Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6 on Public Safety

All right, we'd like to call the Assembly Budget Subcommitee Number six to order on Public Safety. Good afternoon. Today we'll be covering issues from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

In addition, we have a few proposals from the California Military Department and the Office of State Public Defender which will not be formally presented, but Members may ask any questions they may have and the public is welcome to comment on them.

All public comment will be taken at the end of our last item and each person will have up to one minute each for public comment. We will not be taking any votes today. Speakers are listed in speaking order for each of the items.

Please keep your remarks within the allotted time communicated to you by my staff and remember to introduce yourselves prior to speaking. This will be our first hearing of 2026 and I want to thank staff for continuing to put those hours together to put together our agenda.

We do want to have see if there's any opening remarks from Committee Members. No, no remarks. So we'll move right on to issue one. Population Projects Projects and preliminary updates of impacts from Proposition 36.

We have Kathy Jefferson, Department Deputy Director, Office of Research, CDCR Caitlin O'Neill, Legislative Analysis Office Kyle Gaiman, Department of Finance and Anthony Franzoa, Department of Finance. We'll start with the Deputy Director.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm Cathy Jefferson, Deputy Director for CDCR's Office of Research. I'll be providing an overview for you of CDCR's Fall 2025 population projections to predict future populations. CD CDCR utilizes historical trend data, including data on court commitments.

The fall 2025 projections are provided through June 2030 and the estimates are based on actual data and estimated impact of legislation, policy and process changes.

Through June 302025 we expect a net 5 year decrease of 6.5% for our institution population and a net 5 year decrease of 10.4% for the parole population between June 2025 and June 2030. We updated our methodology for estimating Proposition 36 to use actual admissions data through June 302025.

With actual admissions data available, we no longer need to rely on historical pre Prop 47 trends. Prop 36 admissions are expected to continue increasing through June 2030, but to reach a lower level than anticipated in the spring.

We worked with our Office of Legal affairs to identify specific Prop 36 qualifying offenses and to develop our methodology for estimating the impact on admissions and length of stay. For new admissions.

We account for individuals who would not have entered state prison if not for Prop 36 commitment offenses are limited to statutes created or amended by Prop 36 that either established new felony pathways or made certain offenses state prison eligible. New statutes include treatment, mandated felonies and and theft of $950 or less with prior convictions.

Amended statutes include possession of a controlled substance while armed as well as certain grand theft offenses. For these amended offenses, qualifying elements are manually verified in the system by my staff to ensure that they meet Prop 36 criteria. We estimate length of stay to be approximately 10 months for these new admissions.

Then we have admissions that extend length of stay. We account for individuals who would have entered state prison regardless of Prop 36 due to having another felony conviction in conjunction with a qualifying Prop 36 offense or enhancement. We don't consider these new Prop 36 admissions.

However, Prop 36 affects these cases by increasing the total time that they are serving in state prison. On average, based on the cases that we have observed in the first six months, Prop 36 offenses and enhancements extend sentence length by approximately 1,000 days.

The long term impact of Prop 36 remains uncertain, but CDCR continues to monitor the data and partner with our stakeholders and to share information as it becomes available. We are currently working to make the necessary adjustments to our future estimates based on new data.

Thank you very much for your time and I'm happy to answer any questions that you might have.

Thank you so much, Elio

Caitlin o' Neill with the Legislative Analyst Office we withhold recommendation on the population related budget adjustments given that they'll be updated at the May revision. However, there are two findings from our analysis of the estimates that were included in the Governor's budget that we would present just for the Legislature's awareness.

The first is that the Proposition 36 estimates on the prison population may be slightly low, and that's because, as Ms. Jefferson indicated, CDCR, as they traditionally do for their population projections, impose a June 30 cutoff date for data that goes into the projections that form the basis of the Governor's budget.

So that meant they had about six months of implementation of Prop 36 in their data and they looked at actual admissions to identify the ones that were admitted to prison because of Prop 36 and then assumed that that same number of people would continue to be admitted going forward.

In other words, their methodology assumes that the admission rate for Prop 36 for the first six months of implementation would continue or would remain flat.

However, because we now have an additional six months or so of data, we're able to look at more recent trends and at least for two components of Prop 36 for which data was available for the full year of implementation, we see that admissions did ramp up over the course of the year.

In other words, admission admissions in the second half of the year were higher than the first, which would suggest that the administration's methodology would lead towards some underestimation. The second kind of General assessment for awareness is around the projection of the entire prison population, and that is that again, the Administration uses data up through June 30th.

When we're doing our analysis, we have an additional six months of actual data, and we can see that the administration's projections were trending or the actual prison population was trending about 1% higher than the Administration projected in the first half of this year or this fiscal year. In other words, the fall.

So that's consistent with the possibility that the Prop 36 impact on the prison population is slightly underestimated. But it could be other factors at play. For example, a couple large counties did have new district attorneys take office.

It's possible they have instituted new practices that are causing their staff to seek prison to be more likely or to seek prison sentences more often, rather, which could impact the prison population and maybe not quite yet be picked up in CDCR's methodology. So again, we will be looking at the revised numbers at the May revision.

Thank you so much. Department of Finance, good afternoon. Kyle Gaiman, Department of Finance. Just to note that on Proposition 36, we agree that it's still developing methodology. It's somewhat uncertain, as it was put in place only in November 2024. So we'll continue to monitor that with CDCR as we move to May revision. And no further comments.

Thank you so much. Any questions, comments from the dais?

Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, just one sort of broader question, and I suppose this is best for Ms. Jefferson. In your estimation, what are the factors that are contributing to reductions in our state prison population? I know I'm asking you to speculate a little bit.

But nonetheless, even though those projections are a little bit, we're still trying to grapple with how accurate they are. We're seeing the prison population decline even with the passage of Prop 36. What are the contributing factors?

I would say that. Thank you for your question. And I think the main thing is that we're seeing lower court commitments, just in General. After Covid, I would say around 20222023 the projection or the actual court commitments data just started to just continue decreasing.

But as Caitlin kind of mentioned, it seems to be changing in July through December of 2025. And so we're monitoring that, we're keeping an eye on it to see how that impacts our projections in the May revision.

If I could respond to just one of the comments that LAO made regarding our Prop 36 assumed rate, it's not that it was remaining constant. We use what's called a logarithmic statistical model to project Prop 36 impact.

And the that model actually incorporates fast growth in the earlier part of the projection followed by a slowing growth or stabilization. And this model fits our situation right now where we have a lot that is still unknown.

And so what we do know, we have an understanding that there is going to be an implementation period characterized by fast growth that will likely be followed by a leveling off or stabilization in the out years.

But again we are already working to update and make adjustments to our May revision projections to incorporate an additional six months of data which as the LAO has reported is showing an increase, a greater increase over what we saw in the first six months.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And certainly the information on Prop 36 and we're going to be looking to see another Update on Prop 36 emissions in the future and you'll be able to bring that information back to this Committee.

But I do have a question on the types of Prop 36 crimes that you're seeing that are ending up in state prison. Can you elaborate a little bit more on those? I know you mentioned the 950 and some other areas there.

Yeah. So let me see if I could find that the most the primary group of admissions are for those 11395 Health and Safety 11395 and the Penal Code 666.1. About 10 to 15% are falling under like the amended statutes. Right. And then we have just a few.

At least in the first six months there were less than 100 cases that fell under what we were bucketing as admissions with an extended length of stay. So like enhancements or where there is a Prop 36 offense, but it wasn't like the main part of the sentencing component.

So I think that's still pretty early given that it was only from the first six months. But most of the admissions that we are counting are the new statutes Created by Prop 36.

Thank you for that. Because you mentioned that there's an extension of 1000 days based on Prop 36. So I was trying to get to which crimes are those extensions.

I can give you that. So those are mostly for enhancements to the controlling term. So Prop 36 enhancements and they are let's see here, we got penal code 12022, 12022.6, 12022.65, 12022.7 and then Health and Safety 11370.4.

Those are the enhancements that with the collaboration of our Office of Legal affairs that we were counting as qualified Prop 36 enhancements.

Well, thank you for that and if you could provide a summary to this Committee, that would be great.

Any other questions on issue one? Thank you so much. As we move now to issue two.

Okay.

Thank you.

Lump sum payments. Cynthia Mendoenza, Deputy Director, Office of Fiscal Service, CDCR. Caitlin O 'Neill, LAO's Office. Kyle Gaiman, Department of Finance. Anthony Franzoa, Department of Finance. And Cynthia, two times here. So we'll start with the Deputy Director.

Perfect. Good afternoon, Chair and Committee Members. Again, my name is Cynthia Mendonza. The Department requests 91 million ongoing for correctional officers and nursing staff separating from state employment and requiring payment for unused leave credits. We call this the lump sum payments. Historically, these payments were funded through salary savings from vacant positions.

But reductions in position authority and the operational necessity of posted positions, including BU6 peace officers and nurses, mean there are fewer vacancies available, which limits the use of those salary savings for the unused leave.

Without dedicated funding, the Department would have to divert funds from other areas should salary savings be insufficient, potentially impacting public safety, safety and inmate health services. With that, the Department is happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you so much, LAO.

Thank you. I'm going to start with some very brief background on the kind of how we got to this place where that the underlying reason why this proposal has come forward and then discuss our assessment recommendations on the proposal and then our assessment recommendations on the underlying issue.

So basically the state across all departments, not just CDCR budgets, assuming all authorized positions are filled, but of course in reality, because of employee turnover and whatnot, some positions are inevitably vacant, which means departments have some extra money in their budget associated with these vacant positions. That's often referred to as salary savings.

Departments are expected to pay for certain costs using salary savings. One example of these costs are these lump sum payments for leave cash outs. There are costs that we know are going to happen. It's not something the state has control over, but they're also not formally budgeted and they're just expected to use these salary savings.

And this is not a CDCR specific issue. It's a general kind of feature of the way the state budgets. However, what is relatively Unique for CDCR is that in recent conditions, most notably, prison capacity reductions have resulted in the state in CDCR's number of vacant positions declining.

And that's because when prisons are closed, not only are the vacant positions and associated dollars at that prison eliminated from the budget, but also staff at that prison have the chance to fill vacant positions at other prisons, and which puts overall downward pressure on vacant positions and associated dollars.

CDCR also had $14 million swept from its budget as a part of the statewide vacancy sweep. So what this means is that CDCR's budget has a structural shortfall, or it appears to. In other words, the amount of dollars has gone down faster than the actual costs that those dollars have historically been used to pay for.

So moving on to kind of our assessment on this specific proposal before you, which is $91 million ongoing to pay for these lump sum payments that were historically funded using vacancy savings. And we find that in the near term it is reasonable because the Department has to pay these costs.

The funding that it's used historically to pay for these costs is no longer available.

However, it's not clear that this condition is an ongoing condition, because once the state stops closing facilities in rapid succession and kind of reaches a new normal in terms of prison capacity, it's possible that the vacancy rate will return to something closer to historical levels, which would mean that CDCR could potentially again have the capacity in its budget to absorb these types of savings, like the lump or these types of costs like the lump sum payments that we're talking about right now.

So we recommend approving the funding on a limited term basis and then requiring the Department to report certain data toward the end of that limited term period in order to inform legislative deliberations when it comes time to consider whether additional money is needed for this purpose going forward.

And then moving to our comments and recommendations, finally, on the kind of underlying issue, this structural shortfall, we find that it is concerning for two reasons. The first is that it limits budget transparency.

And so one of the ways departments respond to shortfalls in their budget is by either delaying or canceling activities they were otherwise authorized to do. And that could be as simple as not limiting travel or limiting overtime, but it could also be some activity that is a legislative priority.

And these are decisions that are typically made internally, and so the Legislature wouldn't necessarily be aware of them. And then the second concern is that the Department could still overrun its budget.

And it did in fact do that in 24-25 when it came forward needing an additional $358 million and at the end of the fiscal year, the Legislature has little choice but to approve it, and so that given this fiscal condition, would come at the expense of other General Fund priorities.

So we recommend the Legislature exercise oversight by asking the Department to report in budget hearings on what steps it's either taking in the current year to shrink its shortfall.

In other words, how is it making room in its budget to pay its bills, as well as how is it planning to make room in its budget in the budget year to free up money, as well as what the programmatic implications of those changes would be and the associated estimated savings.

We also recommend having the Department report on the size of the shortfall in their estimation, the overall shortfall, as well as what those unbudgeted costs, what unbudgeted costs currently make up that shortfall.

Thank you so much. Department of Finance Kyle Gaiman, Department of Finance thank you to the LAO for the acknowledgment of these costs. And we wanted to acknowledge some concerns as well about the limited term approach. Lump sum payments, as noted, are an ongoing legally required structural cost which departments typically absorb via salary savings.

And these salary savings given vacancy rates do fluctuate, as the LAO notes, especially for a Department like CDCR, given its size and the nature of its 24 hour security operations.

The vacancy rates can be influenced by the rate of prison admissions, the composition of them, broader state cost control efforts like the vacancy reductions, as well as efforts made to streamline CDCR's operations and footprint like the prison and facility closures we have seen given these, though none of those reduce the leave liabilities commensurately.

The leave liabilities are governed by CALHR and bargaining agreements and CDCR is required and to adhere to them. So using fluctuate salary savings, given that they're fluctuating, they are a less stable Fund source, these ongoing mandatory costs.

And we think that providing ongoing funding as opposed to this limited term approach gives more certainty to the Department and approves its ability to adapt to declining populations and plan its budget long term.

And lastly, I'd like to note that in the JLBC's letter last June in response to the CDCR deficiency, they specifically asked the Administration to address the lump sum payments issue. They wrote that given the likely persistence of these deficits, it's imperative that the Administration act swiftly and transparently to align CDCR's actual costs with its budget.

So we see this as a right sizing exercise for them to get the structural funding in alignment with their actual costs and that's why we've proposed ongoing funding for it. And I'll turn over to my colleague to address other comments.

Good afternoon, Chair Ramos and Members of the Subcommitee. Anthony Franzoid, Department of Finance. Just to speak quickly to the LAO's comments on CDCR's structural budget issues.

As you may recall, the 2025 Budget act included a one time appropriation for CDCR to enter into a contract with the Boston Consulting Group to look at CDCR's operations to see what could be done more efficiently. That work has been ongoing this fiscal year and is wrapping up with CDCR.

It also includes the Department of Healthcare Services in that contract. But specific to CDCR, BCG is looking at things like contract management and streamlining the department's use of overtime and, excuse me, headquarters kind of efficiencies in terms of staffing, just to name a few things.

So I just want to acknowledge that the Department and the Administration are aware of the structural budget issues and have been working consistently throughout this year to bring those kind of efficiencies to fruition.

So again, the work is wrapping up and more information will be forthcoming at the May revision on the steps that CDCR and the Administration are gonna take to address that.

Thank you so much. Any questions, comments from the dais?

So, Vice Chair, just real quickly, this vacancy savings seems almost like it might be utilized as a slush fund for things that we might not approve of. That's what it appears like to me. Just a comment.

Thank you, Vice Chair Lackey, Assemblymember Schultz.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you all for the presentation. I want to start by talking about the lump sum payments and then I'll have a few comments on the broader structural picture. I guess first question is to you, is it Ms. Mendonza? Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Does CDCR have a policy that allows employees to receive vacation payouts before retirement, like while they're active employees?

So there is a process called a leave buyback that does occur if we have additional funds to pay for it. So the last time it occurred was in 2023 when we paid out, I believe somewhere around 19 million. And prior to that was 2021 when we paid out for 45 million.

And usually it's a something will go out to the Department and it'll specify you can buy one week or two weeks of leave credits.

Okay. And as recollection serves, that's a voluntary program, right? Employees don't have to do it. It's just something. It's an election that they can make. Are there any requirements at CDCR, you know, where you can't accrue a certain amount of hours before you're required to take some time off. Does anything like that exist?

Nothing like that exists. And I do believe that would have to be bargained.

Okay. The reason I'm asking is because obviously in my prior career working at doj, we had approaches like that to help reduce that overhead and that liability. So I guess my question is what is CDCR doing to look at other state agencies? Because you're all dealing with this issue to some degree.

I think the problem is particularly noticeable with CDCR is one of our largest entities. But what are you doing to look at other cost savings measures that maybe other departments have engaged?

That's a good question. And I'm not sure to what extent we've reached out. I'll have to get back to you on that. But we do employ the leave reduction plans and encourage our management to encourage staff to take those. The time off that they've accrued. I mean, they've earned it. It's their time off.

And we definitely want to promote that sort of use of the time and promotion of wellness in the Department. It's to my knowledge we cannot enforce it. We can't. Like even if they have a leave reduction plan, should operational need require their participation in their work, then they need to be there.

And that's primarily especially like with our posted positions. That's kind of where things become more difficult, which is why we're coming forward with just the posted positions for this reduction. For this ask not a reduction.

Thank you very much. The other issue I just wanted to mention was more broadly the budgetary picture with cdcr. I wanted to just mention I appreciate the administration's perspective about sort of the pros and cons of taking a more limited term approach and a longer term approach.

But at least from this particular Committee member's viewpoint, I have to agree wholeheartedly with the comments of the LAO. While I understand the concerns that DOF has raised, I do believe that we have an obligation to exercise greater oversight over CDCR. And I don't want to abdicate that responsibility.

I would just mention that I understand historically we have used vacancy savings to help fund these costs. In addition to being variable, which is a concern, I also don't think it has the appropriate level of transparency that I, as a taxpaying citizen, want to see.

The point I'm bringing up is that in addition to the LAO's recommendations about requiring the Department to report back, I would also personally be supportive of requiring the Department to revert any savings back and if they want to have another expenditure, they go through the budget change proposal process. That's something that I would personally support.

So we have greater accountability in this process. And I want to close with saying I'm not suggesting that there's any ill intent by anyone in all of this, but I think the greatest power of the Legislature is that of oversight and ensuring that every dollar is spent efficiently.

And I think that there's more work that we can do as legislators on that front. Thank you.

Thank you for your comments. We do have a couple comments ourselves. With a lump sum payment we have like $91 million that we're talking about. Do you have an average of what would go out to individuals that are partaking in that BU's six Members? I guess.

Do I have a. I do have the amount per. If we were to average it across all staff members, all 58,000 staff members is roughly. They have about 461 hours on average on the books for unused leave. It varies. So I would have to get back to you to get more like detail for just the correctional officers.

Yeah, certainly towards the ones that we're discussing now that would be moving forward in that lump sum payment, getting an average on that itself. And then to CalHR plan and Department of Finance, you mentioned trying to get ahead of these and trying to make sure that that the budget wise it's all there.

Are you referring to negotiations within the the bargaining units themselves? So when that's negotiated out, you would know exactly what we're talking about.

Kyle Gaiman, Department of Finance not necessarily specific to negotiation negotiations, just more so that CDCR has a specific pot of money to use for this and they know that moving forward and it's not as their vacancy rates continue to fluctuate and that amount that they have from savings is less, they'd be able to plan a little bit better knowing the leave liabilities that they have and they have sort of an average they know they need to spend every year.

So it's more of for consistency sake, not so much for the bargaining units themselves.

But we know this has been an ongoing area of buyouts and the lump sum money coming forward. So maybe it's a chance to get ahead of this to be more able to present to this body here today and certainly want to talk a little bit more about the May revise.

Talked about some more information coming to us in the May revise. Is there an opportunity to get some of that information prior to the May revise? So we could evaluate it and look at it on some of the recommendations coming back.

If there are specific requests, we can provide data for your requests.

Definitely. Because when we go back to may revise, we see it. Right. It's the budget process. May revise comes in, and we have a limited amount of time to digest a lot of that. So the BCG recommendations, if we could get those sooner so we could actually start to evaluate those recommendations within this body. Okay, thank you.

Chairperson. I have, I did find one piece of information about the number of dollars or hours that we have. So Overall, we have 21.3 million hours accrued for leave amongst our staff, and about half of that is for the BU6 population. So we're looking at 10 and a half million hours.

10 and a half million hours, yes. Estimate.

Accrued.

Accrued, yes.

Thank you. Yes. Any further questions from the dais? Thank you so much. As now we move to issue three statewide correctional video surveillance completion and statewide fire alarm replacements and Firewatch budget proposals.

Sarah Larson, Director, Division of Facility Planning, Construction and Management, CDCR Cynthia Mendonza, Deputy Director, Office of Fiscal Service, CDCR Michael Chick, Chief, Unified Communications and Collaboration and Contraband, Division of Enterprise Information Services. Caitlin O 'Neill, Legislative Analyst, Office. Patrick Plant, Department of Finance. Josh Whitmerhouse, Department of Finance. Anthony Franzoa, Department of Finance.

And we will start with Sarah Larson, Director.

Oh, I can. I can present. And just for clarification, will it be AVSS and Firewatch together? Since I do an over. Okay. Department requests 10 million in 26-27 to implement the last two video surveillance systems at two prisons, CTF and CMC. And that CTF is Correctional Training Facility and CMC is the California Men's Colony.

Market driven cost increases have rendered existing funding insufficient to implement and complete all remaining institutions within the current budget window. And so we are therefore requesting the 10 million for Firewatch. We're requesting 15.2 million one time for support of costs related to Firewatch coverage at various institutions with deficient fire alarm systems.

The Department also requests a one year extension to the reversion period for 2021-22 fire alarm replacement and fire suppression repair reappropriation proposal. And this will allow sufficient time to finalize projects at two prisons, Mule Creek State Prison and RJD.

These are expected to reach completion in 2026, but the finalizing the projects requires a little bit additional time to allow for invoices to be received and paid. And then this proposal also requests a one year reappropriation for a previously approved project received in the 25-26 statewide fire alarm replacements and firewatch proposal.

14.1 million from 25-26 to 26-27 to address Project Startup delays and keep statewide fire alarm replacement projects fully funded. With that, we welcome questions.

All right. Ms. Larson, anything to add?

No, thank you. Happy to answer any questions that the Committee has.

Thank you so much, LAO.

We recommend approving the proposal related to Firewatch, given that it's a one time proposal and it's critical health, life, safety issue. That's represents an unavoidable cost, really.

And then as noted in your agenda, we do have a recommendation related to the audio video surveillance system, but it will be discussed at a later hearing, so I'll hold on that.

Thank you so much. Department of Finance.

Patrick Plant, Department of Finance. No comments but available questions.

Thank you so much. Any Questions, Comments from the dais. Mr. Vice Chair, I just have a question.

I'm kind of confused by this Firewatch budget. It seems pretty primitive. Does some dude just walk around waiting to see if maybe there's a threat, maybe not? It seems very primitive to me. Is that a real thing?

Oh, yes, it was recommended by the state fire marshal, given our systems were failing.

And that's $15.2 million to engage in that process?

Yes, it is. CDCR is looking at ways to reduce the cost by using different staff, but that is in pilot stage right now. It would be staff who are not correctional officers at certain times of the day.

That's eyebrow raising. That's all I can say.

Thank you so much, Senator Schultz.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just had one question. So we all know that our state prison system, we have a lot of institutions that are aging in place. Been a while since we constructed the vast majority of the last ones.

I guess the question would be, as you're looking at all of the capital, capital needs, maintenance investments that need to be made, how does the Department actually go about prioritizing what needs to happen now versus what can be deferred?

And then how do you similarly prioritize netting out, like long term fixes versus the shorter term fixes like Firewatch? Just if you could walk me through that thought process, that'd be helpful.

Yeah, that's a really excellent and comprehensive question because as you know, the average age of our institutions is 51 years. You know, some of them are 175 years old. So we are, for many of our institutions, reaching the end of their useful life.

We have been trying to undertake an effort to do a more comprehensive look at our infrastructure needs and how we prioritize and kind of plan them out.

Because, for example, when it comes to fire watches and fire alarm replacement is a great example, we have probably over a billion dollars worth of fire alarm replacement and repair that needs to happen at our institution statewide. So, and that's, you know, current costs not escalated over the construction cost increase time horizon.

So when you're looking at those expenses, you want to make sure that you're, we, I should say, want to make sure that we're spending our money in a way that's effective. We don't want to invest in a fire alarm system in a building that has a failing roof, and then the failing roof affects the fire alarm system.

So we are trying to do in the Department is take a comprehensive look at our infrastructure, what the needs are across the system and how we can plan out investment in that infrastructure, but that's a pretty significant undertaking.

So that's why we're coming forward with a proposal like Firewatch to say, look, we recognize the infrastructure need is out there. We want to make sure that we're spending the money in a way that's most cost effective.

This is our interim solution as we're developing that plan and coming up with a more strategic approach statewide for fire alarms, but also, frankly, for lots of our other infrastructure as well when it comes to roofs and ducting and wells and all of those pieces.

Just wanted to thank you for the explanation and I just state the obvious to my colleagues. But if I'm not mistaken, I think the most recent facility constructed was Kern Valley State Prison. I think that opened in like 2005. So even the most recent institutions, 21 years old, a lot of them are much older.

So I'm just highlighting the point that what we're talking about today is probably only going to be more pressing in the years ahead as our facilities age. Thank you.

Thank you so much. And you mentioned there's interim solution. So do we have an estimate on how long or how soon we could

actually see some solutions for a fire alarm replacement?

Yes.

So we have the fire alarm projects that are mentioned as the reappropriation overall we have in progress, let's see1234 about 6 fire alarm projects in progress right now using a combination of funds, including the reappropriated funds that are mentioned here.

But when it comes to that bigger picture planning, I think what we're trying to figure out is what does that replacement schedule look like and how do we do it in a way that's cost effective, given the other infrastructure needs that we have. But the cost is significant.

So we want to make sure that when we're making the ask, we're making it in a way that's sensible.

Thank you for that. And we'll be looking forward to seeing some of those solutions when they come forward. Thank you so much. Any other questions? Comments? Hearing none. Thank you so much. As now we move on to issue four, closure of California Rehabilitation center, an overview of deactivated facilities.

Sarah Larson, Director, Division of Facility Planning, Construction and Management Lynn Ishimaru, Assistant Deputy Director Looks like it's going to be it'll be me, Cynthia, staying there. LAO Department of Finance. And we will start with.

I will start.

Good. Cynthia, thank you.

Cynthia Mendonza, CDCR the Department is requesting a net general funds decrease of 99.6 million in an elimination of roughly 522 positions in 26-27 and ongoing General Fund savings of over 150 million 778 positions starting in 27-28. And a transition of the facility to a cold shutdown status to begin on August, October 2026.

Due to the sustained declines in adult prison population, CDCR evaluated its institutional footprint to ensure the system is appropriately s. In August 2025, CDCR announced the planned closure of the California rehabilitation center by October 2026. The closure is expected to generate significant savings while maintaining public safety, healthcare access and rehabilitative programming through population redistribution to other institutions.

And this proposal includes targeted retention and realignment funding to ensure continuity of healthcare, transportation, IT services, rehabilitation programs, workers compensation obligations and other statewide operational needs. With that, we're available for questions.

Thank you so much. Any further comments, Ms. Larson? No, thank you, LAO.

We don't have any concerns with the specific budget adjustments before you related to the closure, so we do recommend approving them.

Thank you so much. Department of Finance.

Patrick Plant, Department of Finance. No additional comments available for questions.

Thank you. Any questions? Comments from the dais, Mr. Schultz.

Thank you very much. Mr. Chair, two quick questions, all really having to do with deactivation and what happens to everyone that was at the facility. The first question is when you are transferring the incarcerated population, do you consider where the visiting families live, for example, to reduce the risk of breaking a family connection?

Is is that a consideration the Department takes?

Hi. Lenny Shimoto, Assistant Deputy Director of Facilities Support within the Division of Adult Institutions. Yes, that's definitely one of the factors that we take into account when we're looking to move the incarcerated population.

In addition to that, we look at if they're participating in any rehabilitative programs currently, if there are similar programs, also if they're continuing in them, we're trying to delay their transfer. If they can complete that program prior to relocating.

Very heartening to hear. Thank you. And then the flip side of the coin is for the staff, what options are they given? What are their General the paths that they can travel?

There's an extensive process for staff. And after this, after four other institutions being closed, there's a process of trying to place existing staff into open positions in nearby locations. And that's really been the like path of what CDCR has been doing with this same population. So local nearby institutions such as CIM and CIW are taking those staff.

Folks.

Well, thank you so much. And more on the disposing of the properties themselves. Is that something that's under a CDCR or DGS?

It's both, actually. So the way that the process works, it's governed by government code 1101 is kind of where that code section starts. But essentially what happens is when we have a property that we have a closed facility, for example, we declare it. We can declare it surplus to our needs to the Department of General Services.

Then if the Department of General Services determines that it's surplus to the state's needs, it can consider legislation to allow it to sell or otherwise dispose of that surplus property.

So once it's access to CDCR's needs and we've declared it access to our needs to the Department of General Services, that's where the Department of General Services roles take over. The government code section that I mentioned lays out the priorities for DGS to consider when a property is surplus to the state's needs.

Top priority goes to local agencies that would use that property for affordable housing or housing for formerly incarcerated individuals, and then local agencies that might use it for open space or parks, that sort of thing.

If a surplus property is not sold to a local agency or a nonprofit affordable housing entity for those uses, then it can be offered to private entities through a public bidding process.

There was recently government code section enacted to try to make it a little bit easier for CDCR to dispose of its properties by allowing DGS to use funds that were generated from the leasing of CDCR facilities post closure to rehabilitate those facilities and make them more salable.

I think for cdcr, the challenge is that many of our facilities are in pretty remote locations. The size, the infrastructure that exists on that land makes them relatively unattractive candidates for redevelopment. So we're hopeful that that trailer Bill Language that was enacted to allow GGS to use those funds is helpful in that regard.

But we recognize that the demolition, the abatement costs associated with our infrastructure on that land makes it difficult to dispose of those properties. We do have 10 facilities that we have closed. One DGS is working with an affordable housing provider on a a plan. One has been declared by legislation to be access to state needs.

Five have been declared by CDCR to be access to our needs, but have not been declared by DGS to be excess to the state's needs. And then three of the locations have shared infrastructure with other CDCR institutions.

And so we have not yet declared them access to our needs because we still are using that shared infrastructure and have to figure out how to disentangle that infrastructure for the purposes of disposing of those locations.

We get a follow up summary on the areas that have not been declared. So then we could keep an eye on some of those and see where that's headed as well as the ones that have been declared and see what the uses were for those once they moved forward within the surplus process.

Okay, Absolutely. We report annually on those. I'd be happy to share all of that information with your staff.

Thank you so much for that. As now we move to public comment. But before we do, we have issues 5, 6 and 7. Do we have any Members on the dais? Mr. Vice Chair or Assembly Member Schultz, any comments on 56 or 7? No. Thank you for that.

As now we move on to public comment, we want to have all public comment move forward. State your name.

Hi, good afternoon. Thank you Chair, Committee Members and staff. Ryan Moore Mooney with the California State Association of Counties representing all 58 counties. First, we appreciate the inclusion of the Prop 36 implementation and impacts updates for today's hearing.

However, we also respectfully request the consideration of the county impacts and more specifically would like to uplift the need for our county departments or funding for our county departments who are the primary implementers of this measure.

Absent state funding, counties are unable to deliver the necessary program services and treatment as promised to our shared constituency under the measurement. If counties are inadequately funded, we may see different trends in terms of the number of individuals charged and more importantly the number of individuals who enter and receive treatment.

And we remain open to further conversations and again appreciate the consideration of this topic. Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Good morning Chair and Members. George Parampathu speaking On behalf of ACLU California Action. Prop 36 is a false justification for keeping prisons open. The Governor's budget states that Prop 36 impact on prison population is minimal. All the while the state has a surplus of 14,000 prison beds and the prison population is projected to decline until 2030.

Californians deserve real solutions. We must fully shut down the three prisons we have deactivated and continue to close down the prisons as all three Governor staff seem in favor of every dollar saved from those closures should go towards programs that actually serve our public safety like health care, food assistance and violence prevention.

Thank you. Thank you for your comments.

Danica Rodarmel on behalf of Transformative Programming Works just highlighting that in the realm of CDCR's budget and the populations coming into the prisons ensuring that we're adequately funding community based programs offering rehabilitative programming through the right grant. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments. Any other public comment? Thank you so much. As Sub 6 is adjourned.