Senate Standing Committee on Rules

All right, smooth as silk, everybody. We're going to get the meeting started in 30 seconds. Thank you again for your patience.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your patience once again. Welcome to the April 9th edition of the Senate Rules Committee. We're so appreciative that each and every one of you are here. I want to do some quick housekeeping. If it's all right with folks.

We're going to take up some administrative items before we get to the Governor. Appointees who are required to appear really appreciate everyone's patience.

Once we get through the administrative part of our agenda, which should only take about five minutes, we'll be welcoming, of course, one at a time, each of the Governor appointees required to appear first and foremost. Why don't we establish a quorum? Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Quorum has been established. Thank you so much. Ladies and gentlemen, we're now going to be moving through our administrative portion of today's agenda. There are three items under Governor Appointees 2d through F. Is there any discussion or debate?

Move the three items, D, E and. F.

We have a motion by Madam Vice Chair. Additional discussion or debate hearing. Seeing none. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

4 to 0 vote. Thank you so much. We're now going to be moving on to Bill referrals. Bill referrals. This is, personally, I think, Senator Laird, your favorite portion of today's agenda.

Oh, right up there with the closed session.

All right. Hey, see, there we go. This is item number three on today's agenda. Any discussion or debate under Bill referrals. Hot damn. All right, we have a motion by Madam Vice Chair. Any additional discussion or debate hearing? Seeing none. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

4-0 vote. We're going to keep the roll open and allow Mr. Jones to be able to add on. We're now going to be moving on to floor. Acknowledgments, this is items 4 through 7. Items 4 through 7. Any discussion or debate hearing? Seeing none. Do we have a motion to approve? Senator Caballero?

Senator Caballero has made the motion for floor. Acknowledgments. Items 4 through 7. Final discussion or debate from Committee hearing. Seeing none. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

That's a 4-0 vote. We're going to keep the roll open for Senator Jones. He apologizes. He's currently in the Insurance Committee. It's a busy day around the Capitol. He will be joining us here shortly. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we're now going to invite, and she is no stranger to the State Senate.

Let's invite Jennifer Troia to be able to come forward as she makes her way forward. We're going to talk a little bit about the run of show for Ms. Troia. Ms. Troia is here under Governor appointees looking for appointment as the Director of the Department of Social Services. And we want to take a moment to acknowledge Ms.

Troia for her incredible work on behalf of the people of California and of course her work here in the California State Senate, which has really helped establish her career. Am I right? Okay. See, there we go. Exactly. And that was not at all convincing. Thank you so much.

But so what we'd like to be able to do, Madam Director, is to be able to provide you with three minutes for an opening statement. During that time, we invite you to acknowledge family, friends who may be here with you, anyone who's watching online.

After that three minutes, what we're going to do is open it up for questions, comments, have any Members advance any concerns. After that, we'll open it up to the public for any discussion and comment. I do want to let folks know, and I apologize.

At 2:20 we'll need to step off the dias and I'll turn the Committee over to Madam Vice Chair without further ado, again, it's so wonderful to see you. The floor is yours. You have three minutes. I'll give you a 30 second prompt. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Mr. Pro Tem. And thank you for the opportunity to appear here today. I'm grateful to Governor Newsom and Secretary Johnson for my appointment and to this Committee for considering my confirmation.

I do want to start by acknowledging the support of my immediate and several extended families, including my husband, daughter and chosen sisters who are here with us in the room, as well as my daughter, sister and parents joining us online. I'm also thankful for the friends, colleagues, partners and people with lived experience who inspire me every day.

CDSS administers a wide range of programs. As someone who's dedicated more than 20 years of my career to these programs and as an adoptive parent through foster care, this work is deeply Personal to me in more than a decade of working for the Legislature.

As you referenced formative experience and five years at cdss, I'm proud of the ways that we and our partners have together innovated and invested in these programs. At the same time, I'm driven by an awareness of the progress we still need to make. For example, our safety net programs reduce poverty and our childcare programs benefit children's development.

And we have been increasing their enrollments together. In recent years, we reduced food insecurity by almost 25%. And yet 13% of Californians experience poverty and 11% food insecurity. Against the national tide, California has slowed the trend of the increasing numbers of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness. But too many Californians still experience homelessness or housing instability.

In partnership, we've also dramatically reduced the numbers of children removed from their parents and the numbers of foster youth who reside in congregate care. At the same time, too many foster youths still experience disruptions and disconnections that add trauma in these and in so many other areas.

I think what I'm trying to emphasize is that we are making tremendous progress and that I am eager to continue carrying out the department's mission so that all Californians can have their needs method the opportunity to thrive. So again, I thank you for your consideration and I'm happy to answer your questions.

Very grateful. Thank you so much. It's wonderful to see you in front of the Committee today. We're going to open it up for any questions, comments or concerns from the Committee. Well, hot day. Senator Laird, the floor is yours.

Thank you for the meeting. I really appreciated that and a chance to talk about things. And thanks for your willingness to serve in tough times in a tough assignment.

I thought I'd ask a couple of things, and one is, and we talked about it in the meeting, there's just been a constant challenge getting people to sign up for calfresh that are eligible. Talk about sort of what you've done and what you think you need to do to sort of meet that challenge.

Thank you so much for the question, Senator. Calfresh is regarded as one of the most effective tools we have to combat poverty and food insecurity. And so it is very much in our interest to ensure that all eligible people who are experiencing food insecurity have the relief of the resources that are available through the program.

It does provide about $1.1 billion in federally funded food benefits every month to. I think it's over 5.5 million Californians. Having said that, we are very Aware and have been working for a number of years to increase the enrollment of individuals who are eligible but not participating in the program. We have made tremendous progress in this area.

In 2020, the federal measures of participation indicated that we had 66% of eligible people participating in CalFresh, and in 2022, that number jumped to 81%. So even just in that couple of years, we saw a very large increase. Over the span of more than a decade, it's been an even larger increase.

A significant reason for that increase is that we've been engaged in very dedicated outreach efforts. We do Fund CalFresh outreach program, which leverages data and gives application assistance to targeted populations. So families with children, particularly those under 5, older adults over age 60, college students, and a few other targeted populations, we provide them with application assistance.

We make sure they understand the program eligibility, and we walk them through the process through the contractors who we give that funding to. Some of what we've identified is that there are opportunities to focus on particular populations in terms of bridging that gap of who remains eligible but not participating.

We've discovered, for example, that language access may be a significant issue because English speaking participants, our English speaking individuals, are participating at a significantly higher level than those who speak other languages. And so we are working to improve how we conduct a program in terms of language access.

We also have created some efforts to streamline the ability to both enroll and stay enrolled in the program. So an example is one of the populations we've seen a giant jump in terms of their participation is older adults. Part of that is because we changed eligibility for recipients of SSI SSP to become eligible.

Another part of that is that we created a dedicated application, an elderly Simplified application, esap, which was a way to focus and say for older adults who don't have any income, we don't need to ask as many questions or create as complex a process for both determining their initial or continuing eligibility.

And so streamlining the process for them has allowed them to access the program better. So we are doing a lot. We have seen significant increases in participation, and we have a ways to go, and we'll remain dedicated to making sure we can bridge that gap.

Well, I noted that the one statistic you mentioned actually was during the pandemic. So was there something we learned from the fact that so many people signed up during the pandemic?

It actually has been not only during the pandemic, it's really been the last six to 10 years that we've been increasing. So those were particular statistics I pulled out, but we've seen similar increases. The total increase over the last six. Six years was a 73% increase in participation.

Wow. Okay. And obviously, from what you said, you've learned a lot of things. And so focusing on the next segment, which is the hardest one, is probably out of those things you've learned, such as language access, anything else that you didn't mention that you've learned that really has helped you focus on the people.

That haven't signed up, There isn't anything else that I would point out immediately, but I will say that our researchers are working hard to try to answer that question for us. In terms of, are there parts of the state, are there different demographics? Is it certain households?

What can we learn and what can we learn from engaging with some of those individuals and talking to them to say, if they're not participating, is that a choice? Is that they aren't aware of the program? Is it that they don't prefer to participate, to really sort of dig deeper and understand what the gap is about? So that's part of what we're working to learn more about

Then the other. Thing we talked about or another thing we talked about. The other thing I'm going to ask about is your role in any programs for the unsheltered or the homeless, because I sort of believe there's a case to be made for better coordination among the agencies, but it's understanding what every individual agency does.

So what's within your purview, and how do you make sure that that's targeted and meeting the needs of the people you serve?

Thank you so much for the question. We have a couple of different and very important roles related to addressing housing insecurity and homelessness in California. Part of that is the operation of our safety net programs. So as it stands, the safety net programs are intended to support Californians to meet their most basic needs.

And of course, that is essential to being stably housed and having your needs met. So our safety net programs like CalWORKS and CalFresh are often utilized by people to pay down the expenses they have in their household, or in the case of CalWORKS, to literally pay their rent.

So that is a significant aspect of what we do and how it impacts trying to prevent homelessness.

That said, we also have a housing and homelessness division within the Department, and their purview is over a number of targeted, smaller, targeted programs that focus on a very particular vulnerable population in each instance and integrate housing and homelessness services with social services.

So an example that we actually began that was leadership of the Senate at the time when I was involved as staff was the housing and Disability Advocacy program. We discovered that there were a significant number of people who were receiving General assistance at the local level.

It was a smaller amount of a check than compared to the SSISSP federal program. And there were counties that were doing a good job of finding those folks and getting them application assistance to enroll in ssissp, which is a very complicated process.

When they were enrolled in ssissp, they had significantly more income on an ongoing basis, and it was actually enough in some instances to get them stably housed.

We created the housing and Disability advocacy program to increase the frequency with which the counties could engage in that activity and to pull people literally from unsheltered homelessness on the streets into stable housing.

And we have a very high success rate of getting them then approved for ssissp, which provides the ongoing income they need to support that housing.

So our other programs target specific populations, like older adults or who are involved with the APS system, adult protective services, or families who are involved with the Child Welfare Services system and are trying to reunify with their children. And stable housing is a key piece of that. Our programs have all been evaluated.

The State Auditor found that they were some of the most effective in terms of costs because we do have a high percentage of people who remain stably housed when they exit from our programs.

And I would say that I think that is because of that integration of the long term connection to social safety net services and social services supports in addition to the housing supports that we provide. So that targeted case management and expertise is really critical.

And it's part of what we try to share in coordination with all of our partners as we work together on these programs about the lessons we've learned and to learn from them about the lessons they've learned so we can be as effective as possible in a whole of government.

But the thing about it is that your partners all have different responsibilities. So somebody supposed to actually provide the housing, Somebody's doing health care, somebody's doing mental health outreach, and you do your piece and then try to coordinate with the rest of them. Is that really the way it works?

That is the way it works though, I think we. We do. I'm a Member of the Cal ICH Committee and we do spend time through that, that doing strategic planning altogether as leaders of all the different state departments and a variety of other partners to try to have very focused conversations about how all of our pieces fit together is a larger whole.

So yes, that is both my Responsibility to carry out our individual and targeted programs, but also to identify how they fit into the whole and to work in coordination with others who have those other responsibilities.

Okay, thank you very much. I really appreciate the response.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your comments to my colleague. I just have a question on the California and how you've been working to restructure the foster youth system. We had this item come up in budget sub 3 the other day and based on my memory it's been going on for several years.

They haven't spent all the money that has been allocated to them and they're still several years away from making sure the system is in place. The way technology changes, we might be outdated before foster youth are actually put into the system for continuum care.

From the time they get in, everybody who has a point of contact with them so that we can track who's been doing home visits, who's been mentoring, counseling, getting in the services that they need that still is not in place. Is there something you can do to.

I mean, I don't want to say hire somebody that can get the job done, but obviously the computer company that you've been working with for five years is not really making it happen fast enough and we've been paying for it.

It's over budget and over the time promise to deliver it to protect the these kids, some of the most vulnerable children in our society. And I just want to know your thoughts on that, how you can help facilitate that.

Thank you so much for the question, Senator. The child welfare system in the foster care system are certainly near and dear to my heart and the long term central to the career that I have had. The specific system you're referencing is called the CARES system. I assume that's what you mean.

So it's replacing a very antiquated Child Welfare Services automation system that we operate on now.

The new child welfare case management system is really intended to be significantly more modern, both to help us better protect the safety of children, but also to reduce duplicate data entry, to streamline the workflows, to really just make the system operate better, which is to the benefit of the workers in the system who need to use it and also to the benefit ultimately of the children and families who benefit from their time being freed up.

That CARES data system has been a long time coming and I appreciate the question. We are on the cusp of getting there. Version one of the system is scheduled to be live in 2026. So we are now Very close to that happening. It is a challenging system to stand up.

It is a complex system of all of child welfare for the entire state and a significant number of complicated federal requirements and a lot of interfaces with other systems.

And it has to go live all at once because you can't have child safety information in terms of crossing county lines take place in different schedules of times and one county not be able to access information they need about a child who may be under their care or moving between county lines.

So it is a complex process and we are much, much closer than we have ever been and really looking forward to having version one go live in 2026.

So thank you for that and I appreciate it. My understanding is supposed to go live in 2024. And last year they didn't spend $50 million, but it requested more money this year, but they still have access to that 50 million that they haven't spent to make the program work. Can you offer any information on that?

It is often challenging to try to identify the timing, as we have worked on the planning process, of exactly when certain needs are going to be met and when the contractors are going to hit certain milestones where the funding is going to be needed.

I realize that that is very frustrating because those funds are very important dollars that need to be utilized for this purpose and otherwise could have been used for another purpose. So we are very diligent in ensuring that what we are bringing forward to you is our best estimate of what we expect to spend this year.

I understand that the Legislative Analyst Office had some questions and we will continue to engage with them about the timelines that are here and whether there are any refinements that you all might seek that we could be open to having conversations about.

And it's my understanding it's an out of state contractor.

There are multiple different contractors that we work with on the system. It's not just one single contractor. Many of them are large national companies. We also have a management for the project through the Office of Technology and Systems Integration. So there's a sort of three pronged process. We have our contractors multiple.

We have the Office of Technology, Systems Integration and then we are the sponsors of the project.

Thank you.Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you. Madam Vice Chair. I'd like to see if there's any discussion or debate, any final discussion or debate, please. Senator Caballero.

I'm tempted to ask you about the computer system, but having gone through a difficult situation myself with contracts, I won't do that. I'm more interested in the kind of the outputs. And I'll leave it to the Subcommitee to get to the bottom of what's going on.

But could you talk a little bit about your experience on the Interagency Housing Council? And the reason I asked that question, just in terms of background, is that we have multiple departments that do housing.

And as a housing advocate and a true believer in building affordable housing, it's frustrating to me to see the plethora of different rules and different measurement tools that are used to determine whether the projects are actually successful.

And so what I'm interested in is the council, but also the outcomes that are measured because it's, you know, when you're here in the capital city and people got housed and then they were asked to leave because the money ran out, it's totally frustrating.

And so just seems to me that if we don't get a handle on creating some permanent housing, it's a vicious cycle and it's a false promise to the homeless that we're actually concerned about their best interests. So I think the Interagency Council was developed specifically for the homeless. But if you could talk a little bit about that, that'd be great.

I would be happy to. I'll take the second part of your question first in terms of outcomes of our programs, and then I'll come back to the council. So with respect to our programs, the Housing and Disability Advocacy program I referenced, we tend to measure its success by the percent of participants who exit to permanent housing.

So after they've completed the program, after a period of time, how long and how many of them stay housed. And with respect to that program, 50% of the participants exited to permanent housing and 77% of them received approvals for the disability benefits applications.

So by comparison, nationally, when people apply for disability benefits, the success rate is closer to 35%. And our experience is 77% given the assistance of the program in our Home Safe program.

So this is where we have older adults who are connected to the adult protective services system, 62% of them exit to permanent housing, 76% were still housed when we've followed up in the research six months later. By comparison, in the local homelessness response systems, it's generally around 35% of people who remain permanently housed after an intervention.

And so our percentages are higher. Bringing families home, which is families that are experienced in the child welfare system and trying to reunify with their children. We have 54% of participants exiting to permanent housing again compared to that 35%. And importantly, the families that are trying to reunify typically experience about a 29% rate of reunification.

If they're participating in our Bringing Families Home program and receiving stable housing, 49% of them actually reunify with their children. So we'd see in each of our programs a really significant jump in effectiveness measured by the long term stability of their housing. And then the final one I'll mention is our Community Care expansion program.

And so in this, we're really looking at measuring more of the number of beds that we've created or preserved because that's more capital funding. So we have over 33,000 beds that were produced or contracted to be produced through our expansion funding.

And on the preservation side, we have close to 2,500 beds that we've been able to sustain through that funding. And those are for SSISSP applicants to remain stably housed. So those are some of the measures that I hope provide some examples for you of the data that we track.

It's pretty good numbers. I mean, I appreciate that because it's frustrating when we try to ask for local information. You just, there's nothing they can tell you how many people they serviced. But did they stay housed? How long did they stay housed? Did they get a job? What's the details?

We just don't get much in that regard, so it's frustrating. Then one other question. I appreciate you being here today to answer these questions. And there have been issues with our county partners with placement.

And a number of the counties have been so backlogged that they were the children that had been removed from their homes were not in a safe or secure situation.

Some staying in the office during the time that they were removed, not having the services that they needed, going to school, being able to take showers, those kinds of things. What is, and I think the issue there was with placement opportunities in the county.

What do we do to provide some backup services so that children are not placed in that situation and social workers are not in that situation as well. If you've got no place to place them, then it's really difficult.

Thank you so much for the question. We do care extraordinarily deeply about our obligations to the children and youth we've removed from their families. And we have really the utmost duty to provide for their safety and their well being.

We have over the years created a number of significant reforms to the foster care system that are focused on ensuring that children and youth remain connected to family, ideally their families, and to, we call it the kin first approach to keep them connected to their families and if they can't be with their families to make sure they're cared for in another loving, stable, family based setting with all the supports and services that that family will need and the youth will need to be successful.

Having said that, we've had the experience in recent years and really actually through all of my career where there is a subset of youth who have particularly complex needs and those needs have been unmet so far.

And we have been working to really increase how we support them and what we know about how to help make sure that they are connected to those stable and loving families. We have created a variety of systems in the system of care approach.

So going back to the coordination and collaboration, there was an Assembly Bill at AB 2083 that created a new structure for us to do work with both at the state level and at the local level to create both memorandums of understanding and significant collaboration to identify what each system of education, Developmental Services, health, child welfare has to bring to bear and how we work together to coordinate to meet those youths needs. That has been incredibly essential.

And we are also engaging more with that whole team in technical assistance to the counties so the counties can call us in an individual case at the state level, bring their team Members from all of those systems to talk about what they are doing to serve an individual youth and receive advice, support, conversation, guidance from people in all of those systems at the state level as well to talk about how to meet that individual youth needs.

Ideally before they get to the point where they are in such an unstable situation, which is really about identifying again who are those family Members that love them and who they love and what supports would they need to successfully take care of them.

I think for a long time we thought of building capacity in the foster care system as recruiting additional stranger families, as people sometimes refer to it. I think there's probably a better way to say it, but families who didn't know the child first.

But really where we have the greatest success is in recruiting the people who the child already knows and who and loves and feel safe with and making sure that they receive the supports and services that they need to help make that successful. So that's really been our focus.

In addition to the AB 2083 and coordinating work I was talking about for the systems of care. The other thing I would emphasize is that to further that work and ultimately address those issues upstream, we've created a Center for Excellence in Family Finding, Engagement and Support in partnership with UC Davis. And we have specific kinship sprints and accelerator projects.

We're doing with counties where we dig deep into the data of how their placements are looking in their county, what the greatest struggles they're having are, and get the help of researchers, people with lived experience and the state to all come together to talk about how to make improvements together. So it really is a collaborative effort, but I think that's where we have to focus.

I appreciate that. Thank you very much for your testimony here today. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Senator. I'd like to be able to see if there's any discussion or debate, any further discussion or debate with the Committee here seeing none. What we'd like to better do is open up public comment. We're going to welcome folks to be able to come to the podium.

We have received, I don't know, a book's worth of wonderful letters about Madam Director. So what we're going to request from those who would like to be able to speak today, if you could please state your first and last name, the organization and your position on the confirmation. The floor is yours. Nice to see you.

Good afternoon. My name is Kevin Aslanian. I'm with the Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organizations. And it's rare that we appear over here to support a government governor's appointee. Bet Jen is a nugget and we're grateful that we're able to support her. And thank you very much. Thank you so much. It's good to have you here.

It's good to see you.

Hey, good to see you. Good afternoon. Kim Lewis representing Aspirinet and the California Coalition for you. Pleased to support this appointment of Director Troia.

Thank you so much. It's good to see you. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Heather Harrison with the California Assisted Living Association. In strong support of Ms. Troia's appointment and confirmation. Her leadership and commitment to older adults and all vulnerable Californians. Thank you. Has really been long evident. So happy to support.

Thank you. Thank you for being here. Hi. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Kristin Power with the Alliance for Children's Rights. Pleased to support this confirmation. Particularly her engagement with lived experience of those in child welfare.

I love it. Thank you so much. Hey. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon, sir. My name is Jackie Thu-Huong Wong, the Executive Director of First Five California. Have worked with Jen for over 20 years. And just such an emotional appointment because she is the voice of children and families and communities. I've seen it on the ground. I've seen it in real life. And clearly a strong support. Thank you.

You're crying. We're all crying now. Oh, my gosh. Thank You. That was beautiful.

I'm Ann Quirk, policy attorney with Children's Law Center. I'm here today on behalf of CLC's Executive Director Leslie Heimoff and our entire. Organization to express our strong support of the appointment of Jennifer Troia. We've been fortunate to work alongside Ms. Troia her entire career and saw her when she was specifically an advocate for foster youth. And I'm just excited to be here. And urge your strong support.

Thank you so much. Beautiful words.

Susanna Kniffin with Children Now here. Very honored to support Jen after working with her for so many years. As so many of you. Just a great day.

Thank you so much. Appreciate you being here. Hey, good afternoon. Hey. Carlos Marquez. On behalf of the County Welfare Directors Association in strong support of the confirmation. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. Nice to see you.

Good afternoon. Andrew Cheyne from Grace and Child Poverty California. And strong support including no one is better suited to close those gaps in our safety net programs. Those are spoken to. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thank you so much. Hi, good afternoon.

Hi, good afternoon. Ofelia Medina with First 5 of LA. On behalf of over the half million children in LA County. We're here excited in support of appointment for Director Torkin. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. Good afternoon.

Hello. Gabby Davidson with the California. Association of Food Banks in strong support.

Hello. Rebecca Gonzales with the Western Center on Law and Poverty. Janet has worked with our organization for many years and we strongly support her.

Thank you so much. It's good to see you. Welcome. Where's the coffee?

Good afternoon. Tiffany Phan with Niemela Pappas and Associates on behalf of California Court Appointment Special Advocate Association or calcasa. Very much in support. Thank you. Thank you.

Tiffany. Tiffany and I just saw each other at the coffee shop a couple hours ago. So. There we go. Good afternoon.

Hi, good afternoon. Jennifer Snyder with Capital Advocacy here today on behalf of Jacobs and Cushman San Diego Food Bank. Just want to say that you know everything about Jennifer is just wonderful. She has been in our work with her. She's been responsive and incredibly compassionate about the work that she does on behalf of the Department.

This is a well deserved appointment. So we want to issue our strong support on behalf of our client. Thank you.

Beautiful words. Thank you so much. Hi, good afternoon. Nice to see you.

Good afternoon. Adrienne Shilton representing the California Alliance of Child and Family Services. And we represent organizations across the state that are serving our most vulnerable, our foster youth, our probation involved youth. We are proud to support this Confirmation today and Jen's commitment to this population is unmatched.

Thank you. Thank you, Adrienne. Appreciate you. Hi, good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Jennifer Rodriguez, Executive Director of the Youth Law center and Senator. Jennifer actually cut her teeth at the Youth Law center at the Equal justice work before she came to the Senate. So she established then that she's just. The champion of young people having love and opportunity in foster care. And we're so grateful for her willingness to lead.

Nice job. Thank you so much for being here. Hi, good afternoon.

Hi, good afternoon. Jessica Sankis on behalf of the California State Association of Counties in strong support of this confirmation. Jennifer Troia has demonstrated subject matter expertise and great collaboration and partnership with county governments for which we are very appreciative and thank you very much.

Appreciate you being here. Thank you so much.

Hi, good afternoon. Hi, good afternoon. Dr. Lawanda Wesley, Child Care Resource Center Director of Government Relations, Jen Troy. I just want to say I couldn't be more proud that you're doing this work integrating childcare and social services. And as a former foster youth like Jackie Wong, I'm touched. And so your work can change lives like it has changed minds so I can have a more trusted partner in the work. So thank you.

Nice job, Doctor. Thank you so much. We'd like to be able to see if there's anyone else who would like to be able to come forward if you could please come forward to the podium. This is going to be our last call. For those in support, if you could please come forward to the podium.

Seeing no one rise, we're now going to ask anyone who would like to be able to speak in opposition if you could please come forward at this time. Seeing no one rise, we're going to bring you back to Committee. Better see if someone would like to be able to offer a motion.

And we also welcome any addition, additional discussion, discussion or debate, I'd like to.

Move the confirmation of the full Senate Floor.

Sir, we have a motion by Madam Vice Chair seeing no additional debate. Madam Secretary, can you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

That's a 30 vote. We're going to keep this measure on call. Madam Director, Congratulations. Next step is the Senate fluor. We are very grateful and well deserved. Beautiful testimony today. Can we please give a round of applause? We're going to take a 32nd recess. 32nd recess. We're going to invite Miriam to be able to come forward.

Those who need to leave, please do so at this time. And again Madam Director, congratulations to each and every one of you who are here today. Director, thank you for your testimony. 30 seconds. And we'll be right back with.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to come back to the Rules Committee. After I introduce Madam Director, I'm going to need to be able to step out. We appreciate everyone being here and thank you, Madam Director, for your willingness to be so patient. I will do full disclosure.

I've known the Director since my time starting here in the Senate. She is one of the finest humans on earth, does incredible work each and every day. And I am showing my bias at the moment.

But Miriam, you are truly something special for the people of California and now in front of us for the Director of the Office of Tax Appeals. And she has has many of her gov and fi colleagues who have been with her throughout the years here in support of her.

Today we'd like to be able to talk about the run of show. We are going to provide you 3 minutes for your opening testimony. During that opening testimony, we invite you to acknowledge any family or friends who are with you or watching online.

After that, we're going to open it up for any questions, comments and any Committee Members who would like to be able to advance concerns. We'll then open it up for public comment. Again, Miriam, I think the world. I do not mean to be rude, to step out.

I am going to turn the gavel over to Madam Vice Chair. But you know I support you 110%. And again, I am absolutely out of protocol and I should not be speaking like this before we take a vote. But again, I also believe you need to disclose a bias and I have a strong bias.

So thank you for all your work. The floor is yours. You have three minutes. And Madam Vice Chair will let you know when you have 30 seconds left.

Wonderful. Thank you. Pro Tem Mcguire. Good afternoon, Members of the Rules Committee. Thank you so much for the opportunity to appear before you today. And I'd like to thank Governor Newsom for the honor of serving as Director of the Office of Tax Appeals.

I would like to first acknowledge my friends and family who are here today in person and watching online. My mother, Sakina is here in the room with us and my father and brothers are watching remotely.

I'm here today as a testament of the opportunities California has to offer its residents and my supportive family who made many sacrifices so I could obtain a higher education. I'm first generation and first to go to college as the eldest child.

And my siblings and I all received degrees from the University of California, all because my parents instilled the value of education in us from a very young age. Both of my parents have served the public.

My father is a former public servant and my mother who continues in her role and I'm proud to have followed in their footsteps by dedicating my career to public service as well.

I started by participating in a legislative clinic while in law school and by chance was placed in the Revenue and Taxation Committee, Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee by Professor Salerno. That is where I met, which I lovingly refer to now as my Legislative Tax Family. Who are here today in the audience?

Gail Miller, David Ruff and Colin Grinnell. And that placement is why I'm here today. Before you, I worked both in the Assembly and Senate in various positions, gaining friends, mentors, many who are here today, all while serving the people of California.

My last significant project was being a part of the working group to create both the Office of Tax Appeals and the California Department of Tax and Fee Administration. I never anticipated leaving the Legislature, but but was provided the opportunity in 2018 to serve as the Deputy Director of Legislation.

Implementation of legislation and working with the talented and dedicated staff at the Office of Tax Bills has been both challenging and rewarding.

Building a new Department is like working at a startup, which allows OTA to be agile in ways that other established departments cannot be, but also means when a new situation or issue arises, we have to work together to build a solution.

OTA is small in size, but big in impact, as it has published nearly 3,000 opinions as of this month online to provide guidance to taxpayers and stakeholders alike, has fulfilled its mission in being transparent by collecting and providing valuable data to the public, and has increased accessibility by partnering with the California Lawyers Association to provide pro Bono services to taxpayers.

All of this is possible because of the hard work and dedication of the amazing staff I'm privileged to work with every day. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you ma'am, for your service Director, for your service and thank you for your comments. You brought the big guns, the pro tem and Gail Miller. So you know you're getting out of here. Just saying we'll bring it back to the Committee for comments since this is just you and me, dude.

I will take the dude as a recognition. Once again, thank you for the meeting. I really appreciated the chance to talk and maybe to talk about a couple, ask about a couple of things we talked about. You've actually been at the Department from the first minutes. Speak about how that really will help you in this job and what challenges that presents to you in this job.

I think it helps. Like I said, I started even before technically the Department began because I was privileged enough to work on the legislation from concept idea and move it into actual implementation. And I think a huge advantage is when I came in, the govops wanted a seamless transition in the governor's office for taxpayers.

And so January 1, 2018 the doors opened for taxpayers to be able to have hearings and they did have hearings from month one for taxpayers so they'd have a seamless transition.

And so I was able to do everything from develop regulations with the regulation standard team from its inception, really work on policies and procedures, develop our technology, case management system that we utilize and move those things forward.

So I'm lucky in the sense that I've had my hands in everything that the Department and every program that they run. And so I'm very knowledgeable on the wide array of things OTA has done and has actually helped work.

But will that allow you to stand back and look at it and okay, this is what needs to, to be tinkered with?

Yes, I'm lucky that. Well, first, I think that we are very open to feedback from stakeholders at the Office of Tax Appeals. And so I really welcome that perspective, people actually utilizing our services, because I understand that when you're on the inside, sometimes you don't see it from the perspective of those that are actually engaging with you.

And so we ensure through things like our Advisory Committee, I also serve on the California Lawyers Association, both larger board in the taxation section, that I'm open to that feedback and make improvements or tweak things as needed when they are brought to our attention and bring that back to our staff.

You know, I'm never supposed to mention my previous job in front of the Vice Chair, but. Excuse me, the chair at the moment, as she's reminding me.

But one of the amusing moments in my that last job was when somebody would complain about the way something had been written and I would tell him I had authored the law that did that. Now you were working on setting this up.

Were there times since you've been there where you thought, why did we do it that way? Why was I not thinking of this when we were sort of writing the law to establish the Department?

Yes. So I get to blame myself. It makes it very convenient.

Is there one you're willing to talk about? Is there one of the ways that's true that you're willing to talk about?

I think from this experience it's really amazing anyone who has worked in this field in the Legislature, if they could go work in a Department and work on implementation. Because I think the Biggest thing is while you craft legislation and think you have contemplated everything that would occur or every situation that could occur, you can't. Right.

A statute is not specific enough. And so it leaves you a lot of room in the regulatory process and as you're actually working out the kinks. And so I think that that's the hardest thing about implementation, is that you think you've provided guidance.

And then when you're there on the other side, there were so many situations that were not contemplated as you looked at that language, especially as things evolved and things change and there are different trends. And beyond that, that legislation was passed in 2017.

Every single year, there are new tax laws that are being implemented and new programs, and we're getting appeals for those. And so it changes the dynamic from that initial year. And so you have to try to be as flexible as possible.

Great answer. And then one of the other things we talked about was sort of the actual appeals. Two things about them, but the first one is that some are remote and some are not. And how have you handled that? Or what did you learn from having to do it both ways?

So remote hearings are a blessing that came out of the pandemic. And although stakeholders were actually really resistant to having remote hearings, at the start of the pandemic, we actually had a long wait list. It is now our most popular option.

And remote hearings allow for taxpayers to have additional witnesses testify that are maybe all over the country. So it facilitates that without the need for travel. And as I told you in our meeting, I think the biggest challenge generally are technology issues that come up. Right. And that we can't because we're not physically there with them.

Our IT people cannot resolve all the time. So it leads sometimes to breaks or, you know, we have to go one on one with them offline to try to resolve that if their sound isn't working or they're having a video issue.

And we also discussed that an impediment, although it's great and you can have people sign on from all over the country, world if you need to. It also provides issues when there are a large amount of witnesses or translators. It can be harder to facilitate sometimes during remote hearings.

But at the same time, obviously it saves people time, money to not have to come into one of our three offices for their hearing. So everything is taxpayer driven, taxpayer choice. And so we allow the taxpayer to choose the avenue by which their appeal is resolved.

And the other thing to talk about in that, that we talked about and you just teased it up a little, was where There might be bias in the process and how you get at that. And.

And we talked about how you basically have access to a translator for almost any language in the universe, although there are certain ones where people I don't think are paying taxes. But how do you deal with the potential of bias and dealing with that in the process?

So it's something we take very seriously. We have training both. We've had training both in explicit implicit bias. We also, like I said, we keep the taxpayer at the center of our driving motivation in getting them through the appeals process. So allowing them to make the choices and drive their appeal through the process.

If they need extensions, deferrals, if they need to move their hearing date, we want to ensure that they have a process that they feel confident in, and they feel like that they've had an impartial hearing at the Office of Tax Appeals.

And I think that things like having a pool of tax experts and administrative law judges also drives against that and having a panel of three, because if you have any certain biases internally, obviously implicit biases are hard to catch.

You do have panel Members there, and there is robust review process that you go through for every single appeal, whether that appeal is, you know, $5 or that appeal is $100 million, you still go through that same review process. And so we have each other to lean on to ensure that every opinion is decided based on the law accurately.

Great. Thank you. I think we're lucky to have you. I look forward to supporting you.

Thank you, Senator. Thank you. Since Senator Jones just arrived, do you want to take some questions? Senator Jones, comments. Okay, so Senate Pro Tem had to step out, and so did Ms. Caballero. Again, no disrespect. They both have other committees that have to be taken care of. I just have a couple of questions.

I appreciate the question that you answered from my colleague, but I do want you to kind of restate it about OTA's steps to make. Avoid any perception of bias. And I loved what you said in my office about making sure the taxpayer had clear guidance on navigating this process, because not every taxpayer is.

You said the regulations change year after year after year, and some are very, you know, CPAs and things are involved in this process and get it. But the average taxpayer may not follow all the laws. It was, you know, legal last year, but not this year. But you always. You made a comment that you.

You always go above and beyond to make sure that the taxpayer can see clearly through the process. And so you just share that, and it makes You, I don't want to say appear real like as a, have a huge concern for those who are going through this process and may have some huge issues or hurdles.

And I love that. Not like other agencies obviously being small in a start up that a lot of times staff throw roadblocks for people and they do. You know, it's just like bureaucracy that continues. But everybody that we've had contact with says that your office is very, very, very easy to work with.

So if you would just elaborate for the public on that, I would appreciate it.

I would love to. I think some key things that we've been able to do that have helped provide access to taxpayers, especially those that are unfamiliar with the process and representing themselves, which is most people do represent themselves when they come before the Office of Tax Appeals is in our first year we created a one page appeal form, very simple form that has the essential information that we need to move your appeal forward.

You can always add to that later if you have more argument or evidence that you'd like to provide us. But it gets it started and it's very simple to fill out. Another thing is we have an ombudsperson. Our ombudsperson answers the phone live every single day.

If our ombudsperson is occupied, everyone gets a live callback generally within 24 hours. And same with our email inquiries. Because we are so small, we are able to handle that intake of calls. And a lot that we get is, you know, the process is very confusing as we have many agencies that are taxing authorities.

And so a lot of what we do is also just provide correct referrals to the other agencies as taxpayers need them as they're navigating the process. And the third is I touched on with Senator Laird is just this is a very taxpayer driven process.

And so they are able to drive the length of their appeal, how much, how much time they need for providing that argument and evidence.

And if they need to provide anything additional, we are very lenient with ensuring that they have that they feel like that they've made a full argument so that they can articulate their case to us.

Working with many agencies. That almost brought tears to my eyes when you said that in my office. I think you're nominated for the wrong position. You should lead the California Department of Government Efficiency and take care of our agencies that don't seem to have the same attitude as you.

But thank you very much, Senator Caballero, you just joined us. Do you have questions that you would like to ask?

Madam Vice Chair, I've had an opportunity. To look at her bio and I don't have any questions right now. I feel that she's adequately ready. Prepared? Yes. Prepared, yes. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

Any other comments from the dais? Seeing none. We'll open it up to public comment. If there are individuals here in support, please come to the microphone and state your name, position and support and a brief reason why.

Good afternoon, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Mark Ibele. I'm the former Director of the Office Tax Appeals. So I guess I'm speaking from Mark Ibele. I have worked with Myriam for 15 years, 15 some odd years, both in the Assembly and the Senate, and most recently at the Office of Tax Appeals.

And during that period of time, my appreciation of her intelligence, her knowledge, her collaborative approach to problem solving and her incredibly good judgment has only increased. I know that she will be an outstanding Director. I fully endorse her confirmation.

And she has that essential element that is important for every Director in the state and that is a good sense of humor and perspective. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Gail Miller. Happy belated birthday, Senator. And I'm here on behalf of myself, but really just with incredible deep pride. And I do want to acknowledge Myriam's mom, who is a total hero and has done a lot and inculcated in Myriam this deep sense of loyalty and friendship and devotion. You cannot ask for a better ally in the world than Myriam and a more honest person.

So the State of California is really, indeed, like you said, Senator, in really great hands. I think Miriam sees things clearly. She's fair. She's fair to her employees. And I think we all really, Myriam, stand on your shoulders in terms of providing excellent service and making the state better for all taxpayers. So I hope congratulations are not premature.

Ms. Miller, thank you very much. We know that she has been mentored lovely by you. And she takes that attitude because the person and the leader that you are.

Hi, my name is Michael Salerno. I'm a emeritus clinical Professor from UC San Francisco. San Francisco, formerly Hastings. Myriam was a student of mine years ago. She was incredible as a student and I've followed her career and I just have to echo the comments that the pro tem made.

I mean, she really is an exceptional appointee and has a great deal of talent and compassion. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. Welcome, sir.

David Ruff, Just speaking in my personal capacity and I just want to say I've known Marian for several years. She's incredibly smart. Incredibly hardworking, dedicated, unimpeachable character and integrity. But more importantly, she is just an incredibly great human being. So I'm very lucky that she is serving the State of California.

Thank you, sir. Yes, ma'am. Good morning or good afternoon.

My name is Denise Collins, and I'm. Part of the Case Management Division at OTA. And I'm. I'm so comfortable going to Miriam with questions and getting a floor answer in every way, shape or form. And I'm excited to see her do this and hopefully have her as my Director.

Thank you. Proven leadership. Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

I'm Oksana Jaffe. I am testifying on my own behalf as a California taxpayer and as a former colleague of Myriam. And I can talk about Myriam for a long time, but about her many wonderful talents and her impeachable character.

But I think that what stands out to me, and that sort of along the same lines, Senator Grove, of your comment, which is Myriam cares about every individual taxpayer. Doesn't matter how poor or rich. Important, unimportant. And she doesn't care about the amount of tax liability at stake. So I'm very proud of you, Myriam, and I know you will do great. You're a rising star in this.

Thank you. Thank you, ma'am. Seeing no other witnesses in support. Are there witnesses in opposition? I dare you. No, I'm teasing. If there are witnesses in opposition. I was just joking. Please come to microphone. Seeing none. I'll bring it back to the daisy.

I would be happy to move the confirmation of the Director and move it to the Senate Floor.

Thank you. Senator Laird, a motion is being made. Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Madam Judge, we will keep that roll open for the Senate pro tem to come back. He's conveyed how he feels and. But conveyor. Congratulations, and we look forward to supporting you on the floor.

Thank you so much for your time today.

If it's okay with everybody, we're going to lift the calls on the items that were. That were taken. In absence of other Members. Governor's appointments not required to appear. There was a motion. The current roll is 4-0.

[Roll Call]

Okay, next we have item three, which is reference of bills to committees. The current vote is four.

[Roll Call]

The next one we have is items four through seven. It's just floor acknowledgments. The current vote is four to zero.

[Roll Call]

And then the one that was missed, or I think, Two that were Mrs. Governor's appointees required to appear. Item one. Jenn Troia.Madam Secretary, please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Okay. Welcome back to the Rules Committee. We're going to continue with governor's appointees required to appear. Item 1C, the appointment of Heather Geldart as Deputy Director of Behavioral Health, Department of Healthcare Services. That's what it says.

Oh, that is incorrect.

Are you sure?

I think so. Chief Deputy Director. Yeah. Okay. What job am I applying for?

Okay. I apologize. Heather Geldart. Am I pronouncing your name correctly? Geldart. Geldart. Heather Geldart. The Director of Office of Oil Spill Prevention and Response. So. OSPR. Department of Fish and Wildlife. So it starts out, we'll give you three minutes to kind of introduce your family.

If you have family here, tell us a little bit about you, the confirmation process, and then we'll bring it back to the dais for questions. Thank you.

All right. Good afternoon, honorable Members of the Senate Rules Committee. I'd like to begin by sincerely thanking each of you for the opportunity to appear before you today and for the thoughtful conversations leading up to this hearing.

I deeply appreciate your commitment to strengthening California's resilience and environmental stewardship, and I'm truly honored by your consideration to serve in support of that mission. I also want to take a moment to recognize the many people whose support has brought me here today.

My husband, my friends and family, and the dedicated public servants of the Office of Spill Prevention and Response and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, both. In the room and online. Their steady support, collaboration, and confidence in my abilities have been instrumental in my professional growth and in leading me to this opportunity today.

As I stand before you today, it's with a profound sense of responsibility and pride in the work that lies ahead. My journey to this point has been shaped by over two decades of experience in emergency management, crisis response, and community resilience.

And it has been a privilege to return home to California, where I grew up to continue to serve my home state. Growing up on a ranch in Lincoln, I was raised to appreciate the state's unique landscape and natural resources. My family's dedication to public service and leadership has always been a fundamental pillar throughout my life.

From working in the public sector to running our own businesses, to leading 4H groups and coaching youth sports, my upbringing instilled in me a strong commitment to my community. It is this spirit of service that has guided me throughout my career.

From my early days in learning the incident command system when supporting the Coast Guard, to supporting the direction of multi agency coordination efforts during major disaster events, to include the devastating fires of 2018 and the impact of COVID pandemic here in California.

I'm proud to have been a part of those efforts and my return home to raise my children in the same community that provided me with so much opportunity and pride feels like a full circle moment.

Professionally, I've been fortunate enough to work across international, federal and state and local agencies, collaborating with diverse parties to improve preparedness and response capabilities. My experience also includes extensive work within the private sector and nonprofit organizations, reinforcing my ability to navigate the diverse partnerships that are essential to effective spill prevention and response.

Most recently, my time leading debris Recovery operations at CalRecycle have honed my skills in coordinating complex multi agency operations under pressure in this home state.

These experiences, coupled with my passion for California's future, have equipped me to take on the responsibilities of this position and to ensure that OSPA remains at the forefront of spill prevention and response both. In marine and inland environments. The heart of osper's success lies in the dedication and expertise of its over 200 public servants.

Under my leadership, OSPR will continue to build on its exceptional legacy of excellence, collaborating with local, state, tribal and federal partners to ensure our resources are deployed effectively when a crisis arise.

I recognize that California's energy landscape is evolving rapidly as we navigate meeting residential and national demand for oil while embracing renewable fuels and responding to emerging environmental challenges. OSPR will need to modernize its operations, embrace innovative technologies and stay ahead of new threats to our natural resources.

I will ensure that OSPR adapts to these changes and continues to uphold the mission of protecting our state's ecosystems while aiding industry to operate safely and in compliance with our regulations.

Within my tenure, OSPR will enhance our response capabilities to handle the unique challenges posed by renewable fuels while leveraging technology and data driven decision making to streamline our operations and improve prevention, preparedness and response tactics and impose regulatory compliance. We work tirelessly to safeguard the health of California's communities, wildlife and natural resources.

I am humbled to step into this leadership role at OSPR and I look forward to working alongside each of you to advance our shared commitment to A. Stronger and more resilient California. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you. Thank you Ma'am for your comments. We appreciate those. I'll bring it back to the dais for questions. No questions. Senator Caballero, thank you.

Thank you very much for being here today. Appreciate you and the position you have and that you would like to keep. Tell me how do you what's the prevention in oil spill? I mean I know there has to be A response once there's an oil spill. But what's the prevention that you do? Is it monitoring operations? Is it looking at the equipment that's used? Or is that something you hold the company responsible for?

So in regards to spill prevention, it's actually a pretty complex network of different agencies that hold the responsibility across the board, we partner with CalGEM, we partner with state lands with, excuse me, state fire marshal, and across that network we. Look at the different areas of prevention and compliance for ospr. Specifically, we ensure that every plan holder.

Has a plan, a contingency plan in preparation for a spill. We also ensure that they have the. Financial responsibility and means to Afford A. Spill if one were to occur and. Pay for the response and restoration activities that occur.

And then finally, we also have a contingent of our team that go around and do monitor transfers that occur over water activities within the port. So we have both a marine and. An inland kind of oil spill prevention specialist unit that goes around and makes. Sure that compliance is being upheld to. The standards that they submit it.

So while we are not the ones to inspect the pipelines, we are the. Ones to ensure that there is a. Plan in case the pipeline were to break.

And is that pipeline review, is that done by the company? Is that the company's responsibility or does, is there some other agency in the state that would go in and take a look at it as well?

So the state fire marshal is responsible for pipeline inspection. We will work with the, the plan holder to ensure that their contingency plan identifies the worst case spill scenario of where the most oil can come out. And what that would look like, and then also the financial responsibility around that.

So for us, we work with the plan holder to submit the plan, ensure. That it's compliant with our regs, and then we continue to check in and. Ensure that that compliance is upheld.

And then as a Deputy Director, what, what's your role in kind of managing all of that?

My role is to make sure that my team is doing their jobs, number one.

But number two, I think it's also to ensure that we work with industry to have a strong transparent relationship of what the expectation is for them to be prepared for them to conduct their prevention activities as well as work across the other state agencies that are responsible. For the prevention mission, for responsibility, spill response or for spill prevention.

So I will regularly work with state lands and state fire marshals to ensure if there's any kind of risk that it is starting to arise, we are aware we can increase our checks with them, we can double Check their different contingency plans, ensure their certificate of financial responsibility is current. And so we'll work together across those Agencies, I will work together across those agencies to make sure that mission is fulfilled.

And then finally, as we transition to non diesel fuel in the future, I'm assuming that your organization will be responsible for spill prevention of whatever biofuel gets chosen as the solution to greenhouse emitting greenhouse gas and to figuring out how it operates within the ports or within the coastal region.

Yeah, no, that's a great question. As renewable fuels become more and more. Prevalent within the state and the different entities that use them, it will be Osper's responsibility to make them comply with. The same regulations that we do with. Those that produce petroleum products. So they are required to participate in our drills and exercise program, our contingency.

And certificate of financial responsibility programs as well. But it's also, we're exploring the different impacts that that renewable fuel would have to our wildlife. We are conducting a study through our labs right now that looks how methanol and ethanol impact fur and feathers.

We're looking at different technology elements on how we would respond to a release into a body of state water. One of the things that I, that. I really challenged our team to look. At is how do we articulate or convey success in those instances? It's very easy to say with an oil spill.

We've collected this many gallons, we've saved this many species. When it comes to the different type of renewables, that's not as clear. You can't recover a lot of those materials. So it's conveying and communicating that success to external audiences when a spill may occur, as well as making sure that the impact is reduced as much as possible.

And then another question occurred to me is who would be responsible for doing the studies to determine the impact on waterways of. And I say this because the Scripps Institute, in discussions I've had with them, they're going to be moving to hydrogen as their source of energy for their boats, their ships.

And when we traveled, Senator Laird and I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Maersk and they've got a biofuel, which they declined to tell us exactly what it was, but they expect to be transitioning their fleet, their barges over to this biofuel and they're looking for partners.

In other words, if you produce it in your country, you're more likely to get the barges coming to your ports.

And I'm not sure there have been conversations with them about the fact that they come to our ports and when they switch over to this, whatever this fuel is, that we're going to need to understand its properties and spill potentials as well as whether there's the capability of actually producing it here locally.

Would that be through Fish and Wildlife or would that be another entity?

I think it's a complement of multiple entities. So one of the things that we work with state lands is initiating these studies of the impact not only to wildlife but also to the economy. That's, that is around the marine and the inland facilities that we have. Right.

So looking at renewables as a whole, I think it's a concerted effort amongst state agencies as well as federal agencies like Coast Guard to get that type of understanding of what those threats and impacts are. One example is looking at liquid nitrogen gas. That was something that came into our port recently.

It wouldn't have necessarily fallen under Osper's responsibility because it turns into a gas. Once it hits ambient temperature.

However, we were very involved with awareness, working with Coast Guard, working with our marine exchanges and working with the different interested parties to make sure that we were prepared in case something were to occur and we were able to support.

So I think it's when it comes to looking at this emerging market of renewable fuels, which is very exciting and there's a new one, it seems like every couple months coming to the forefront, you will have to work together across academia, across federal, across states to make sure we have that understanding. And that's something I think OSPR has proven to do very well.

That's great. Well, thank you very much for answering my questions.

I appreciate them. Thank you.

Thank you. I really appreciated our conversation. And to follow up, I think one of the things that made an impression on me in our conversation is this specific description that oil floats in the sheen and some of these modern fuels just immediately sink to the bottom.

So how, for the ones that sink to the bottom, how has that changed your response? Just given how traditional, how traditional the response has been to oil or gas.

I think the intent of the response remains the same. While the technology and tactics have to change. I think when we're looking at saving wildlife, when it comes to a methanol or an ethanol based fuel, it's not necessarily seeing them floating with some oil deposited on them.

It's going to have to be the oxygen that has been removed from the water to make sure that the mammals and the fish that are in there can breathe. It's going to be looking at our fur and feather study to see do they have the same impact and what does that rehabilitation work with?

And we work very closely with our partners at UC Davis in the Oiled Wildlife Care Network to make sure that we have those rehabilitation standards in place.

When we look at how a methanol or ethanol will hit some of our more sensitive environments, you know, it's, how do you prevent that when it's going to be coming from underneath, essentially, versus floating on top?

And again, it's going to have to be this exploratory effort towards technology and response tactics that that's going to have to result in trial and error. And we are taking full advantage of that with our Response Technology Branch. We host an event every few years with our private sector partners, our industry partners.

Our industry partners participate in many boards with us, and we are able to talk with them and look at what they're exploring and get insight on that.

And so right now, we don't have the answer quite yet, but we are making the lion's effort to make sure we find out what the answer is and that we are best suited to respond when those. When those spills occur.

Well, and over time, the mission changed from just sort of coastal to inland as well. Does that change the types of spills? Because we always think of an oil tanker off the coast, even though you said in our meeting you have three or four a day, and they might be really small and in different ways.

But what has having to do this inland as well as the coast done to your division?

It's expanded it, absolutely. And it's changed a lot of our prevention tactics. So, for example, when we go inland and we're looking for that compliance authority, I mean, there are wells across miles and miles that driving through with a vehicle makes absolutely no sense. So we use drones.

So we've changed a prevention observation tactic to using newer technology that can help us. I think it also changes how our Wildlife Branch approaches a spill response. Right.

So when you go and you're looking for impacted wildlife on an inland spill, they're burrowed in the ground, they're not floating on the beach, they're not on the top of the water. And so it's going and doing reconnaissance to explore that.

I think from an inland perspective with the spills, like I mentioned during our conversation, most of our spills are roadway spills that we respond to where the release has gone into a storm drain or, you know, a body of water that's right there.

And that can be just as devastating because the wildlife and the community that is dependent on that water. So I think it's it's, again, it goes back to.

The outputs are the same, the intent is the same, but it's the different types of tactics and technologies leveraged to get to what we're trying to accomplish in the protection of our communities and our wildlife.

And then, thank you for that. And we did talk about the fact that you do have the facility in Santa Cruz for Wildlife that I visited.

Really, you have a tough time because you're trying to be ready for spills and the spills don't happen in a major way, so you're doing all these other things to keep it up and running and meet the needs when you're not having the spills. But I was going to ask.

We talked a little bit about fee reform and then you also have a Chevron settlement. So how does that feed into sort of the funding and the operations of your division?

Yeah, so luckily, before my arrival, there was legislation passed that essentially updated our fee reform to essentially have a cost of living adjustment every few years. Since that was implemented, we've seen about a 1 cent increase, a little over 1 cent increase in the last five years.

So we're 1 cent over what, fo The uninitiated,

the last five years

No 1 cent. What is that in relation to ?

1 cent per barrel Excuse me. So it was originally, when the legislation was implemented, it was at 8.5 cents per barrel. It has now recently increased to 9.6 per barrel. Cents per barrel.

So with those fees, we actually leveraged the Department of Fee Administration to collect those for us, and then they will provide that money over to us to feed into our steady state, our Fund for conducting prevention, preparedness, these exploratory studies that are mandated in Lumberquin. And so those fees, as they increase, they keep us whole.

As the cost of doing business increases and as we've continued to expand inland and spend in our responsibilities. It's the same thing with renewables. It's an exploratory landscape that, you know, as we adjust to that, it may take investment. And luckily, our responsible parties are willing to pay those fees to be a part of that investment.

When it comes to the second part of your question on the Chevron settlement, the Chevron settlement actually occurred based on a series of spills that occurred over multiple years. It became to a point where it wasn't the spill itself that was causing the problem, it was the frequency of offenses and the occurrence in those.

And so our legal team essentially built the case over the last few years to go to Chevron and say there's at Least a little bit of negligence here or a lack of investment in infrastructure and maintaining your compliance with prevention and ensuring that you're able to operate safely.

And through that pursuit on a civil, civil, civil suit, we were able to settle with 7.5 million from the Chevron entity. And then we were able to put that into our Environmental Enhancement Fund, which funds restoration activities throughout the state. So we were able to award that money most recently with the environmental enhanced count.

And between the, the per barrel fee and the settlement, you're off the General Fund, right? You do not really receive any General Fund.

We receive there is our Laboratory receives about 1% of their budget from the General. I think 1 to 4% of their budget from the General Fund is extremely minimal and it supports a lot of the invasive species water, water quality lab and then our petroleum chemical lab.

Okay, well, thank you. I really appreciate . Senator Caballero went some of the places that I wanted to, but I think you're really on top of this and in a even handed way, which is required for this because it would be easy to go one way or another in, in these issues.

And your job is just to prevent and respond. And I appreciate that. So thank you for. Thank you for your willingness to serve.

I appreciate it. Thank you, Senator.

Thank you. Senator Laird, any other questions? Senator Jones,

Just a couple of maybe detailed questions. Your position is Chief Deputy Director. So do you work. Is there a Director of the office that you work directly for or you work. I see Mr. Bonham in the audience. Can you give us the hierarchy of the office?

I guess I work for Mr. Bonham.

Okay. All right. That's right. Great. And then I want to follow up on a couple of things that Senator Laird said. I just want to clear the record that you're not advocating for more oil spills. So up there at Santa Cruz. Right. I just want to make sure.

No, but I'm aware of who's sitting immediately to my right. So I'm going to have no more opinions on oil during this hearing.

So one other thing that Senator Laird mentioned and actually was one of my questions is is that accurate that there's three to four spills per day every day in California?

At least the ones that could potentially impact water. Yes.

OH, okay. That's interesting. So that was one of my questions. You have a very robust resume on management directing process in the case of these spills. When there is a spill, what is your position's responsibility on that day?

Depending on the size of the spill. Thank you for the question. It's Actually dependent on the size of the spill. My team is incredible with the amount of expertise and tenure that we have. I mean, we've had people serving over decades in their function.

And our field response teams are extremely capable at arriving on scene, assessing, and then our actual wardens come and serve as the state on scene coordinator. I have delegated that authority.

But when a spill occurs of significance, typically what I will do is I will ensure that we're being collaborative across the different state agencies and interested parties that need to be aware and need to participate.

I help problem solve when there are issues with some of our federal or state problems and coordinate that on the back end so that those first responders that are on scene can focus on containing and controlling the actual spill itself.

So from my personal and professional opinion, I am there to serve at my first responders to make sure that they don't get distracted from the mission at hand.

And your office is here in Sacramento?

It is over in West Sacramento.

Is there a size of a spill that would cause you to have to leave Sacramento and be on scene?

Statutorily, it's 100,000 gallons, but I'll probably go before that.

Gotcha. Okay, so you've been on the job since September, which is not a very long period of time. Have you had an opportunity to be in the field on one of these spills?

Unfortunately. I mean, fortunately and unfortunately I have not. I've been able to participate in a lot of drills. I think the most significant activity we've occurred has Boardman on the prevention and preparedness side with some of the activity in, in Santa Barbara. But from a spill response and perspective, is actually Stockton was probably the. The most active spill that I've participated in.

What was that? I'm not familiar with.

It was illegal dumping in Smith Canal.

Okay. Okay, great. I. I think that's. I think that's mostly everything I had for right now. Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you. Senator Jones, again, the pro tem is at another meeting. Again, not. No disrespect intended whatsoever, where he's trying very hard to get back to make sure he can ask questions and vote on the confirmation. In the meantime, you mentioned that you had a 200 Member staff.

So you have currently a 200 Member staff in the Department. 211, actually. 211. So roughly, yeah. So 211 staff Members. I guess my question is that, do you. Those response team individuals, are they cross training? Are they doing something other than response? Obviously we have an oil response in a bit. So is there cross training?

Is there Prevention measures. Are they all part of the same team in your Department?

So that's actually a great question. So our field response teams are divided amongst the northern, central and southern coast. However, we have a huge steady state function within the preparedness and prevention side. And preparedness is actually a huge lift administratively for our staff to include our drills and exercise teams.

So the different mission sets that we have to ensure compliance and preparedness is pretty robust. I think the response side of it is actually a smaller sliver of what we actually do to do the great work here in California. We also have, as Senator Laird suggested, we have facilities that conduct studies for otters.

We have one of the premier otter lab facilities in necropy studies in the country. We also have a petroleum chemical lab that conducts studies. We have response technology branch that looks at different applied technologies and goes and certifies different companies efforts for disbursements for technologies for different booms as those evolve.

So the breadth of work that we have at OSPR is actually very much steady state versus the spills that we have. Our spills are more warden and field response team focused where most of us sit in the outside of it, managing restoration activities, studies, preparedness activities and prevention activities.

So thank you very much for that. In some of your comments that you were making to my good colleague, the former Secretary of Natural Resources, you said that you had international and national crossover working with diverse agencies. And you also mentioned federal partners.

I'm in possession of a recent article where a Texas firm is getting ready to restart the Santa Barbara oil drilling, which will fall into your purview. And I guess I'm just going to be blunt.

I mean, if they do start that, you would have to make sure that the pipelines and everything are in place and safe and secure. Do you plan working with them? And I know there's other processes. I know the fire marshal, Mr. Blant has to approve stuff along with the Coastal Commission. And I know it's a process away, but just curious about your thoughts on drilling offshore in California.

Again, no, that's a great question. And when it comes to the Sable pipeline and the restart of that pipeline, we have already worked with Sable as a company to ensure that their contingency plans are compliant with our regulations and that they secured a certificate of financial responsibility prior to operation.

Now, we are not the ones that give them the green light. However, we do ensure that if they are given the green light, they are regulated to operate safely and ensuring to mitigate a spill as much as possible. With the offshore drilling we don't regulate the platforms.

That's actually with state lands, but we work rather closely with them to monitor platform activity to ensure that their marine inspection reports are shared with our prevention specialist so that we can be better postured if a risk were to elevate.

Thank you. Thank you very much. That's the only. I do want to make sure that I give you contact with the new Assembly Member, Stan Ellis. The only reason I say that is because he's probably the only expert in in the state Legislature that has worked with Miko mosquito and submergeable extractions.

He's done chemical dispersion work in Japan. He just has a very solid wealth of knowledge and I think it's one of the only individuals in the Assembly or the Legislature that has that type of knowledge. And then the second thing I want to ask you is I know you know your Boss. I know your Boss.

We're working on something. We've had some very positive, thoughtful discussions. But some people found out I was having discussions with your Boss and they're begging me to ask him to let them name a bear that was rescued from wildlife rescue in the El Dorado county. Because I guess you can't name them.

It has to be an ID number and it's a funky ID number and they want to name the bear Ed. But I don't want to ask your Boss because he's already in thoughtful discussions to help me solve a major problem. So. So in case you get an opportunity to speak to him, that'd be great.

I'll put in a plug. Thank you. I appreciate the connection to Senator Ellis or Assemblymember Ellis as well. Thank you.

Madam Chair. When you're finished, I had one more question.

Senator Grove or Senator Jones? Go right ahead.

oH, thank you. One of the. As it's been mentioned, there's many corporations and constituents that you have to deal with to do your job. And again, you haven't been on the job very long. So do you have a game plan to reaching out and building relationships with these folks? Have you already started that?

Are you going to start that? How's it going? If you can just kind of talk to that a little bit?

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. It's a very complex environment. It's about who you know when it comes to emergency management. You don't want to meet someone the first time when you're, you know, dealing with, you know, pretty a crisis and luckily signing them. Yes, true.

Luckily my staff was really encouraging for me to get on the road and they enabled me to kind of tour our different staff facilities. So I really prioritized getting to meet my staff, see where they work, see what they do, tour the ports.

And through that I was able to start connecting with a lot of our federal partners, our private sector partners. We do manage six harbor safety committees. I've been able to make it to four of them and converse with them. That's both private federal and local partners that populate those.

I've also been able to attend some drills and exercises that have both private industry present as well as our federal partners.

And then the lion's share of the work is going to be connecting to the Legislature and making sure that they know that I'm accessible, that I'm willing to answer the phone, and that I know what information that they need getting to them in a proper timeline.

One of the things that came out of the last big spill that occurred prior to my tenure was the establishment of a liaison office. And that has become one of our pride points on how we inform not only our Legislature, but all interested parties when a spill occurs.

Is leveraging that liaison function to make sure that they're getting information on an expected timely manner and they have someone to connect to to ask questions. And they can also connect to me.

Do you feel like if there is an event that is large enough that requires your personal attention, that you have either the contacts in place or the access to the contacts to be able to respond properly?

I do. I do. I think that I have made enough friends over the last two years within the state that I can reach out to those to find the right people if I'm not able to connect them appropriately. And I have no problem cold calling.

Great. I encourage you to have Senator Groves personal cell phone number because she knows everybody as she's already displayed. So thank you.

I'll put her on speed DIAL.

Comment. Seeing none. This. Thank you. Seeing none. This is the time we'll open it up for public comment and you can feel free to come to the microphone and engage in support of the nominee. Your husband can do this too, if he wants to.

I don't think we want that.

He doesn't want to.

Madam Senator, thank you for asking me to come up here. My name is Chris Geldart and I am here to speak on my own behalf, on behalf of my wife and to Senator Jones. Question of whether she'll know the right people at the right time and her responsive. She will cold call.

She knows everybody, sir, whenever she needs to to get something done. I can see that from a family perspective. As well as seen her in a professional environment. I would say that I have been with my wife now probably 15 years, and I've seen her come up through a lot of the emergency management community, have been an emergency manager myself before.

Seeing her take on this job and working with the great people that are not only in the California State government, but in Fish and Wildlife and in Osper, I'm actually a little bit jealous. She has some very good people to work with, and I know that she'll do a great job. I've seen her work.

I've seen her lead our family, especially our children. She takes that same passion with them that she takes into her job. So I am in full support of her in this opportunity.

Thank you, sir. And thank you for your service to our country. I know you're a United States Marine Corps veteran. I appreciate that I'm the first female veteran that's ever served in this legislative body. And I just think that anybody that takes that oath. Thank you for your service. Thank you. So we will move to opposition.

Seeing none coming to the microphone. I'll move it back to the dais. Senator Laird,

I know Senator Grove would love to make the motion, but she's chairing. So I would move that we approve Heather Geldart's appointment and refer it to the Senate Floor for confirmation. Final confirmation.

Thank you, Senator Laird, for that motion. Secretary, please call the roll. [Roll Call] 4 to 0. Thank you. Do you have enough votes? We are going to wait for Mr. McGuire's pro tem, McGuire to come back. If he makes it. Okay.

I apologize. He is not going to be able to make it. And we are going to close the roll. Congratulations. You are on your way to the full Senate Floor for about. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Madam Secretary.

We're going to go ahead and lift the call on governor's appointments required to appear item 1B of Marion Bozies as the Director of Office and Tax Appeals. Can you please call the roll? Mcguire, four to zero. We're going to close the roll. Madam Secretary. Have we got everything we do now? Right.

That concludes our Rules Committee hearing today and we are going to adjourn into Executive session.