officers and education staff are engaging and supporting the incarcerated person to encourage and facilitate facilitate connections to programs and resources in our environment that fosters mutual respect, trust and empathy to be ready to learn.

For any questions. Aliyo, thank you. To explain my recommendations, I'm going to start with a bit of background that sets up how we got to this moment that we're in in terms of the development of the California Model.

So a couple years ago, the secretary of CDCR and the receiver articulated a laudable set of goals and principles that kind of establish a framework for what's being called the California Model, which is intended to apply system wide. Also around that time.

Well, actually, first I should say the secretary and the receiver also tasked a project and implementation team within CDCR that includes decision level leadership to begin identifying and implementing actual specific activities at various prisons in line with that broad framework. And I would note that those activities have largely been done within the department's existing resources.

And then around that same time that this framework was sort of established by CDCR, the Governor proposed and the Legislature approved funding for this new learning center that's being constructed at San Quentin.

And the Governor also convened an advisory council of people primarily outside of CDCR, not some staff, but mostly other stakeholders and experts to recommend changes for San Quentin specifically in line with this broader framework. And that council released its recommendations earlier last year.

And many of the recommendations go beyond in scope the activities that are being implemented at other prisons. So right now we're at a point where these two processes are sort of coming together.

And from what we understand from CDCR in our conversations with the Department, that project and implementation team is in the process of meeting with the leaders of the Advisory Council to actually decide which of the advisory Council's recommendations the Administration will pursue. And it's our understanding that this activity is expected to be completed sometime this spring.

And then after that point, the project and implementation team intends to engage stakeholders at the prison, Such as the rehabilitative program providers in work groups to further the implementation of those recommendations and the planning.

So what became clear to us in our conversations with the Department Is that the Administration is still in the process of developing a specific plan for San Quentin. And so, based on moving into my recommendations, we do think it is reasonable to improve.

To approve the resources to activate the learning center, so meaning the custody staff, the librarian staff maintenance and tech support, et cetera, so that existing programs at the prison can move into the new space, People can begin using the common area, et cetera.

We also think that the American job Center of California contract appears reasonable, given it's a very small amount of money, and that providing job counseling and placement services to people before their release could be helpful.

But we do think it's premature at this point to approve the remainder of the request given that the Administration hasn't developed a plan for San Quentin. And, you know, we find.

So we find that we recommend rejecting the rest of the requests unless the Administration is able to provide a plan sometime this spring that the Legislature believes justifies the resources relative to its other budget priorities. We also found that there's some key questions that remain unanswered about the California model as a whole, which goes beyond San Quentin.

And without answers to those key questions, it's difficult for the Legislature to provide oversight of this issue area as well as to evaluate future requests for funding. And those are five. We distilled that down to five key questions. Those are, which are. First, how is progression through the prison system envisioned under the California model?

So essentially, there's the activities to date have tended to focus on specific populations, like a high security population or people under the age of 2025.

But it's not clear kind of what is the overall theory of action as to how the changes that have been implemented so far that are anticipated to be implemented Will logically lead to the outcomes that the Department is anticipating. Second, what is the role of San Quentin in this envision Progression?

San Quentin has always had a higher, relatively high level of programs even before these efforts were undertaken. So with the. Under the proposal, San Quentin will get even more. An even richer concentration of programming resources. And the proposal would represent a pretty significant amount of spending on San Quentin Compared to other pilot activities under the California model.

So that, to us, justifies a higher level of scrutiny. And so we think the Administration should explain in its kind of broader theory of action as to how the California model will work. What is the role of San Quentin in that?

For example, is the role of San Quentin to be a motivating factor for other people to want to transition there? And if that's the case, then what are the steps that someone would go through to reach San Quentin in their journey through the prison system?

Third, how would the administration's vision be implemented so based on this theory of action that it articulates what would be the major policy changes or key budget capacity that would be needed to implement those changes?

We understand that it's maybe too early to provide detailed planning, but if the Administration can't articulate some of the broad contours of a plan at this point, that raises concerns that the vision isn't feasible to implement.

And given the out year budget shortfalls that are projected, the Legislature will want to be comfortable that it's willing, it has the budget capacity to pay for whatever vision the Department is moving toward. Fourth question, what would success look like under the department's vision?

Again, for example, if San Quentin is supposed to be a motivating part of the system, maybe the Department would be measuring how many people successfully transfer there from higher level institutions. That's just an example. But they need to be able to articulate how they will know if what they're going to do is working.

And then finally, based on this question of what would success look like, how are we going to measure and evaluate that? And that could be done in a number of different ways by external researchers or by state entities like the Inspector General or the State Auditor.

And finally, we recommend requiring the Department to report on these questions by January 102026. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you. Lanny Shimoto, Department of Finance as the Subcommitee has heard today from the secretary and my colleagues, the Department has emphasized the system wide culture change that seems taking place via the California model.

While the development of the plan specific to San Quentin Rehabilitation center is an ongoing process, the Department continues to make decisions about how to best apply the recommendations made by the Advisory Council. To date, the Department has already implemented some of those recommendations, and through this proposal, they continue those efforts.

The new learning center will provide additional classroom and rehabilitative space to make the expansion of San Quentin's programming possible. The secretary talked about the importance of the availability of rehabilitative programs and its benefits. And this proposal includes resources for additional basic and secondary education. Establishing a bachelor's degree program and adding career technical education opportunities.

As my colleague noted, there's still quite a need for GED at San Quentin and the number statewide is over 302001 which really speaks to the greater need that's out there. The two additional career technical education programs have been proposed which will teach relevant skills that can lead to a viable pathway upon release.

Specific to the custody resources, about 1.5 million is associated with the activation of spaces which were being redone to serve new functions and that is required staffing to make sure that those spaces can become fully operational.

The remainder of the custody resources are related to further implementing the California model by adding a resource team and community program officers. These resources are part of San Quentin's transformation to a rehabilitative center by contributing to the culture change and expanding normalization. As the secretary referenced.

We do not believe the addition of reporting language is necessary, but we're happy to continue discussions with U.S. plans at San Quentin move forward. Thank you.

Thank you. Boy, we're in good hands with both of you. Thank you very much. Mr.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Since when we approved this in 2023, the California model at San Quentin, many details were left up to the Advisory Committee. So I'm sure you might have mentioned all of this, but if you can just summarize or clarify for me what are the pieces of that vision that we are pursuing now?

And a couple of other questions.

The California model components working with the Advisory Council report in its entirety. I'm probably not the best person person for that, but we do have this Dave here who could help with that.

So we've met extensively with the, the, some of the leadership of the Advisory Council over the last several months to develop specific plans of implementation around the, the Advisory Council report and the pieces that we feel are achievable within the scope of what we're doing today and essentially the Low hanging fruit, right, that can be done today and also identify future actions that are going to be necessary around the department's classification system, for example, and the placement of incarcerated people at San Quentin that reflect what we're trying to do at San Quentin so that we ensure that it's a fully programming facility that reflects what was included in the Advisory Council report.

So we've worked extensively to identify very specific actions that are reflected as part of this BCP related to the Advisory Council report to implement its recommendations.

I don't know. Somebody else came up. I'm not. You're going to answer.

Lisa Hines, I'm the project Executive for the California Model Statewide so if you have any other questions, I'm happy to answer.

Okay. You, you mentioned low hanging fruit, but all this. So if you don't do it now, I'd like to have that, you know, submitted to us. The what, what you are pursuing from the advisory council. Yes.

And, and we're in this process of finalizing some of those pieces and then it'll, it'll need to be reviewed by the Administration obviously. But we anticipate sometime this spring, the week we'll be able to submit what we're coming up with as far as those specific plans.

Great, thank you. And what are you, how are you connecting with the stakeholders? Well, let me just jump onto the next one. I'm glad to see the job training element in this. As someone mentioned, my question is what happens upon release?

You go through the training and let's say they do workforce training on whatever they decide to do. What happens after they're released? Is there a role to play or are you anticipating that you will be helping to place them so that they're not left?

They'll have the skills, but they won't have the skills to actually find a job in that career.

Our request for the AJCC will help with job placement alongside other efforts within RCT trades, with trade advisories and businesses and context to help with supporting that, you know, pathway that you're asking about.

Also with the bachelor's degree program there is the degrees that are being offered in our bachelor programs are also degrees that are offered on campus. So they are replicating so that that individual has the opportunity to go directly onto campus and continue their educational pathway there.

Okay. And with regards you mentioned someone mentioned the new career technical education program. Just want to ask if you're working with the multi craft core curriculum.

Yes, we included MC3 approximately three years ago into our NCCR core curriculum.

Allowing those individuals to have opportunity to have that MC3 certification to take over to the unions if that's what they choose to do and have that leg up the NCC3 as certifications will allow the merit based programs to accept and move forward if that's the non union pathway they choose to take.

Okay, thank you. I just, you know, emphasize the help that's going to be needed once they're released to actually end up in the career and the job that they're looking for. Thank you.

Thank you. Senator Durazzo. I have a few questions. What was your name?

Lisa Hines. Pardon? Lisa Heinz.

Is there a current strategic plan for San Quentin?

There is a planning process currently going on. We Expect to have three reports. We are working in concert with our AMEND partners as consultants with ucsf, and there will be three reports coming that will come from the original recommendations of the Committee.

And when could we expect to get those reports again?

We're hoping in the next couple of months that we can have our preliminary report that's taking our original action items that the Department did start working on as soon as we did get the report in January of 2024, and then coming along to see three different areas.

What we can accomplish internally with existing resources, what we will need additional resources for. We're doing kind of a qualifying, identifying what are out of our control and what we can do internally, and then what we will be needing additional funding for, as well as what best practices can be replicated in other institutions of similar classifications.

If we could make every effort to do that prior to May revise, or at the very latest, the end of May. Because since we're going to have to make these decisions, we certainly need the information. That being said, what's the current population at San Quentin?

It's around it's like 2900, if I recall correctly, at San Quentin today.

And I don't know if this is an answer for you two or Ms. Hines, is there a plan to move to an operating design capacity or the single selling model?

Yes. This was referenced in the eight pages of the Governor's Budget of reducing the population to San Quentin to be able to do single selling throughout. This also would reflect the reactivation of the east block housing, which was deactivated upon the movement of all condemned inmates out of San Quentin. And so we're moving towards that.

We're starting to develop plans of how that we do that while we're still doing all the construction that the institution is undergoing.

So then that means we might be having a lower population than has historically been held at San San Quentin. Or you're saying with the east block and this other stuff, you're going to move people around.

There's a mix. I. I don't think the intent is to move anyone out of San Quentin. The intent would be to not keep filling it. And so let it naturally attrit to that level where we can single cell everyone and also provide a reasonable level in the dormed housing that exists in each unit at San Quentin.

And so like, how we fully get there is still kind of being developed at this time.

Thank you. And could you repeat your name again? Genevieve Candelaria. Okay.

You mentioned a couple times, barbering several years ago when I was here in the Assembly, if a person came out of jail, something had to do with the state license that they actually couldn't get a state license to do barbering, even though we had just spent all this money teaching people how to do barbering.

Has that now been resolved? Do you know?

We've been working very closely with them to ensure that our students have opportunities and they are open and have created a process in which they're evaluating our individuals on a case by case basis. So that means.

No, it. It has not technically, the process been resolved to allow individuals who completed your program to automatically be able to get their license just like anyone else. Not for every single student. Correct. Okay. Thank you. How much of the funding is for the program providers themselves and not just CDR staff?

I think we'll have to get that back to you. We'll work with consultants.

Okay. And let's see what we'll be doing. Since the secretary has already left and he did commit to answering questions, we will submit your questions for the record to the secretary to answer. I think they were very well asked.

Finally, make sure we get an invitation right. All right. To the grand opening. Thank you. Mr. Lewis, do you need a minute? Are you good? All right. I didn't want to make the Academy Awards fopu and you know, like throw use gum or something. But I did have it in a wrapper here for you.

For those of you who watched the Oscars this weekend. All right, we're almost there. Hang on, folks. Now we're moving to issue number six, food costs. We continue to have the great Ms. Mendoza who's here to continue her presentations and the LAO and Department of Finance. Ms. Mendoza.

CDCR requests 32.1 million in 25-26 and ongoing. And to update the funding methodology in 25-26. And then doing annual baseline adjustments using California Consumer Price Index to better match CDCR's actual food expenditures. And then I'll introduce the next BCP and then Mr. Eshelman here will speak to a little bit more about the programs.

And then with the California Grown Agricultural Food Funding BCP Chapter 576 Statutes of 2022 requires by December 31, 2025 a California State owned or run institution to achieve the goal of ensuring at least 660% of the agricultural food products purchased each calendar year are grown or produced in the state.

CDCR requests 5 million General Fund one time in 25-26 to comply with the statutory requirements to purchase the California Grown food. This will equal an additional $0.15 per incarcerated person per day to account for the initial cost escalation and expected with this changeover to California Grown products.

And this will provide the Department time to conduct necessary cost analysis based on purchases after implementation to determine any future funding requests. With that, I'll turn it over to Lance Eshelman to provide further information and to answer questions.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Good afternoon, Committee. First of all, it is a pleasure to sit in front of you today. My colleague hit the nail on the head with all of the data. And so what I would like to do is just talk about the issue in food services. Incarcerated folks receive a nutritionally balanced diet.

We provide that to them. We want it to be palatable. That is our goal. It is getting increasingly difficult though to meet those standards with the rising costs. So with the rising food costs, the supply chain issues, the inflation, it is extremely difficult. Our food service staff want to provide those meals.

We want to give them a couple servings of eggs. If the Chief of Dietary Services says that our menu needs to have eggs on it that day, if we receive $4.45, that's 37% of the cost to serve those eggs. And so, as you can understand, it is difficult to manage with, with such a small budget.

We do a good job at ensuring that we are providing the food necessary to meet those goals, those nutrition goals, but it is difficult with our current budget. So, again, happy to be here and looking forward to answering any questions you all may have.

Department of Finance. No comments at this time.

Thank you for your last comments. I can appreciate what the challenge of providing nutritionally balanced, on the other hand, if it doesn't fill the stomachs of the people incarcerated, then it's leading to waste. It's just going to throw it away. So somewhere there's got to be a way to find that.

Probably similar to what happens in schools with our kids, right? In terms of what they like. But what's nutritionally balanced anyway? We can get there. One really specific question along those lines is, thank you, Dr. Brackbill, for the recommendations.

There are recommendations from the people in blue, which I just got introduced, not introduced physically, but the notion that they exist. So they are a group established by incarcerated people to provide input on the California model based on their expertise and experience. Healthy food and nutrition is one of their top priorities.

How have you considered their recommendations in your proposal?

So the people in blue are important to us. The staff are important to us. California model is important to us. And when we talk about food, we talk about love. And in a dark setting like Corrections, food can be that love.

And so we again would like to give them those options and ensure that before they go to the programming, the rehabilitative programming, the education, that for breakfast, they were happy with the food that they received.

And so I think we are taking those steps in sitting with you all today to ensure that we can continue to provide that, again, that food that makes them feel a little bit of love.

What our staff are doing right now is ensuring that that food that we are putting out to the incarcerated folks, the men in blue, is something that we would consume ourselves, right? If I have a food manager that won't consume the meal, I don't want that individual as a food manager.

I want to ensure that the food that we're providing to the Folks in our care is something that we would serve to our families as well.

So do you have that rapport and that inclusion of their recommendations?

So I would have to get back to you on those recommendations.

What I do do is I do speak with the Incarcerated Advisory Committee, and we have those discussions and they do give me the feedback that they would like some change in the menu and we adjust within the parameters of continuing that nutritionally balanced diet, staying within budget, and trying to meet somewhere in the middle.

So we do have those conversations with the incarcerated folks, and it's often very, I guess, fruitful, if you will.

Okay. And just let me know about. One more thing.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I just. I just wanted to underscore that currently we're funded at a rate of about $3.40 per person per day. And even though that's where we're funded and our authority is there, we're. We're spending the 32,000 more. We are.

We are just really trying to meet what our costs actually are, as we have no. No way to absorb that cost.

Understood. Tell me your name again, sir.

I'm sorry. Yes. Lance Eshelman, Departmental Food Administrator.

Eshelin

Eshelman.

Okay. Sir, you mentioned that if someone told you your meals were egg deficient, who would be the group that would tell you that you're. I guess they're reviewing your menus or something like that. Do. What is the group that does that?

So I work very closely with the Chief of Dietary Services, who is a registered dietitian, and the registered dietitian approves the menus before they are provided to the institutions.

Well, okay. And do institutions grow food themselves?

They do not.

How come? I'm sure you've been asked that.

Yes, yes, it does come down to security issues. It does involve issues with growing plants and vegetables, produce, and to ensure that it's grown in a healthy way. We have really good local farmers that we work with closely. But, yes, that's a big project that would be amazing. I just don't know if we're there yet.

Okay, that's very interesting. Well, thank you very much for your time. I don't know if this was your first time, but you did quite well. So thank you for being here and we look forward to you coming back. You're sensitivity to your approach with food is certainly needed, so we appreciate that.

I appreciate the comments. Thank you.

All right. Nothing from anyone else. All right. With that, we're going to proceed to our last issue and then we're going to open up for public comment. So our last issue is public safety radio replacement again. Ms. Mendoza is going to be here for her presentation. Do you have a lifeline? Someone else joining you? Here we go.

All right. And then we also have our Leo representatives in Department of Finance. Ms. Mendoza.

CDCR requests 19.8 million in 25-26 and ongoing to establish a replacement program for public safety radio equipment to roughly align with the manufacturer's life cycle replacement requirements. This proposal specifically requests funding for an eight year replacement cycle which will enable CDCR to replace approximately 12.5% of its radio equipment inventory each year.

This project will prioritize radio replacement by age, criticality and risk of failure. CDCR's approach will maintain a cost efficient and reliable radio communications plan that meets operational needs, can leverage evolving technologies and support secure communications. It will also maintain CDCR's compliance with state and federal mandates.

These resources are critical to the safety of custody officers and staff during routine critical and emergency response. Reliable radio communications are critical and can also provide a vital link to other law enforcement agencies during mutual aid or multi jurisdictional incidents in real time.

These radios are used by correctional staff, CDCR firehouses, response teams like K9 or investigative services, parole operations, our Office of Correctional Safety and Crisis response Teams and the fire camps and conservation camps. This proposal will support continual alignment with digital standards for radio communications. Interoperability for statewide interoperability. Haven't got that in twice.

Interoperability between federal, state and local public safety agencies to support to ensure support of the current and future needs of the Department. With that, I have Richard Gillespie, Deputy Director of the infrastructure and Operations for questions.

Questions. But did you have any brief comments?

I don't have any additional comments, but. I'm free to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, sir. LAO? No. Department of Finance?

Josh Woodmer, Salis Department of Finance. Nothing to add, but happy to answer any questions.

Okay. Nice to see you, Josh. Did we see you last week, ma'am? Okay, great. Thank you for being here. Senator Durazo. Any questions? Okay. All I can say is, you know, radios are an integral part of your work, you know, obviously, so that's kind of like a no brainer. We gotta take care of it.

So thank you for being here to assist, but we have no further questions on that matter. With that, thank you for your participation, for your time. We will be submitting. Ms.

Mendoza, since you were here for much of the presentations, there'll be several questions that will be coming to you and also to the Secretary if you could, to the best of your ability. Please have those responses to us as soon as possible, but certainly way before May revise because we do have to make some very important decisions.

With that, the public may comment on any of the issues on the agenda to ensure that everyone has had a chance to be heard. Please limit your comments to one minute. Thank you. And let's begin. And thank you, Senator.

Thank you for your patience, you all for staying here and participating and listening and we will make sure everyone does get copies of questions that you asked.

Thank you very much. Danica Rodarmel on behalf of Transformative Programming Works, the Grip Training Institute and Initiate Justice I want to appreciate all of the discussion about rehabilitative programming that happened today and also I do want to acknowledge that CDCR has been working to ensure that the budget cuts aren't impacting programming and visitation.

There have been issues here and there, but they have been improving and we have seen their efforts to make sure that they aren't impeding on those really important activities.

I also heard the Secretary's goal of ensuring that people have access to two activities a day and want to uplift and highlight that community based rehabilitative programming is one key way of achieving that goal. Community based organizations programming is cheaper than a lot of the rest of the CDCR programming.

It's proven to be effective at reducing recidivism rates and it also improves the environment within the institutions. So really encourage the Legislature to continue to fund the Right grant which has really helped to expand and sustain community based rehabilitative programming in the last few years. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Natasha Minsker, Smart Justice California in strong support of the Right grant program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Glenn Backes for the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. We share the Chair's concerns that there's great budget uncertainty due to the chaotic behavior of the Trump Administration and the cost of rebuilding Los Angeles.

We support investments in education, health and welfare in our communities and it's self evident that the billions poured into CDCR are not available for those purposes. Ella Baker center strongly supports programming inside and outside the walls, supporting people on parole and finding work, housing and support for their mental, emotional and physical health.

We support funding to families, those people most committed to and most important to rehabilitation and reintegration. Finally, we support efforts to identify people who are suitable for parole in order to reduce the population of the prisons. And we support permanent closure of the decrepit and dangerous prisons, especially those subject to fire, flood and heat emergencies. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Dax Proctor, Californians United for Responsible Budget and Constituent of Senate District 26. Thank you for agendizing today the state's practice of warm shutdowns or prison deactivations. I'd like to raise that. The cost of this practice is staggering.

Between 2021 and 2024, the four deactivated prisons alone have cost taxpayers over $300 million to maintain in warm shutdown mode. I'm sure we can all think of several social services facing cuts right now that urgently need the money more than empty prisons.

We urge this Committee to seize on the opportunity to eliminate wasteful prison spending like expediting the sale of empty prisons. That could make space for us to invest in other important sectors that serve all Californians. You know, we understand the need to recognize the dignity of people incarcerated inside prisons.

But applying all of the reforms and interventions discussed here today at all 31 state prisons is completely unsustainable due to the astronomical cost to implement. So is the plan then that some prisons will get access to updates while others remain overcrowded, underfunded and dangerous? Is CDCR picking winners and losers? Deciding who deserves safety and dignity?

What about the $20 billion in deferred maintenance and repair costs already identified across the prison system? It's exceedingly clear prison facility consolidation must be included as a Central part of CDCR's near and long term plans. Prison rehabilitative services, public safety and consolidation of California's carceral footprint can and must exist together at the same time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Members of the Subcommitee Committee. My name is Tana Opliger. I represent California's United for Responsible Budget coalition of over 100 organizations across California. And over the last two weeks, our community has submitted over 2,000 letters to various subcommittees raising some of the following points.

As noted today, CDCR has realized only about half of the anticipated ongoing savings named in the 2024 Budget Act. And if the state is to achieve necessary ongoing savings, we know the corrections has to carry its weight and reduce excess prison capacity. We understand, as was noted today, the need to decrease density within our prisons.

But addressing overcrowding through simple single selling risks additional billions of dollars of state spending without addressing the systemic harms of incarceration. So if we're really trying to emulate a California model, we would be addressing overcrowding through decarceration and sentencing reform, not massive expansion projects.

We would be looking to close prisons that are severely impacted by deathly heat and wildfires like Sea DRC in Norco, whose local government is actually in support of its prison closing, not spending billions on cooling for buildings that are falling apart otherwise.

And lastly, we need two permanently closed prisons that are currently in warm shutdown that have cost the state $300 million since they were deactivated. Decarceration and prison closure are budget solutions and humanitarian necessities. Thank you.

Hi Noran Abalail. On behalf of Transformative Programming Works, also known as CPW, we strongly urge the Legislature to support the Right grant 3.0, which provides funding for community based in prison rehabilitative programs. We know these programs work. They reduce recidivism rates, enhance public safety, and reduce state spending in the long term.

And as CDCR's numbers show, that their average recidivism rate is 41%, but these programs reduce them down to 21%, effectively cutting the recidivism rate down in half. Thank you.

Several of you mentioned that program. How do you spell that? Right Grant?

R, I, G, H, T Grant. That's it.

Okay, thank you. Thank you. Having heard from all the Members of the public, are there any additional questions for myself? No. Thank you. To all the individuals who participated today in public testimony.

If you were not able to testify today, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee or visit our website. Your comments and suggestions are important to us and we want to include your testimony in the official record. Thank you everyone for your participation. We have concluded the agenda for today's hearing.

I want to especially thank our budget staff, Nora, who's doing an amazing job getting us through these basic components of information we need to review prior to the budget decision. And with that being said, the Senate Budget Subcommitee Number five on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, labor and Transportation is hereby adjourned.

And thanks for our great services staff and our officers who watch over us too as well. Thanks for your patience today.