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 now come to order. Good morning. First of all, we're going to start off by saying a special happy birthday to our colleague, Senator Durazo. May you have many more years. Many more. And prosperous and healthy at that as well. Yes.

So we have a special day here, and we, of course, have important issues before us. We're holding our Committee hearings here in the capital. I ask that all Members of the Subcommitee be present in room 112 so we can establish a quorum and begin our hearing, which we now are doing today.

We are hearing from the Office of the State of the Public Defender and the Department of Justice, covering issues ranging from firearm regulations to indigent defense. Colleagues, before we begin, does anyone have anything they'd like to add? Seeing none, let's establish our quorum. Consultant, would you please call the roll? Senators Richardson. Present. Durazzo. Here. Saarto.

Here.

Wah. The consultant notes ACORN has been established. Let's start with our first issue with the State Public Defenders Office. We have Galit Lipa. We also have Anita Lee from the Legislative Analyst Office. Thank you for all of your work.

And Anthony Franzoia and Mark Jimenez from the Department of Finance, who will also be joining us for all the issues on the agenda today. Today. Ms. Lipa, you can go ahead.

To be with you here this morning, as requested, I'm just going to give a very brief overview of our work. The Office of the State Public Defender is an independent agency. We have two primary mandates for first, our lawyers represent people on appeals, primarily those sentenced to death.

As you know, California has a very broad death penalty statute, and we have 575 people sentenced to death in our state, with more being added each year. We know that across the country, over 200 people have been exonerated from death sentences, and that across California, there have been systemic issues with the application of the death penalty.

So the legal proceedings that take place after a conviction are incredibly important to ensure both. Excuse me. That people aren't wrongfully sentenced or incarcerated and to increase trust in our legal system. The cases that OSPD works on are incredibly complex and. And multifaceted. Our lawyers are true experts on California criminal law.

We obviously use that expertise to advocate for our clients, but we also share it with attorneys across the state. We file amicus briefs to develop the law, hold moot courts for attorneys, and provide technical assistance to policymakers when appropriate. Our second set of responsibilities is a newer set.

Starting in about 2021, we were tasked with providing training and assistance to public defenders and public defender systems across the state. Unlike in most states in California, each county both designs and funds their own public defense system without any oversight mechanism. So, as you can imagine, there is tremendous variation in the public defender systems and their funding.

And 24 counties and public defenders in California do not have institutional public defender systems. So OSPD works with county administrators and local policymakers, particularly in small and rural counties, to educate and support their provision of public defense. We also provide free and high quality trainings to lawyers and do some analysis and publication work around public defense systems.

The last thing I will touch on is our Racial justice act work. This is really work at the intersection of both of our mandates. When AB256 passed, which made the Racial justice act retroactive, it had a rolling implementation and it first became. It was first implemented for people who had capital sentences.

So OSPD class and so OSPD started doing a significant amount of retroactive RJA work, including collecting data and developing expertise in this area of the law, which many people weren't interacting with yet. As RJA implementation has expanded to more groups, our agency has become a resource and training hub for attorneys. And we've also helped build resources for.

For the many people without counsel who have evidence of racial bias in their case and are trying to understand how to bring effective claims when there's no lawyer to do it on their behalf. And it's actually as a result of that work that we've had, frankly, more than a tenfold, a really significant increase in CPRA requests.

And we're grateful for the Administration support of our workload bcp so. So I'll leave it there. If there's questions, I'm happy to answer them. If not, we're always available.

Thank you, Legislative. Thank you, Department of Finance. All right, thank you. Any Members with questions? Mr. Rozzo? Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

With. Could you. Are you providing. Is the state Public defender's office providing guidance to county public defenders around Prop 3?

So we are working to assess how and what we can provide other than trainings on legal issues, which is something that we do just to that point. I will say that, you know, we know that we, our office knows that public defenders are uniquely situated to help their clients access drug treatment and mental health services services.

They're in relationships of trust and relationships of confidentiality. But what most of them need is more hours in the day as more people are incarcerated to have those conversations and to do that work. So we're assessing what services we can provide short of that, but also give.

Us guidance as to what more is needed.

Yes, yes. And we are always happy to liaise as to what is on that front and we will do so.

Great. Thank you. And with regards to, are you providing guidance on the issue of immigration defense as that issue comes up, do you have the expertise to address that? So for that, for the county.

Excuse me. Yes, Understood. So for the actual immigration law, we partner with experts in immigration law to provide trainings in terms of ensuring that there is access to immigration law as required under Padilla and various other court rulings. We work with counties to encourage and explain and give them the resources to where they can access those resources.

Okay. I know you have a difficult job on the issue of resources. The amount of money funding that public defender get compared to our district attorneys or prosecution is quite significant. So any comments in that or anything that we could do to be more helpful to your mission.

So California is one of the only states in the country where the state does not Fund public defense in a regular way. We encourage consideration of that in every budget season, of course. And we do, you know, and we do work to provide, especially again in the smaller and rural counties where that funding is often incredibly imbalanced.

We do work to provide training and resources and support. Support to try to enrich the services that they are able to provide at the county level from our agency.

Okay. Well, thank you for all you do.

Thank you.

I have just a couple questions. The proposal notes that there are a significant number of requests around data that might be relevant for Racial justice act claims. Sentencing should be consistent statewide regardless to a location where someone is being, I guess, considered.

Also, it shouldn't have regards to race or other factors that shouldn't be relevant when we talk about justice. What data does your office have on sentencing and is any of it publicly available without a PRA public records request?

So we do collect sentencing data from a variety of sources. Sources CDCR, various counties. We do make some of it public, but we're working to increase that availability.

I will say most of the requests we get are from folks who are incarcerated who have limited access to online resources and who also have limited access to printing out the resources which. Printing out the information which they use for their. For their filings.

So it doesn't entirely solve the problem from the requests we get to make it available online.

So where would I find the information online?

I can share that information with you. I'm happy to. I will say we generally make it available to the Department defense communities and to attorneys But I'm happy to share that information with you.

Okay, thank you. Also, can you provide an update on the indigent Defense Improvement Division and the activities your office is undertaking in that area?

Yes. So the indigent Defense Improvement Division has two major programs. One is training, one is capacity building. Our training program provides both live in person and online training trainings to defense attorneys and team Members, so social workers and investigators across the state.

We have also recently begun a program specifically around care Court and around helping counties work with their care courts and with building healthy and productive care courts. On our capacity building side, we work with counties. Most recently, we've worked.

We've worked with several counties without public defenders, again, mostly small and rural, with their boards of supervisors and with their policymakers to interview all of the stakeholders in their public defense, in their criminal legal system, assess how they can improve their systems, and work with them to understand where they can seek funding and how they could just make some changes with the funding they already have to create more efficient and effective systems for their constituents.

And what training do you find needed in regard to indigent Defense Improvement Division?

So, you know, the criminal law is an ever evolving matter, as you all know. Laws are created, it seems like sometimes every day. And for lawyers to use those laws, they just need constant information. There's also an increase in the kinds of things that public defenders are expected to do.

They're expected to have different kinds of conversations with their clients than even I was expected to have when I was starting as a lawyer. They're expected to understand social work, to understand investigations, to understand. Understand mental health, to work in collaborative courts. Those are not skills that are necessarily taught in law school.

And those are all the types of skills that we try to develop. Everything from working with your client, interviewing your client, to obviously trials, but also the sort of collaborate courts and mental health issues that come up.

And have you seen an increase within this particular division over the last few years?

So this is a brand new division. It started up in 2021. We really didn't staff up until 2022. We have added our care court expert in recent years, in the last year. So we're really just starting with it. But our activities have grown exponentially given that we are now starting.

So if you could share that data with us with the Committee, it'd be helpful.

Glad to.

Okay, thank you for your testimony. We'll now go to issue number two, which is the Department overview and efficiency reductions. We'll start with DOJ with Chris Ryan, chief of the division of Operations and Ashley Hart, Assistant Director of fiscal operations. Mr. Ryan.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Appreciate the opportunity to present our budget today and want to thank you. Ashley Harp is going to cover our departmental overview and then we have staff from DOJ here to answer questions throughout the agenda. So with that I'll turn it to Ashley. Thanks.

Great, thank you. Good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee, my name is Ashley Harp, Assistant Director of Fiscal Operations within the California Department of Justice. The Governor's proposed budget for the Department of Justice is comprised of approximately $1.3 billion, which is approximately 40% General Fund and 60% special funds.

The Department's special funds are a blend of fees for service, enforcement actions and settlement funds. The department's 6,000 plus employees are working across the state to safeguard Californians from harm, protection, promote community safety, preserve California's natural resources, enforce civil rights laws, and help victims of identity theft, mortgage related fraud, illegal business practices and other consumer crimes.

The Governor's proposed budget for the Department includes 31 budget proposals totaling 122 positions and $35.6 million, of which 21 proposals totaling 24 positions and 6.0 are related to recently enacted legislation.

We appreciate the opportunity to participate in today's hearing and myself and Chris Ryan, Chief of Operations as well as program experts are available to answer any questions on DOJ's budget.

Thank you Members. Any questions? Okay. Mr. Razo.

Yeah. This is issue two.

Yes. Thank you very much. I want to ask. So it's my understanding your, your resources are from special funds. A majority of your resources are from special funds such as the Tenant Protection Fund.

The California, the, the tenant Protection Fund. I don't believe we have an appropriation from that Fund directly.

Senator Rosa, Anthony Franzoia with Department of Finance. If you're referring to the appropriation, I think it was Maybe in the 2023 Budget act for tenant protection work. That comes from the Unfair Competition Law Fund, I believe.

Okay, Correct. And I just, you know, either. High. Points or in General get back to me, but if you could give me an update on the efforts to keep tenants safe from unlawful evictions. What effort and what resources have gone into that?

And it's especially critical I raise it because in the aftermath of the Los Angeles fires, there's been an impact on people even beyond the area of the wildfires and it's having an impact on housing and housing is made available or not made available.

So because of that, I know your role is really important for tenants rights and really want to know overall. Right. An update on what how it's going to keep tenants safe from these unlawful evictions?

Yeah, that's a very important issue for the Department as well, and we'd love to put together a summary for you, if that's all right, in collaboration with our Legal Services Program program and send you over some additional information on the status of that workload.

Yes, thank you. And the second is an Update on implementing SB731, a Bill that I authored regarding clearing record clearance. Again, just an update on where we stand with that.

All right. Similarly, we'd be happy to put together a summary for you of the status of that workload.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

And I was remiss in referring to our lao's office. Did you have any comments now in our Department of Finance? Okay, I had just a couple questions. Which special funds are proposed for reductions pursuant to the control sections?

My understanding is Department of Finance is going to speak to those issues at this point in time.

Chair Richardson, as the agenda notes, there are the associated dollars and positions that were identified in the Jan. 10 letter that the Department of Finance put out are still accurate for both control section 4.05 and 4.12. The Administration doesn't expect large changes to these numbers.

Of course, there may be changes on the margins as the Department of Finance is working with all State departments to make the final numbers, which we expect to release in the near future. So at this point, we don't have specific programmatic information to share about the reductions, but we're hoping to release that in the near future.

Okay. If you could get it to the Committee, though, as soon as possible, so as all that information comes out, we can use it in with our review of the May revise. Is there a reason why these special funds are being reduced rather than the General Fund?

I would say on one hand, of course, we'll be providing more information, but I think, and DOJ can correct me if I'm wrong, this is what was feasible to reduce within DOJ's budget while also avoiding adverse programmatic impacts. So, of course, the focus was the General Fund.

But in General, the Department of Finance was also looking, and the governor's office was looking for efficiencies overall in government. So that includes special funds.

Okay. Well, to the best, that we could also be looking at the General Fund is helpful because we're going to, as we all know, going to need every single diamond penny that we can accumulate. All right. With that, then, we've concluded issue number two, and we'll go on to issue number three, which is firearms workload.

We'll start with Mr. Ryan and Ms. Harp again. And who would like to go first this time?

I'd have Ashley Harp take the lead on this one. We have a brief overview of the fireworks.

Maybe Ashley should be the Director.

Thank you, madam.

I'm just teasing. Understood. I don't want to start a bunch of trouble. I realize she does finance in your overall. I'm just just messing with you. How to have a little fun here, right? Absolutely.

All right, Ms. Harp. Thank you. Madam Chair. Ashley Harp, Department of Justice.

The Governor's Budget proposes 19.2 million in 2526, which includes 18.6 million General Fund and 640,000 from various special funds, declining to 6.4 million ongoing, which is 5.8 mil million General Fund and 519,000 from the fingerprint fees account in 202728 ongoing to support 11 budget proposals related to DOJ's firearms workload.

Included in these firearms proposals are requested resources which are necessary to support the Department's critical mandated workloads, such as our firearms clearance section, which conducts firearms eligibility background checks necessary for public safety and preventing prohibited persons from obtaining firearms.

Our concealed carry weapon program, which was recently impacted by decisions at the Supreme Court and again in January 2025 by the US District Court.

Additionally, the Department of Justice is requesting necessary funding and resources needed to continue the ongoing effort to modernize the Department's firearms IT systems, along with various proposals to address new or expanded workloads resulting from recent legislative changes. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss these proposals with the Committee and myself.

Chief Ryan from the Division of Operations, along with Terrence Bell from our Bureau of Firearms, are available to address questions as needed.

Thank you. Any questions or comments from LAO? Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Anita Lee with the LAO. We ultimately raise no concerns with the proposals because they are to enact recently implemented legislation or to deal with increased workload.

However, as you heard from DOJ and also reflected in your agenda, the Governor's Budget is proposing predominantly General Fund to support these proposals. And I think one of the things that we wanted to mention was, you know, most of these General Fund costs could statutorily be supported by regulatory fees in the state's special funds.

However, the special funds fiscally can't support them for various reasons, including, as you can imagine, potential insolvency. So an example of that is the Dross Special Account, which is one of those special funds, which is private, probably one of the more versatile funds that already provides tens of millions of dollars to support this workload.

And that Fund, absent any changes, kind of where we stand today, looks like it could face insolvency as early as 2728. And so this really actually raises broader concerns for how we Fund this workload moving into the future, particularly what portion of the workload is supported by the special Fund regulatory fees versus the General Fund.

And in looking at this, it's you have increased costs coming down the line and some additional cost pressures. A really good example of that is that IT project that the Department mentioned, Fitsum, that would replace 17 existing firearm and ammunition databases and systems that is expected to require several $100.0 million in the coming years to complete.

And so that's something that you will want to keep in mind, particularly related to the state's multi year deficits, where our capacity for new General Fund commitments are constrained without reducing other existing programs.

And so to address these broader concerns, we do recommend the Legislature direct DOJ to submit a potential framework by January of 2020, by January 2025, for determining what workload should be supported by fee revenue. And that would occur after they examine their existing and, you know, future workload needs. Existing processes is a statute and case law.

And that framework should include key information such as clear explanations for how specific workloads should be funded, appropriate fee levels and how they were calculated, as well as any recommendations for clarifying statutory changes. The Legislature could then use that framework to inform its future actions, which could include aligning workload with appropriate Fund source.

That includes, for example, determining what fee levels the Legislature would be comfortable with, which could be higher or lower than what is recommended by DOJ.

To the extent that revenues are less than the costs, the Legislature would still be better equipped to determine what portion should be shifted to the General Fund at the expense of its other budget priorities, or whether you can reduce the cost of the workload to avoid those budgetary trade offs, such as through statutory or other changes.

And so really we're recommending this framework to you because I think we're seeing quite a bit of inconsistency and kind of uncertainty in terms of how we Fund this workload moving forward. So really briefly, through 2018-19, the Bureau of Firearms workload was funded by special Fund regulatory fees entirely.

Since that point, despite a sizable increase, a fee increase in 2019, solvency issues have led to an increasing amount of General Fund being requested and provided to support this workload. And for 2526, to give you an idea, about half of the Bureau of Firearms workload will be provided projected to be supported by the General Fund.

And so that's led to inconsistencies in terms of how we pay for similar or even the same type of project. So an example of that is that fitsome it project. In 202324 we used the Dross special account to pay for costs.

In 2425, we use the General Fund for 2526 we're again looking at the General Fund. And so that's inconsistency right there. On top of that, we would be remiss if we did not mention that the legal landscape related to what level of regulatory fee is constitutionally allowable is also in flux.

And so this recommended framework would ideally help cut through and help the Legislature navigate this inconsistency and uncertainty so that you're more in moving forward, you're moving forward in a more deliberative manner in terms of how you pay for this workload. Thank you. Happy to answer questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Any comments from Department of Finance?

Anthony Franzoid, Department of Finance I would just say that we are aware of the LAO's recommendations. We don't have any specific comment one way or another at this time, but we're reviewing internally here at Department of Finance and then also with the Department of Justice.

But I think we would also acknowledge the fact that the funding that's related to Dross has been quite complicated in recent years, as the Leo mentioned.

Thank you. Any Members questions or comments? Mr. Oza?

Ms. Lee, you were mentioning that between 2018 and 19 it was all done. It was financed by fees through 2018-19. Correct. And so since 2019, the amount of General Fund has increased. Yes.

And what would you attribute that There was a policy choice. So one thing. So one is a policy choice. So APPS enforcement teams, which this Committee has heard about, there was a decision to shift that to the General Fund. But a big portion as well is solvency issues.

When you look at the condition of the special Fund and you look at the cost that are coming in, there are concerns related to the amount of revenue and the Legislature has the ability to change the fee levels. There are those legal issues, you know, the, the legal concerns to keep in mind.

But it's also your policy choice in terms of what fee levels you are comfortable with. So it's a combination of both those issues in terms of policy change and just fiscal, the fiscal condition of the Fund in terms of how much revenues are coming in and what your costs are.

There was our legislative policies that changed the direction.

I think really Apps is to make up.

I mean, we should be having, we should be getting enough through fees to pay for itself. Right. So it not. Not from our General Fund.

Sure. So let me break that into kind of two pieces. So one is, I think there was clear direction in Budget Committee discussions and in conversations with the Administration that Apps would move to the General Fund for various reasons, that was kind of a clear, distinct choice.

Separate from that, then going to your second question, the other part of your question, Senator Durazzo. There are departments just generally in state government that we wholly Fund via licensing, regulatory revenues. A very good example of that is the Department of Consumer Affairs.

Pretty much their entire budget is supported by the, you know, fee revenue related to firearm work. You can support them through regulatory fees. You do have the additional constitutional right to bear arms.

And I think that that is kind of the additional factor that the Legislature needs to consider as you're thinking about policies, what feed level is comfortable, you're comfortable with, et cetera. And then when you look at the cost side in terms of what are the specific tasks that are being tasked with.

So like, for example, there are background checks that are happening, but you also have IT projects that are being maintained. And so then it becomes a question for the Legislature in terms of which chunk of costs you think should be supported by regulatory freeze versus the General Fund.

Once you make that decision, you can also make further decisions about, you know, how you temporarily, on a one time basis, deal with certain influxes in cost. So for example, with that big IT project, if you decide how you want to pay for that, it's obviously a big cost kind of coming in all in a couple years.

But we have different tools available to us in terms of how we deal with that. Like, you know, for example, we could do a loan with repayment, et cetera. You do have tools. Once you make that decision, hopefully that answers your question.

Okay, so is that, I guess my question to you all is, is that process that Ms. Lee just described, are you going through that to figure out the fees and the General Fund and what we could do? Because we don't want to keep doing this year after year if the fees aren't paying for the services?

Thank you, Senator Durazzo, Chris Ryan with the Department of Justice. And I think this is a recommendation that has just come out in this budget cycle. There has been quite a few conversations over the years. You know, each time we've gone through the budget process.

And I would just say that to the extent there are fee increases, it increases the potential risk or litigation activities for those people who would be paying those fees. So everything that the LAO has described has been our experience as well.

You know, the different points in time where there have been decisions about General Fund or more fees has happened through the budget process.

We generally support the idea of this framework, but I think as we unpack this, there's a lot of complicated issues and a lot of things that have to be done or vetted between now and January of 26. As I understand it, the recommendation is to come back to the Legislature next year.

January of 2026, approximately Jan.10, I think, is the date I've seen. So it will be part of next year's budget discussions. And we just wanted to flag that. There's a lot of different issues here that have to be unpacked and addressed.

If it was something that could have been done in previous years, we definitely would have done that. But it's been a very collaborative effort over the last few years. And I would point out to the chart in the agenda here201112 you can see the revenue and the expenditures.

This has been an issue that's ebbed in flow as to whether the funds can pay for these services or afford these expenditures.

And over the years, there have been increases or there's been adjustments to do more General Fund because the funds were not capable of supporting the level of work that's associated with the expectations that come through the legislative or statutory process.

So generally speaking, to answer your question, yes, we want to do that and we want to work with the LAO and the Administration to have more clear direction in the future so that we're not going into these situations where we are, you know, insolvent in a couple of years.

And that's starting to change our ability to follow through on the legislations that's been passed. So hopefully that provides you some insight as to what we're working with.

Yes, thank you.

Since you pointed that out. So since 2019, we've noticed a pretty significant difference in the amount of change General funds and fees. So that's six years now that we've been going through that. We don't want to keep going through that without a very serious conversation and decision making because we're battling on General Fund needs now.

We don't need more money to be taken out when fees could be raised. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Senator Durazo.

I have a follow up question of Ms. Durazo. I certainly support the LAO's recommendation to request the information from you. My only request though is going to be that we'll probably request it sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, I when I came here in January, I was told we were going to have a light January and February and that suddenly went completely out of the window with the fires and many other things that we're now facing.

So I would just ask that between the LAO's office, Department of Finance, and yourselves to begin to think about what would be a reasonable level. I certainly get, and Mr. Seyarto might be a little surprised to hear me say this, but we certainly don't want, I get it.

We don't want the fee so high that people decide to do off market purchases and that certainly, you know, is something we have to consider. So we don't want it too high, but we certainly don't want it where we're bearing the cost that certainly we can't afford. So if you could really work with us to give us a range that you think would not be deterrent to the public to actually follow the legal process, but would still give us relief in the cost of these programs.

Because as Ms. Durazo said, you know, we have a lot of people in groups and programs that are pulling and are going to need help. And you know, I get the constitutional concern. We don't want it so expensive that people can't afford to have what's their legal right to have. And so we get that. So if you could help us get to that reasonable number that you think could be helpful, we'd really appreciate it. Yes. Mr. Seyarto.

A little bit on your conversation. In the past couple of years, we've had several pieces of legislation that kind of eat into just what she's saying, is it drives people that would normally buy their stuff here, including sales tax revenue stuff, and it drives them out. Do you guys have tracking to figure out?

Because a lot of these programs you're talking about have been added in based on the same fee that we were hoping to collect. But if that fee goes down and we add programs, we wind up with the deficit that you're talking about. So are you guys following that to see if there is a trend where people are being driven to alternative methods of obtaining their firearms either out of state or on the under market?

Yeah. Thank you for the question. Chris Ryan, Department of Justice. There's potentially some folks in the audience who might be able to assist with this from the Firearms Division, but I think what we'd like to do is get back to you with that information.

What I understand you're asking is has there been an increase in ghost guns or an increase in people going out of state or are they purchasing firearms that aren't tracked in the system somehow? Are we seeing an increase in those activities? Right. And we'll look into that and we'll work with the staff. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, everyone. That will conclude our issue number three. And we'll now move to issue number four, which is the implementation of legislation. We will continue with Mr. Ryan and Ms. Harp. Should I defer to Ms. Harp first?

I'll go with this one, Chair, Madam Chair. And my understanding of this issue as it relates to an overview from the LAO, unless you would specifically like us to walk through each piece of legislation, my understanding is that the framework was to talk about some of the bills that we had not necessarily reported on. But I defer to you on how you want us to proceed.

Ms. Lee, would you like to go first?

Madam Chair, happy to do so. So before you on this issue item, there are budget change proposals for 13 BCPs to implement legislation that totals 3 million in 25-26 and 2.7 declining to $2.7 million ongoing. In our review, we generally didn't have concerns ultimately with the proposals. We did want to flag for the Committee, though, that five out of the 13 budget change proposals were for bills that when they were going through the policy process did not include a specific fiscal impact for DOJ or were keyed as non-fiscal.

So as part of your discussion on this item, you could consider having DOJ talk a little bit about their existing processes and timeframes for providing information to the Legislature to inform the policy and appropriations process, as well as how that then aligns with the budget requests that you get and the information that comes in through the budget process. And based on that, you can determine whether you think it's sufficient for the Legislature to be getting timely, accurate, and consistent information to inform your decision making as part of the policy and budget making process. Thank you.

After this morning's floor session, I'd like to describe that maybe a little differently and say transparency is in order. And I think Ms. Lee and the LAO bring up a very important point that, when we're making decisions, we're making decisions on if we support something, what is going to be the impact potentially to something else.

So having timely and accurate information, it's really not fair to us to have us voting on things that say no fiscal impact when in fact it is going to cost us millions of dollars or many more millions than what we projected. So with that, if you'd like to respond and then we can go to Department of Finance as well.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Chris Ryan, Department of Justice. We understand the issue and the importance of that information as you're making those decisions, whether it's appropriations or budgets. The Department of Justice processes over 500 bills annually and we have five that are before you today for discussion purposes. Two of those bills we understand were keyed non-fiscal.

And as we understand the process that keyed non-fiscal is something that happens between Approps and the floor process. We do have fiscal estimates that were provided as part of the end of session process or that were communicated. We do have three bills where we did not report. And so those three bills are the ones I think that you're expressing that concern about. Those three bills are related to the special fund, the unfair competition law, and the bill analyses cost for the total, the 3 total was almost $1 million.

And so we are working on our internal processes to report more timely and to make sure that we meet the expectations of the Appropriation Committee. When we do have some of these bills that make their way through the process, and if we find ourselves looking at an enactment of a bill once it's been signed and we get to the budget process, we are raising our hand and asking for resources so that we can implement the bill that passed through the process.

Part of the pressure that we're feeling at the Department is with the reductions that have gone through that we don't necessarily have the ability to absorb some of these. The two bills that I talked about earlier that are non or keyed non-fiscal, they were minor in that they were one position several $100,000 associated with those bills.

And so we wanted to make sure we raised our hand so that we had the opportunity to implement the bill as it was chaptered and signed and enacted. So again, we apologize for that and we understand the importance of the information that's needed. So I'll leave it at that.

Thank you. Yes, I can't stress enough, although I can sympathize, you know, with 500 bills to process since I sit on both Budget and Appropriations, try processing thousands of bills. So, you know, again, thank you for understanding what our concern is and acknowledging that.

But really it does have to change because what happens is if you wait until after the legislation is enacted, then we're stuck with these changes now that have occurred in the budget that we can't fulfill. And so we're, you know, now you're a part of, you know, of us creating a problem. So with that, were there any comments with the Department of Finance? No. Any comments from Members? Yes, Mr. Seyarto.

You knew I would, huh? You know, sitting on Budget and Appropriations the last couple of years, this is some of the subject matter that has come up time and again where we ask how can there be no fiscal impact to a bill that we're looking at and yet we're told there isn't. And it's not just your analysis, it's Committee analysis and all of that together. And so going forward, that's something that's really important to us. A lot of us do understand the budget process and we understand fiscal finance in the public sector.

So we know there's costs and when we're told they're not or a budget comes in so late and, you know, you get a gut and amend bill or something like that or a trailer bill, it comes in so late that we don't have the time and you don't have the time to properly give us the amount that it's going to cost us. Because a lot of times the cost benefit can't be done if you don't know the cost. And that's all I ask. Thank you.

Ms. Durazo.

Yeah, I just, I'd like to see, you know, keyed as no fiscal more often on my bills, but not on everybody else's. And that's what happens right in the middle of all of this. So I think you heard the concerns. We kind of almost, we also see the other end, which is this is going to cost $39 million. And you're going, what? That's like only two more people. How could that cost $39 million? So anyway, it's the sort of thing that we appreciate and we're required. I mean, you're required or we're required to look at that for our bill. So thank you. Didn't want to add to the pile on.

Yeah, not at all. And we appreciate the feedback. Thank you.

And then I have one remaining question. Some of the proposals that are before you have resources for workloads that doesn't seem to be tied to a specific bill. For example, an extra position for a bill that has no specific DOJ duties or overtime for fingerprinting without any explanation. It seems possible that these resources are needed in general, but why are they being tied to specific bills? Meaning are you just tying it to a bill because you want money to be added to the budget or if, in fact, you know, these are legitimate requests?

Yeah, it can speak to the overtime estimates. In working with staff over the last couple of days, we've identified what we think could be an error in an assumption on two bills, and it's less than $5,000 on each one. We're going to work with the Department of Finance to make those adjustments.

But we did, through our process of getting ready for the hearing and through the questions from the staff, we did identify two errors in our assumptions. So we'll do that. And we appreciate the feedback that you're sharing with us. For each bill, just to speak to your other part of the question.

For each bill, we do go through and identify what we believe is the workload that's going to show up as a result of these changes in law. And we do make assumptions. Sometimes the workload does show up as we've planned, or we expect it, and sometimes it doesn't.

So what we're attempting to do is identify the resources needed to meet the workload. And in some cases, if it doesn't show up, there's the possibility it doesn't. And that's part of the back and forth and the feedback and the budget development process. So we appreciate, again, the questions.

I feel like our team is open to those questions. And when we find that there are concerns about our assumptions, we address those and we work with the staff. So hopefully that answers your question. And we do appreciate the concerns and the feedback.

Thank you. With that, that concludes issue number four. And now we'll go to issue number five, which is DNA Identification Fund backfill. We'll start with Mr. Ryan and Ms. Harp again. Do you have an order?

Madam Chair, we would like to bring our good friend Barry Miller to this conversation. He's our Forensic Scientist and runs our labs for the Department of Justice. And I will step to the back row.

You can stay and he can...

Okay, Barry. Yeah.

Calling for a lifeline.

Right? Absolutely. Thank you. And we'll put him up front, if that's okay. Okay.

Hello, sir.

Hello.

Welcome.

This is on, right?

Yes, sir.

All right. Barry Miller with the Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services. And I appreciate the opportunity to testify in front of you, Madam Chair, and all the Committee Members. Right now, I'm just here to answer some questions on this, as my understanding is that the LAO had provided some information related to our issue. So I was going to ask if Ms. Lee wanted to testify.

Ms. Lee?

Okay. Thank you so, so much. So briefly, the Governor's Budget is proposing an ongoing General Fund backfill beginning in 26-27 for the DNA Identification Fund, which is used to support the operations of the Bureau of Forensic Services. The backfill that is currently in place for 25-26 would remain unchanged. So you're really thinking about ongoing as of 26-27.

And so from our review, we are recommending that the Legislature reject the Governor's proposal for the ongoing backfill beginning in 26-27 and instead implement a new cost sharing funding structure to support the Bureau's operations. Because as I mentioned, the existing backfill for 25-26 would remain unchanged.

The Department would have sufficient resources to maintain its operations while this new funding structure was implemented. And similarly, users would have the opportunity to adapt accordingly. So to achieve this new funding structure, we would recommend the Legislature take two particular actions.

The first recommended action would be for the Legislature to require all users of the Bureau's services to be required to partially support its operations beginning in 26-27. This would permanently address the insolvency in the DNA Identification Fund, which is one of the issues that is underlying this proposal.

It would ensure that there were sufficient resources to maintain legislatively desired service levels. And then finally, it would minimize the impact on the General Fund. And as we discussed on kind of the other issues, because of the state's multi-year deficits, your capacity for ongoing General Fund commitments will likely come at the expense of reductions in other existing state programs.

And so we really think that sharing support for these services, rather than having the state pay for all of it as it currently does, is a more appropriate reflection of the shared responsibility and the importance at both the state and local level of these types of services to law enforcement investigation and prosecutorial responsibilities.

Having also that commitment, you know, partial contribution, we also believe would provide a little bit of more incentive for users to think about what kinds of workload is being prioritized and submitted for processing. And that would help ensure that any monies that the state provides to support the Bureau's operations are used in a cost effective manner.

So to flesh out the details of this cost sharing structure, our final recommended action is for the Legislature to direct DOJ to submit a plan for calculating how much users would be paying by October of 2025 to then allow for your consideration of it as part of the 26-27 budget.

As part of that direction, the Legislature would provide guidance on how much of the Bureau's operational costs, 1/2, 1/3, for example, should be supported by these user payments. DOJ would still have the flexibility in developing this plan to determine exactly how to structure that, you know, what the specific amounts are. They can do that after getting feedback from stakeholders and users as well as considering other factors.

So as an example of that, users could be required to pay more or less depending on the specific type of service being requested, maybe the speed of service, or even the size of agency, kind of recognizing the fact that we have some much larger agencies versus much smaller agencies. And so with that, happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Any comments from Department of Finance?

Anthony Franzoia, Department of Finance. I think in general the Administration is opposed to the LAO's recommendations. I think it's our opinion that charging counties for the use of services from the Bureau of Forensic Services may cause counties to prioritize sending certain evidence in a way that could impact, could have a negative impact to access to justice at that local level. I think we just see it as, of course, it is setting a price signal. We just, I think, see it from a different perspective.

And then charging local governments as well as state entities for the use of BFS services could lessen the need for the General Fund. But then it's a trade off. It's shifting those costs to local governments. And I think we are also concerned that that could have an impact on smaller counties. Of course your bigger counties may have a little more slack in their budgets to pay for these services, but it's could be the potential that smaller rural counties don't and, again, that causes impacts to their budgets at that local level.

I just think too if you're charging a flat fee, again, that's regressive for smaller counties, if it's some sort of variable fee either for the type of service or maybe it's grouped by small, medium, large counties. I think it the, it's the Administration's perspective that it gets into this territory where not only is it not necessarily equitable, but again, it's the intent that counties don't have to withhold or prioritize evidence that gets to BFS.

I think the state would prefer that all of that gets sent and that there's kind of no negative impacts in that sense. I could go on, but I think that gives the main point across. And of course you also have Mr. Miller here who can talk maybe in a little bit more detail about the experience with counties and sending evidence.

Would the Department be open to any, even a modest, was there ever a discussion about maybe not recouping the full expense expense, but at least a portion thereof?

We haven't had those conversations specifically about the LAO's current proposal. I don't know if those conversations have happened in the past because this isn't a new insolvency that the DNA ID Fund is facing, so I can't speak to that. But at least based on the LAO's current proposal, we haven't discussed any type of fee at this point in time.

Okay. Mr. Miller, did you have some comments to chime in?

I do, Madam Chair. And so first of all, again, thank you, Madam Chair Members, for for allowing me to be here to talk about the great work that the Bureau of Forensic Services does throughout the state. I'm very, I tell the story and every time I tell it, it doesn't get old because I'm very proud of everything that they do. And as the Department of Finance brought up, we do provide services to almost all of the less or more rural areas that don't generally have access to forensic services like the larger areas do. And that's by intent.

When the Bureau was regionalized and formed in 1972, the state had recognized that there was an inequity in access to the services that are provided through the analysis of evidence and informing the justice system for that. This, this proposal has been brought up several times and it's been looked at and vetted over the past three decades.

We, we have done analysis of what it would take to charge local agencies showing exactly how much it would cost each one of those agencies for the services that we do provide. We've sent a report to the Legislature regarding our analysis of fee for service models throughout the world that our research center in the Department of Justice performed the analysis on and showed that it is largely a rejected model across the, internationally.

And there was a report from the grand jury in San Diego when San Diego County was looking at charging agencies where they said that it would result in inequities and those taxpayer dollars should be... The same taxpayers pay those taxes from the small areas and the larger areas.

The larger areas chose to keep their laboratories when the state regionalized in the early 70s. They were offered to join the state system and they chose not to. And that's fine that they didn't, but they knew they were going to be maintaining the cost of those services for themselves.

But that doesn't mean that the Department's Bureau of Forensic Services doesn't provide service to those counties. We have the California DNA Data Bank that is required to provide service to all 58 counties and maintain access to the Combined DNA Index System, as well as the Missing Persons DNA Program where we help work through identifying missing and unidentified persons across California and in the nation in some cases.

A couple of things I would like to speak to is I have heard over the years that this would incentivize local law enforcement to choose the evidence that they turn in. And I do take issue with that. And the reason is because we at the Bureau, as the scientific experts, are the ones that determine what the best evidence is in any case. And we, many times we're the ones that are in the field with these investigators choosing what to collect at those scenes or in those investigations.

And we don't just analyze everything that comes in to the Department of Justice Bureau of Forensic Services. We sit down and we talk about what we have the resources for and what would have the most impact with many of our client agencies in those regional areas.

I would prefer that they weren't incentivized to pick what evidence they wanted to send in because we might miss critical evidence in solving a crime. And we are the ones that look through these evidence sheets. We sit down in meetings with the investigators and decide what we can do for them.

That is not analyzing 700 items of evidence. It might just be that we pick three that now we find, in the circumstances of the situation, we find that that's the best evidence. So with that, I would just like to conclude that the mission, the purpose of this Bureau in providing those services to the locals, we are talking about cities and counties, even on a sliding scale, that don't have the ability to pay these fees that would be charged for them to get that access to the justice system.

And if we do start charging them, it also is going to interrupt very good working relationships that they have with these local agencies. And there's no requirement for them to pay these fees. In that analysis that the research center did in 1920, we looked at Mississippi.

Mississippi was trying to charge local agencies, and they were still running a deficit in collections. The alternative being that we just keep asking for them to pay it, but then have to come back to the Legislature to ask for money to fill whatever deficit we have because of that inability to pay. So that's kind of where we're coming from in trying to make sure that we continue to provide these critical services to the locals. And I'll leave it at that. I know I talked a long time, but I'm very proud of this work. So thank you.

Mr. Seyarto.

So not so many questions as more of a comment or it could turn into a question for LAO. I have a, I agree with what we're hearing from Finance and also our expert here. This is one of those issues when you're doing your budget that it's a California wide benefit and issue and therefore our taxpayer dollars. When we're talking about how we prioritize our dollars. Yeah, this is one of the things that we have to look at and decide whether this is worthwhile.

Because exactly what they're talking about is you can't wind up having areas in the state or communities or counties in the state where it's more lucrative to do your crime business because you have less of a chance of getting processed and caught than others. And so everything has to be balanced.

The only way for us to do that is use taxpayer dollars that we collect from everybody and use that to make it even. And so I'm not really an advocate of trying to raise fees on some or have user fees or anything like that based on use because then some people might be forced to make the decision of not using it when they really should be.

And that has implications across county lines because when we have DNA evidence on somebody that commits a crime in one county and then goes off into another county and then we can track that. And so I'm kind of, I'm pretty much okay with us having to augment the system to the extent that we need to have a robust program to ensure that we catch our criminals and make sure that they are held accountable for their actions.

Thank you, Mr. Seyarto. Ms. Durazo.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Right now, if I understand right, right now, it's not even in the sense of everybody gets all the services that they need. Right. I mean, so decisions are being made right now. I'm trying to understand because there's certain counties you provide services to and certain counties you don't. And then you provide some services which aren't exactly the same.

So I'm trying to understand right now what the decisions are that you have to make with the resources that you have. What are those factors that lead you to. It's, because it's not even, not every single county, not every gets exactly the same service. Is that right or am I got that?

If you're speaking to the state system specifically, every county gets access to every service that we have even if we have to move evidence from one laboratory to another based on our accreditation model. If there's a need, we fill that need for those services that we can provide.

If I might, to clarify...

You assist 12 counties that operate their own laboratories. Other services their laboratories lack. Anyway, it just sounds like it's different, not necessarily the same. If you could...

Yes, yes. Senator Durazo, I don't mean to interrupt the LAO. I thought I heard that she was asking to speak.

No, that was, I was chiming in just to help with Senator Durazo to clarify the question where you accurately read and you're picking up. I was just going to fill in that that was where you were going. So I apologize.

Well, no apology necessary. Do you want to add in so that that way when Mr. Miller answers the question, he can answer it accurately?

Sure. You know, I think as you're considering this item going to Senator Durazo's question, you do have 12 counties and eight cities that are operating their own labs. They are paying for that using their own dollars. They certainly can send things to state DOJ to process.

But I think when we looked at the underlying data, they don't send very much. And I think, in contrast, what you have is you have these other 46 counties where they are relying on DOJ. And I want to make, from the LAO perspective, want to kind of make it very clear. It's.

We do recognize the importance of DOJ in terms of providing these services. I think our concern is basically currently they're not paying anything, right. And so it, for us, it's, it's a shared responsibility. And so there is a role to, for the state to be, you know, putting up some money.

But in our recommendation, it's also kind of that other piece and in terms of, hey, please help us support these. And I think one of the key things as you're thinking about it is, if you look in your agenda on page 16, right. This is a chart that shows the revenue that's coming in.

It's another situation where revenues that support this fund, they're coming from criminal fine and fee revenues. We've had this discussion about how criminal fine and fee revenue for various, supporting various state and local funds are declining. And so you do have that trend. And so it's an issue and a question for how you deal with that sort of moving forward. And I think on this one, I think from our perspective and our analysis is that issue where there is a little bit of a shared responsibility.

You have local law enforcement, local prosecutors making decisions, and they're sending things to the state essentially to test. And I think we recognize the importance of that testing, I think, for us is just, well, hey, we are providing a service. We might have economies of scale, right, to do this work, and it might be cheaper and more effective, but help us pay for some of these. So hopefully that adds context to the question as well.

I just, I was asking because it might give us a clue as to what we could, you know, do considering the deficit, you know, that we're trying to address overall. So I don't want, obviously, none of us do, want to impact the justice that everybody deserves.

And so I appreciate all that work that you do, just trying to figure out, is it a place to go? It might be just temporarily, or it might be ongoing, but somewhere we've got to give. And then just final question. Is the services that you provide, are they different or include prosecutors and public defenders, or is that a different service? You know, do they get the same services? I guess, is the question.

So to answer that question, the scenario that I would provide is most, if not all evidence that we receive comes from some sort of an investigation. And the public defender's office doesn't usually engage a criminal investigation. It's usually our law enforcement partners that go out and engage in that.

But the service we provide is intended to be completely unbiased from the perspective of prosecution or defense. And so we're speaking to the evidence and the science. And so we see the service we provide as supporting the defense and the prosecution, because if the evidence shows that there's some sort of exonerating feature to it, we bring that up in our report to talk about the fact that, no, that was not found, and we will testify to that fact.

We have been called by the defense in some cases to testify when the prosecution didn't call us as a witness. And we have had examples of where we have had evidence that we analyzed from the Innocence Project, you know, 20 years later, where it led to an exoneration through the advances in DNA.

So the services we provide are intended to be agnostic from those different sides of the justice system and provide the information, but we also will work with any defense expert that wants to come in and view evidence that needs that release to them. And so we understand the nature of our justice system, but our job is to not be a party of one or the other, but it mostly comes in through them, Senator.

Yeah, I just want to make sure there's equal access here for people when they're charged with the crime, that they should have equal access. So we, we can continue the conversation, but that's my concern is that because overall prosecution has far more resources available to it compared to public defenders. That's just, that's just fact right now. And so I'm trying to see where is it that those that inequity exists so we could fix it. But thank you very much.

Absolutely.

Well, thank you, all of you. And that now concludes issue number five. We're going to move on to issue number six, which is the background investigations unit workload. And we will start with Mr. Ryan and Mr. Harp again, do you have another lifeline?

I do, Madam Chair. I appreciate that. So I'm going to have Ashley review the request, and then we have Chief Woolery from our Division of Law Enforcement who can speak to any of the questions and the operational items around the background unit. So, Ashley.

Chief, would you like to come forward? Thank you, sir. Okay. Ms. Harp.

Thank you. Madam Chair. Ashley Harp, Department of Justice. The proposed budget includes $1,000,000, which is comprised of 213,000 General Fund and 790,000 special fund in 2025-26, decreasing to 931,000, which is 197,000 General Fund and 734,000 special fund ongoing to support six additional special investigator positions to maintain the ongoing workload for the Division of Law Enforcement's Bureau, the Background Investigations Unit.

The requested resources are necessary to conduct statutorily mandated pre-employment investigations as required by the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, otherwise known as POST, for sworn positions. The POST requirements and DLE hiring guidelines have expanded over the years for these investigations, such as requiring a bias assessment and social media checks for all candidates.

And this coupled with a lack of sufficient staffing, has resulted in an unreasonable amount of lengthy background check processes that have hindered hiring efforts and the Department's ability to fulfill its mission timely and effectively. Myself along with Chief Woolery of the Division of Law Enforcement are available to assist any questions on this item.

Thank you. Ms. Lee, any comments? Department of Finance? No. Ms. Durazo, do you have any questions?

Well, I certainly support doing anything we can to expedite this. So additional resources I think would be important.

Ms. Harp, based upon the amount of resources that are being requested, what would be the decrease in delays that we could anticipate with it? And it's my understanding backgrounds investigations may take up to 12 weeks, and with that, unfortunately, sometimes people move on to other positions that they might have otherwise been interested in doing public service. So do we have any idea how the turnaround might be improved?

I will turn it over to Stephen Woolery on this item.

Yes, Chief.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, distinguished Senators on this panel. So we think that we can cut the time in half. We think that once these special investigators are on board and, you know, they've, their work is normalized, they understand what they're doing, they steady state, we think that that timeframe can be cut in half.

And do you have sufficient amount of officers to be able to do that work? Will more recruitment be required or it's just taking the folks that you have and providing more of that normalcy?

No, it's going to require some recruitment and advertisement. But the focus will be that these are dedicated full time investigators. So that, that's really the, the value add, which we don't currently have right now.

And if I were to do simple math, if we were trying to get that number closer to maybe, you know, two to four weeks versus six weeks, would the basic math apply or is there another number?

When you say, I don't...

Well, Ms. Harp presented a number. Maybe I should ask her. Ms. Harp, if based upon what the Chief has testified that with this allocation we could get to six weeks, because my understanding is currently it's about 12 weeks. So if we were trying to get to between 2 and 4 weeks, do you have any idea what that cost might be?

I'm, I would have to have Stephen speak to the specifics of the background investigations that are occurring. There may be some level of activities which, despite adding additional resources, could not get it down to a specific time period of two weeks. But I will hand it over to Chief Woolery.

So two weeks, it's, that's, you know, that's not realistic. Just because there's so many moving parts. Sometimes it takes us two weeks to assign the background investigation. Sometimes we are waiting for responses from you know, people that we've contacted for character witness information or we're trying to reach someone that maybe, maybe they're on vacation and we can't reach them. There's just nuances there that I think, to be on the safe side, we need to, you know, not consider two weeks, but maybe look into the maybe four to four to six week time frame.

Okay, that would be helpful. We certainly, as I said, I've heard from multiple agencies that the time it takes to get the background check certainly does impact in many cases sometimes when a person chooses to go to one department versus another.

So if we're going to do this, help and support anything you can do within your Department to get us within 30 days or close thereof would be really really helpful because we want to make sure we maintain all of the best and talented and, you know, best and brightest that are looking to join public service.

And that can be anywhere from childcare workers to even coaches, teachers now. There are so many positions, and I can understand, I'm sure the workload is quite intense. So we appreciate all of your work and look forward to helping you to complete it.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

All right, any other questions or comments? All right, seeing none. Thank you very much. That would conclude issue number six, and now we'll open it up to public comment. The public may comment on any of the issues on the agenda. To ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard, please limit your comments to one minute.

Thank you. And if there are any members of the public that would like to speak? Seeing none. Before we adjourn, you know, we did have some comments today on the floor session, and staff has been working so hard to give us all the background that we need. So when these important decisions come up. I will say, though, that certainly we're going to. And I did speak to Ms. Nora about this.

We're certainly going to need to, I think, have a Proposition 36 presentation at some point prior to final budget decisions because there is great interest amongst the Members of what are the impacts that we're seeing that are happening, what are the costs associated with it.

So any preparation that you can begin, I'm sure our staff will be contacting you. But just to give you a heads up, we certainly, I think, are going to need to have a very public hearing about what we're seeing that's happening thus far. With that being said, thank you to the Sergeants and everyone who assisted us today.

Thank you to all the individuals who participated in the 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 hearing records.

Thank you for everyone who for your participation. We have now concluded the agenda for today's hearing, and the Senate Budget Subcommittee Number 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor, and Transportation is adjourned.