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

The Senate budget Subcommitee number five on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, labor and Transportation will now come to order. Good morning, everyone. We're holding our Committee here today in the Capitol, room 112. I ask all Members of the Subcommitee to be present in room 112 so we can establish a quorum and begin our hearing.

Today is our final Subcommitee hearing. They promise us for 2025. For today's hearing, all items are vote only. We will begin with public comment on these items and then move to the vote only calendar. The actions we will be taking today represent the Legislature's budget plan.

These issues have been discussed in several Subcommitee hearings over the past few months. We have heard and appreciate the feedback from the Members of the public. This is a tough budget year, meaning we have to make some very difficult decisions.

I look forward to continuing conversations with the Administration and the Assembly in collaborative and thoughtful manner as we move forward towards a final budget agreement in the next few weeks. Before we begin, let's establish a quorum. Consultant Nora, would you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Well, seeing that we've established a quorum and our full family is together, let's begin with public comment on all issues to ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard. Please limit your comments to one minute or less. And if someone else has already made the similar comment, please, please just add me to. Thank you and let's begin.

Sorry. Good morning, Josh Gauger. On behalf of the Chief Probation Officers of California, unfortunately, this is not a good budget for probation departments. To be clear, last November, 70% of voters sent the message that they wanted a greater emphasis on public safety. The Legislature's response in this budget is to 1.

Cut probation by 25 million in one of the most proven, successful and innovative programs, SB678, which is going to result in less funding for probation departments to supervise felony offenders in the community and prevent prison admissions. 2. Provide zero funding for probation to implement Proposition 36.

The entity and activity that each court or public safety expert testified was key to ensuring accountability in the new mandated treatment process. See 3. Cut probation by 5 million next year and 20 million ongoing to provide pre trial services that help individuals that cannot afford bail with release pretrial and ensure they are returned to court.

We're disappointed in the outcome but look forward to further communication to try to improve the situation. Thank you.

Thank you.

Madam Chair Members Dean Grafilo with Capital Advocacy here on behalf of Case Union, Union for state attorneys and other legal professionals throughout the state plot and support the Legislature's rejection of the trailer Bill specific to telework as well as the proposal on wage reductions 1 through the collective bargaining process. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning. Ryan Souza, on behalf of Amity Foundation, Health Health Right360 and Westcare foundation, we just want to highlight issue 109 which shows an administrative unallocated cut to CDCR.

While we are super grateful for the protective rehabilitative language, when you take into account bargaining units, state employees, healthcare oversight by courts, you are effectively asking for a list of rehabilitative programs.

So we just want to caution this Legislature to make sure that CDCR is providing that list before they start making cuts to rehabilitative programs because targeting it ultimately comes down to a filter of rehabilitative programs. The second comment I want to make is separate.

On behalf of redf, we just want to thank the Committee and chair and consider your implementation around the Clean California grant under the transportation section. We just want to urge prioritization of those fundings to employment social enterprises.

In the previous Subcommitee hearing you talked about providing full time job making sure that employers were focused on things beyond just litter abatement, employee employment social enterprises create jobs for individuals overcoming barriers for. Homelessness, incarceration and addiction. They deliver on the grants goals to the state and ultimately provide resources to. People that are in need. And we just want to thank you for that. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning. Chair and Members. Tara Gimbo Eastman with the Steinberg Institute. Really appreciate the Committee's work on Proposition 36 implementation. I want to thank you for the 50 million set aside for behavioral health implementation. Would also further recommend trailer Bill Language regarding the treatment kind of contours as well as commercial insurance reimbursement. Thank you.

Yes. Good morning. Jolena Voorhis. On behalf of the League of California Cities, I want to express our strong support for the funding for Proposition 36 of 110 million. We really appreciate the Senate's focus on ensuring that the will of the voters is implemented.

I will note that not not all of the groups asking for money got what they wanted. But in a tight fiscal year, I think we have to appreciate the Legislature's providing any funds in this area.

So we really strongly support the funding for the various county departments which are really critical in ensuring that we can implement Proposition 36. So thank you. Thank you.

My name is Anka Skanning. I'm with UAW Region 6 and KEPS, UAW Local 1115, which is the Union of State Scientists. We would like to thank the Subcommitee for its work on everything impacting state workers here. And we applied the Legislature for for holding strong on rejecting the savings to state worker compensation.

We would like to urge you to hold strong on that and also on rejecting the proposal to eliminate 6,000 positions of state workers. Amongst those are close to 300 state scientist positions and state scientists largely are already overworked and stretched in and we would like to see an increase in state scientists positions and not elimination of positions. Thank you. Thank you.

Seeing no other Members of the public who wish to speak.

Thank you. Chair, Committee and staff Ryan Morimune with the California State Association of Counties. Really appreciate everyone's work on on the legislative agreement and the continued efforts around securing funding for Prop 36 implementation.

However, would like to note the one time nature of it doesn't cover all county costs and as was noted earlier, there's no specified funding for probation. Excuse me. And then two more quick items as it relates to the SB678 Community Corrections Performance Incentive Grant.

We're hopeful that throughout the continued negotiations that the Legislature will reconsider the funding formula changes to provide stability for counties. And then lastly just would like to note we continue to oppose the reductions to pretrial services to probation. Thank you.

Thank you. Good morning Chair and Members. Kim Stone of Stone Advocacy on behalf. Of the California District Attorneys Association. Very appreciative of the Legislature recognizing. I'm sorry I like ran here. I did not expect the public comments to be here so quick and I. Thought there'd be a much longer line.

Did not appreciate the legislative proposal recognizing the will of the voters, including the funding for behavioral health to implement the will of the voters for Prop 36 concerned that the funding is one time also concerned about supervision and accountability for the people who are completing the drug treatment programs.

We fear that this proposal does look a little bit more like Prop 47 funds. Instead of getting people into treatment as Prop 36 mandated and that to improve. The chances for rehabilitation and ultimate success, behavioral treatment should be coupled with probation supervision. Thank you so much and good morning.

Thank you. Good morning. Chairmembers Usha Mutschler on behalf of the California State Sheriff's Association, we have comments regarding three issues outlined in your packet. First is on Proposition 36 we acknowledge the Legislature's inclusion of the 1101,000,001 time to Fund parts of Proposition 36.

But we also feel that this plan is inadequate to provide comprehensive and ongoing funding for this vital voter approved measure. So we really urge the Legislature and the Governor to continue working on this and fully Fund Proposition 36.

On law enforcement mutual aid issue, CSSA is opposed to the staff recommendation that rejects the governor's proposed reappropriation of approximately 22 million to continue to support and assist local law enforcement agencies that are deployed through the law enforcement mutual aid system. And finally, our last issue is with the prison closure.

And we are very concerned about the Legislature's plan to adopt the governor's main revision proposal to close one additional prison by October 2026. Several prisons have already been closed, as you know, and we believe that CDCR should have sufficient capacity to address its actual population as well as account for any uncertainties that may arise in the future. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, chair and Members. On behalf of Valor USA California Sexual Assault Coalition that represents 84 rape crisis centers and affiliated programs, we wanted to thank the Committee for Including the 100 million to backfill the loss of federal Voca funding. We urge this Committee to continue advocating for these essential dollars through the remainder of the budget cycle. Thank you..

Seeing no further Members of the public running in. No, you know, it's not in my script, so I'm not supposed to say this. I might get kicked under the table here. But just FYI, you should hopefully keep in mind, several of you spoke to Prop 36. When Prop 36 was passed, there was no revenue associated with it.

So actually this Legislature for us to try to carve out $100 million at this point, given the significant challenges that we're facing, is actually very responsible. It's not ultimately maybe where we go, where we don't go.

But I just wanted to make sure you were aware of that, that when the legislation was passed, there was no funding resources tied to it, which makes it very difficult for us to implement legislation which of course we implement what the voters vote for. But it really didn't help that we weren't provided any funding to do so.

With that being said, I didn't get kicked under the table, so I guess I'm okay here. Having heard from all Members of the public. Are. Are there any additional questions or comments from the Committee Members? Yes, sir. Mr. Seyarto

I think several people alluded to the fact that we're in a tight budget year. I have never, ever seen any budget where we didn't say we were in a tight budget year.

If we had $700 billion to spend, we would be in a tight budget year because every year we want to spend way more money than we have. And some of our problems are self inflicted. We've expanded programs that have cost us billions of dollars more than we thought they would cost.

And that is why we're having a tight budget year. So, you know, when we're Talking about Prop 36, that's one of the problems is, yeah, it didn't come with funding, but we should have plenty of funding to do what the citizens want us to do with their money.

And yet we're struggling because we've made other decisions that have created this tightness. We're spending more money than we've ever spent before this year. So it's not. I mean, it is tight, but we've made it tight by some of the decisions that get made and the priorities that aren't necessarily the citizens. Priorities.

There are priorities up here in the Legislature, not necessarily mine, but ours as a body. And I want to make that clear, you know, because there are going to be some painful, painful decisions made in regards to people's programs that they wish we could Fund. So with that being said, anxious to get the voting started. Thanks.

Well, with that, any other Members with comments? No. All right, so now we're going to move on to the vote only calendar. First we will vote on issues. Okay. We're going to start off with part A, which has to do with public safety.

We're going to go through [Issues] Do I have a motion to adopt the staff recommendations for these issues moved by Senator Wahab? The motion is to adopt the staff recommendations. Consultant, would you please call the roll

[Roll Call]

With that, we're going to go on to the next items. We had Ayes, Ayess for and no, zero. And so that item passes, all those items are out. Thank you. Next, we're going to vote on a second set of issues. In part A, public safety.

We have [Issues] Do we have a motion to adopt the staff recommendations? Thank you. Staff recommendations have been moved by Senator Wahab. The motion is to adopt the staff recommendations. Consultant, would you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Those Items are aye. Three nos. 1, those items are out. And then finally, we have the third issue. Part A of public safety issues. [Issues] Do we have a motion to adopt the staff recommendations for these issues? Thank you. The staff recommendations have been moved by Senator Wahab. The motion is to adopt the staff recommendations. Consultant, would you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

These items are out with eyes. Three nos. Thank you to all the individuals who participated in the public testimony not only today, but all of the hearings that we've had this year. If you were not able to testify today, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the Budget and Fiscal Review Committee or visit our website.

Your comments and suggestions are important to us, and we want to include your testimony in the official hearings record. Before we conclude today, I want to say a special thank you to the staff of Budget Subcommitee 5. We've had some very tough issues.

I was a new Member, and you guys were quite diligent in preparing all the information and I think evident by our votes today and how efficient it was, speaks to the work that you guys have done. I want to say a special thank you to Nora Brackbill, Diego Lopez and Eunice Ron.

We also want to thank the LAO's office for all of your testimony and suggestions and recommendations that have been helpful. The Department of Finance for your comments and explanations and in this process, and for the sergeants for taking good care of us and getting everyone in and out and making sure we did a good job.

With that, we've concluded the agenda for today's hearing. The Senate Budget Subcommitee Number five on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, labor and Transportation is adjourned. Thank you.