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 come to order. Good morning, everyone. We're holding our Committee hearings here in the state Capitol, and I ask that all Members of the Subcommitee be present in room 112 so we can establish a quorum and begin our hearing.

Today's hearing covers two departments, the Office of Emergency Services and the Department of Justice. We are hearing several issues today that are critical to the safety and well being of all Californians, including an update on our state's 911 system and proposals around firearms regulation and defending Californians from harmful actions taken by the Federal Government.

We will take public comment on all issues at the end of today's hearing. And, colleagues, before we begin, does anyone have anything they'd like to add?

I don't have anything. Oh, I just. I forgot. I've waited for everybody else to answer first.

Thank you, Mr. Seyarto. Let's establish a quorum. Consultant, would you please call the roll?

[Roll Call]

Thank you. The consultant notes that we have a quorum and it has been established. So let's move on to issue number one, an overview of the Office of Emergency Services. With our first issue.

We'll start with Miss Christina, also known as Tina Curry, the acting Director of Cal OES, who will be joined by Eric Swanson, the Deputy Director of Finance and Logistics in the Administration at Cal OES. You can begin.

Good morning.

Thank you for being here.

Hi. Thank you. Good morning, Chair Richardson. Senators, again, I am Tina Curry, and I am the acting Director at Cal OES. First of all, thank you for your support. Your support ensures our continued service to Californians. But before, during, and after major disasters and emergencies, certainly we continue to see those in our state.

These resources allow us to respond and coordinate local, state, tribal and federal resources, as well as mutual aid across the state to support communities when they need it the most. The proposed budget includes $3 billion, 483.9 million of that is General Fund and 1,914 positions for Cal OES.

As your agenda notes, the governor's budget proposes three changes for Cal OES related to implementing enacted legislation, as well as a technical proposal that will help us facilitate reimbursements.

When California helps other states through what we call the National Emergency Management assistance compact, or EMAC just at the highest level, Cal OEs role is to coordinate the state's response during disasters and emergencies.

And that role has certainly evolved as the threats to California continue to grow in all directions and More and more we are acting early, we anticipate impacts where possible and we preposition things, planning, resources, people, equipment, communications to the public, safety so that we can protect communities more quickly and respond more rapidly.

For example, when we have a red flag warning and you know, have fire impacts that we project are coming to California communities, we now have the ability to preposition fire assets, other assets, so that they can more quickly respond if and when a disaster occurs. Same thing for storms.

If we see that there's going to be significant rainfall and flooding potential, we can also preposition swift water rescue assets. Things like those are the, that's what the threat calls for today. And we now have the technology and the insight to understand, you know, more precisely where to place resources. And those have yielded just tremendous benefits.

So thank you for your support so that we can continue to do that. Cal OES's role of course extends beyond disaster response. We're also in charge of recovery, but importantly on the front end we plan, train with our local government, with our state agencies, with our first responders, because readiness is a full time job.

And then in terms of disaster recovery, there's also resource needs that come with that, oftentimes right on the back of a response. We're immediately looking at things like debris removal and watershed protection, but also the financial aid to get communities back up and running as quickly as possible when they've been impacted by a disaster.

Cal OES leads the state government when we respond to a disaster so that communities can anticipate and expect a coordinated state response. And every corner of state capabilities are leveraged towards one charge to meet the needs of what happens, whether it's the LA fires or floods or all the different things we've experienced.

And this is more critical than ever because of the uncertainty on the future of FEMA and kind of Federal Government assistance as that's all being looked at at federal levels. I was asked to touch briefly along those lines on LA fire recovery.

We've seen both progress and challenges with the recovery operations following the devastating Los Angeles wildfires just over a year ago. Significant strides have been made in the past year in terms including the quickest debris removal operation that the state has ever undertaken. Of course at Federal Government was a huge partner in that.

However, much remains to be done to restore these communities and the lives that were so tragically, inconsequentially impacted by these fires. So we remain on the ground in Southern California. We're still there, we're embedded in Los Angeles county, we're embedded in the city of Los Angeles. We're embedded in Malibu.

All of the communities that need us, we're still there because we're still coordinating, facilitating, understanding the cost of the repair work that needs to be be done. And we'll be there as long as we need to to continue to support that as we move forward. And then we also are facilitating risk reduction programs.

So right now we're in the process of finalizing what we call the hazard Mitigation grant program. So on the back of a federal declaration we often get risk reduction funds that go with that. So we're really focused on, on preparing that package of what that application will look like so that we can submit it to Fema.

Those are due in early April. So that's a big focus of ours too. We're asked to give an update on FEMA reimbursement for the LA fires. California has submitted almost 700 what we call public assistance applications.

So that's infrastructure, that's response costs for law enforcement, for fire agencies, all the different things that ultimately will be available under that kind of government umbrella of impact from the disaster. Those total about $1.2 billion in estimated costs that should be eligible under the FEMA declaration.

But this dollar amount is going to continue to evolve because scopes of work for some of the rebuilding projects are still being finalized. Insurance settlements are still things that local governments are navigating. To date, FEMA has obligated about 4% of that amount that we, that's not a lot.

And so you know, a lot of our effort is continuing to press the Federal Government to increase the pace of getting those approvals done so that those dollars can flow back to these communities for that they're, that they're owed for the eligible work that has been demonstrated.

But to support immediate relief, you have authorized a wildfire response and recovery mechanism under AB1. And to date approximately 545 million has been allocated to support activities really to front load some of this stuff, especially given some of the delays we've seen with the federal allocations, including for some of those public assistance projects.

The latest federal shutdown has temporarily paused FEMA funding even further. So that's, you know, so we don't expect any movement until that's released. However, it doesn't change California's near term ability to respond when something happens. And certainly fortunately we haven't had a large disaster recently.

What we've seen from in other states, what I've heard from my counterparts in other states is FEMA is showing up. You saw it in the storms back east. So we don't anticipate, we hope that we'll still have the same level of life safety response that we've had in the past.

But kind of the grant processing and some of this recovery dollars is paused during the shutdown. Likewise, not just natural disasters, but planning continues. We've got a lot before us in California with planned events, FIFA World Cup this summer, the LA 28 Olympics.

All of that is very dependent on partnership with the Federal Government and that planning is going forward. But there has been delays in the federal grant allocations for those. So we're continuing to press for anything we can do to get those dollars moving where they're needed.

We don't have a budget ask for next generation 911, but we do appreciate the opportunity. I know we have another whole item after my intro and we look forward to giving you an update on that.

And I'm sure you have questions for us, but I would impart from the leadership level, from the top level at Cal OES that this is is a top priority for our organization. There's no question about it. We are fully committed to implementing a reliable, secure next generation 911 network for California.

We will get this done and we are going to get it done right. The state has already made investments to facilitate facilitate this transition and we have an updated plan that we have shared those details with you, but we'll talk about it some more today for the go forward.

And that is anchored in the needs of the public safety answering points and the feedback that we have gotten from them as we've gone through this transition process is going to be anchored in accountability and anchored in transparency.

You'll hear more in the next item about our phased transition plan that simplifies the system architecture, reduces operational risk for the PSAPs and accelerates the long term deployment. And I will end by touching on security, which is certainly top of mind given the ongoing conflict in Iran and across the Middle East.

At this time there's still no credible threats to California either. Physical threat, cyber threat. But certainly these kinds of situations we are more vigilant than ever. So know that our State Threat Assessment center that's housed at Cal oes, our California Cybersecurity Integration center that's housed at Cal OES are remaining vigilant.

They're in real time connection with the fusion centers, with federal partners, with the intelligence community, just to keep an eye out for anything that may result of this conflict and developments as it proceeds. So it's certainly a time of criticality and of vigilance more than ever.

And we ask, you know, if there's anything we can do to continue to share information. I know that's been of interest to the Legislature, I know it's of interest to your communities, then we will commit to sharing information going forward and in hope that we all kind of share in the time to be.

Even the public plays a big part in this to help us to. To be aware of security incidents so that we can know and react as quickly as possible. So with that very brief overview, thank you for your time.

Thank you for your continued support and happy to answer any questions you may have for me before we move on to the next item.

Thank you very much. Did you have anything to add, sir?

Not at this time.

Okay. Thank you, colleagues with any questions. Senator Durazo, would you like to start today?

Thank you. Thank you for all of the work that's done on behalf of Californians. I have one issue is about Operation Stone Garden. I've read several articles that mention this program and it's enabled California law enforcement to collaborate with the U.S. border Patrol. So are you. Tell me more about that. And are you administering the grant? Anything?

Yeah, no, I appreciate that. Very familiar with operations. I know that in the past that has been one that we facilitate. I believe it's directly allocated to the communities. But do you have any update on. Currently on.

We don't have any update as far as. Are you asking about sort of the federal status of it? I think it's a. We don't have an update on its continuance, but the. We've been very careful with that.

You know, that's one of those things where the collaboration is certainly useful and very useful in terms of drug interdiction and other kinds of issues. But also we are mindful of, you know, the making sure that we are following all of state law regarding, you know, border enforcement and all of that as well.

Well, are you still administering a grant, that grant? Yes, as far as I know. If I'll go back and see if there's. I don't think there's been any change so far.

And why or what is it? How is it being used? I mean, tell me more about your involvement with this program.

I think the way we've been, it's more of a. We're sort of a pass through to the, to the locals, to the local border counties. But it's used more as a. To collaborate on certain types of crimes that may occur across borders. We do not use.

If I think we don't Use the grant at all for enforcement on the state side of border. Border. Border enforcement.

Well, you know, there's enormous concern in our communities all over the state about collaborating with the border patrol and the racial profiling that's used by ICE and the border patrol and the impact that it has on immigrant communities. Immigrant communities are not segregated over here. And Euro immigrant, you're not.

So this racial really becomes more racial profiling than anything. And so how our involvement with them is very concerning. So I really need to know the status of that grant. Who does what, what's it being used for on the ground, how are you collaborating?

These are things that we've been very, we've been very intentional about not using our state resources to collaborate and vice versa. So that's what I need to know.

I'd be happy to, we can be get you some information on who the grant recipients are and that. But I also, I want to make sure that we emphasize the point you're making. We're very careful that this is, you know, there's still some collaboration that needs to take place between the two countries on some of these activities.

Not necessarily enforcing the border, but in terms of making sure that we're stopping trafficking and some of these other activities. And that's what I think that's where we're concentrate this grant on. But I will get you more details for sure.

Thank you, Senator Durazo, Senator Seyarto.

Thank you very much. And thank you for giving us an update on OES and some of the activities that are going on out there to better improve. You know, I see OES as an evolving agency because we have evolving problems. And right now the biggest problems that we are having are natural disaster related type problems.

And as you know, while there are spotlighting some of the larger incidents that have occurred, we also have other incidents out there. And some of these communities feel like they're being left a little bit behind. They don't want to draw resources or attention away from the larger incidents.

But at the same time, you know, they're kind of standing there with their ruined communities waiting for that same help. And so what have you guys done this last year to address?

Because I brought this up last year, I believe to address the concerns of some of these, like the airport fire and some of these other fires that are in other areas where we don't lose 6,000 houses, but we lose 200 or 1,000 or whatever.

Once they're declared a disaster, they should all be getting the Exact same process and help. I'm curious whether we're just spread too thin to be able to administer in the same manner or what we need to do, because that's ultimately what we need is the information from you.

So we know how much we need to budget to be able to let you guys do your job. Because it's a very, very important job in California for us to be able to not only prevent, but respond and then help in the recovery.

We can't always depend, as you know, we can't depend on others to help us all the time. I think others are happy to help us as long as they know we're being frugal with their money as well as we're being frugal with ours.

And so we need to get to that point where we know how much we really need. I think it was the last hearing the chair asked that group, you know, hey, be honest with us about what your needs are so we can at least consider that.

I don't want to be thanked for giving you $10 when you need $100. And so, you know, I appreciate the gestures, but really, we appreciate the honesty, especially hopefully in this Committee.

And thank you for that point. A loss is a loss, you know, and unfortunately, we're in.

We live in a world where the bar is incredibly high to even ask for federal assistance and certainly for California, just because of our size and what we have to demonstrate in losses and what it results is exactly to your point, these small up, small emergencies from the female lens or large emergencies for small communities.

So we do what we can to lean in and help them. We have our own public assistance program that the state is authorized to do under the California Disaster Assistance Act. And that's really viewed on a, you know, kind of like certain things are eligible and not.

It is not for rebuilding homes, for example, but it's for public. Public infrastructure. And we look at it on a per capita basis. So really it's. It's as fair as it could be in terms of an impact on a very small camp. You know, they shouldn't have to meet as high of a test as a large county.

Other things that we have done is, you know, we've, you know, everything from technical assistance to actually doing the work to help with the things that facilitate recovery like debris removal, you know, and increasing the capacity of counties to, you know, not only do that work, but also get reimbursed for it.

But if needed, you know, the state can sift in because that's such an important first step. Step for anything else to happen. And then we still have the ability.

In fact, we've gotten several declarations from the Small Business Administration when there's home loss in a disaster and when there's business impact or business disruption, and we've been successful still, you know, even with all of these, while that is not a, you know, like a comprehensive fix, those are our low interest loans program.

So, so really continuing to recognize, you know, and meet counties where they are when something happens and as best as possible, leverage the programs we have, but also things like training and, you know, giving them the tools so that they can be recovery ready is a huge focus of ours because we don't know when it's going to happen.

But those investments, even of time, make a lot of sense. And that's really what the counties have asked us for, is to, is to kind of be as prepared as possible for these things.

And I think some of the frustration from county levels, city levels, and neighborhood levels is that sometimes the process is really onerous and it becomes the perception by people trying to access help that it's stuck in the bureaucracy.

And so to the amount that can be done, we need to identify the things that we can do, whether it's, you know, statewide exemptions for instances like this so that, you know, that debris removal can be done in sooner than a year for other little incidents while bigger incidents are rolling. And that's great. I like that.

But I also want those other people to be served as well. And so to that effect, you know, if we can make that part of our organizational culture of, hey, better serve the people that need us to serve them and be responsive to their concerns, it's one thing to be responsive. Yes, we understand. We hear you.

But then a year later, they're still begging, and that's what if we can eliminate things like that, I think all Californians will be a lot better off. Thank you. Thank you.

I appreciate that. We agree. Thank you. Mr. Seyarto, I have a few questions. So Director Curry, you alluded to, and one of my questions is what is the status of our federal reimbursements and our partnership with FEMA?

I believe you stated that there are, is it 700 pending applications for a total of 1.2 billion, and FEMA has obligated 4%. What has been the timing of obligating that 4%? How long have you been waiting since these applications have been submitted?

Well, I don't have the exact timeframes because it's been a flow basis. Certainly can get back to you with More information. But. But one of the things that there's been a lot of changes as we've gone with FEMA's approach to the LA fires, just process wise that we've been navigating.

One of the things that was different about the LA fires in some ways was positive, was kind of a rapid process to identify the universe. So really working with the counties, you know, kind of collecting, that's how we arrived at knowing that we have 700 at this time, even though it's been a year.

That was a very deliberate effort. But in that process, there's been, you know, also rapid, you know, adjudication to the fact that, you know, things were deemed ineligible very quickly, that we then kind of have to adjudicate in a different process to fight for it.

So there's been a bit of a shift that has resulted from trying to go fast that we're navigating in real time. If I'm being perfectly honest, it's kind of a first time we've seen, seen this process in place with the Federal Government.

So in some cases we've been waiting since, you know, kind of really close to when the fires occurred. Some of that those decisions or eligibility determinations have made a little bit more recently. But the yield that we're focused on is that it's a very low percentage that's actually been approved.

And our push is, you know, we've demonstrated, we've done our part. These counties have done their part to show a lot of cases when it's emergency work. They did that work a long time ago and, you know, have the documentation.

So we're arguing and fighting for releasing anything we can that's reasonable to, you know, start bringing cash flow to these communities. The Section 100 process helps a lot because, you know, we can front load some of that to alleviate it.

But I'm sorry, that's not answering your question directly in terms of how long we waited, because it is a little bit of an iterative process that we, you know, are kind of like processing things as they come in. But that 700 projects is a pretty good definition of the, of the universe, of what it ultimately will be.

And the counties have agreed to it, that they believe that's, that's. Those are the things that, that they're going to need assistance for.

Okay. So I'd like to ask that you would please provide to the Committee or whoever, the appropriate individual of these 700 applications where we are in terms of actual obligations. So has it been, you know, one year, six months, 18 months.

And then if you could keep this Committee abreast on a monthly basis on what the status is when you interact with Fema. Is that something that you're sharing with them the hopes of increasing these numbers, or is it the Administration? What's the process to actually seek these additional funds from Fema?

Yeah, so there's, there's kind of local determinations that we're working on the ground with FEMA to just, you know, figure out what's eligible what, you know, make those agreements, make those adjustments.

My understanding is there's, there's, there's headquarters determination, you know, even all the way up to DHS that they have, you know, processes that, that they have put into place. This is across the country for all disasters everywhere that also influence the time frame.

So we do as much as we can with the local FEMA office, who's been very cooperative and good to work with, but some of it is even out of their hands. And so that kind of takes a different level of communication and advocacy. But it's also, we're not alone in California.

You know, this is, these are challenges for unlocking these dollars that are, that are, that are happening in a lot of places with open events. But certainly we're pushing to clear those up and getting those dollars flowing back to Los Angeles and elsewhere.

Thank you. So, given the fact of what it sounds like we're agreeing is that since it's been more than 12 months, if you could keep the Committee abreast on the pace so that we're fortunate that we have Members on both sides of the aisle and we have Californians that represent California on both sides of the aisle.

So to the degree we need to get more involved, we're committed to doing so. So, please, if you could keep us abreast on those numbers, it would help us to do that.

My second question is you mentioned something about that, because I believe of the fires, there's risk reduction, and so there are hazard mitigation funds that are available that you're going to be completing applications in April. Okay.

And so if you could provide us a little more information about when you submit it, what we submitted, when do we anticipate hearing answers so we can keep the public abreast. We, we have several Members who have just dramatically impacted their communities. And to the degree that we can share information on our end is really helpful.

And then you also mentioned a federal application for FIFA. And if you could share with the Committee, if you don't have the information today how much that request is and what's the status? Some of us, we're going to be having meetings about LA28 and FIFA and so on.

And so to the degree that we can share, you know, hey, we've submitted this application, but we're still waiting. Have you heard anything? Would be really helpful for us. My last two questions. Thank you for sharing your comments about the 911 system and stating that it's a priority for accountability and transparency. Transparency. However,

as you know, we have not successfully implemented that program to date. And so beyond your commitment of accountability and transparency, how about accountability of when are we going to get this done? Because we've really.

I'm glad that you're not requesting more money for it, but we really need to see, in addition to the accountability and transparency, we need to see to get it done.

And so I know it's the next issue, but since you are the Director, do you have any other thoughts you can share with us of meeting now, the timelines that will be presented to us?

Yeah, no, thank you for that. We share that. Absolutely. The need to move with urgency every day that we don't. We are still operating on a 1970s legacy system that is fragile. So we recognize our obligation is to move quickly and do it right.

And that is going to require everything we have and the cooperation of all the parties that are involved. So we do have a better sense of timing what we are going to do in the interim to keep things going, to stay, stabilize on top of the urgency to get this done.

We recognize we've got the Olympics coming up, we've got FIFA coming up, particularly in those regions. The need to modernize their systems are on another layer of this. So Deputy Director Yarborough can talk about kind of the timing.

And I know we've shared some of that in the report, but we have now scheduled, sketched out, you know, some General sense of what we believe is realistic, how we are going to maintain or kind of start up the maintenance again to stabilize this so that there's really no gaps and pauses in between.

But we're moving forward responsibly because this will require, you know, a procurement effort that's, you know, going to be, you know, we want to be thorough and complete and includes all the things that are needed to get the system running.

But we've got a plan to keep things moving at the pace that needs to happen in the meantime. So in terms of timeline, I think we have a better sense and we're absolutely committed to meeting those.

But if there's issues and problems we have to jump on them quickly and we have to fix them too and not let that slow us down, but not take anything less than a reliable and modern and functional system as satisfactory.

So we do have a better sense of timing and a plan than last time we were here and we look forward to continuing to talk to you about that as it rolls out and work with you on input to shape that.

So if you could share with the incoming Director who I think has now been named maybe first day today that you did testify today and that you as the Director, since you won't be testifying in the next panel, that we do have concerns about the timeliness in getting the system done right, as you said, but also getting it done.

And so we hope the new Director will prioritize that in terms of the work that's before us. And then I had a final question. Have we received an estimate of our federal VOCA funding level and how much state backfill would be required to maintain the current service levels?

Yeah, we have not. And we kind of are struggling with the same issue we had last year where in the past we've received that federal allocation estimate sooner in the year, which made it a lot easier to deal with as far as we go forward in the state budgeting picture.

But in fact, last year we didn't receive a final allocation until I think either August or September. So it took a while. We don't have an estimate of what the shortfall would be to continue those programs, but it likely is in the same neighborhood as it was last year, probably around 100 million.

Okay, thank you very much. Any further questions or comments, Members? All right. Thank you for your participation and thank you for your service in this acting period. And we look forward to continuing to work with you both. Absolutely. Thank you. Thank you. All right.

With that, we're going to move to issue number two, which is an update on the next generation 911 system, which we were just discussing a moment ago.

We will be joined by the following panelists for this issue and if you could come here in the center portion, we're going to have Steve Yarborough, who's the Deputy Director of public safety communications, OES.

Eric Swanson, Deputy Director, Finance and Logistics in the Administration of OES. Heather Gonzalez, principal fiscal and policy analyst with the LAO. Drew Soderborg, deputy legislative analyst of the LAO. Sarah Swain, principal Program Budget Analyst of the Department of Finance.

And Zachary Voss, Finance Budget Analyst with the Department of Finance. With that, we'll start with CAL OES. You can begin.

Sure. As you noted, I'm Eric Swanson, Deputy Director of Finance and Logistics Administration. As our acting Director noted, there is no budget ask at the moment before you, but we thank you for providing us a forum to update you on implementation of next generation 911.

And with me is Steve Yarborough, who started just this year as our Deputy Director of Public Safety Communications.

Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to come provide an Update for the NextGen 911 system. You'll hear us refer to it both as the next generation 911 system, but also next gen or NG911. Those are all synonymous terms. And in discussing this, I think it helps to have some of those shortcuts available.

We're committed, I think California as a whole, and certainly Cal OES is committed to delivering a next generation 911 system that works for all Californians. We're confident that the system that we're building will provide a fully functional, modern and reliable, secure communication platform that will serve us well into the Future.

The California NextGen911 program is funded primarily through a dedicated surcharge that is put on each in state phone user, whether it be a hard line or a wireless Bill. So that's the funding mechanism that provides what we need to build out this system and operate it.

The system itself, the technology is acquired as a service through our vendor partners. And so when we talk about having an open solicitation for a vendor partner, it's because the nature of the way 911 services are delivered, not just in California, but throughout the nation, is to do so through a contract with a vendor partner.

That being said, we have made substantial effort to move away from the legacy analog 911 infrastructure that we've used, as the Director mentioned, since the 70s, toward a modern IP based platform that will allow people to reach out to 911 using technologies and communication modes that they're used to using in their daily lives, such as text and messages, video calls, sometimes sending videos or pictures to the dispatch center also helps out.

And so this IP based system will allow all of that new capability to be used on the system. And then of course, making sure that the network connectivity, routing capability and the resiliency is there because this is a mission critical public safety system that we're providing.

So it needs to have the kind of reliability that our first line public safety responders need to have to execute their mission.

So when it comes to system deployment over the period of time between 2019 and 2024, Cal OES and its contracted service provider deployed the next gen 911 system that we have right now, which used a regional approach. It divided the state of California up into four regions.

And so each of those regions had a a service provider who operated the 911 network for that region. And then of course, as a fallback to those regions, there was a statewide provider that was connected to all of the public safety answering points throughout the state of California.

So in the event that something happened with one of the regionals, the traffic can be carried by the statewide system to ensure that there was no disruption to the service.

But during the testing early on in this period, we started to notice that there were some issues with call routing and the reliability of the services that the network providers had. So rather than risk service disruptions, we made the deliberate decision back about a year ago, and this was say February of 25 to pause further deployment.

At that time we had about 23 public safety answering points who had migrated their voice traffic onto the next gen 911 system. Some of the examples of problems that were encountered included calls that should have been delivered to PSAP A had instead erroneously been routed to PSAP B.

And that means that the response isn't coming from the area that it should be and it's most located proximal to where the event is happening, instead gets routed to somewhere further afield and may not be the right location. So that location routing is one of the problems that we've run into.

Similarly, if a call needed to be transferred from a primary public safety answering point to say, a Cal Fire answering point, because it was primarily a medical aid call, when that happens, some of those transfers did not go through correctly.

And so when we talk about the system, you know, call routing and the reliability of the system, these are the types of errors that were being experienced that obviously needed to be resolved before we could in good conscience bring more of the public safety answering points onto that network. So that's what the pause was for.

Now, naturally, we've been paused for, you know, about a year now, and unpauseing is going to be a very critical next step that we take. And in order to do that, we needed to understand how we could solve these problems.

And so to that end, during the pause, we sent out staff to each of those public safety answering points who had been been on the next gen system so we could learn from them firsthand what their lived experience was and make sure we understand all of the issues that they were experiencing so we could determine how best to solve these problems.

We went out to all of the PSAPs, went out to all of the vendor partners that we had, made sure that we were understanding from all of the different stakeholders what the issues were. From that we developed a new strategy, and this strategy is the one that was referenced earlier.

This is a phased transition plan to get us from the version of next generation 911 that we have right now to one that will be more reliable and solve those routing issues that were problematic in the first incarnation of next gen 911.

To do that, we were going to simplify the architecture so that it reduces this operational risk in making sure that those answering points are able to get onto the system and accelerate the long term migration to next gen 911 so that we get all of those public safety answering points on the next generation system as soon as we can prudently do so, and understanding that the technology and the capabilities that come with NextGen 911 are critical for the first responders, we want to get there as soon as we possibly can.

So the new strategy, which we talked a little bit about in our recent board meeting with the 911 advisory board includes a number of things to help us solve these problems. One is we want to maintain stable interim operations so we make sure that we're not having those continued routing issues and operability issues.

We want to make sure that we solve that problem by putting them on the statewide provider. So this is the backup statewide provider that we identified as. Since it doesn't have to transfer from one region to another, we're not transferring between providers. Having them on the statewide provider solves a problem.

And so that's the interim phase to make sure that we're stably running a next gen platform that everybody can use. So that's step one, statewide provider. Step two is we want to do an open competitive procurement to establish a long term provider vendor partner that we can use for years into the future.

And that's at the point at which we migrate the balance of the public safety answering point onto the next generation system.

And then of course during, during this operational period, we're also going to be putting a significant focus on migrating the Los Angeles Region PSAPs Public Safety Answering points onto the next gen system so that they have these capabilities in time for the Olympic games coming in 2028.

Once all that is done and all of the PSAPs have been migrated to the next gen 911 SAP system, that's at the point at which we would decommission the legacy system and any remaining elements from the first incarnation of the, of the next gen system and we will then be 100% on the next gen system going forward from that point.

So in order to get there, as I mentioned, we need to establish a contract with our statewide partner. Right now, our engagement with the statewide partners under the tariff structure oversight of the Public Utilities Commission, we find that that's better suited for maintenance and operation phase rather than deployment phase.

And so we would like to have our vendor partner under a contract allowing us the terms to manage that engagement better. So we want to establish a contract with our interim provider and then simultaneously be doing that open procurement for our long term provider.

Doing that also gives us the benefit of being able to use this intervening period to advance and solve these problems rather than wait for the open solicitation to take place over a number of months. We have all the confidence we need in the partner, the statewide partner that we have right now.

They've served us well in the, in the capacity as a backup and to that extent that we have run into problems with some of the regions, we have actually transitioned the call taking load from the two of the regions onto the statewide provider.

And that system has performed well and is designed to carry the load, all the load necessary for this plan.

As I mentioned, the open procurement that we're going to be doing, we're working closely, hand in hand with our partners at the California Department of Technology to make sure that we're conducting that open procurement in alignment with all of the state's contracting rules and making sure that we have all the terms and conditions in there that we need to both make it comply with the contracting rules, but also comply with cybersecurity requirements and making sure that we have enforceability built into the contract.

As we do this open solicitation, we're looking for a vendor partner who has experience and has demonstrated themselves as being competent and able to carry the amount of traffic that we expect to see throughout the state of California. I know that on average, we get around 26 million 911 calls for help in a typical year.

That's across all of the PSAPs that we have. And recognizing that when those calls come in, somebody must be there to answer that call and be able to route help to the person making the call.

And so that's why one of the benchmarks of our open solicitation is going to be that whoever is ultimately awarded this contract needs to have a proposal that can deliver an availability level of 99.999%. In public safety communications, we refer to that as having five nines of availability. And that's a standard that is not easy to achieve.

It amounts to on the order of just a handful of minutes per year that the, that the system would be offline or unavailable. And then of course, one of the, one of the ways you get to that level of availability is by having redundancy baked into the design at all levels.

So there is never a link in the chain or a node in the network that doesn't have a redundant backup part to be able to carry the traffic should something happen to one element of the system.

So the standards that we're adhering to are defined by the National Emergency Number Association and adhered to throughout North America and Europe. And of course, we're going to adhere to those standards. And one of the key features there is that every element must have a redundant backup.

And oftentimes more than just one redundant backup, you need to have, you know, sort of a failover plan for your failover plan. So that in, you know, to get to the level of availability we're talking about, you can't leave it to chance.

So design of the system is going to be one of the key things that goes into how we award this contract, making sure that we have that kind of event availability. I think, Senator Richardson, to your point earlier about the time frame, I'll talk a little bit about that now.

The here we are in March of 2026 and we expect to execute a contract with our current statewide provider and that will help us for this bridging contract that we see so we can stabilize and make use of this time while we're doing the open solicitation. So we expect to do that in the coming weeks.

That will then allow us to migrate the public safety answering points who are on the next generation system right now onto this statewide system so that they will have stability and not have those reliability issues they were experiencing. Simultaneous to that, we're also going to be doing the open solicitation.

So we expect to release an RFP for our long term vendor partner in 2Q26 here. So coming up right on the heels of that, the contract with our current vendor, we're also going to release that out.

And then of course, we expect to award that contract in the fall of this year, at which time we will begin working with our new vendor partner to plan the transition timeline and make sure that we're including in that to move as quickly as is prudent to do and hitting those areas of focus that we want to hit.

So talking about transitioning the Los Angeles region, for example, ahead of the Olympics, is something we're definitely going to be working with our vendor partners to make sure that that's prioritized in the implementation. And then so by spring of 27, we expect all of our regional providers to be no longer needed.

And so we will then end our engagement with them and decommission any services that they had left on the regional networks.

And then we will begin in the summer of 27 to transition all of the remaining public safety answering points onto the new statewide network with the intent to have 100% of them transition to the next gen network by the summer of 2030.

Our goal remains the same as it ever was, which is to deliver a reliable modern next generation 911 system. And our approach is adapting in response to what we've learned during the period of time that we've experienced in the implementation up to this point.

We intend to standardize our architecture to eliminate some of the vulnerabilities that we've experienced while simultaneously making sure that we have the reliable and redundant system necessary to reach those availability metrics. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions that the the Committee may have.

Thank you for that very thorough overview. We appreciate it. Any comments from the lao?

Yes, Good morning Chair Members. Good morning. My name is Heather Gonzalez. I'm with the lao. I'm here with my colleague Drew Soderborg.

Maybe move your mic just a little closer?

Sure. Is that better? Yes, ma'. Am. Okay. As you have just heard, OES is moving rapidly toward and in fact has already begun making major changes in the state plan for next generation 911.

It is our view that while these alterations may be entirely appropriate, changes of this magnitude to a public safety system this important are best accomplished under close oversight. In addition, we do not know if faced with a set of options and trade offs, whether the Legislature would adopt, amend or reject the changes that OES has proposed.

For this reason and others, I'll cover more thoroughly in this presentation. We recommend that the Legislature temporarily pause temporarily forward movement on this project while it gathers the information necessary to either increase confidence in the plan that OES has proposed or enable it to work towards an alternative that the Legislature prefers.

You should have a handout that we prepared for this hearing. It contains summarized information On Next Gen 911 systems, the state's more than 10 year effort to plan and deploy a next generation 911 system, the recent challenges OES faced during deployment and what they propose to do next, and also it summarizes our findings and recommendations.

So by way of background, we direct your attention to page one of the handout which explains what next generation 911 is. Simply put, NextGen911 uses Internet Protocol based technologies and instead of copper wires to Deliver and Route 911 calls. These systems consist of four main components, networks, core services, geographic information systems and call handling equipment.

We include definitions of these components in your handout, but as a rough analogy, you can think of a next generation 911 system as a dedicated emergency highway system. The network is the highway core services do the traffic control and direct vehicles based on verified addresses.

The Geographical Information System is the official master map that ensures that calls go to the right dispatch center and first responders go to the right locations and call handling equipment is in the local control rooms where dispatchers receive and manage these emergency communications. Now turning to the state effort to upgrade our 911 system.

As you will see on page 22 we have a timeline for you we can actually trace the overall state effort to as early as 2010 when the state developed a roadmap to next generation 911 under former Governor Schwarzenegger.

However, we date the current effort to 2015 because that's when the Legislature enacted SB 1211 which statutorily directed OES to start planning. That said, it was not until 201819 that meaningful amounts of funding became available for build out.

And in 2019, as you've heard, OES was able to execute contracts with regional network vendors and a statewide backup vendor, which we refer to as the regional approach or the regional system to build and deploy a next generation 911 system that we have now.

Deployment of this regional system included trenching and laying fiber optic lines, structural and electrical work at dispatch centers, and the installation of both hardware and software, though it is unclear to us what portion of these installed features in the materials the state actually owns or perhaps more importantly, we could repurpose cheaply if we adopt the changes OES has proposed.

We should also note that despite the challenges OES has identified with the regional system, in their February report to the Legislature, they reiterated previous statements indicating that the regional system is currently delivering collar location and text to 911 services to all dispatch centers in California and that 23 dispatch centers have begun transitioning calls to the voice system.

Turning next to our assessment and findings, as OES has already explained, when the initial tranche of dispatch centers begin transitioning voice calls to the regional system, problems surfaced. OES reviewed these challenges and has concluded that the best solution is to switch from the regional approach to a statewide approach.

Although OES has not yet submitted a BCP requesting authority to make these changes, we review the information OES has provided to date and our findings on this information may be summarized as follows. First, the project is clearly overdue and future budget needs are unclear.

We feel especially strongly that the Legislature be provided with the best possible estimates of the costs needed for next generation 911, the legacy system, and support for dispatch centers in this budget year and future years under any plan it adopts.

Number two, we want to be very, very clear that we believe the major changes OES has proposed may be entirely appropriate, but these changes come with trade offs. We do not have enough information about the options OES considered or the ones it didn't to be able to lay out all of these complex trade trade offs for you.

But as an example, unless a statewide system envisioned by the updated plan is designed carefully, the regional approach may offer greater redundancy and may be more able to withstand failure as a result, and I stress may in that sentence.

On the other hand, the regional approach may have too much redundancy and have become so complex that it suffers inoperability compared to the envisioned statewide system and is effectively fatally flawed. We don't know. Cost may also be a trade off, although we have no information on which to judge that point yet, as will management needs.

Although this may or may not prove true in practice, it may be easier for OES to manage a single contract with a single vendor than it is to manage multiple contracts with multiple vendors. But do these management advantages associated with a statewide approach outweigh the value of any technical advantages?

To the extent that they exist and can be fully realized that might be associated with the regional approach? And if there are advantages to the regional system that we don't want to lose, can we find other ways to mitigate the management challenges?

We just don't know what the universe of options is or what the technical cost or managerial trade offs would be if we could compare options the third finding that we came that we found during our assessment is that changes of this magnitude to a system this important are best accomplished under close oversight. This is currently lacking.

The state 911 system has an advisory board, but it is only advisory. As we've been told by cdt, because this is a telecommunications project, it is not subject to the typical oversight and approval processes that CDD does for other technology projects.

And to date, of course, the Legislature has not been provided with a statutory proposal, trailer, Bill, language or a BCP for us to consider. Which brings us to our fourth finding, which is that the available information leaves key questions unanswered.

Although OES has provided high level descriptions of its plans and reasoning, we are missing or have insufficient answers to the following six questions. First, what is the exact nature and scope of the problem or problems that OES encountered with the results regional system? And second, what is the new plan to solve these problems?

Before I move on to the next four questions, I want to pause and really stress these first two the nature and scope of the problem and will the solution address the problem?

And the reason why I highlight these questions is because when we asked experts and stakeholders what advice they would give you if they were up here facing the same question. The near universal response we got was to get very, very clear on these first two questions.

The other four sets of questions we have include what other options were considered? How do these options compare? How will the system comply with state privacy and security regulations and law and is there sufficient oversight of this project? Our fifth and final finding that we wanted to raise to you is that 911 technology will continue to evolve.

It's a mischaracterization to think of deployment of the next generation 911 system as having an end date where the project will be done. Yes, we can likely identify a date at which the legacy system will be decommissioned, but that doesn't mean next generation 911 will then be complete.

Once IP technologies are the basis of these networks, we're going to be challenged by new innovations in this space and stakeholders may want to adopt these. And this will likely happen at a much faster pace than was possible historically in the legacy system. So we're going to continue to see evolutions based on these findings.

We recommend the following first oversight hearings, including but not limited to the one we're having today, preferably before may revise so that if you receive a BCP or even without one, you're able to make the most informed decision possible when the budget is adopted in June.

We strongly recommend that these hearings focus on the key questions we have raised and that they include a meaningful comparison of options and trade offs, including cost.

If this kind of analysis is not possible, we recommend the Legislature consider adopting language in the budget or elsewhere that would prohibit OEs from implementing the statewide approach until an independent, technically proficient third party third party, which could include the state auditor, a blue ribbon commission, or even a select Committee, is able to do this comparative analysis.

To strengthen oversight of the current project, we recommend quarterly reports and monthly progress reports to the Legislature Until Legacy911 has been fully decommissioned.

And lastly, looking for the long term future for these systems, including the potential for national interoperability and innovations that are already possible, for example, with artificial intelligence and the myriad of trade offs and policy questions that might come as a result of these changes that are coming.

We recommend the Legislature consider whether additional oversight is appropriate and what oversight that form should take. Thank you for your time and attention and we're available for questions.

Thank you. You also provided a very good thorough overview and recommendations to this Committee. We appreciate that. Any comments from the Department of Finance?

Hi, Zach Voss from the Department of Finance. Nothing further to add right now, but happy to answer any questions for Finance.

Thank you colleagues. We'll start again with Senator Durazo.

I don't even know where to start.

There's so much that you have been been presented and none of them seems to be the way to go or all of them seem to be the way to go.

What's not particularly clear is where's the primary problem here? It seems like there's numerous, numerous issues, numerous problems. Mr. Yarborough, you just came on.

Yes, that's correct.

Yeah, you just came on, and all of this has been going on. One thing that stands out, it's not the only thing, but is how can we be ready for the Olympics in just two years away? So I'm very concerned. Usually it's okay. I agree with one, you know, one set of recommendations versus the other.

I sort of agree with all of the recommendations, and they all have to be done, but they're not. It's not possible to do all the recommendations. So I don't know. I guess I go back to Mr. Yarborough. What do you say about these numerous issues? Numerous problems. And what concerns me is the pausing.

But on the other hand, I understand that a pause is necessary because there's so many unknown problems or there's problems, known problems with unknown answers. So this is really difficult. I don't see anyone getting to the bottom of it. Is it possible to get to the bottom of all these problems? Is it the vendors?

Was it the original idea of having these regional hubs? I'm at a loss at so many issues that have to be dealt with, and there doesn't seem to be the plan, your plan, to address these serious concerns.

So, yes, it's definitely a very complex issue that we're dealing with. Many, many parts of it don't necessarily all get fixed with one solution. And so I think. I think it's instructive to look at this in a couple of different ways.

One is there's the infrastructure itself, and in terms of building that infrastructure to be able to carry the traffic across it from point to point on the network. I referenced earlier the national emergency number association standards for building next generation 911 systems. That represents industry best practices and.

And understanding everything that's been learned from implementations up to this point. So the design that we started on 67 years ago was informed by the collective wisdom that we had at that time. And I think we've learned a lot since then, not just from investigating our own problems, but from other states who have also deployed.

And all of those learnings filter into the standards that the association promulgates to make sure that everybody can benefit from the body of knowledge of deploying these networks.

So one thing that strikes me as being a place to start in terms of fixing this is to understand that the regional structure that we deployed, nobody has ever successfully adopted and implemented that structure before, and it is not in line with the NENA standards. That's the emergency number association.

So I think by adopting an architecture that didn't align with what we now know are the standards, that's a great place to start to probably make a huge impact to resolving the number of problems that have been identified here.

And so that's, I think, what feeds into our plan to migrate off of the regional structure onto the statewide architecture so that we don't have the interfaces and handoffs between the regions. We have a single, you know, homogenous network to deal with that one vendor is responsible for owning and operating.

We don't have to translate between one vendor's technology and another vendor's technology. So in doing that, we address many of the problems that have been experienced. So I hope that addresses in a number of ways the question you were asking.

There's several specific issues beyond the broader one. One concern that was raised in the Committee analysis is that shifting to a statewide provider could create the risk of a statewide outage. And what are the safeguards that will exist if that primary vendor experiences a system failure.

So I think as we write the statement of work for our open solicitation, we are incorporating the standards and practices from all of the learnings to make sure that we are defining what successfully implementing this network will look like in terms of architecture.

And that's how we arrive at the ability to have System Uptime of 99.999% is by building the redundancy into the statewide system. The regional architecture didn't build it into the one system. It did it by adding system systems together. And that is certainly one way to build in redundancy and reliability.

But it's more efficient to build that redundancy and reliability as layers within a single solution. And there are certain costs that go along with standing up a system that must be duplicated or triplicated or quadruplicated. When you have a regional structure that is an inefficient deployment of economic resources.

Building in one system can have the same reliability and same uptime, but do so in a more economically prudent fashion because there are certain overhead things that don't have to be replicated for multiple systems. And so in doing that, it's solving a couple of problems.

It's building the resilience you're building, you're inquiring about, but also doing it in an economically more prudent way.

And so how are you, how are you going about to learn from the lessons from all the problems and learn from those lessons. What are you doing to one identify those and say here's how we're going to fix it.

So we do a thorough analysis of what we've experienced. And we did that by reaching out to all of the stakeholders who were engaged, learning firsthand what they went through and tracing it back to its root problem.

Second part is my team engages regularly with associations across the country for standards and practices that everybody, you know, there's workshops where they learn how was it implemented in North Carolina, for example, or how was it implemented in Washington, the state.

And learning from what they learned in their deployments, engaging at the design level, from my design engineer to their design engineer, that communication can happen. So we have these partnerships and collaboration with other people who have gone down this path before.

So compiling all of that and then comparing it against the standards that are published by the Emergency Number association, we get a robust playing field of what people have tried, what they have seen as a result from those trials and what they recommend as a best practice going forward.

But didn't you say that was what you did early on once we started identifying that's what led to the direction that you were going to go in? That's correct, yes. So we learned from the problems that we experienced with the regional and identified a path forward for our new approach which will be a statewide system.

And then could you specifically talk about what upgrades will be completed in the LA region for the Games?

So one of the things is adopting the statewide provider that we have right now. So that was built as the fallback position in the regional model. We had a statewide provider that is connected to all 440 plus Public Safety Answering points.

Then we're actively meeting with the public safety answering points in the Los Angeles region, particularly around where we see Olympic venues going to be, making sure that we're targeting the right answering points and working with them to map out a schedule as to how we could make migrate them onto the system in time for those Olympic Games to include all of the equipment that needs to be deployed, software that needs to be deployed, and then working around their own schedules, understanding that there's testing that needs to take place before they would feel comfortable taking live traffic.

So we have about a two year Runway on that and we're looking to engage with those partners. We did a kickoff meeting with them last month to start discussing the idea and planning it and we have another follow up meeting scheduled with them.

I believe it's on March 19th down in the Los Angeles area in person so we can continue to engage and plan this transition for them. And through that we get their input as to how that might look. So one of the key things here is getting stakeholders buy in at every step of the way.

And so we're actively engaged and we intend to engage with them at least on a monthly basis to make sure that we're doing that.

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Senator Seyarto, thank you.

Thank you for being here to give us an update on this. So we've spent about what, $450 million so far? Yes. During the term of that contract. Right. And. And we have, let me get this, we have four vendors. Correct. One for each region. And then one of those vendors handles the state part.

Handled the state part of this too.

Yeah.

All right. And we're going to go down to two.

We're going. Yeah, we're going to go to the, the statewide provider in the interim and then an open solicitation for a provider after that.

Okay. So the vendors that were used to gather some of the like location services data, the GIS information, they usually hire the subcontractors who actually do that work for five years while they're trying to figure this out who owns that data. So the data is owned by the state and it is used by the.

Network provider and that's outlined in the contract? Yes. Okay. And is that going to be in the new contract as well?

Because the one thing I don't want to see is us getting into the situation where, because it wasn't in the contract, the subcontractor who is no longer working for the project owns the data and that's it, they're gone with that data.

Then we have to go in and redo that because it takes a long time to get that in and it's also changing as you're going along. And so that's a concern as far as we don't want to duplicate another $450 million to do the work that at least has been done to this point.

And I want assurances that that is in a contract, our current contracts, so that contractors or subcontractors don't make off with the work that they have done already. And because they're not finishing this project.

Yes. So we've handed off between vendors before this data. We have a location database. The data in it belongs to the state.

And when one vendor goes off into the sunset, the requirement is that we get a handed off file that contains everything it goes to our new vendor is uploaded and to make sure that we don't have a gap or lose the data.

And I understand that that's the. That's exactly how you would want to do it. And if it's in a contract, because that's part of what you write in a contract, is what happens in that case. I want to make sure the state is not on the hook for having to redo a bunch of the work.

This isn't an issue of should we do this or not. It is an issue of we have to do this. We have to update our systems. You are making some big promises for LA County and LA City. If you've ever been in their dispatch centers, they have 20 consoles and there's people at each one.

And there is a massive wiring that go into those consoles and the whole system. Because it's not just the wiring, it's the familiarization with the thing and all of the training that goes with it once you've been able to get the other system online. And that's going to be a huge challenge. I have seen nothing.

And the biggest challenge we have with our communications systems as we, as you know, in 35 years, I saw us go through like three or four is that transition period. Many times, especially large agencies, they start on a project.

By the time they get done with the project, the project's outdated and needs to be updated or thrown out and start over again. And we can't have that constant cycle. And so from a technology standpoint, how long does this take to do and why does it take so long?

There's bureaucracy parts, but then there's also the technology parts. And is it getting people to do it? Is it having people that are qualified to do it? It's a massive, massive project. When you look at all of these different PSAPs throughout California.

And so, you know, when they initially talked about doing the regions, because that kind of answers a little bit of a redundancy issue. But the red flag is when they said nobody's ever done it before. Yeah, that's a red flag. There's a reason nobody's ever done it before.

It's almost impossible to do, maybe, but we need to find out what those answers are. So anyway, if I asked a question in there, you can feel free to comment.

Yeah, I will address a couple of points. I talked a little bit about the, what I like to call it, the transportation layer of this network. And that's the infrastructure that carries traffic from point to point.

And I think it touches on the idea that was mentioned earlier that there isn't really a finish line to building a next generation 911 system. The technology will always be advancing, but what I look at is the infrastructure itself doesn't evolve as fast as what I call the application layer.

And that's the layer that interfaces with, with the call taker. And some of the additional capabilities that were mentioned in the, in the readout from the Legislative Analyst Office talk about additional functionalities that might be brought into the environment.

And what we are intending to do here is build a base transportation layer that can carry that traffic, regardless of what additional application needs to happen to ride across the the network. And so in doing that, we're building a system that is, for want of a better term, future proof.

And it's intended to be adaptable into the future much longer than just the term of initial five year contract or whatever. And so that's, I think, a way we're addressing what you're talking about. Thank you.

You know, and I think in the budget process in 2019, there was some pushback on that budget and the pushback was there wasn't enough oversight. And so they got past that and now we're seeing why that pushback was there.

The Legislature needs oversight on projects this massive, especially when we're talking about budgets that are constrained like we have.

And so I would recommend to the chair that we would probably refer this whole thing into one of our committees, like the Emergency Management Committee, for an oversight hearing so we understand all the aspects because we'd be here all day talking about this stuff and where we're at and what needs to be done and addressing the Laos issues as far as what their concerns are.

And so that's, I would recommend that before the may revise that we have an oversight here so we know exactly where a little bit more about this and can explore it more in depth. Thank you.

Thank you. Ms. Gonzalez, would you mind sharing with me your list of recommendations that you rattled off?

Sure. They're in your handout.

I thought you added though some additional ones we didn't have on here.

No, on the last page, page four,

page five, LAO recommendations. Right. And then also page four, you had some questions to ask? Yes. There was nothing else further that you shared? I thought there were a few others.

No, those are the primary ones we also provide. We can provide you with. We wrote a more extensive brief, these that from which these come. And we'd be happy to provide you with a brief. I didn't bring a copy with me today, but I'll make sure you get it.

Okay, so let me start off first by responding to Senator Seyarto. Interestingly enough, Senator Stern approached me on the floor this morning. He's the chair of the Emergency Management Committee and suggested that we may want to do something jointly. So I think we will probably take that recommendation and request.

Request that he do the next GEN911 system sooner rather than later so we can weigh in together on how it's working, how it's not where we need to go, what are the costs and all of that. So I will take him up on his offer, which is also what you're suggesting.

But further from that, I did have some follow up questions to ask. Number one, when we talk about the regional structure, how much physical infrastructure or data or whatever it will be a part of the system for the NG911 will have to be reinstalled or replaced based upon this new strategy that you're suggesting.

And that question probably goes to Mr. Swanson. I think,

actually, I think that Mr. Yarborough would be better to answer that question.

Okay.

Yeah, I'm happy to address it.

If you could summarize your answers a little tighter. You've. I've been lenient because of the subject matter that we need to understand, but we also have Members that have got to take some flights to.

I appreciate that. Thank you. So I mentioned earlier that the. It's acquired as a service from our vendor partners, and that means that the costs break up into two categories, non recurring costs and monthly recurring costs. The monthly recurring costs amount to about 85% of the total expenditure of this service, if you will.

So you mentioned, I think earlier, Senator, the $450 million that was spent during this 85% of that was. Was the monthly recurring cost. There is no enduring benefit that comes from that. It's just the service fee. The other portion, which is about $76 million, is the part that includes startup equipment and installation.

And that would need to be replicated with each changing of the contract. And so I envision a number around that order of magnitude. Magnitude is what it takes.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you're stating that some of the initial cost for equipment and so on was about 76 million for the original regional recommendation. And now we probably will have to incur something similar to that again for this new strategy.

Correct.

Okay. So with all due respect, Mr. Swanson, that's why I asked you the question, since you're the Director of Finance and Logistics, if you could give us this Committee more of the details of what has been spent. What do we expect to continue to be spent.

And with this new system, what can we anticipate costs could be because we are in a budget deficit and we do have to appropriately plan. And I don't think it's really fair to the Legislature to kind of come at the last minute and say, okay, well, now we're going to need this to continue.

We need to know that now. And frankly, we probably should have had it today, since this is your recommendation of what we're doing. So if you could provide us with that information, that would be really helpful. Not helpful. It's needed. The second thing that I wanted to say was, Mr. Yarborough, you talked about, about

talking to other places and what they used and so on. The state of California, I believe, is the largest populous state in the United States. Could you give us a little more details about who you talk to? What system does New York use? What systems do other countries use?

When I was on the Homeland Security Committee, which included Fema, when we were studying airport security, we actually went to Israel because the best place that knows the most about security, unfortunately, due to what they have to face in that country is Israel. So what steps did you take to look at?

And maybe it wasn't you at the time, it was someone else, but what steps did we take to identify what other places we're using? And really, is there a need to do a whole new system that we're proposing, or is there something off the shelf that we can get from someplace else that's already doing it?

And I think that gets to Ms. Gonzalez's questions is that you generally said to us, zero, you know, we've talked about people and so on, but this Committee really needs to know what other places are using, how effective are they? Are, are they available off the shelf? Is it something we could implement?

So given the time that we have, I'm going to ask that you give us the answer to that question. But it's really important because oftentimes we're recreating things when frankly, you know, for a fraction of the cost, we could utilize a similar system. My next question gets to Senator Durazzo.

And that has to do with what happens if we don't go to this new system? What happens if we continue in the pause?

You're using the overarching state vendor system, and we ride with that through the Olympics because the last thing we need to do is have, you know, we're in the middle of transition and now we're having more and more people who are coming and you experience problems that we're not anticipating and now we have even more problems.

Have you thought about the possibility that maybe what if we pause where we are now, could you share with the Committee what would be the impacts in, if we did not go forward, what that would be and if you could very briefly in less than a minute answer that question?

Yes. So, yeah, moving forward, we can continue with the overarching state provider. We can migrate off of the regional structure onto that state provider. And the key is that we need to be able to have our vendor under contract so we can hold them accountable in ways that the tariff structure does not.

And so we can proceed in that fashion. But it's, we would like to do an open competitive process for our long term partner. Whether that happens this year as we intended or later. I'm, I'm open to that conversation.

Okay, so if you could provide the Committee and the LAO and Department of Finance all, all the questions we're asking, the information, but if you could give us a little more detail on that if we don't move forward. And then I want to discuss what happened with the fires.

One of the issues that was discussed had to do with the notification that people received and information. Do you have any information that you can share with us of what happened with the 911 system regarding the wildfires that we experienced last year?

I don't have that information.

Yeah, I'm sorry, we don't have the right people for that question. But I can, we can follow up with that as well.

Okay. So yes, we would like that information and that's germane to our discussion because that tells us that was a very prime example of something that was not working. And what are we doing right now in the meantime? Okay, last couple questions.

So are we going to owe the vendors of these regional systems any money since what you said you already paid on the front end and now it's a monthly expenditure. Are, do we owe them anything else?

No, it's under tariff. So we can turn off the tariff payment with appropriate notice, but it's on a month to month basis at this point.

Okay, and how are the redundancies and cyber security targets built into the contracts with the vendor requirements for this potential new system? And how will OES ensure that the vendors are complying with these requirements? And that gets to Senator Duronzo with redundancy and you know, power and all of that?

What, what do you have in place place to deal with that?

So we engage with the California Department of Technology to make sure that we have the most current and up to date, set of requirements built into the contract terms, and that includes for cybersecurity requirements as well.

We also have a vendor partner that we've engaged to provide oversight and evaluation of those features, the cybersecurity features of our network on an ongoing basis to ensure that we're in compliance on, you know, continuing so.

And then we will keep those, keep that engagement going to make sure that we're monitoring and ensuring compliance with the cybersecurity requirements.

Okay. And then for the record, I'm going to read the questions that were provided to us for the LAO that I'm officially going to ask you on record to provide. And we would like this information before we do potentially a joint hearing with our colleagues. That way we have the information and, and can be productive.

So the questions that we have of the Committee for you to provide to us are the following. What exactly is the nature and scope of the problems with the regional system? Will the transition to the statewide approach solve them? What other options were considered? How do these options compare?

How do these options comply with the state privacy and security regulations and laws? Is there sufficient oversight both of the specific project and of the state's overall 911 system going forward? Also, the questions are in particular to provide us with an analysis of the options and the trade offs and that should also include costs. If OES can.

Wait a minute. And what was the independent technical third party evaluation that you recommended? Just a second, sir.

The information we would suggest, if that information isn't possible to get to you by may revise so you have confidence, then we would suggest you consider pausing a little longer to get that independent third party technically competent evaluation.

And my question was, who would that technically third party evaluator be?

Who would that be?

You have a number of options. The state auditor is one. Advantages and disadvantages to each of these. You could do a blue ribbon commission, you could have form a select Committee. There are a number of options that you could have to do that and some would take longer than others, some would give you more information than others.

Okay, so let's, with the joint hearing that we have, probably reach out to the state auditor. That'll probably be the easiest one for us to get some feedback on. And then going forward, we need to receive some quarterly fiscal reports. That's for you, I believe, Mr. Swanson.

We need quarterly fiscal reports and monthly progress reports to this Committee regarding the status of your current recommended state. And then finally we need to talk further as a Committee of potential governance options and oversight going forward with that any further questions?

Ms. Durazo?

Just if you can include in that next steps. I'm really concerned about how much time this will take. And so the LAO or anybody has any suggestions on how we can speed up the time.

I'm really worried that this could become something that just goes off into the sunset and goes on and on and on and on. So I would just ask of all of you, how do we fulfill our responsibility to seek all this additional information? But we need a faster process. Thank you. Yes, sir.

Mr. Sierrado, regarding the Olympics and trying to get a transition of any sort done before the Olympics, sometimes the worst thing you can do is, is try to change something just before a big event like that.

And you've got to just keep going with what you have through that period and not do that, because then you find out all the bugs. If there is an incident, you find out all the bugs. And at least we know how to deal with stuff when our system goes down.

I did it in the Antelope Valley during 4th of July 1 year. We figure that out, and we have backup systems within our own counties and stuff to do that. But trying to get everybody trained up and watching something fail and not knowing how to have that redundancy, I don't know if that's going to be a goal.

And I hope when we have an oversight hearing, we can address that a little bit more. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Seyarto. That was the. One of the questions that I had asked was, what if we don't move forward? What do they see as could be the impacts and if required. Agreed. Okay. Well, thank you very much for your participation. We look forward to speaking to you all again very soon.

With that, we're going to move to issue number three, which is an overview of the Department of Justice from Aaron Shore, the Chief Deputy of Operations at the Department of Justice. Please come forward.

Okay, let's go forward. Which one of you is Erin? That's me. Okay. All right. Please move forward.

Good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Erin Suhr. And I have the pleasure to serve as Chief Deputy of Operations at the California Department of Justice. I want to thank you for giving our team the opportunity to testify today about the California DOJ.

I also want to express my appreciation for your leadership in steering our state through challenging fiscal times. To start off, I would like to give an overview of our Department. DOJ is charged with serving and protecting all 39 million Californians, preserving California's abundant natural resources, and representing all state agencies and the Governor.

In practicality, the range of responsibilities that translates into is enormous.

Our employees are hardworking, protecting public safety, including seizing more than 17 million fentanyl pills, more than 7,000 pounds of fentanyl, and making nearly 600 fentanyl related arrests in just four years, including arresting just over 1,000 individuals, engaged in human trafficking, and assisting 1,054 survivors in the last five years, and recovering 1,500 firearms from illegally armed individuals through our Armed and Prohibited persons program in 2024 alone.

We're defending, implementing and enforcing California laws passed by this governing body. Last year, DOJ successfully defended California's age based restrictions on firearms and our common sense regulation on ghost guns.

We went to court to defend SB976, the protecting our Kids from Social Media Addiction act, and an early win allowed the majority of the Bill to come into effect. While the case proceeds, we're in court fighting Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, over allegations that it's unlawful to conduct, that its unlawful conduct has hampered competition.

Since 2022, DOJ's housing justice team has been successfully enforcing California's nation leading housing laws across the state, leading cities to plan for more than 40,000 new units of housing, preventing discriminatory land use practices, protecting renters, and holding unscrupulous landlords accountable to the law.

DOJ is also defending and supporting California's 236 state departments in their own critical services to our state. We're defending our environment from the impacts of climate change and the harms of pollution, protecting access to health care and education for all, enforcing civil rights laws and helping victims of illegal business practices.

Despite what some in Washington may falsely claim, we're tackling fraud head on, which has resulted in the recovery of nearly $2.7 billion for California taxpayers in the last decade. We're supporting you and your colleagues as you craft new laws to address the ever evolving needs of our state.

And while my colleague Ashley will give you a more thorough overview of our federal accountability work, I'd be remiss to skip over the fact that since President Trump took office for his second term, California DOJ has filed 59 lawsuits against the federal Administration. We've secured a victory 80% of the time. Approximately 200.

Returning approximately $200 billion to California children, seniors, workers, schools and communities, and defending our constitutional rights, including the right to birthright citizenship. As someone newer to DOJ Week 6, I am continuously amazed by all this Department accomplishes on a daily basis, regardless of who's in the White House.

Because while the second Trump Administration has resulted in a massive amount of additional work at DOJ, the reality is it is additional. None of DOJ's bread and butter work protecting our people, communities, and the state has stopped just because Trump returned to office.

Which is why DOJ's current staff and resources cannot simply absorb the new federal accountability work. Trump is not the only reason we are requesting additional resources. As you will also hear from Ashley, the other items on today's agenda are evolving in scope, complexity, and urgency, in part because of the good legislation passed by this Legislature.

DOJ needs to be able to keep up with the threats facing California, the mandates from the Legislature, and the demands on our time, resources, and personnel demands. We cannot fully meet with our current resources, which is why we are here today.

As public servants, we share the same mission to serve, represent, and protect all Californians and to safeguard the process our state has led. I have faith that we can work together to ensure that the California Department of Justice has the tools it needs to do just that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Go ahead. Good morning, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. Ashley Harp, Assistant Director, Fiscal Services with the California Department of Justice. I'm here to provide a brief overview of the agenda items today.

And I have along with me in the audience, and we'll be joining subject matter experts from our programs who will be available to respond to specific questions as needed. Thank you.

So you didn't have an additional presentation?

Not on the overview item.

Okay. Thank you. Senator Durazo. Any questions?

I just want to thank you and the entire team of the Department of Justice for the work that you do. You mentioned it yourself, so I don't have to repeat it, but I'm particularly proud of the work around immigration, funding from the federal Administration and housing. So there's so many things I could get into.

But I. I just want to take a minute to thank you.

Thank you very much. If you would kindly. Chief Deputy Shore. I don't know if I'm pronouncing your name, sir. Okay.

If you could please provide us what's allowed of your statement in writing to the Committee, just so we have it, for the record of some of the details and stats that you gave, I, I think would be really helpful. I just have one question.

How is the DOJ balancing a significant and active federal litigation workload with its other core duties such as firearm regulation and consumer protection?

Do you want to call up? Should we call up?

Sure. The question is, how are we balancing existing workloads with the incoming?

Yes. I mean, I know we allocated a significant amount of more money as well, but I just wanted to clarify how that's going in terms of balancing all of it.

Yeah. We do have Danielle O'Bannon from our Public Rights Division who can speak to kind of the balance of existing litigation work versus the incoming federal accountability work.

Chief Deputy. Sir, you can still stay there. Go ahead. Come on.

Thank you. Danielle O'Bannon. I'm the Public Rights Chief at the Department of Justice. We're balancing rumor managing like CEO sir indicated. We have current workload that we're currently working on, but we have the additional workload that's coming into the door. We're managing as best we can.

There's a lot of work in regards to the PFA workload, the Presidential Federal Accountability Work. We billed at least this fiscal year over 100,000 hours. The work is coming in fast and furious. We have filed 59 lawsuits.

And if you take a look of how long this Administration has been in office, that's one lawsuit per week as we sit here.

We also have some defensive cases that we're also working on, defending some of the state's Legislature legislative mandates that have come out, including the anti masking legislation that come out, the transgender cases, Prop 50, those types of things. And there is a gap. We have work coming in.

We still have staff working on the workload that we currently have, but it's becoming challenging. We have team Members that are working heavy hours and on the weekends trying to get these lawsuits filed. And some of the additional requests that we're asking for today will go to help ease those burdens that we currently have.

The civil rights of the state, of the people of the state of California are extremely important. So this is work we must do, but we also need to have resources available to allow us to do so. It's very complex, it's resource intensive, but it's definitely rewarding. We have had some really big wins as well.

And we've not only had wins for civil rights, but we've also been able to protect about $200 billion in funding as we've been going along.

Thank you. Have additional people been hired with the money that was provided?

Yes, we have been able to hire 44 additional people into the door.

Thank you. Okay, thank you very much. Any further questions? Yes. Mr.

I just want to urge you to keep your work on the immigration detention facilities. There's been so many reports by locals and others who are able to get information.

A lot of the community based organizations get information about what those conditions and how deplorable they are, people keeping track of how many people die in the, in the custody. So I just want to urge you to keep working hard on that. That's something that's very important to me and a lot of us. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Rozzo, and we will definitely. We're focusing heavily on the detention facilities and the atrocities that are happening in that those locations.

Thank you all for all your work and please share with the Department how much we appreciate all the efforts and congratulate your successes thus far. With that, we're going to move on to issue number four. Thank you for being here. Issue number four is one of those other subjects that you cover, which is the firearms workload.

We'll be joined by the following panelists for this issue. Ms. Ashley Harp, Assistant Director of Fiscal Operations for DOJ. Ms. Allison Mendoza, Director of Bureau of Finance for DOJO. Ms. Myra Morales, Assistant Director of Bureau of Firearms of DOJ. And then we have Ms. Jennifer Chan, Assistant Chief for the California Justice Information Services.

And then of course, we have our support from the LAO, Mr. Drew Soderborg. And we have Mr. Mark Jimenez, who's also, well, he's with the Department of Finance. And Ms. Victoria Chin. I'm going to need more chairs pretty soon. Okay, we're going to start with the doj. You decide who goes first.

Hi. Thank you. Ashley Harp. The governor's proposed budget includes the following adjustments to support critical firearms related workloads. Under this item, there are three. The first is a limited term net zero shift of $8 million from the dealer's record of sales special account to the General Fund for fiscal years, 2026-27 through 202829.

The second is 11.2 million General Fund in 2026-27 to continue the firearms IT systems modernization project. And third is 1.2 million General Fund in 202627 and 259,000 General Fund ongoing and one position to implement Senate Bill 700 and four related to firearm barrels.

I can certainly go into detail on each of these proposals if we'd like. Just looking to you on how we'd like to proceed through this issue.

And is Mendoza, Morales and Chang, do you have additional presentations or you're here to answer questions?

We're here to answer any questions on the proposals. And all three are here in the audience.

Okay, perfect. Senator Durazo, did you have any questions? Senator Durazo, I apologize. I should have referred to the LAO and Department of Finance first. So we'll have you go forward.

Yes, Drew Soderborg with the Legislative Analyst Office. Let me first speak to the proposal to fund SB704 work. We have no concerns with the amount of funding requested.

We do recommend, however, that rather than support this workload from the General Fund, that the Legislature support it from the Dealer Record of Sale special account, given that SB704 included sale specific language requiring a fee to cover this workload. We do recognize, however, that this fee revenue will not be available immediately and DOJ will experience startup costs.

And so we are recommending that the initial startup costs be covered by a loan from the Firearm Safety and Enforcement Special Fund. This Fund has sufficient resources to cover this initial workload until the fee revenue created by SB704 is is sufficient to pay back the loan.

With respect to the proposal to Fund the continued Firearm Information Technology System modernization request, we do recommend approval of this as this will allow this important project to move forward.

With regard to the proposal to shift $8 million of costs from the Bureau of Firearms onto the General Fund for three years, we are recommending that you modify this proposal. Specifically, we're recomm that you approve the shift only on a one year basis.

And given the significant difficulties facing the state General Fund, we're recommending that the Legislature consider providing this $8 million for the Bureau of Firearms as a loan.

And the timeline on which this loan could be repaid could be determined as the Legislature determines how to address overall firearm and ammunition workload going forward and to help the Legislature decide how to support ammunition and firearm workload going forward, we recommend that you direct DOJ to provide a framework for determining what workload should be funded by fee revenue.

So if you Turn to page 11 in your agenda, you'll see two graphs. One is a graph that shows the overall level of support for the Bureau of Firearms. And as you can see see in this graph at the early part of the graph, in 201617 it was exclusively supported by fee revenue.

But as time has gone on, their costs have gone up, as have the General Fund costs of the Bureau of Firearms. And below that is an explanation of why this has happened.

This has happened because one of the main supports for the Bureau of Firearms, the dealer's a record of sale special account, has had sort of an erratic amount of revenue coming into it and in recent years has been experiencing a declining Fund balance.

Now, normally, when fee revenue collected to support state regulatory workload runs short, the state simply increases fees to cover the workload. However, when it comes to firearm regulations, there's an added complexity here.

There was a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that suggested suggests that there is a level at which fee revenues could become so high that they become unconstitutional. As a result of that constraint, as well as other factors, DOJ has often sought General Fund support for workload that could be covered by special funds.

This not only leads to inconsistencies in the way the state funds this work, but it also increases pressure on the General Fund, as you can see in that graph, which is obviously a significant consideration given the fiscal difficulties facing the state.

This is why we're recommending that DOJ provide by January 10, 2027 a framework for determining what firearm and ammunition workload should be funded by special fund revenues.

Now, once the Legislature has this framework in hand, it could use it to inform its future decisions about how to allocate its job General Fund resources, whether or not fees need to be changed and how to address this workload.

And if the Legislature determines that a fee level is appropriate that doesn't cover all this workload, how to address that situation, whether we need to look at ways to create efficiencies so that the workload can fit within their fee revenue, or changing the way we approach these regulations to reduce their costs.

With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you very much. Any questions from the Department of Finance or comments.

Victoria Chin, Department of Finance.

Excuse me.

Victoria Chin, Department of Finance we appreciate the LAO's recommendation. With respect to the LAO's recommendations regarding the SB 704 BCP, we disagree with the recommendation to take a loan from the Firearms Safety and Enforcement Special Account Fund.

Although the fund has a sufficient balance, we project the fund to be structurally imbalanced in the out years so a loan from the fund would not be prudent and then also note the insolvency of the dross account.

We note SB704 allows DOJ to charge a fee, but it would still need to go through the regulatory process for it to be implemented in that could take at least a year to be implemented. It is also unclear if revenue collected will be sufficient to cover the cost of the Bill. Unfortunately. Excuse me.

Ultimately, we propose General Fund to provide consistent funding to support the implementation of SB704. We note this funding is consistent with the fiscal estimates of this Bill on the LAO's recommendation on the Dross Authority alignment BCP, we disagree with the recommendation to approve only one year of funding.

Approving the three years of funding as proposed allows for the Department of Justice and the Administration to monitor the condition of the fund, assess options to support the solvency of the fund while also providing a consistent level of resources in the short term.

Lastly, we appreciate the LAO's recommendation regarding the framework for the funding the firearm related workload and we're happy to consider proposals the Legislature may have. Thank you.

Thank you very much. No further comments. Okay. Senator Durazo.

I think the LAO covered all the issues that I was going to raise, but to see, you know, before 2019 it was fully funded by fees and here we are now where two thirds is funded by the General Fund.

So we really do need a framework addressing that issue and I just wanted to ask from the Department of Justice, are you working on such a framework? Are you going to how do you see moving forward with that recommendation? Do you agree with the recommendation?

Thank you. Senator Durazzo. Based on Leo's 2025 recommendation that the Legislature direct DOJ to provide a potential framework for determining what firearm and ammunition workloads should be funded by special funds versus General Fund, DOJ has already begun working on a framework to propose.

This involves evaluating our firearm and ammunition related regulatory and enforcement workloads and and reviewing historical and anticipated transaction levels. We are also considering the requirements of existing federal and state statute and case law. If the Legislature ultimately adopts leo's recommendation to direct DOJ to propose a firearm and ammunition funding framework regarding special Fund fee revenues.

DOJ will plan to do so. Okay, that's it.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you very much. Just a few questions here that I have. When SB 704 was being brought forward by the Legislature, did the DOJ make a note of what those revenues would be required at that time?

We anticipate that approximately 750,000 in revenues could come in as a result of this Bill annually. However, we note that that is a high estimate and will be subject to the transaction levels that we see coming in, which at this time are purely just that, estimates.

Okay, but I mean, in terms of the cost, I thought you said that you needed 1.2 million from the General Fund for the implementation of SB 704.

Correct. That is in the first year, with the following year being 259,000 ongoing. Okay.

Did the. So building on Senator Durazo, did the DOJ consider fee increases or other options aside from requesting money from the General Fund?

We have considered that, and I think along the lines of some of the concerns that LAO has outlined regarding firearms fees, we are very cautious as it relates to augmenting or increasing firearms fees due to potential constitutionality concerns.

So since you are the DOJ and we did hear that you defend departments, it seems to me that there should be a happy medium. It's one thing to say, you know, our fees are insufficient. It's another thing to say, oh, you're charging too much fees.

But based upon the graph that was provided, it seems like we have a case to make that the fees are not sufficient. So has the DOJ considered.

Actually, we're back to talking about this framework to figure out what the fair amount of fees would be and then be prepared to fight that, that we shouldn't be expected to pay for, to supplement through the General Fund, something that should pay for itself.

Yes. DOJ is certainly supportive of the framework project and is actively working on that as it relates to the specific fee. Just wanted to provide a little bit of background. The Dross fee is currently, currently $31.19. That was an increase effective 2020. Prior to that, it was $19.

Another dross fee increase at this time is not advisable given recent trends in Second Amendment litigation. We anticipate that increasing the fee even incrementally would draw a litigation challenge, as opponents would likely claim that the increase would be exorbitant and and infringing on their Second Amendment rights under current Second Amendment jurisprudence.

Defending this challenge would require DOJ to provide evidence of historical analogues to this fee. The litigation landscape is highly contested and we cannot predict the outcome of any lawsuit. This litigation would also be extremely costly to the Department.

Okay. But costly. We also have the argument to make that we don't have the money sufficient in the General Fund to, to supplement paying for things that really should be paying for themselves. So maybe we could have a follow up discussion. I'm willing to have that.

I don't know if any other Members would like to participate but I really, I don't think the answer is sufficient, frankly from my perspective. We cannot continue to supplement and pay for things that need to more pay for themselves. We just don't have the money.

And if we're choosing between this and education and health care and all the things that we're facing. I get it that we've had a prior legal challenge. But again I'm asking the question where is the happy medium in that?

And for us to be afraid and not charge anything more now, six years later, given the increased cost of what's shown in the graph, just seem to be reasonable. So I'd like to have a follow up conversation to understand that better. When do you anticipate having this framework

done at this time? We don't have a date. I can certainly circle back to you with a potential timeline for that given the recommendation hasn't been officially adopted. I know we are actively working on a framework just as part of DNA DOJ's active review of of our special funds.

But I could circle back to you on a potential timeline if this were to be adopted.

So what needs to happen in order for it to be adopted? So set on us or on you or who?

Yes, it's an LEO recommendation. We are on our own conducting internal review of the special funds at this time. Time.

It's not a legislative mandate at this time. Okay.

So if we could, our Committee consultant, if we could follow up more on this point. Okay. Any further questions? No.

Getting the fees increased and I think it's always been, it's always fallen on the side of, you know, we're taking too big of a risk like for the especially now in this environment to be able to move it forward.

But I think it's good to have a framework that we would be working on versus just letting it go year after year after year. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Senator. With that that's going to conclude issue number four. We're now going to move to issue number five. And I see most of you I think are still here except for we have Christina Bull Arndt, chief Counsel of Special Litigation, that's coming forward. Alicia is staying. Ms. Harp.

Ms. Danielle O 'Bannon, who spoke earlier, is coming forward. And then we have the same representatives from LAO and Department of Finance. With that, we'll begin with DOJ.

Thank you. The governor's proposed budget includes an additional $10 million General Fund in 2026-27 through 2028-29 to help address increased workloads stemming from the current federal Administration and federal actions that violate the law and threaten the constitutional rights of Californians.

I have Danielle oO Bannon and Christina Bull Arndt here here with me today to share specific details on the critical work that's being performed with this investment.

Thank you.

It's a pleasure.

Danielle O'Bannon, the chief of the Public Rights Division, my particular division handles quite a bit of the work that the presidential federal accountability work that the office is doing. We partner also with the Civil division, as well as our Solicitor General's office to bring and address this important work.

Like I previously indicated, you know, this particular request is a request for additional resources because of the increased workload that we have seen in this particular work. The federal Administration has spent and has been very aggressive in its attacks on some of the civil rights of our citizens of the state.

There's been attempts to curtail civil rights, restrict labor protections, restrict access to education and health care within the state. There was an attempt to end nutritional programming for the most vulnerable populations that we do have in the state.

There was an attempt to impose martial law through the federalization of the National Guard in this particular state, as well as significant attempts to freeze funding. And a lot of those funding freezes were an attempt to coerce us to eliminate pro immigration policies that we have within the state.

Our work in opposition to the Trump Administration has seen a lot of successes so far. Over the first year, we were able to obtain orders to protect birthright citizenship, stop the intrusion of federal limitations on our voting rights.

We've also been able to prevent the dismantling of numerous federal agencies, including HHSA as well as AmeriCorps Corp. And we were able to put it into the National Guard, not only in Los Angeles, but in Portland. Like I mentioned previously, there's a lot of defensive work that we're doing as well, and I mentioned those.

I won't repeat them here again, but the work that we're doing is really resource intensive and it's really impactful. I have with me here today Christina Bull Arndt, who is one of the positions that we were able to create.

She is coordinating the PFA work within our office as well as with our multi state partners across the state. And I would like for her to be able to talk today about the outstanding work that we're doing to protect the federal funds from being taken from California. Christina?

Hi, Christina Bull Arndt, chief Counsel for Special Litigation at the California Department of Justice. Let me give you a brief overview. I'll build on what Danielle just said about our work in federal accountability. You've heard a couple times this morning that we filed 59 lawsuits as of about a half hour ago. That is not accurate.

We filed our 60th lawsuit today challenging the President's new imposition of tariffs. Once again, the statute that the President is relying upon is not, does not give him the authority to impose those tariffs. So you can see our federal accountability work as falling into a few different buckets.

Most importantly, perhaps, is the federal funding because about half of our lawsuits challenge the funding cuts to California. Sometimes those are simply impositions of funding cuts.

In fact, the first week of the Trump Administration, the Office of Management and Budget issued a memo that froze funding $3 trillion nationwide, but 168 billion to California, about a third of our budget. We filed a lawsuit the next day, got a TRO and that funding was released.

And we've relied on that injunction, that case multiple times when we've gone back, when they have attempted to freeze our funding. We've also there's been some funding restrictions like for the immigration enforcement that they placed on Department of Transportation funds. And so we've gone in and gotten injunctions. We've had success about 80% of the time.

And we have injunctions in place in many of our lawsuits. And in seven of our lawsuits, the Trump Administration has just caved and said that fine, they'll release the funding. They'll do what it is that they're responsible to do.

Highlighting a few other things, there has been a couple of our cases address data sharing that the Trump Administration seeks the personal identifying information on Californians. We see that in both the SNAP nutrition assistance context as well as Medicaid, we have injunctions in place in both of those cases.

We have also seen a lot of work in the immigration context. Our first lawsuit was was on birthright citizenship and that injunction is still in place, as well as the funding restrictions and efforts to limit the access of immigrants to public benefits that they would otherwise be entitled to. And the National Guard, of course.

I live in Los Angeles and that felt like a real pivot point to me. When you have the President imposing martial law on our streets when people are expressing their First Amendment rights. And I'm tremendously proud of the work that we've done there. And I'll mention also a couple of other things I could go on.

I'm tremendously proud of the good work that our office does in this capacity. I'll mention all our work in the election space, including the opposition, the successful opposition to the election Executive order which attempted to impose restrictions on voting. The Constitution's very clear that Congress and the states administer voting.

And so the court agreed with us on that one. And also in the area of health care, we filed a lawsuit opposing their interpretation of the Affordable Care act which would make it much more difficult for people to access to access Medi Cal and other lawsuits with supporting gender affirming care as well. So I will stop there.

Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you. No one else with doj. Okay. We'll turn to Lao.

Drew Soderbergh, Legislative Analyst Office. We didn't raise any concerns with this proposal.

Thank you. Department of Finance Victoria Chin, Department of Finance. This funding is necessary to support the state's efforts to protect Californians rights and interests, including the protections of billions of federal funding that supports critical programs.

Thank you very much. Senator Durazzo. Any questions or comments?

Thank you. Thank you all so much. It's been extraordinary. Proud to be a Californian with all the work that you are doing for our communities. And although our communities are suffering a lot and will suffer more needlessly, I know that you are working really hard.

So also congratulate and thank the Attorney General and all of you for your leadership and for being out there up front. It really, really has made a difference in our community. So I want to thank you in particular, I want to thank you also for working on my Bill, SB580 on the model policies.

So I look forward to getting that, getting that through to the final. So again, thank you all so much for your hard work and for your deep heart and soul commitment.

Thank you very much.

With that, I'd just like to ask Ms. O'Bannon and Ms. Arndt if you could please supply to the Committee the list the successes that we've had just in these last, you know1516 months that we can share with our colleagues because it's very helpful to talk about what we are doing to, you know, advance justice in the advance and protect justice in the state of California.

With that, thank you very much for your participation in issue number five, which was federal accountability. I believe and now we're going to move to issue number six for the Members of the public. This is the last issue we have and then we'll be going to public comment. So thank you very much for your patience with us.

Now we're going to move to issue number six, which is our final issue. It's regarding online and app based illegal gambling enforcement. We will be joined by the following panelists, most of which who are here in the front already.

We have Ms. Harp, Ms. Christine Williams both with the DOJ, Mr. Soderborg with the LAO, and Ms. Chin and Mr. Jimenez from the Department of Finance. We'll move forward first with the DOJ.

Thank you. The proposed budget includes three positions and 1.1 million in unfair competition law fund in 2026-27 and ongoing to conduct investigation and litigation against illegal online and app based gambling operations and their providers, including online sweepstakes casinos and online sports gambling, both of which represent themselves to the public as legal but are not.

Today I have with me Danielle O'Bannon and Christine Williams available to answer specific questions on the proposal and I will hand it over to Danielle now.

Hi, Danielle O'Bannon again. I'm the chief of the Public Rights Division. I actually also oversee the Native American and Tribal affairs section who is going to be responsible for the illegal gambling work for the Department.

This particular request really is just a request so that we can get some staffing on board to have focused attention on the online illegal gambling that's been taking place in the state. Online gambling has just grown because there isn't any enforcement in this area area.

We've moved from brick and mortar to online and there needs to be a specific particular focus on it. Our current funding structure does not allow for us to use some of the special funds for this particular purpose. And so that's why we have a request out.

We would need some UCL would work, but we would need to have an additional appropriation in spending authority for us to be able to use those funds.

I think it's extremely important for us to be working in this particular area and have a focused team so that we can address some of the illegal gambling issues that are prevalent in the state. It's detrimental to both the citizens and our regulated gambling communities out there.

Illegal gambling generally is this concern because there aren't adequate age verifications for our minors. And so that's a concern. We need to be able to protect them.

There isn't a mechanism to prevent or protect those who have gambling issues and problems and they're Also, we need to ensure that there's fair play, that the funds are distributed appropriately out there. The focus of these cases will be on incident injunctive relief, really to stop the bad actors in their tracks.

And it will also be for consumer protection. I also have with me today Christine Butler Williams, who is the lead of my Native American and Tribal affairs section. And if you can add to that.

Thank you. Christine Butler Williams. I'm a member of the Yurok Tribe and honored to serve as the Senior Assistant Attorney General for the Native American and Tribal Affairs Division at the Department of Justice.

And just to add to what Chief O'Bannon has already said, we are primarily currently funded by two funds, so the Gambling Control Fund and the Indian Gaming Special Distribution Fund, which is often referred to as the sdf. Those two funds cannot be used for this type of work.

Those are really to be focused on enforcement of license gambling entities, including card rooms, third party providers of proposition player services, and also tribal casinos. And they're strictly prohibited for being used for illegal online gambling.

And so to that end, in the past when this work's been performed, we focused primarily on physical illegal gambling dens and relied a lot on our local law enforcement partners, partners to both detect, investigate and enforce those actions.

But since the advent of online gambling, we have seen those same illegal providers shift to the online app based market where they're providing direct access to this gambling with and removing their physical presence.

So through that, we have sort of a blind spot now where we don't have the those partners on the ground in local law enforcement that we've previously relied on to enforce these actions.

So these three or the three new positions will allow the Department of Justice to develop a sustainable approach to pursue consistent enforcement against these online illegal gambling operations at a statewide level, which is what we're looking at as the online gambling is targeted to anyone with a phone, an app, a computer, access to the Internet.

As Chief o' Bannon already said, these illegal gambling operations routinely lack safeguards present in legal regulated gambling, for instance, minimal or if any, mechanisms for age verification. Additionally, nothing in terms of recognizing problem gambling, which is a requirement for our legal rights gaming this. Thus, the primary focus will be on injunctive relief and consumer protection.

And I'm here to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Any comments from lao? No. Department of Finance.

Victoria Chin, Department of Finance. No comment.

Thank you. Senator Durazo.

I just want to make clear, in terms of. I'm sorry, your name. I didn't. Christine wanted to make sure here this is not. It's online, so. But you mentioned the card rooms. This is not connected or connected or how is it connected to card room situation?

It's connected in the sense that anytime someone engages in illegal online gambling, they're threatening our legal license gambling, such as card rooms. But in terms of the enforcement to ensure that card rooms are following all the regulations, that's a totally separate Fund that we cannot use for this enforcement, which is going after the illegal online gambling.

Okay, and what is the scale of the illegal sports betting that's going on?

I hate to say immeasurable, but it literally grows every day. It's, it's offshore, it's hard to track. There's huge growth. It's spreading across the nation rapidly and dynamically and growing from just sports gaming to being more and more every day. So this is what we would be doing.

We need to investigate, to collect the data, to even see how big is this and how do we take tackle kind of what's become an industry so that instead of, you know, physical illegal gambling dents, we're looking at an entire industry that's illegal and operating within our state and threatening our, our public safety.

So it sounds like something that's not. It's not three positions for now. And, you know, you have a, an idea of when that's going to. Not going to be needed anymore. Sounds like you're looking to the future growth.

That is correct. We are asking for sustainable funding as well as the beginning. I hate to say you start up in the Bay Area, but for our initial funding, we'll have our three positions plus the 1.1. And then we're looking for sustainable funding after that ongoing, because we don't see an end in sight, unfortunately.

But we do think, you know, we're hopeful we can get this under control and help to drive out this legal gambling from our state.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you. Senator Durazo. I just have one question.

If it sounds like probably either Ms. Williams or Ms. O'Bannon, if you could, you may not have the answer today, but if there's any specific legislative fixes that we could do on our part to assist as you go into this new area, if you could please supply that to the Committee.

That way we can bring forward legislation to be helpful. So.

Absolutely. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, seeing no further questions on issue number six, we thank you for your participation not only on this issue, but on several others. We look forward to working with all of you as we go forward. And ask Senator Durazzo very appropriately said, thank you for all of your work that you've been doing thus far.

With that, we're now going to turn to the public and we have a few instructions. With that, we're going to ask the public to form a line over here to my left, which is your right, where you see the microphone. If you could keep your comments to 30 seconds.

That way hopefully we can get to everyone before we have a hard stop to end this meeting. Yes, ma'am.

Good morning. Chair and Committee Denise Choiselop with the California Coalition for Youth. We are a statewide advocacy organization representing our children and youth who are experiencing homelessness on their own.

Respectfully requesting the inclusion of 75 million in the 2026-2027 budget for homeless Youth Emergency Services and Housing program YE and the Homeless Youth Emergency Services pilot program HY to preserve and expand critical services for homeless youth another five year grant cycle.

The most current data from OES on these two programs showed that they've collectively provided 2,400 youth with housing support, over 4,000 nights of shelter and 30,000 meals. These youth in crisis will have nowhere to go and and stay safe if these programs close this budget year.

Studies show 20 to 40% of our young people experiencing homelessness are victims of human trafficking and 68% engage in survival sex because they don't have a place to stay.

There's no safe space for them to put their head down at the at night and we can't afford to let these youth experience the trauma of being on the streets. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Because you're a young adult and we thank you for your participation, we let you go a little bit longer because we wanted to make sure you got all your key points out. But everyone please try to stick to the 30 seconds if possible. Thank you.

I'm a young adult. Just kidding. Hi, Marnie Regan, I'm a division Director with Larkin Street Youth Services in the Bay Area. 30 seconds. I'm also here to respectfully request 75 million for YE and HY in the OES budget. Larkin street for 42 years we've been serving minors and young adults who are homeless with shelter housing wraparound services.

For 42 years in the Bay Area. We're a YE grantee. These funds are absolutely critical to saving homeless youth from a life of harm, export exploitation and chronic long term homelessness.

I do want to connect it to the discussions earlier around the international events like the Olympics and FIFA as well as the super bowl that just passed. Homeless youth providers across the State are really worried and doing everything we can gearing up for sadly the spike in youth exploitation and trafficking that comes with international events.

We scrambled during the recent Super Bowl. If OES if this YE and HY funding are cut, we will close programs. Sadly, one of the programs we run with this funding is for minors.