Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 5 on State Administration

Good afternoon and welcome to the Assembly Budget Subcommitee 5 on State Administration. Your favorite Committee of the week to today our hearing will be an update from the Secretary of State's office and the impacts the Federal Government may have on funding for future elections.

Special note and shout out we are honored to have today with us Secretary of State Dr. Shirley Weber and my colleague and desk mate that we were able to serve together. But it's always an honor for me to see her and she's going to be making special remarks that I just advised her to let her know.

The Department of Employment Development or EDD will also be giving an update on paid family leave program and an update on the EDD's preparedness for unemployment spike.

Also an update from the Controller's Office on fiscal and finally we will hear From CalHR and DGS on their plans to implement the Governor's recent Executive Order which orders state employees to return to work for a four day work week. Housekeeping A reminder that this is an in person hearing with all panel panelists testifying in person.

We will take questions from Members of this Subcommitee after each panel. Just so you know, we do have other Members. As all of you know, it's a very very busy day today with people testifying so we will have Members coming in and out.

Public comment will be taken at the end of each issue and we because we are expecting a large turnout for a few of our issues, we will be limiting today's public testimony to 30 seconds per person so that we may accommodate each person that wishes to speak within the time we have.

Again Members, this mic goes up and down so when you come up you don't have to bend way down or stand way tall. You could just move it up and down because we want to hear what you have to say. And with that we have several items that staff has suggested for non presentation.

There are any items that Members of this Committee wish to pull off the non presentation list when they get here. I'm sure they'll let us know and public comment will be taken at the end of each non presentation as well.

If you are unable to attend this hearing in person, you may submit your comments via email to assemblybudgetm ca.gov with that we are going to go ahead and begin with our first issue which is the Secretary of State and we'd like to welcome our honored guest, Dr. Shirley Weber.

And I am definitely putting her on the spot but because her team will be presenting but we cannot have a hearing when we have such an esteemed guest without her Making a few remarks. You may sit at the dais if you'd like to please. Madam Secretary of State, welcome.

Where we are in this nation and where we are in the State of California. I want to say that I'm very proud of the fact that we had an amazing election that took place without many incidents. Most of you know, we had 29 bomb threats. Half of our counties had a bomb threat.

And despite that, they basically, we had it organized so that there was adequate support for law enforcement and police departments and others to go in and do the assessment. And as soon as those assessments took place and there was no threat to anyone, our folks went right back to work to do the job that they were doing.

And there are people who are really, really committed to diversity and really committed to the idea of elections and making sure that California's elections are safe, transparent, and anyone can vote who has. Who's a registered voter without fear of intimidation. We are faced with, obviously, new challenges, and we see them every day.

You need to know that our team, along with the Attorney General, has probably filed over 100 lawsuits in the first hundred days. We think this is very serious. And I came today basically to hear my staff, but also to let you know as you sit here and deliberate that I take this very seriously.

This is not business as usual in terms of folks attacking our elections, attacking what we put together. And California has done an amazing job in the last 10 years or so in changing our elections, making sure that we've registered most individuals. Over 83% of all eligible individuals are actually registered to vote in California.

So we have a large number that when we began with about 60%, now we're at 83% of those who actually registered to vote. We've gone in communities that have never been gone in before to register individuals to make sure they know that they can vote.

And your system of vote by mail is over 83%, I think, of all of our voting takes place by mail. So it's a very complex but very important system that we have that allows everyone to be able to vote.

We believe very strongly in Secretary of State's office that democracy is number one, that without it, we don't have a voice, we don't have an opportunity to have the kind of control of our lives. And many of us are threatened as we don't have it. So we're fighting every day to make sure that we.

That the system you put in place over the last 10 years is a viable system that protects everyone, that gives everyone their right to vote, and we take it very seriously. And so I take this task of being your Secretary of State, particularly in terms of election, very seriously.

Most of you know I'm a second generation voter, which doesn't mean my family just got here. They've been here over 100 years, and yet my folks were not allowed to register to vote in the United States. And so the only persons who had a chance to vote were my parents, my grandparents, my great grandparents.

None of them had a chance to vote during their lifetime, despite the fact that their lineage goes back to the 1830s and 40s. So as a result, we take this very seriously. Every attack on elections, every attack to basically limit people's opportunity to vote.

I understand exactly what it feels like when you don't have a chance to vote, and more importantly, when you have nothing to vote for. So I want to thank you for having my staff with you today. They're going to talk about, obviously, some issues that you've raised. If I need to respond to anything, I can.

But I have confidence in the fact that they and those of my staff who are working on this issue have all the information you need as well as the enthusiasm to carry it forward. So thank you, Ms. Quirk Silver, Assemblywoman, for having us here today. Thank Chris Ward, my colleague from San Diego.

It's good to see you here, too, and to know that all of you have joined hands to really ensure that elections are fair, safe and transparent in California and that we'll fight to make sure that all of Californians have what they deserve, the right to vote. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Dr. Weber. We so appreciate your leadership. And I know, and in times of uncertainty, that you, your wisdom and your steady leadership is something that makes us feel safer. And I know for Californians you're doing everything you can to fight for their right to vote. With that, we will welcome your team. Please introduce yourself and welcome.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you so much. My name is Tamara Johnson. I'm the Chief Financial Officer here with the Secretary of State. It's an honor, obviously, to serve under Dr. Shirley Weber. I just want to provide just a very, very quick, high level overview of the Secretary of State and the services that we provide.

And then I will go into the proposals that are before you today. The Secretary of State is comprised of over 740 people who are dedicated to making government more transparent and accessible in the areas of elections, business, political campaigning, legislative advocacy, and historical records. The agency is comprised of seven operational divisions.

Elections, political reform, business programs, Archives, information technology, fiscal affairs, and Management Services.

The Secretary of State's responsibilities include serving as the state's Chief Elections Officer, implementing electronic filing and Internet disclosure of campaign and lobbyist financial information, maintaining business filings, commissioning notaries, public operating the Safe at Home Confidential Address Program, maintaining the Domestic Partners and Advanced Health Care Directives Registry, preserving more than 250 million records and artifacts held in the state Archives, and serving as a Trustee of the California Museum.

Some of the programs the Agency has oversight of or administers is the New Citizens Program, the Military and Overseas Voters Program, the Student Voter Registration Program, and the California Student Vote Project.

Furthermore, the Secretary of State administers the California Statewide Voter Registration System, better known as votecal, which serves as the single system for storing and managing the official list of registered voters in the state. Additionally, the Secretary of State's Business Services are the first stop for California businesses to register and begin their journey.

Bizfile California is the agency's online portal to help businesses file, file, search and order business records quickly and conveniently from a single location. BizFile California also provides resources related to starting a business, trademarks, Uniform Commercial Code, financing statements and other tax liens, and also has immigration consultant services.

Recently, the Secretary of State rolled out what is called the Apostille Pop up Shops, bringing in person apostille services to customers throughout California so they don't have to actually come to the Los Angeles or Sacramento area or mail in their orders, but we're actually going into the communities and offering these services.

Finally, the Agency's ongoing objective is to foster trust in our democracy by facilitating the transparent and accurate disclosure of information, resources and finances. We all know here that we have the California Automated Lobbyist and Campaign Contribution Expenditure Search System, also better known as CalAccess.

It's the public's window into California's campaign disclosure and lobbying financial activities, providing financial information supplied by state candidates, donors, lobbyists, lobbyists, employers and others. The calexcess Replacement System Project, or CARS Project will implement a new Data Driven system replacing the existing Forms Driven System.

That concludes my brief overview of the agency and if it pleases the Chair, I will go ahead and get into the two proposals, the three proposals that are before you today. Yes ma'am. First we have the Cal Access Replacement Project.

The objective of the CARS Project is to replace the outdated Cal Access System for electronic reporting of campaign finance and lobbying activities mandated by the Political Reform Act. The request before you is requesting a one time funding of 15 million General Fund to support the continuation of the project.

Specifically, the request would provide funding to support the second year of project execution. This BCP request aligns with the project budget that was approved at the final stage of the Department of Technology project approval life cycle process and this BCP does not include any funding beyond what is already approved already in the approved project budget.

It also includes continued funding for 33 prior approved positions and backfill staff to support ongoing program activities and contracted services, including the Prime Vendor CDT project oversight services and technology costs.

I'd also like to add that the project is currently operating within this current scope, schedule and budget, which is $22.2 million for 24-25 and cars is anticipating rolling out the new solution to users in November of 2026. Post General election with me today is John Heinlein. He is the Assistant Project Director and we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Do you have any additional comments you wanna make? Nope. All right, then we'll go to the Department of Finance.

Jesse Romine, Department of Finance.

You can pull that mic up a little bit.

Sorry, Jesse Romine, Department of Finance no further comment at this time.

All right, and our LAO,

Nick Schroeder. With the LAO, we raise no concerns.

All right, we have any questions? We're just going to do issue one. Oh, yeah. On the next. Yes. No, we're going to do just issue one and then. Okay. Yes, all three of them.

Yes. Next we have are the Help America Vote act proposals. This would include the spending plan and also Vote Cal. HAVA requires state and localities to meet uniform and non discriminatory election technology and Administration requirements applicable to federal elections per the HAVA Spending Plan.

Expenditure Authority, including reauthorization of funds not used in previous fiscal years is requested in this BCP before you for 25-26.

The funding will support voter education and training programs for election officials and polls workers, the development and dissemination of voting information to increase voter participation and confidence, voting system testing and approval, and county assistance for improving voting systems. The funding will also support election assistance for individuals with disabilities, election auditing and improving the secure Administration of elections.

Also for Vote CAL the Vote CAL was developed in response to a federal mandate. Vote Cal is a near real time centralized database that serves as the single system for storing and managing the official list of registered voters in the state. The system is adequately funded by federal funds.

This request for 110.9 million in one time spending authority from the Federal Trust Fund would support maintenance and operations, vendor data analysis, consultants, security assessment, EMS or election management system support and Verification contracts to analyze and support the system for vulnerabilities and performance enhancements, connectivity costs and counties costs with counties and maintenance of the system on the Department of Technology off premise cloud environment.

With me here today also is Nikisha Jemison. I'm sorry, my apologies, Nakisha Robinson, who is our Deputy Secretary over HAVA. And we're happy to answer any questions that you have.

All right, let's go ahead and see if I have any other comments. Any comments. Assemblymember,

Thank you both from the Secretary of State's office and Madam Secretary of State for being here personally before the set of the Committee.

You know, I appreciate that you're in a, you know, very unique time in history and unwavering from the goals that we have to be able to provide access to voter registration, access to voting efficiencies and really being a model in the country for doing it the best way that we can.

And so I want to thank you again for both the work that you've done today and then also your steadfastness in maintaining the groundwork that you've laid out for all of us to be able to achieve these goals. I, you know, have some concern about. I mean, obviously we're in a very tight budget situation.

So one time General funds, you know, significant that these are here also needed for the R to be able to sustain the project is something I'm just taking a closer look at.

And I remember this item coming before us last year and wondering again, you know, we were also in a very challenged budget year, the need to have things versus the nice to have things right and whether or not this is the year we can complete that.

And I remember the schedule being laid out and I'm wondering, you know, is this the last, would this be the last tranche requested support to be able to get the cars project completed or are we going to see this come back in the next fiscal year or two?

Yes, sir. Thank you. I think I will turn this over to John.

Yeah, this, this particular fiscal year is a full year of project execution. In other words, designing, developing the solution. Next fiscal year, I believe there'll be eight months of execution and it'll be rolled out. The solution be rolled out and there's four months of maintenance and operations and the system will be in the full MNO phase.

The Secretary of State collects a fee every year, I think for registrants or for like new, new, new users, I guess, or new committees that are opened. Is that correct? It's not much. It's been like $50 or something for every time you are forming a new Committee.

And obviously that's something that's going to be housed within Cal Access or the future version. So I'm wondering, has that fee ever been revisited as an. As a revenue opportunity to be able to support the system development?

Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. I would like to ask Kira Rasmussen to come to the table. She is the assistant Chief of the Political Reform Division. And she may be able to provide a response for you.

You said it moves up and down. There we go. Hello. I'm Kira Rasmussen, the Assistant Division Chief of the Political Reform Division. I think you're referring to the $50 annual fee for active committees that reach the $2,000 threshold. And that is an annual fee incurred by all of the active committees.

Yeah, I am. So does that amass too much or are there other revenue sources within the Secretary of State's portfolio that we can look at modernizing?

To my knowledge, that fee has not been changed since it's. Since it was written into the Political Reform Act. I'm not sure if anyone has looked at revisiting that fee, but it is something that's being built into the CARS system for collection, continued collection every year.

And as far as the dollar amount that's collected each year, it goes into the P Data Fund, the Political Accountability Transparency Act. She's nodding her head like she agrees with that. If you'd like this, the specific dollar amounts, we can get that to your staff after.

Be curious to know that. Or if there is also any kind of just top line menu of other user fees that are collected through the Secretary of State that may. We may, you know, be 20 years out of date. May 2nd statute worth revisiting.

I just like to be able to offset this if we're going to think about another $15 million General Fund expense. Is there other ways that we can sort of connect these dots here?

Yeah, yeah.

To be able to help support this expenditure.

Yeah. So in addition to the Campaign Committee annual fee, there's also a lobbying registration fee per lobbyist. I believe that's $100 per year.

Got it. And so, yes, if that's something that also feeds ultimately into the system, which will be the new sort of, you know, portal for people to be able to access the very same information here, I'd like to sort of be able to align those and know if there's an opportunity this year to also include that.

Yeah, yeah. For the lobbying registration fee, 50% of that goes into the PData Fund and the other 50% goes into the General Fund.

Okay. Okay. And then for the other two items here where you're requesting sources out of the Federal Trust Fund, I know we're going to cover in issue number two, a much broader conversation around some of the threats would be one word.

But you know, the challenges that might be imposed on us and the work that you do at the Secretary's office, would these be potentially at risk?

That's a good question. Thank you. And that's one of the questions that's listed in the agenda. So the short answer is no. And the reason for that is because the Secretary of State draws down the federal funds just a little bit differently.

When we accept the application or accept the award, we draw down the full amount of the award and it's placed into an account that's an interest bearing account.

So as we interpret the environment that we are in today, we don't believe that those funds are in jeopardy, that we would be able to exhaust those funds totally and they wouldn't be clawed back.

Well, I would hope not, given that notwithstanding some of the other issues that, you know, we're debating Washington with, if these funds are directly for the systems that help ensure that we have lawfully registered voters and you are the clearinghouse for maintaining a lot of that information, it's exactly what we want. These federal.

I don't see how they would disagree that that's how those federal funds should be spent. That's not to say that politics isn't going to play itself out and that they're not going to try to, you know, confuse any of the conditions that have nothing to do with making sure that we have accurate records here.

So I want to again, you know, commend you for being a gold standard for, for trying to be able to do what a Secretary of State's office should do in terms of securing and modernizing a lot of our voter information and our record keeping and, you know, be happy to support that.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Thank you. I don't have any. I don't have any additional questions. So with that, we will ask the public if they'd like to weigh in.

Seeing no one coming up, we will conclude issue number one and we will move to issue number two, which is exactly what we were just leaving off, which is the federal impacts on state elections. And we'll go ahead and have you make comments. And please state your name again.

Yes, ma'am. Tamara Johnson, Chief financial officer with the Secretary of State. We took the liberty of preparing some responses to the Committee's questions outlined in the agenda related to federal impacts on state elections.

As I mentioned to Assemblymember Ward, in regards to the federal funds being impacted, again, we do not anticipate that our elections security funding, which is higher, would be impacted at this time.

Moving on to question number two, it says should the Presidential Executive Order survive its challenges and the SAFE act be enacted, does the State have the resources to protect the state's voters from disenfranchisement?

Again, the short answer is no, and I just like to be very clear that the if both Executive or both the Executive Order and the SAFE act were to require compliance, the cost would be profound, both from a fiscal impact as well as to our democracy.

The Secretary of State is the Chief Elections Officer of the State of California and has a duty to administer the provisions of the Elections Code ensuring that state election laws are enforced, promoting voter registration to eligible voters, and encouraging eligible voters to vote.

As Secretary Weber has previously noted, the current Presidential administration's efforts would result in massive voter disenfranchisement. These efforts include documentary proof of citizenship requirements and a prohibition on counting of any ballots not received by Election Day, even if they are postmarked prior.

California has over 22 million registered voters and existing voters and new registrants are forced through the unnecessary and burdensome hurdles required by the Executive Order and the SAVE Act. Many Californians ultimately may decide that voting is not worth the trouble.

The resources needed for California and the counties to even attempt to mitigate the harm that would result would be significant. We do not have any dollar estimates at this time, but when voting requirements are changed in such a fundamental way, the impact runs very deep.

We'd also like to address the question of what would be the financial impact to the state or counties should the state be forced to comply with either. As previously mentioned, the actual cost and impact is unknown at this time, though we know the impacts would be significant and extreme. Extremely costly.

The costs and impacts would be felt by both the counties and at the state level. These costs would include or related to first access to vital records. County Offices Typically, the county recorder would be subject to millions of new requests for birth certificates, undoubtedly requiring huge numbers of staff to help process voters and registrants.

Requests for access to birth certificates required to vote, to register and to vote. These requests would come from people in their in their county, in a specific county, in other California counties, and from out of state, given geographic mobility. Another impact or related to this would be the county election offices.

The same act will require each new registrant or person updating their registration record in any way to visit in person to present their documentary proof of citizenship to their county registrar. Again, this would require significant staff increases and enhancing training to be able to recognize the complex and varying types of documents that are proof of citizenship.

Counties would also face significant and costly impacts to upgrade their various information technology systems which is required to comply with with those mandates. And then lastly, we have the Secretary of State's office itself. These costs would be substantial for our office, including updating vocal, which is again our voter registration database system for the state.

To accommodate these new requirements and integrate with the county systems, our office would also need to hire and train additional staff to provide ongoing support, guidance and training and materials to each of the 58 counties.

As it relates specifically to outreach, I just want to touch on that a bit and again, I just want to be very clear that the Secretary of State does not have a dedicated funding source or dedicated funding for outreach.

With our current staff and funding level funding, the level of effort required to even attempt to provide the outreach and education that is needed for this would be significant. Efforts to educate our voters and new registrants about what we've just discussed would be monumental in scope.

It further complicates how individualized people need needs are regarding how to obtain the correct proof of citizenship documentation and how to submit that proof of documentation. Obtaining correct those correct documents becomes even more complex for certain populations.

We don't want to exclude anyone, including married couples, adopted individuals or others who have legal name changes and the many Californians whose vital records have been destroyed as a result of a natural disaster. We know that we just experienced the fires in Southern California.

Potential requirements to produce documentary proof of citizenship is in person greatly and disproportionately impact persons with disabilities, students away at college, voters covered under the Uniform and overseas citizens, Absentee Voting act and military Members stationed out of state or overseas, the elderly and those in assisted living facilities.

It also impacts our rural voters and others without their own transportation. Every California will be impacted by the EO and SAFE act proof of citizenship requirements or have a friend or family Member that would be burdened by this.

And extensive voter education and outreach will be needed to educate and repeat repeatedly remind voters of these drastically different requirements. I would like to note quickly that the California Association of Clerks and Election Officials they also have some grave concerns with the Executive Order and the SAVE act and they recently submitted a letter of concern to Congress.

Based on the letter, they are concerned with key provisions of the SAVE act if enacted in its current form, it risks disenfranchising thousands of eligible California citizens, significantly increasing the cost of election Administration at the local level. And many impose and may impose criminal penalties on officials who are simply trying to fulfill their legal duties.

Again, this is just what we've noted here is just scratching the surface of the of the challenges that the Secretary of State's office would meet with as well as our counties and our actual voters. And so we thank you for the opportunity to even be a part of these discussions.

And I would like to add that I have also Jana Lean, who is our chief of the Elections division. She's here to assist with answering any questions, as well as Nakisha Robinson again. And we also have our attorney on hand, Mary Mooney. And we're happy to continue the discussion.

Thank you for that very thorough response to to federal impacts on state elections. We'll go ahead and go to our Department of Finance or LAO

Nick Schroeder from the lao. We don't know how much the costs could be increased resulting from the Executive order or from the SAVE Act.

One thing I would point out, though, is that the way that election Administration is structured in the United States, the states are given constitutional authority to administer the elections, and then so the Secretary of State oversees the Administration elections statewide, and then the counties are the ones who actually administer most of the elections.

And so the way that this would work is that if the way that funding usually works for elections is that if the state mandates a requirement on the counties, the state is responsible through the constitutional requirements of a reimbursable mandate.

If the Commission determines that it's a reimbursable mandate, the state would be on the hook for those costs.

And so if there's any changes in state statute to implement the changes, that would be seen as a state mandate on the county governments, although the counties would be the administrators and current these costs, they could be caught as a reimbursable mandate through that process, in which case it would be a burden that the state would be expected to cover.

In the past, the way that the mandates have been treated is that elections mandates have been suspended and so the state has not provided the funding to the counties to carry out the activities under the mandate. So we don't know the cost.

The cost likely will be falling to the counties, but the state might get caught up in those costs as well.

You have any.

Where do you even start? Let's just start for the record to establish, like whether or not there's a problem here in California, how many non citizens have been discovered to have registered.

None.

Good afternoon, I'm Jana Lean, chief of the Elections Division. And the answer to that is extremely rare. It's extremely rare for it to happen at all. Of course there is. I can't say it's never happened. There have been people who have inadvertently actually did not know that they were not necessarily a US Citizen and registered to vote. So it is, but it's extremely rare.

What are some of the safeguards and mechanisms that you have in place right now to cross reference citizenship as somebody accesses a point to be able to register?

Okay, well, citizenship is actually self certified. It's under penalty or perjury. So when you register to vote, you have to, under penalty of perjury, sign that you meet all the requirements. And one of those requirements is to be a U.S. citizen.

And so if you violate that and are found guilty of perjury, that would be a crime. It'd be a felony, sir. That somebody would not want to commit. Yes, sir. To what extent do you support Americans living abroad, military personnel serving overseas, to be able to who are have a residence here that are legally California residents?

Well, under the Secretary of State, we are extremely. We definitely support the military and overseas voters to vote. We work really closely with the federal Voting Assistance program to make sure that information is available to all of our military and overseas voters.

The election code actually has mirrored what is called uacava and it provides certain aspects of the law that allows for voters starting at 60 days before the election to receive a ballot and to begin to vote that ballot in order to get it back.

There's also provisions in the law that if for some reason because of the mail service, it doesn't get to California in time on election day, they do have an opportunity to waive their right to privacy and fax that ballot back so it can't be counted.

So a lot of different options. Would you say that it's a part of your mission of the office to be able to do your best to ensure that overseas military Members serving our country overseas have their voice heard?

Absolutely. Our whole office and our whole job is to make sure that every eligible Voter has an ability to vote

and how often. And just take any election, maybe the last election. For example. Have you seen incidents of voter fraud where somebody tried to vote twice or misrepresented themselves at the polling place?

It is extremely rare. There have been a few cases across over several years. I do not have those statistics in front of me, but we can get back to you on that.

I would be shocked if it was double digits. And unlike the state mandates that we have which require us to reimburse counties when we decide there needs to be an update to the law and they need to complete with something.

If federal legislation imposed certain requirements on the states, is there anything that we could try to be able to, notwithstanding our disagreement from a policy standpoint, but do we have any ability to require receipt of resources to be able to support the additional workload that you were talking about?

Well, we currently are involved in a lawsuit, so some of those provisions. I probably couldn't answer the question of that right now.

Okay. Because I think my guess is the answer is not necessarily or probably a no. In other words, there could be requirements about us to decide whether or not our systems are considered valid. And that has a whole other layer of consequence that would be unprecedented in our country.

But the idea that we would from a federal to state relationship be guaranteed resources to be able to meet new and heightened and unsupported mandates are unlike what we would have between a state and local relationship where we are responsible to be able to support our counties in their mission. Is that correct?

I do believe that's correct.

So what I'm hearing here just in totality and to sum up is that there is not some overwhelming and wild and hurt horrendous problem out there that needs correction because we have a well functioning and supported and trusted systems that have been built up and triple checked over everybody's service, this secretary and secretaries prior.

And we have no foundation for some of the federal legislation that's being debated that's going to impose certain conditions on us. We have no guarantee of resources to be able to meet the requirements of that.

And that leaves us in a very horrible situation that we're looking forward to that we could very much be set up to have the results of our elections which have been run with the utmost integrity ultimately questioned. And yeah, we're.

This is unacceptable and I am sorry that you are on the front lines of having to respond to that. But I commend you for the work that you are doing to be uphold righteousness and integrity when it comes to validating the people's outcomes of the elections that we hold.

Thank you for that and you know we'll continue to have your back and the resources that you need to meet this moment.

Thank you sir.

I am extremely glad that my colleague from San Diego is here because he's very tempered and measured and I'm not. Matter of fact, I'm so upset I literally looked up the word horrifying and what are some other words that we could use that say the same thing?

So this moment is not only horrifying, it's terrifying, it's atrocious, it's egregious, it's heinous. And what is it absolutely trying to do?

It's trying to disenfranchise women, seniors, college students, veterans, individuals on limited incomes, individuals that don't have transportation, to go find a birth certificate, to take a bus, to find a birth certificate, then to go to another office and another office for simply the right to vote with no evidence that suggests we actually have a problem. And why?

We have to ask why? Why is the Federal Government wanting to do this? The answer is clear. Because the less voters they are, the less likely there is for the opportunity for them to have their mandate. And what is their mandate? To cut Head Start as of today, to cut Medi Cal.

And the list goes on and on. And we should all be shocked and terrified. And if there's nothing else that happens in this state and in this building, this should be the call to action.

This one thing I've said on housing Committee, arts and entertainment budget, and there is nothing, nothing more important than this issue today to disenfranchise not only Californians, but Americans. We know that in places like Tennessee and Mississippi and the south. Where are they going to get those birth certificates?

I myself, if I was to get my birth certificate, it is not going to draw match my driver's license. So the SAVE act is saving. Who? Who is the SAVE act saving? Now they say if you have a passport, is that correct? That a passport would actually be sufficient. Can anybody answer that?

So you could use a passport if your birth certificate and your driver's license don't match. Is that correct? Yes, ma'am. Okay, I'm not going to go down and do the numbers, but I'm going to say in order to get a passport and do all the things you need for a passport, it's about what's the estimate?

$300 for a passport to get a birth certificate. How much? Well, let's get some math on how much it costs to get a birth certificate, where people have to go all of these things because we know in fact what's going to happen.

We have the real ID that is May 7, that everybody needs to have a real ID in order to travel either domestically or internationally. You don't have to raise your hand, but remember I was a classroom teacher. How many people have a real ID?

The audience can't see the audience, but I'm seeing right now, I think we have 100 people in here, and I'm going to say less than 50% of the people right here in this group have a real ID. So when you want to travel, as of May 7th, you're not traveling.

So when you want to vote, if you don't have a matching driver's license and birth certificate, you're not voting unless you have a passport. Is this what I'm hearing? The SAVE act is?

Yes, ma'am.

All right, again with our great Secretary of State here. This is the issue of our time. Everything else is secondary to this issue. Because if we cannot vote, we do not have the democracy that those veterans that are internationally fighting for us and who have lost their lives for us. What does it matter if we can't vote?

So with that, if you would like to speak and come to the mic, you are welcome. I will last use the word outraged. We should all be outraged. And with that, it should be a call to action to leave this building and call your congressional Members to do something about this, because this is not a long shot.

They canceled Head Start today. If we don't know what Head Start is, that is for our young, vulnerable students to get a Head Start in education. With that, I thank you, Madam Secretary of State. State, for joining us. I thank you to your team for the work.

You are on the front lines, and I will be fighting alongside with you. And that will close issue number two.

Do I miss something?

I did ask.

Okay.

All right, I got composed. All right, next, we are focusing on employment development and depart on our EDT Department. I'm passionate about this third item, too, so don't worry. But. All right, as you speak, please introduce yourselves. And again, we will start with our issue number three, our update on family leave. Paid family leave.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. I don't have any prepared remarks, so I'm not sure if you want us to just give a brief overview or if you want to ask questions or.

I do want to give a brief overview, I will say tell you where this has come out. One of the things that we're both aware of as Assembly Members with constituents, I often ask my team on a regular basis, what are the trending issues? And sometimes it's retail theft, or sometimes it's regular issues in the district.

But of late, the last few months, we've been fielding many paid family leave requests by our district staff. So that then brought forward the idea of what is happening, because I hadn't heard about that. So if you can kind of get. Give us a context of why there's an increase in these requests and so forth.

Absolutely. Good afternoon. Just wiggling this guy around. So. Good afternoon. My name is Grecia Staton. I'm the Deputy Director of the disability insurance branch, which does include the paid family leave program. And so to one of the items or the questions posed is kind of what's contributing or what's occurred.

We did have a slight slowdown in 2024 because we did transition systems from a very manual process into the same system that we now has our state disability insurance program.

And so we did experience that slowdown late last year, which also included kind of a rise in our claim levels, staff learning this transition of the new system, and increased duplicate applications from claimants. So once we noticed this trend, we did transition internally and redirected resources, working overtime, working on weekends. They continue to do so.

And with the help of the legislative support, we're in the middle of hiring. Half of the group is already on board. The other half is starting on the four. zero, they actually just started on the 14th. And we've actually given this transition over. We've been able to actually expand some automation processes. And so that was really the main driver of what that transition required.

So the delay was part of system change or technology. But now that you're on the. If you want to say, the new platform, are there still individuals that are going on to that platform that are having a hard time navigating it on their own?

As far as our workforce, our employees. No, I'm talking about the constituents. I should have clarified. The platform transition was an internal change for our workforce. So instead of navigating through two different systems, they actually now only need to navigate out of one.

So it was a transitional process of a very manual process for our employees, which is now electronic in one interface as opposed to multiple.

All right. Because we are still hearing that the constituents, when they go on to try to access this, they're having a hard time. Is there a reason they're having a hard time with that?

We do have an effort underway right behind, and I don't want to steal Nathan's thunder, but. So Unemployment Insurance had a plain language overhaul of their application. Application. We anticipate doing the same.

So in partnership with our information technology branch, we are aiming towards simplifying and plain languaging our disability insurance and the paid family leave application, which should allow for seeing the same results, which is allowing claimants to complete their claim faster and easier for them to understand.

If I can just add One thing I have to speak at all times. So what we did during the pandemic for UI is what we are now doing for pfldi. So it is incremental. I mean, I think everyone is aware of the EDD next project at this point and it has 10 different work streams.

So it's not like one big bang IT project that we're doing. But part of that is, as Grecia mentioned, updating the forms claim status tracker, for example. Those are all reasons why people, when they call the office and they can't get through because there are lots of people just looking for the status of their claim, for example.

So we are doing many multiple projects like that iteratively now focused on pfl because as you have mentioned, we have heard from a few Assembly and Senate Members that there is a few people calling the office now. Nothing like ui, I will say. But you know, when there's a problem, we want to fix it. So we are.

And then who can explain again, remember we're broadcasting out who can explain what paid family leave is. I mean we all know. But if you can say what, what is this benefit that I could absolutely.

Give kind of the formality in the context of the paid family leave program, which provides an eight week wage replacement, it provides the opportunity for individuals to care for family Members, bonding with a new child, including fostering and adopted children or participating in qualifying military event.

And so the disability and paid family programs in California provide this critical support for more than 18 million workers and their families. This is funded through payroll contributions and eligible workers can receive up to 52 weeks of disability insurance and up to eight weeks of paid family leave.

I know I'm asking a lot of questions here, but do you think more people know about it now and that's why they're accessing it more and they didn't know about it before or because it seems as if there's more individuals access.

There certainly has been a lot more of an education and outreach in partnership with our public affairs branch. We do a lot of targeted events. If, if you've gone to the Sacramento airport, you'll see our advertisements there as well. Just bringing awareness as far as the program, the benefits that EDD offers, particularly the paid family leave.

And we actually just ran a data component where our, the paid family leave program has increased about 205% overall since the inception of the program. And so it has expanded, although incrementally it has grown over time. The awareness is, is growing.

Can we get, if you have any data on that Absolutely.

All right, Chas Alamo with the LAO here to help with questions, but no specific comments on the issue. Use of and experience with the application process for EDD's various programs is something that we're always tracking. So we're happy to hear feedback from you and from other Members about issues that your constituents are having.

Happy to work with the Department to get to the bottom of those at your direction. Thanks.

I think the context of some of these questions, particularly related to this, are twofold. One is we do, at some point we'll hear about issues, whether it's through EDD or other organizations, if people have a hard time navigating. So that's not edd, it's just across the board.

But secondly, as we are in a very tough budget, and I think we will continue to hear more about that in the next coming days and weeks about how tough this budget actually is. And if we are seeing a program that is accessed, like you just mentioned, 200% since the program's commencement. Yes. Right.

Those are numbers that we want to keep track of because we obviously have other programs that are being highly accessed, and this is one of the constraints on the budget that we're starting to see. But I did hear you on how this is funded. Do you have any other questions, Assemblymember? Nope. Any other remarks on this issue?

All right. With that, if you would like to speak in support of this program or make comments, welcome.

Hi. Thank you. My name is Sela Steiger. I'm a Staff Attorney at Legal Aid at Work. I'm speaking today in support of a funding request for PFL for Chosen Family.

As was described, Paid Family Leave is a worker funded program, and therefore, it's a matter of equity to allow Chosen Family Members to receive income while they care for their sick loved ones as well. It's a fiscally responsible request and will have an extremely meaningful impact.

I would also like to voice support on behalf of the Small Business Majority and the California Work and Family Coalition. Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

My name is Anika Skellig, and I'm with UAW United Auto Workers. UAW represents both private and public sector employees participating in SDI, including about 5,000 data scientists who opted into SDI last year.

And I would urge support for what the previous speaker said, allowing Californians to use paid family leave to care for their chosen and extended family. It would create a more equitable paid family leave program, especially for the LGBTQ community and immigrant communities. Thank you. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Nina Weiler Harwell, AARP California also speaking in support of the PFL budget Ask. The twist I want to put on this is that this change, that Bill, the underlying Bill would enact, would allow people to use chosen family as their caregiver and take paid family leave. Even for older Californians.

We're seeing more and more data that there are more families without and with children generally, not just older. We need to update the program to really match changing demographics, changing nuclear, changing family patterns. We are well past the time of the nuclear family model. This Bill would also be or this ask would also support our LGBTQ community. Thank you.

All right, seeing no one else coming to the mic, that will close issue number three and we will move to issue number four, which is preparedness for federal impacts to employment.

And I will just start by saying, Nancy Faries with EDD that we understand the concerns that everyone has, especially given what happened during the pandemic. We are in a very different place with UI at this point and especially thank you to the Legislature in particular. Senator Laird.

We created a recession plan that is not for the faint hearted. It's pretty long but it's pretty detailed, I think on purpose and we are happy to go over that with you if you would like. As far as with federal employees, we are prepared for the federal employee if there is a federal employee influx of claims.

So far we have not seen a vast amount, but we are prepared and I can have either Nate or Grecia.

Would you like to add any comments?

The only My name is Nathan Gillie, the Unemployment Insurance Deputy Director. The only thing I would add, Madam Chair, is we also as excuse me, as Director Ferris shared. We also established Mike's kind of give me There we go. We also established a command center which looks at our workload volumes, tracks trends and forecasts.

That's kind of the crux of what Director Ferris mentioned. And also leveraging the components of our recession plan containing 11 line items specifically to address that.

And to our LAO

Chas Alamo, again. With the LAO, do want to reiterate that the Department is in a clearly different position today than it was in 2020, partly as a result of the recession process planning that it's undertaken under Mr. Laird's build, but also because of the process changes that predated EDD next.

But also those that have taken place in the first couple years of EDD Next. That doesn't mean that there won't be unforeseen surprises, but I just want to reiterate that positionally the department's in a much better place now than it was prior to the pandemic.

I certainly appreciate that as I'm one of the Members that was here during the pandemic. You'll find less and less in a year or two as the class has changed out. But again, looking at forecasting, one of the reasons I wanted to hear more about this is because we're not.

This topic is federal impacts, but we also have budget impacts where we're starting to see whether it's school districts, whether it's employers starting because of what's happening economically, maybe them being uncertain and having releasing people or not hiring, or in the case of.

We just heard yesterday, I believe, from the mayor of Los Angeles that they would be perhaps cutting 1600 employees. So what is the plan? Or is this more typical than I think?

Thank you for the question. Excuse me. Thank you for the question again, Madam Chair. I think it's something that would be more typical. The Unemployment Insurance Program is seasonal in nature. We have seasonal fluxes or influxes that happen.

And so with our command center model, we are able to track that and like we mentioned, using our recession plan, which looks at three different, three different phases, excuse me, of the unemployment rate, to proactively take measures so that we can mitigate the backlogs that would incur. Traditionally, prior to that.

I would just, I would just say that our recession plan starts when the unemployment rate is at 6% and we are at 5.23 right now. So we still have a ways to go before we have to implement the recession plan.

But I do know that UI has hired about 400400 people over the last few months in anticipation of pretty much everything we talked about since the minute the hearing started. So we are anticipating something happening. And we do have employees that we're hiring.

Thank you. I appreciate the being prepared as the indicators, including today and yesterday and last week, are starting to show us that we may be headed directly towards a recession. And I think that it's always good for us to be on high alert. And so that was the reason for placing this on the agenda.

But I appreciate that we're further along than we were with the pandemic and just pray that we don't get to a point where we have to Institute like the red alert. But with that, do we have anybody from the public that would like to weigh in? See, none. We thank you for your being here. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right, next we would like to move to issue number five, fi$cal update and SCO Migration

And before you make your presentation, can you make sure you introduce yourself? And then whoever is beginning, give us a little context of what FI$Cal is, because most people don't know what FI$Cal is.

Good afternoon Chair and Members. My name is Jennifer Urban and I'm with the State Controller’s Office. I'm the Chief of Budgets and Accounting. We thank you for the opportunity to discuss the 25-26 request before you, which is requesting $9.1 million for the continuation of consulting services to support the SCO Book of Record functionality.

Migration to Fi$Cal is of significant scope, complexity and sensitivity that has been identified as one of the largest financial business transformations the state has undertaken. It has transformed the way state departments conduct financial operations and has a substantial impact on the annual comprehensive financial report process.

SCO is the last of four business partners to transition the book of record for accounting into and financial reporting to fi$cal. And SEO's legacy systems continue to run in tandem until the Book of Record Functionalities are migrated to Fi$Cal. While SCO divisions are utilizing Fi$Cal, it is in limited fashion and its legacy systems is still the accounting and financial reporting book of record.

There is significant work to be done to prepare SEO for this large change internally, to modernize its internal operations and to provide constituents with the necessary data and expected customer experiences required of a modern workplace.

Funding approved for fiscal year 24-25 supports a business integrator that will perform an integral role in successfully enabling the large scale transformation by performing critical activities, challenging decision making to focus on long term value and providing third party perspectives to drive accountability.

The business integrator will work alongside the fi$cal system and state leadership throughout the transformation by focusing on activities promoting stakeholder adoption and realizing business benefits. And we're happy to answer any questions you may have.

Do any any of the additional people at the dais have additional comments?

Madam Chair, I just want to introduce myself. I'm Bret Ladine, the new Director of Fi$Cal and I've been on the job nearly three months now and glad to be here to answer your questions.

All right, Madam Chair, my name is Cathy Leal.. I'm the Chief Operating Officer for the State Controller's Office and I'm here to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Who else do we have?

Kayla Lammon, Department of Finance. Nothing to add, nothing to questions.

And then Dominick Guidera, Department of Finance. Also, we support the budget change proposal today and the positive effort underway to. Complete the book of record by July 1,2026.

Nick Schroeder from the LAO covering for Anne Hollingshead. We don't have any prepared comments, but happy to take any questions back.

I have a few comments. This has been a project that has taken quite a long time, but I know it's extensive and I don't even want to imagine the technology part of it and how you're going to put this system together.

But I understand from people who are in accounting that get really excited about this, this is going to be premier kind of accounting so that the state can be in a position to see numbers much, much earlier or quicker than we can. Now, that being said, it's scheduled for. I thought you said 2026. Y That's correct. Is there any way to move this along faster, speedier?

Oh, I can take that question, Madam Chair. The difficulty with moving it faster so is that it is a book of record. So it's your accounting. And normally you start at the beginning of the fiscal year. The next opportunity is July 1, 2025. I can provide you the status where we are.

So we are making great progress, but in the next two months, there's no physical way we'll be able to get everything completed by that time. But July 1, 2026 we are right on track with getting that done.

The plan that we provided the Legislature Last year, in December 23, we spelled out a plan and we continue to achieve that plan. We are a little bit ahead of schedule. I keep pinching myself because at some point I feel we're going to be behind.

And the team, both the SCO team and the Department of FI$Cal Team are continuing to work together as collaborative as I've seen in my time on the project, which has been over 14 years. So we are going to achieve our book of record migration on July 12026.

Assembly Member, any questions? All right. Well, so for those accountants and number people, I'm going to give you a little cheer because I know in 2026 you're going to be more excited than anybody else in this area. But thank you.

I know important things like this take a long time and just stay on track and we'll be very excited in 2026 with that. Anybody from the public that wants to speak on Fi$Cal, nobody is running up to the mic. All right, everybody, thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you.

All right, we are on issue number six, and I want to give a little shout out to my colleague from San Diego who just shows up. Well, Sometimes this can be a lonely Committee, don't you think? We're just so excited. But everybody's so busy today. That's right. All right, we are on item number six.

We have the California Department of Human Resources, or Cal hr. And we have a budget change proposal statewide recruitment, outreach and educational or education paid media campaign AB 1511. And you can introduce yourself and go ahead and make your comments.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Monica Erickson, Chief Deputy Director of CALHR . Thank you so much for having us here this afternoon. I'll provide a brief overview of our Department and then I'll proceed to the proposal. CALHR current year budget is 132 million 454 positions. We are requesting in the 2025-26 budget.

7.0 million and 2 positions, which would bring us to a total budget in 25-26 of 139 million 456 positions. CalHR oversees a wide range of matters related to employees. Salaries, benefits, job classifications, civil rights, training, exams, recruitment and retention. In addition, we represent the Administration during the collective bargaining process for state employees.

If there are no questions, I'll go ahead and proceed to the. Excuse me. To the budget proposal at hand. This proposal requests one permanent position and 5.2 million. This total. This total includes 5 million General Fund contract dollars each year beginning in 25-26 and continuing through 28-29.

These funds will be used to maximize the use of ethnic and community media outlets for advertising and outreach, expanding the state's ability to California's diverse communities in accordance with AB 1511. With these funds, CALHR will invest back into the communities that CALHR hopes to reach and serve. If there are any questions, be happy to take those.

Thank you. Our Department of Finance. Okay. And LAO.

Nick Schroeder. LAO. We have no comments.

All right, any questions?

Thank you for the 5.2 million. Is that. Is that a budget for the actual advertisements and the costs associated with. What would that go towards?

I have my Deputy Director, Camille Travis here can answer that for us.

Yes, Camille Travis, Deputy Director of communications for CalHR. And yes, that is to go back. Towards that community in advertising.

Yeah, it's significant. And another thing to weigh as we're balancing other budget priorities as well. Was it during the discussion of AB 1511, when it.

When it was in discussion and for consideration and signature, was the thought process, maybe that we would see a shift of maybe ongoing funds towards this marketing and advertisements and recruitment and outreach that would better capture rather than say we want to do something additive or in addition to what we're already doing on the status quo sort of work within what we are currently ongoing allocating for these efforts in a way that reached different audiences.

Why don't I go ahead and try to answer that? I do want to let you know that CALHR currently has a very minimal budget for media advertising. It's only 250,000. That does not get us very far, which is why the additional resources would help us better implement the AB 1511.

Got it. Okay. That's a significant increase. Okay, thank you. That. That answers it. And I think we'll have to noodle on the decisions that we put in motion and consider this request. Thank you.

Thank you. I don't have any questions. Let's go to the public. Any questions on issue number six? Seeing no one, we will close this item. We appreciate your joining us. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. All right, last we have issue number seven, the governor's Executive order n 2255. We welcome our panelists.

Before we begin, I want to be clear. This is isn't the Legislator's plan or request. With that, we will go ahead and have you make your comments.

Okay, thank you very much, Madam Chair. Good afternoon again. Monica Erickson, Chief Deputy Director of Calhr.

And Jason Kenney, Chief Deputy Director for the Department of General Services.

Would you like us to just go ahead and go into the questions? We're happy to do so. Yes. Here. Yes, I do, actually. There you go.

Okay. So you want just to kind of rattle through the questions you posed. Okay. And maybe a clarification on the relocation processes. Which specific relocation processes was this question referencing?

Well, I think one of the things that I've been hearing is initially when the state was planning for remote work, and now with this new order, there was some discussion about hoteling, meaning people using desks, I guess, on assignment. So that would be one of the big questions. How are people going to be accommodated in workspaces?

Second, things I've heard are things about parking. So really what is the plan on? If you can address that.

Yeah. So on relocation processes, maybe to say it this way, there were some departments since 2020 who have consolidated space related to telework. But if you look at the vast number of locations that the state has or the quantify those locations, the majority of departments did not reduce their space related to telework. In Sacramento, we do have some buildings that we've densified.

Do you want to move the mic? Up to you a little bit more.

Some buildings that we've densified, others that have not. And so it kind of runs the gamut a little bit. And so right now we're working with those state departments as they implement telework themselves.

So DGS's role in this is primarily to help those departments as they implement telework to assess or what space needs they might have and help them find them. And so that's what we're currently working on doing.

We've been in contact with just about every Department under the governor's authority and some who haven't, trying to quantify their needs and identify where there's solutions. In some cases, that's quite simple. It's additional workstations in a given location. In other cases, it requires a little more thoughtful solutions with them. But that's all in progress right now, Madam Chair.

And if I may, I'd also like to let you know of some of the resources that we're also providing to our state employees during this transition.

CALHR has done a great job of putting posting a website for our workforce and we wanted to remind our state workforce of the commuting and transportation resources that we do have available to help them with this transition. For example, there's a bicycle commute program where you can can get reimbursed for up to $240 a year.

There's also mass transit and vanpool commute programs where state employees can receive subsidies of up to $325 a month. And then DGS has done an incredible job of providing us with parking and transportation interactive map where we're highlighting for our state workforce parking and transportation options.

In addition to that, childcare resources and cost savings such as dependent care reimbursements are available. And CALHR is conducting a special open enrollment during May 1 through May 30. And then also just a reminder of the leave benefits and the flexible work arrangements that are available during this time. Thank you.

All right, I'll have some questions, but let me hear from the Department of Finance.

Danielle Brandon, good afternoon. Nothing to add at this time, but available for questions. Thank you.

Nick Schroeder, Elio, no prepared comments, but happy to answer questions.

All right, let's go ahead and thank you, Madam Chair.

And I'm going to get pulled into another Committee in short test, but I'm happy to be here for just a moment to, you know, look at this item to say at the outset that, you know, I, you know, very much share some of the shock when the Order came down that it was so direct in a way that maybe did not involve, you know, more comprehensive thought or rationale.

Maybe there has been some of that internally. But my understanding from what some feedback I'm getting is that this not. This has not involved more traditional collective bargaining conversations that I think should be afforded with a lot of our workforce representatives as well.

Seeing this, of course, you know, as something that really came from a necessary transition during the pandemic, pandemic to keep everybody safe and very awkwardly get into a place where we could work remotely and fulfill our job duties.

Not that there weren't probably some hiccups from time to time, but we've established a new normal and there has been a way that has been able to meet all the obligations of all of our respective jobs and be able to provide sufficient oversight, supervision to be able to make sure that we feel comfortable that those job duties are being met, that we are now in this, this new era.

And there is certain benefit to continuing to be able to physically be together as a unit, as a team, as a Department. And to what extent is that need to be two days a week, four days a week, or anything in between or fully remote? That's. That's up for discussion.

And I don't feel like a discussion has been well had between necessary parties that really need to be at the table having that discussion. So that's just as an outset, my one Legislator's perspective on approaching this question.

Because the other thing that we have learned, I think in this transition, whether you're in the private sector, you know, here as a Legislature, as state employees or whomever are the workers, that there have been some benefits to, to this arrangement where you can do your job adequately and maybe wholly, but also be able to have some of your life back to not need to have to commute.

And that extra time away from home and that extra time finding parking or running the kid out to childcare or other activities that are gonna come with getting through a family's day, that you're in a way may be able to have an arrangement that makes our workers happier and happier workers might be more productive.

All this is to say I would hope that this is something that could maybe roll a little bit more slowly over time that involved everybody looking at all of the different options that are there. And then back to the question at hand here.

What are the fiscal implications to just flip a switch and try to make this the reestablished norm. You mentioned about a lot of the programs that are out there for additional parking reimbursement or the physical space that we need for all the additional spaces that otherwise might be shared and consolidated. And that's reduced energy, that's reduced rent.

You know, that could have been an opportunity for a lot of cost savings. And has HR or DGS looked at the fiscal impacts of going two days to four days for this large set.

Of employees on the DGS side? No. The actual implementation of the four day RTO is kind of Department by Department issue. And so we don't have enough data or insight in their, their operations in the one way or the other to begin to calculate something like that. So no, not, not a statewide analysis on our part.

And the same for calhr, no cost analysis has been done. The EO does provide for a hybrid schedule that most state employees did not have prior to Covid. And we just acknowledge the benefits of a continued hybrid schedule.

Thank you. But I think that we absolutely should be looking at things through a cost lens, especially in a very difficult state budget year right now where we are trying to save every nickel that we can find.

Is this the year that we would want to just overnight implement something that might actually put a lot more pressures on us to be able to meet employees needs through additional reimbursements. That's additional cost to the state and that's going to come from something else that we're trying to deliver through the state.

So I would hope that we can perform that. I would hope that we can have a little bit more time for management and leadership, employee bargaining unit leaderships, to be able to have these conversations and work through a negotiation that meets the interests of both sides.

But I think that we can do that in a way I would have to believe that would achieve cost savings as well for the state for the coming fiscal year when we really need that.

So I want to thank you for being here as well to be able to highlight this issue, Madam Chair, as well for docketing this here today.

And would just open encourage that we could hit the pause button and take a different approach because the consequences both to the state as well as, and especially to the individual employees are probably going to be pretty significant as they would have to make a pretty monumental life change as well that might make them unhappier.

Thank you. I concur with the line of comments that my colleague is making. I do have some additional questions again related to cost. So do you expect that there's going to be any need to increase space or lease new spaces to accommodate the number of public employees that are expected to return.

Yeah, I think it's fair to say that there'll be some increased space. We're still trying to kind of grapple with how much and where. I would note again that most departments did not decrease the amount of space that they had. And in some cases departments that did simply gave up space in existing buildings that have sat vacant.

And so re accommodating that space is not exactly a cost. Other things can be, you know, absorbed. You add some workstations in existing building that's not necessarily new lease. So when we say new space, there's definitely. We're working with departments to quantify how much additional workstation office needs there are. But we're.

Yeah, we're still in progress doing that.

So let's take that example. If at 1.0 there was some plans that employees would be doing this. Hoteling, which actually is an odd word, I know that in the workplace people use that, but it basically means like you're moving from place to place, you Reserve a spot and you move from place to place.

With this return to work, are you letting go of this hoteling idea? Will there be a space for each person to have a workplace?

Yeah. With a four day return, you essentially have a one to one ratio of person to work surface. Yes.

So by July, which is not that far, you expect to have a workplace for each person that is returning to work. That's the goal. Yes.

And I only say this because I think, you know, I was a former elementary school teacher and in some districts, people actually in Los Angeles Unified, they have this year round school and they move their little roller carts from one classroom to another kind of, I guess early version of hoteling because of.

And then other places where I work, you have your own classroom and it's a much different experience, not only for the students but for the teacher.

So having a space that your own little space, even if it's a little desk that you can put your own little things and know no one else is going to go there, I think is really important for a workplace. So your best hope is you will have a place for everybody in July. It's what we're working towards.

Okay. Will the Department have to augment its budget for more equipment to accommodate either increased staff or more of these workstations that you may not already have?

DGS doesn't pay for Department spaces. So that's kind of a question for each individual Department, unfortunately.

But are we expecting increases for this?

We don't know on our end.

So this is okay. No comments from audience. So this is a little bit goes into the cost analysis. We have to have some accurate numbers on this. All right. We talked about the transit and the parking. I have heard there already are parking issues. So are you telling me there's additional parking that has been found?

Yeah, I mean, with the caveat that obviously how someone gets from their house to work is obviously a personal choice. DGS does operate 24 parking lots in the state, serving about 11,000 state employees, primarily in Sacramento.

We have to, Monica's point, put together a curated website to kind of show both our options, plus what exists in the governmental sphere that's not the state, plus what's local and private that's available. There are transit solutions. So we do offer 100% reimbursement for mass transit.

We do recognize, you know, we're actually looking to open up another garage that would add additional 700 parking spaces in the downtown area. And then we know that some of our buildings are in more of a have less parking opportunity. So looking at us expanding some of those as well still would absolutely encourage mass transit.

You know, single car is not necessarily the best solution overall, environmentally, but it is, you know, a reality that we're aware of. And so trying to expand parking capacity.

And I do appreciate that. I know that you. You mentioned transit Pass or. And I do think that that's important, especially if we're asking how many. How many employees are we asking to return to work?

Oh, I'm sorry, Madam Chair. I don't have the number off the top of my head, but it is, I think, about 40% of the workforce estimate. Yes. Do we know? I'm not comfortable giving you an estimate. I'm sorry.

I can get that information. If somebody comes up and they have that number, you can share that with us. But thank you.

Because what I'm trying to get on is if one of our California goals for the Governor has been on reducing our carbon footprint, and now we are asking people to possibly drive in, knowing that many people will still need to use a vehicle. Do we have any thoughts about that? No, not at this time, madam.

And please, please, I'm not trying to. I know that this is not your personal decision. I know that you. You are the face of this, so you're not making this decision.

But, Madam Chair, the only thing I can offer is we're doing everything we possibly can to find as many, many resources and just options for our state employees to make this transition as simple as possible.

And I agree. I'm not trying to make anybody the bad guy here. Thank you. All right. I think I've asked most of the questions. I have. Do you have any additional questions?

Yeah, sorry. I apologize for coming in late. One of those days. I appreciate you being here and answering some of our budget questions. It seems to me that the Governor is willing to spend a lot of money on this return to office policy.

So, you know, I'm wondering if the same commitment is going to be made to the workers who are in current negotiations and have been asking for a raise.

I'm sorry, can you repeat the question for me? Again, I apologize.

We're going to be spending a lot of money on ensuring that workers return to work. Are we going to be spending money on addressing their negotiations and the money that they're asking for in terms of a raise?

Okay. The current contracts allow for a 3% raise in July, which is in effect. And then there's an additional 1% also as part of the bargaining contract. And that is dependent on revenues and based on what the Department of Finance states.

The other question I have as labor and Employment Chair, two years ago when I first got here, I actually held a hearing on workers who have a disability. And during that hearing, it was discussed that part of the hybrid model actually gave a lot of these workers an opportunity to work from home and be very, very effective.

And, you know, a lot of studies have been done in terms of their productivity being not less, but actually higher. And so what are some of the things that are going to be done in the budget to address that those workers are able to continue to work from home or have some flexibility?

Because I want to make sure that as we are cutting and doing or asked to cut in other places, that workers with disabilities are also being taken care of and protected in the workplace.

Thank you for your question. What I can share with you is that we currently have policies in place such as reasonable accommodation, which certainly there's a process to go through for individuals with disabilities to see if there's a way that they can continue to do their duties.

Thank you. We appreciate you being so patient. So I think doing the math and you can correct us or send us new information as you have it, I think there's a 226,000 full time employees, give or take, if we have the math right. And so that percentage of returning would be about. About 90,000.

So if you can go back and let us. So 90,000 people and just say a percentage will actually use some type of mass transit or bike or walk or whatever.

But the accommodation for a huge amount of cars is something that I think we really need to look at and we need to perhaps continue these conversations ongoing. As you start to see trends or patterns because of the surrounding areas. There's a lot of building going on.

So somebody who may have five years parked in a certain place, and I'm not talking in a state parking lot, I'm just talking on street, which we know is very difficult, may not even have that capacity. So I think the parking is a very, very big deal.

And if you can really look at that with that, I don't have any other questions at this moment. So we will invite the public. But before we invite the public, remember, 30 seconds or less and we will be as congenial as possible.

And if you need to pull the mic up or down, and if you're going past 30 seconds, I'm just gonna say thank you and that means we're gonna move on. Welcome.

Thank you. Madam Chair. Excuse me, Steve Baker with Aaron Reed and associates representing the Professional Engineers in California Government. First of all, thank you for putting this on the agenda. This is very disruptive to tens of thousands of people. PEG is opposed to the Governor's order.

We have filed an unfair practice charge with the Public Employment Relations Board and they have initially found in favor of PEG and said that the Administration has not appropriately met and conferred with the unions in good faith to deal with these issues that you've raised. We agree with the greenhouse gas issues that you've mentioned.

I would also note that this Committee has previously imposed a 10% across the board cuts to these agencies and this goes counter to that. So thanks again for looking into it.

Thank you.

Thank you for putting this on the Agenda as well Committee. I'm Stephen Boyd. I'm a branch trainer for EDD who's very concerned about recruitment and retention of new staff as we deal with some big challenges here.

Up ahead with unemployment, I just wanted to give a quote for the 2021 CALHR memo I found stating telework is going to be a permanent part of our work lives. It is up for us to capture the long term benefits. I hope we can find that CALHR Department again.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, My name is Jordan. I am a contracts manager for the independent Office of Audits Investigations. Thank you for bringing up the carbon footprint to add to that. So according to the DGS dashboard, before it was taken down, we had saved over 1,080,000,000 miles in commuting. That's enough to drive around the earth 43,200 times.

Or if you want a more extraterrestrial example, that's enough to go to Mars and back three times. So if you have any decent, you know, brick and flyer Meyer plans, you can go to the moon free at that point. But thank you.

Hi, my name is Claire Brownstone. I'm a resident of Sacramento. In addition to all the things that have already been said against the return to office order, I wanted to bring up another important point, that people will die as a result of this decision.

The estimated fatality rate in auto accidents is about 1.33 per 100 million miles by car, estimating 60,000 workers returning to office. This accounts for five fatalities per year that would be completely avoidable by this decision. So I think that is something that also needs to keep in mind, is that this will affect people.

Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Anica Walls, the Proud President of SEIU Local 1000. We represent nearly 100,000 state workers who show up every day to keep California running. State workers power the services that millions rely on, solve the toughest problems, all while keeping services running for Californians.

Right now, however, we're watching the state turn its back on the most effective, affordable and proven tools we have. Telework. According to the 2223 California summary budget, the state saved 22.5 million for the year. By reducing office space, telework boosts productivity, helps recruit and retain talent, supports families, cuts emissions.

Walking away from it wastes public dollars and makes hiring harder. Thank you so much for your time.

Good afternoon. David Jimenez, Vice President, Secretary Treasurer for SEIU 1000. Thank you for putting this on the agenda. It also signals to workers that innovation and efficiency don't matter. Which brings me to pay. We negotiated 4% raise. 3% is locked in. But that final 1% is tied to the budget and we're here to demand it.

We've kept California going through fire, flood, furloughs and pandemic and we're here and we've held the line while the rest of the world hit pause. We've adapted, delivered and shown up no matter what. From telework to fair pay, we're fighting for a state that works better for everyone, including state workers. Thank you.

My name is Stephanie Swales. I'm a dental assistant at California State Prison Solano. If the Governor is willing to take on the cost of return to work, will he also commit to the 4% rates to the state workers? Increasing the raise from 3% to 4% will only cost the state an additional 125 million.

Given the cost increase at the prior two day RTO mandate, return to work requires an additional percentage to make ends meet. And I'm saying this on behalf of my OTs that I can't do my work as a dental assistant without good time.

Hi, my name is Steven Gonzalez. I'm the senior steward for Cali EPA DLC 788 and to speak to our space issue. Our current estimate is we are 600 desks short in our building during the pandemic. Thank you for providing the numbers of state workers.

By the way, my research shows that we are 13,000 workers statewide, more than when they sent us home. That's a lot of space. My building is 25 floors. That takes four of that. And real estate costs have skyrocketed when we're getting ready to go into a recession.

It's irresponsible to take on this added burden when we could spend a tiny fraction of that giving the middle class that 4th Percent. Thank you very much.

Thank you. All the way up. There you go.

Good afternoon. My name is Leif Jones. I work for the Department of Housing Community Development and I represent as well as a Member of SEIU Local 1000. My topic for today is Return to office will cost taxpayers money. Additional commuters will strain infrastructure, increase wear and tear on local roadways, adding an unknown cost to road maintenance.

Traffic control safety costs will increase with increased commuters insurance rates from increased risk rate or of accidents will affect the whole state. Communities will bear costs of living with and alleviating increased pollution. Now that doesn't sound a California that we want to live in.

Thank you. Just pull it up. All right.

Oh, got it. Thank you. My name is Nicholas Clark. I'm a program specialist at Department of Healthcare Services. I just wanted to say that state spends an estimated $600 million a year on office space. As has been said we in the previous reports they've saved 22 million in the previous pandemic.

That can be money that could go out to constituent or rather to the public in the state in the, in the tight budget cycle that we're going through. Additionally there's a state audit on telework that I'd like to ask that that be reviewed before we do any more discussion about this mandate.

And then lastly I just want to say that this is also an issue for geographic representation. I have folks in my office who work in rural Central Valley and who live in rural Northern California who would not able to be part of the state California employment if it wasn't for Delaware. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello Members of the Committee. As a California State worker I can provide you direct insight into mayonnaise. Do these mandates lead to people taking calls in the middle of office that shocking all around them?

They lead to me spending it out of my day commuting where I could spend that time sleeping, spend time with my family or enjoying our beautiful state overall leads me to be less productive. I live their turn offs mandate every single week. It's a mistake. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you all very much for adding this to your agenda. My name is Laurie Steffi. I am an inspector at the Department of Toxic Substances Control. Our org chart if you look has a lot of vacancies. They've been swept because of the difficult budget that you've been discussing today.

When I think about all the money that we're going to spend returning to work and instead the work that inspectors cannot do because we just don't have the staff. I think of the California taxpayer. They're not getting the services that they should have instead of the real estate, you know. So the state is here.

People should be getting the benefits from the staff and we can't do that if we're for choosing buildings instead of staff. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Skyler Waldeck Myers. I'm with Corrections and Rehabilitation. I'm a fiscal analyst there. One of the biggest issues I've seen in my Department is staff retention. We just can't offer the benefits or pay that keep our rock star staff in their seats.

They are going to higher paying jobs with better benefits outside of the state and we are definitely feeling those impacts. And not to mention that but it seems like A lot of our money, our dollars that are made for our communities, our restaurants, our businesses, our shops are now being funneled downtown where we don't live.

Overwhelmingly, we would like those dollars to stay in our communities where we do live. Thank you.

Yes, Hello, My name is Francesca Wander. I have been a state worker for five years. That entire time I have been a most productive state employee working from my home in full time telework. I am being asked to be returned to a congregate setting 10 hours a day.

One of the things that has not been brought up in this hearing is the health implications of being forced back into an office with no social distancing. As if we have learned nothing from the previous pandemic.

In the last month alone, I know multiple people who have still come down with COVID I know two people who have contracted pneumonia. I have a co worker whose husband just died of pneumonia and we just came out of a deadly flu season. As someone who is immunocompromised, I do work from home full time.

The thought of being forced into a congregate setting where workspaces are barely large enough to turn around, where there's no divisions between the cubicles. All of these spaces have been designed before pandemic. Thank you. Thank you. So I ask for you to consider our health and our safety in this decision. Thank you.

Hi everyone. My name is Crystal Coles and I am with Housing and Community Development. I'm also a DLC President with SEIU Local 1000. Specifically at the Melee Complex, the brand new Melee complex at Richards. I'm saying that because I want to talk about parking.

Parking is expensive and the parking rates in Sacramento are anywhere from $45 to $210 a month. Nearly all of the parking passes have a waiting list, especially at our complex. We do not have enough parking spaces for our employees. Daily rates our employees must use.

At our complex, it's $8 a day even if you want to have in and out privileges. I also want to make sure that I am putting you guys on notice that our light rail is going to be shutting down pretty soon thanks to the brand new soccer stadium.

So mass transit is going to be an issue for our, for our rank and file folks and I hope that I uplift their voices. Thank you guys so much. Thank you.

Hey guys, 30 seconds or under.

My name is Nick Rasmussen. I work with the California Department of Water Resources. I'm a PhD trained research scientist. I'm one of the many thousands of technical specialists who work for the state and during the time when we had a lot of flexibility due to telework, we were able to recruit people from all across the state for these technical difficult jobs.

I'm concerned about how we will not only recruit, but retain those technical experts when we are restricting who we can hire to people who live in the locations where those jobs are.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Hannah Hendrickson and I have worked within the Department of Aging since 2018. I'm speaking today in strong opposition of Governor Newsom's return to office mandate. This mandate disregards the lessons we've learned over the past several years.

Remote and hybrid work models have proven not only viable, but often more effective, offering increased productivity, improved work life balance and significant cost savings for both employees and the state. For many workers, this order represents a step backwards.

Personally, I feel like I am nothing but a political pawn and I am deeply concerned for the financial and emotional well being of my family. This decision is in no way a positive change for so many of us and it is unfair to ask us to embrace this. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. Chair Quirksilva and Assemblymember Ortega. I just wanted to thank you for agendizing this Daniel Schoorl, legislative advocate with Local 1000 and wanted to encourage you to discuss with your colleagues the need for a dedicated hearing on this Executive order so we can hear directly more from the workers who are impacted and also receive more clarity from CALHR and DGS. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Philippa Lalouz, Department of Fish and Wildlife. Employee for 10 years in capture UAW local 1115. A one size fits all RTO order only fits people that fit in that square peg, that square hole. It doesn't help anybody. It's going to result in lower employee morale, lower employee retention, and a less diverse workforce.

That's bad for all of us, for all people of California. So say no to RTO and support us.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Dhonielle Cummings. I work for HCD. I was hired during telework in January of 2020. I came in as an entry level employee. And so one of the reasons that I'm here today is I want to dispel the idea that telework means that you can't get promoted. I've been promoted twice.

I'm now a section chief at my office. I also wanted to mention the cost. If you look at it, there could be $85 million saved in not making new leases. We gave up a lot of leases. We gave up a lot of parking. We also gave up a lot of space that we owned.

Re entering all of that means that we are going to cost the taxpayer a huge amount of money. I can also tell you as a supervisor that if you're a good supervisor, you can manage people from anywhere. You do not need to sit in the cubicle with them to manage them. And so I really encourage that. Thank you.

Thank you, Members of this Committee and Madam Chairman. My name is Hannah Johnson. I'm a Member of CAHPS, UAW Local 1115 and the Financial secretary. And I'm also a civil servant. I work for the Department of Public Health.

And I'm here to tell you that people are going to die from the cruel and arbitrary slashing of public health dollars that's happening at the federal level and by extension at the state right now. Californians are going to die.

And instead of prioritizing and spending taxpayer dollars to continue to Fund critical public health infrastructure, the Governor wants to spend hundreds of millions on commercial leases. This mandate isn't about return to office. It's about where our values as Californians lie. It's about protecting children from measles and lead in school fountains.

It's about improving community air quality, monitoring and responding to devastating infectious infectious diseases and tackling the opioid crisis, all of which are being cut.

Thank you.

Hi, my name.

Pull the mic down.

There you go. Hi, my name is Jerry Burnsfield and I'm IT worker with the California Department of Public Health. So real quick, my points are, I'm concerned that the timing of this Executive order has come before the audit of Assemblyman Josh Hoovers joint list. Other studies have shown savings due to telework.

So I just want to point that out. And secondly, to have this happen in the last quarter of a state fiscal year is irresponsible. It doesn't allow for departments to go through the budget process to allocate funds or alert anyone of the cost to implement this order. Thank you.

Thank you. Hello, my name is Elisa Abraham and I am a state worker and a Californian. This impacts us significantly. The Governor states that these mandates are based on research and experience, but refuses to provide any data showing the benefits of bringing us back to the office.

We have offices across the state, so my Department currently is commuting to sit on virtual calls. This is a pay cut and significantly impacts our time, our personal time, and our time with our families. CALHR is not able to reimburse us for this time. Thank you.

Hello. Good afternoon. My name is Alex Lizamo. I've served at a state employee since 2017. That has been the majority of my career. The return to office mandate is fiscally irresponsible. Requiring employees to return to the office four days a week in a blanket Executive order drives up state costs for utilities, maintenance and leases.

There used to be a DGS statewide dashboard that showed the cost savings and environmental impact packs from telework and it was taken down after it was no longer fit the narrative.

If you could, you can still find some of the information at gavinlovestraffic.com or notorto.org I Urge Committee to evaluate the real cost of the mandate and not just budget terms, but lost talent, diminished morale and long term sustainability. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak. My name is Haley Leguizamo and I've proudly served as a California State employee for nearly seven years. Five of those while teleworking successfully and productively. The governor's four day in office mandate is a financial backslide.

Agencies that downsized office space to save taxpayer dollars are now being asked to reverse course to comply with this arbitrary policy. That means more lease space, more equipment, more strain on transit and parking. In our troubled economic times, the state once tracked how teleworks saved money and cut emissions.

That data quietly disappeared when it no longer served the administration's narrative. We owe taxpayers transparency and and fiscal responsibility, not wasteful mandates that serve no operational need. Telework works. The data proves it. I know this Committee cannot overturn the mandate, but your oversight matters.

Please continue to shine a light on the harmful financial impacts of this policy and hold the Governor accountable. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Heather Bell and I'm a California State worker at the Department of Education and a proud Member of SEIU Local 1000. I'm here today to express my support for a fair. Excuse me, for a fair 4% General salary increase for all state employees and to strongly oppose the forced return to office mandate.

To clarify, this is not a return to work mandate. We have not stopped working since we welcomed. The only change has been the location in which we have done our work. State workers have kept California running through wildfires, a pandemic and ongoing crises, all while adapting quickly to remote work with increased productivity and no additional resources.

We've shown that Telework works for employees, the environment and the state budget. Returning to offices four days per week not only puts unnecessary strain on workers and families, but it also undermines the state climate efficiency. It's a step backward thank you.

Okay, 30 seconds or under please.

As many have shared, reducing commuters reduces 80 metric tons of carbon emissions a typical work week. Since before 2020, I have been using environmental ways to travel, use public transit, carpooling, walking, biking. Unfortunately, during the last few years there has been a huge increase in crime in Sacramento County. I no longer feel comfortable using public transit.

The options provided by HR are not inclusive or considering the current state we are in. And also saying that there's 700 new parking spaces is not enough for the estimated 90,000 employees that will be coming soon. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hello, my name is Pamela Ward and I work for Caltrans District 4 as an environmental scientist in the Office of Environmental Analysis. My job is to make sure our projects are CEQA and NEPA compliant. I just got kicked out of training that I was allowed to attend, that I got accepted to, that was NEPA CEQA basics.

They would have launched me into the next level of my performance, my efficiency and my effectiveness. Because we ran out of money at D4 for overhead, all they had to do is pay my salary. Everything else was coming from somewhere else. How am I supposed to get better at doing my job if I can't do the training?

Thank you.

Thank you. Hello. Terry Gray. I work for the Public Utilities Commission as a legal secretary and I'm here to talk about. The cost of commuting will lower state workers ability to partake in local economics.

Workers will need to address additional child and elder care costs given added time to commuting reducing the communities reduced 80 metric tons of carbon emissions in a typical work week per DGS telecommute dashboard that is no longer available.

Staggering wages in RTO will likely lead to high turnover in state work, increasing recruitment costs, decreasing productivity and providing the implementation of mission critical activities. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Melissa Hoge and I'm a proud Member of SEIU Local 1000. As a taxpayer and a disabled state worker, spending my taxpayer money and your taxpayer money on procuring Ada equipment at the expense of taxpayer dollars when people with disabilities have accommodations that work for them at home is not fiscally responsible.

The state should be spending their taxpayer money wisely and it is not wise to spend taxpayer money on unnecessary expenses. Taxpayer money is best spent providing public services and making sure people have affordable place to live and and clean air to breathe.

My request is to stop wasting my taxpayer dollars and your taxpayer dollars and stop reinvesting in California. Thank you.

My name is Christine Lucky Akamine. I work for EDD and I joined the state in 2021 only for telework. I already had a full time job. I did not need to leave that job. I only work for the state for telework. I have a few questions.

How much money do we spend on leased buildings throughout the state every month? Every building ranges between tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars each month. Have we considered instead increasing telework and ceasing leased buildings by downsizing and consolidating departments? Maybe leased support cheaper, smaller buildings. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, I'm Colin. I'm a proud Member of SDIU 1000. I just want to remind folks that most of us already work in the office two to three days a week. There will be no gains in efficiency from this whatsoever. RTO has been a total fiasco at the federal level, as reported by Wired.

I don't know why we would want to replicate that. And you know, some are asking why can't we just go back to the way things were before? And this is always a question that certain people ask whenever we see improvements in the living conditions of other groups, usually that they're not a part of. Right?

Why can't we just go backwards? Why can't we just go backwards? Right? This is a political decision and not a policy decision that makes it a moral injury to state workers. At a time when agencies are already struggling to fill vacancies.

This will lead to a predictable exodus of talent from valuable public agencies that are already struggling to compete with the private sector for talent. RTO is bad for taxpayers, it's bad for our environment, it's bad for children, it's bad for elders, it's bad for the disabled, it's bad for families and fertility, it's bad for public health.

Thank you. Thank you. And it's a lateral move for the economy at best.

Thank you.

Thank you. My name is Don Antonowich from Glenn, county, work in the Cal EPA building, senior scientist and I'm here to speak out the hypocrisy of our Governor and the disrespect that he has for the people, the state scientists, the environment. He's praised our telework savings, efficiency and carbon savings.

Well, now he's dragging us into more traffic, parking and carbon problems and we have less rural suburban economic gains, leisure time, civic activities.

Thank you.

While he makes his podcast.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi there. Tricia Lee, state scientist, Member of CAPS uaw. In contrast to the DGS statement, I work for a fully hoteling agent in a state building.

We were asked by the state to leave a private building to move into a public building under the condition that we needed less space due to work from home, assuming that that would be a permanent condition.

My agency makes a new seating chart every week to accommodate 2 day RTO because DGS said there was no room for us and now miraculously, there are somehow going to be room for us for four dayo in two months.

We can't be the only state agency in this situation which would necessitate us doubling our current space allocation and increasing our budget in a very tight fiscal year when real estate costs have skyrocketed. Skyrocketed. This mandate is not just inefficient, it's wasteful. Telework works. It saves taxpayer money, improves retention and supports continuity and longevity in public service.

Thank you.

Thank you. I'm Gina Garcia Smith. I am a proud Member and steward with SEIA Local 1000 and an employee of the California Department of Education. Telework is effective and saves the state money. We use fewer state resources and work more hours in a more focused and conducive environment with than open cubicles where we are constantly interrupted.

The nature of work has changed since the pandemic and it is time that California caught up. Telework is an incentive that attracts and retains quality state workers. When wages have stagnated for years. 1% is not enough to keep up with that.

Even if we get that raise, the cost is going to be a pay cut for us. Thank you.

Hello, my name is Christina Parker. I'm an employee of California Partner of Fish and Wildlife and a proud Member of CAHPS UAW 1115. I am a statewide coordinator and so I spend two days in office coordinating with my local team and the other days coordinating with people throughout the state.

My colleagues that I work with regularly are not in person. So this increased cost without putting me in the actual spaces that my colleagues are working with, the people I work with are all up and down the West Coast. So I just want to point out that that increased cost isn't always valuable.

And I also don't live near any transit and our office is in west sac, not downtown. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Ann Hilbourne. I'm a scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife and a Member of CAHPS UAW section 1115. And I'd like to talk about the climate impacts of telework.

So DGS's own telework dashboard, which they took down recently said that telework in 2022 saved hundreds of thousands of tons of carbon being emitted into the atmosphere.

This is one of the biggest levers California has to impact climate and reducing telework would make so much more emissions are going to go back into the environment and it's going to negate the money that the State of California has spent on its climate goals already.

It's going to negate and undermine goals we have made as far as renewable energy, as far as nature based solutions. Thank you.

Thank you, thank you.

Hello, my name is Nick. I work for Department of Conservation. I'm with Peg. If, as the Governor has implied through recent tweets, the goal of this Executive order is to revitalize downtowns across the state and that goal is unrealistic and devoid of logic, many state employees coming to the office the two days Making state employees come to the office two days a week will not have the desired effect on the downtown economy.

Many state employees already pack in their lunches and that will become even more common with doubling commuting, parking and childcare costs. Do not make state employees bear the burden of both additional commuting costs and be responsible for keeping downtown parking garages and lunch venues afloat. If it is simply economically infeasible to expect this much from state employees.

Hello. Thank you so much for the opportunity to share today. My name is Maddie and I help identify impaired and pollutant water bodies so that we all have clean water and protect the environment. And I agree with everything my colleagues have shared today.

So I'll just add that a great question was asked about will we also be paying state workers adequately if we have all of this money to return to office? And a number of three plus one was given but there's numerous contracts throughout the state so that's only accurate for one small group. Thank you. Thank you.

Afternoon, Farrah. I've been with Corrections since 2010. Member of SEIU since 2010. Correctional Healthcare Telehealth. We were created by the federal receiver to promote technical advances in health care. And how disappointed I am to hear that no science or numbers were being quoted by the professionals today. As for the reason for new policy wasting taxpayer dollars.

I have one math equation since you didn't want to bring any numbers. If cars kill, which is why we have seat belt laws, An RTL means more cars that state employees and civilians will die because you guys want to push policy rather than fight back. Thank you.

Okay guys, let's chime it down in the audience.

Good afternoon and thank you for allowing us all to speak. I'm Danielle Cuciara. I work for DTSE as the Department of Toxic Substances Control. And I'm a PhD trained toxicologist. I won't belabor all of these fine points everybody else has made. I'm sure you've heard it now. But I do want to provide an example.

I'm one of the many employees who commute in for my job, which I love. I love the state and I love the city. And my commute is on average an hour and a half there and an hour and a half back twice a week.

If we double that, that's going to be 12 hours a week in my car sending out pollutants into the atmosphere. And this is extra ridiculous because most of my work has done teleconferencing with other people all over the State of California rather than in an office. Thank you. Thank you again.

Good afternoon. My name is Pete Nelson. I'm a senior scientist at the Department of Water Resources. Thanks for the chance to talk to you all. I just wanted to add that I work on the ecology of fishes, primarily listed species.

And the irony may be lost on Governor Newsom, but it's not lost on me that this RTO policy is going to directly affect the ecological health of the Central Valley and the great State of California. I live in Santa Cruz. I commute to West Sacramento, a 300 mile round trip. I'm not going to stick around if this policy is maintained. Thank you.

Chelsea Callahan, environmental scientist with Cal Recycle. And I would like to remind everybody and encourage you to keep in mind that everything that we have heard today as far as danger to life, cost to the environment and to the state, the personal toll and the professional struggles, none of it is necessary.

And I would like that word necessary to be underlined everywhere in your minds as you consider this return to office. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, my name is Kevin Afflegui. So with four days, it requires more fuel and electricity, increasing pollution, it's going to increase cost not just for US state workers, but for all Californians, especially with us coming. So we got what, oil refineries that are leaving. So it's going to increase the cost for us.

We don't even make that much money scale electric cars for California. How can we afford electric car, especially for coming four days a week? It's going to cost even more money for fuel and everything. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm with uaw. You've heard from many workers here about how they feel about it. Also the many questions that everybody has in the community. And I'm sure that there are many more workers who would have loved to come but couldn't be here.

On behalf of CAHPS, UAW Local 1115, I would like to make the suggestion to the Committee to halt another Committee hearing if your schedule allows. Thank you. Thank you.

Hi, thank you to the Committee as well as the panel for being here with us today. I am John Ramirez with edd. Earlier today in this Committee hearing there was discussion about all the employees that were hired to to prepare for coming potential recession.

I'd like the Committee and HR to consider how many of those employees were hired with the expectation that we would have two day rto. How many of those employees will we potentially lose as a result of this sudden change and how will that prepare us for a coming disaster? Thank you.

Thank you. That looks like the last of our individuals that are have been here. First, I want to thank the presenters, the Department of Finance and the lao. This is not an easy discussion and it certainly is a discussion that should be negotiated.

And as I made the statement in the beginning, this is not our Committee's decision as far as the governor's return to work order. That being said, I'm proud to hear this and I want to thank the scientists, the health care workers, the housing people here, childcare and all of the state workers.

Our state simply cannot work without you. And you may know I've said this a few times. I'm a teacher and what that means is our schools cannot run without our custodians, without our office secretaries, without our food service and our state can't run without you. And we appreciate you and we see you.

The questions that I have, I hope you'll get back to us a little bit on some of the data, but I will concur with some of the comments. Simply, California was leading in the pandemic in the sense of a crisis that no one saw coming, that no one believed would happen In a short amount of times.

We pivoted and used the resources we had which was working telecommuting, using the technology that we're so known for in California. And we took a lot of hits for that. We had a lot of criticism nationally about some of this and yet we weathered the storm and became the fifth national, the fifth largest economy in the world.

And yet we in turn now are doing a U turn and this U turn. The questions that I have in see we are in April, so May, June, July, in three short months we will see a influx of state workers and some of the Questions simply haven't been answered.

Whether it's about parking, whether it's about workstations, and simply, this is in contrast to our climate goals and certainly the impacts on affordability, which has been the key word here in California through the election, which actually changed the trajectory of our country. Not just California, our country.

So if anybody from the governor's office is listening, the election was based on affordability. It was based on eggs, it was based on the price of groceries, it was based on gas, it was based on how much we're paying for housing.

And if we cannot get this straight, if we cannot get this straight, we are doing a disservice to our state because child care, parking, fuel, are all coming out of the salary of our workers. And it adds up. I know for sure that there are employees or people looking for jobs across the country.

And one of the first questions they will ask is this remote. I have four adult kids. Well, I say kids, but you can't be an adult and a kid, but you can be actually who are 28 to 36. And they have made decisions based on if they have the opportunity to work remote.

All of them in fact have some version, whether it's a two day or three day or so forth. But these are important decisions for families, especially as we talk to families at the Federal Government now saying they want to talk about family planning and having more children.

How in the world can we have more children if we have high costs for childcare? We can't afford rent or groceries. So I don't know who's out there listening. I don't know who is there listening or whoever watches our world here, but somebody gets some sense into what's going on. We can't afford this.

But I know you did not make the decision. You're just so. I appreciate you being here. I know it's not easy. So please, I'm not trying to beat up on anybody here. Thank you again to the state workers and that will conclude this issue.

All right. We will be ending our hearing today with our non presentation items. If we do not have anything called out, we see have no Members here. No questions. I have no questions. Is there anybody who would like to speak on our non presentation items? Seeing none. This will conclude our hearing. Thank you.