Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 6 on Public Safety

Alright. We like to call to order the sub budget number six committee on public safety. And good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everybody here. Today, we will be covering issues from the judicial branch and the office of emergency services.

I would like to welcome the honorable Patricia Kelly from Santa Barbara County, who I know, her flight was canceled, but we still wanna honor her. And the honorable Rodney Cortez from San Bernardino County Superior Court, presiding judge, who are with us today. All public comment will be taken at the end of our last item, and each person will have up to one minute each for public comment. We will not be taking any votes today. The speakers are listed in speaking order for each of the items.

Please keep your remarks within the allotted time communicated to you by my staff, and remember to introduce yourselves prior to speaking. We will now move to our first panel, issue one, judicial branch overview of budget priorities. Michelle Curran, administrative director, judicial counsel of California. Kate Becker, court executive officer, superior court of Ventura County, and chair of the court executives advisory committee. And Zieletko Leo Doravitch, budget services director, Judicial Council of California. Go ahead. Good afternoon,

Chair Ramos and members of the committee. My name is Michelle Curran, and I serve as the administrative director of the judicial council. In this role, I lead the council staff organization working, with the chief justice, Patricia Guerrero, and members of the council, as the policy making body for the state court system. I'm pleased here to be here with you this afternoon to speak with you about the judicial branch's budget priorities for the upcoming fiscal year and to address any questions that you might have. As the third branch of government, the judiciary represents 1.3% of the state's general fund budget.

These public resources authorized and appropriated by to the judicial branch from the other branches of of government enable the courts throughout the state to provide access to justice for all Californians. The judicial council partners with various courts with all the courts from throughout the states, from our small courts like Modoc and Del Norte serving populations of 30,000 people, to counties like San Bernardino and Los Angeles that are serving millions of Californians with the shared goal of maximizing the benefits from your investment of public funds and ensuring accountability for how those funds are spent. California's justice system provides a legal pathway for our state's residents to exercise their constitutional rights. It enables them to deal with life and business issues that require legal resolution. In upholding the rule of law, our court system is an inter is integral to maintaining public safety.

We welcome the opportunity to share information on our priorities and the related funding needs to advance those priorities in order to better serve the public and to carry out the branches constitutional duties. The chief justice and the judicial council support the governor's proposed budget. In our statement that summarize, the the budget after it was released, chief justice Patricia Guerrero thanked Governor Newsom for his continued support even in these challenging budget times, and also added her willingness to continue to work with both branches of government as the budget is finalized over the next several months. The proposed budget continues to support core operations of the judicial branch, including $70,000,000 for increased trial court operational costs, $11,000,000 for increased pay rates for Supreme Court and court of appeal court appointed counsel, $5,200,000 for continued support for the course Court of Appeal case processing, and a $135,500,000 for courthouse construction and other facilities. These proposals reinforce the branch's goal of achieving adequate, stable, and predictable funding for a fully functioning judicial branch.

We also appreciate the committee's discussion later today on remote proceedings, which continues to be a priority for the branch. We're recognizing that ongoing economic and revenue uncertainty continues to affect the state's budget outlook. The chief justice and the judicial branch remain committed to being constructive partners in addressing these statewide fiscal challenges. Since 22-23, the branch has contributed hundreds of millions of dollars cumulative general fund solutions to help mitigate statewide budget shortfalls. I am joined today by Kate Beaker, court executive officer of the Ventura County Superior Court, who is also a member of the Judicial Council.

At this time and with the permission of the chair, I hope that miss Beaker can speak to some of the important, impacts of this increase of $70,000,000 for trial court operations. Thank you.

Thank you. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, chair Ramos and members of the committee. My name is Kate Bieker, and I serve as the court executive officer for the Superior Court of Ventura County and the chair of the Court Executive Advisory Committee, otherwise known as CEAC. Thank you for the opportunity to present to you today. On behalf of the trial courts, I want to begin by expressing our sincere appreciation to this committee for your support. We are grateful for your investments in the judiciary.

We are also thankful to the governor and the support the proposals in his administration has put forward in this year's budget. We are acutely aware of the challenging fiscal environment California is navigating, including an estimated 2,900,000,000.0 budget shortfall this year. In light of these headwinds, the governor's proposal to provide the judicial branch with 5,700,000,000.0 is a testament to the value the administration places on the fair and timely administration of justice. This budget provides a foundation of stability that allows the branch to focus on its mission of serving the public with consistency and transparency. We are particularly appreciative of the 70,000,000 in ongoing general fund to support the trial courts in addressing increased operational costs, which is fundamentally an investment in our people.

In Ventura and in courts across the state, our greatest challenge is retention of highly skilled people. We operate in the same labor market as our county partners, yet we face a unique disadvantage. While counties can leverage diverse local revenue streams and tax basis to provide competitive cost of living adjustments, the courts must remain entirely dependent on the state budget allocations. Without the ability to match the pay increases afforded by our counterparts in local government, the court is put in a structurally disadvantaged in staff recruitment and retention. The 70,000,000 in operational funding combined with the 21,700,000.0 for health and retirement benefits is vital to closing the gap and ensuring we don't lose our talent to entities with broader revenue generating capabilities.

What does that translate to for your constituents? When courts are not adequately funded adequately funded, cases may be delayed. Whether a parent seeking a timely child custody order, a family trying to settle the estate of their loved one, or worker pursuing lost wages or survivors needing a restraining order, delays that profoundly affect the day to day lives of our residents. Stable funding allows our courts to push forward transformative initiatives across our 58 trial courts. In Ventura, we have implemented civil e filing and remote conferencing systems that save time and trips to court.

We have also been able to prioritize the public's needs by redesigning our website interface and expanding our clerk services through the lunch hour. Continued trial court operation funding will allow us to maintain and expand upon these customer focused initiatives. In closing, the court executive advisory committee strongly supports the governor's budget proposal for the trial courts and views it as a vital investment in the stability of our local justice system. This funding plan offers the necessary resources to maintain our daily operations and protect the progress we have made in expanding access to justice even as the state navigates a challenging fiscal landscape. We're prioritizing trial court operations and the well-being of our workforce.

The governor is ensuring that courts remain reliable, accessible institution that Californians can depend on every day. We are deeply appreciative of the governor's commitment to our courts, and we thank this committee for your time, your partnership, and your ongoing support of the trial court's mission. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Assemblymember Ramos, I'm just here to help with some questions if you might have any.

Thank you so much for that. Thank you for your testimony. Any questions, comments from the dias? Mister Lackey?

Yeah. I appreciate your optimism, but I am gonna express some frustration. I represent a large portion of San Bernardino County, and it's miraculous what they do there in that court system. And the deficit situation there is not only annoying, it's it's mean. It's mean the the fact that they are so short judges and have been I've been this is my twelfth year here.

It's been a problem the entire time, and there's been very little progress in San Bernardino County, especially facilities wise. I wish the people policy makers would visit there and see the miracles that are done there, and judges are exposed to extremely dangerous circumstances there. Yet there's no energy to change it. And I find that to be disgusting and an affront against justice, truthfully. And the the fact that we have a surplus in LA County of judges, and we have the whole time that I've been here, and yet we have deficits in San Bernardino County, which is one of the largest counties in the entire state, maybe even the country.

And but yet there's no energy, very little energy to fix it. And I don't know what it takes to get movement. I don't. I'm not certainly not blaming you guys because you're you've got what you've got to work with. And it's just frustrating. It's just so frustrating to see that San Bernardino County gets left holding the bag every time we're talking about money and facilities and improvements. And I find it to be unfair, and I just want to express that.

Thank you for your comments, and thank you for your testimony. Last year, we had a hearing around this certain topic, and money was put into the budget, for that. So we do know that people are listening when we're we're having these hearings. So thank you for your hard work for that. As now, we'll move to issue two.

Proposition 36 update. Henry Ng, Department of Finance. Mark Jimenez, Department of Finance. Francine Byrne, criminal justice service director, Judicial Council of California. Kate Bieker, court executive officer of Superior Court of Ventura County and chair of the executive court executives advisory committee. And Zlatko Theodorovic, and Caitlin O'Neil, legislative analyst office. Yeah. Did I Go ahead.

Who wants to go? Henry?

Henry Ng, Department of Finance. So while the governor's budget so while the governor's budget does not include any additional funding to the court for Prop 36, the government's budget maintains the 1 to 30 million included in the 2025 budget act, including 20,000,1 time general fund to address increased court workload and 15,000,1 time general fund for pretrial services, both of which are available over multiple years. So the judicial branch has through 06/30/2028 to spend this money down.

Thank you for that. Francine?

Yes. Hi. Thank you, Chair Ramos and members of the committee. My name is Francine Byrne. I'm the Director of Criminal Justice Services at the Judicial Council of California.

I really appreciate the be back here today to talk to you a little bit about the implementation of Prop 36 in the courts. I'm going to present a little statewide data that we collected and describe the ways in which Prop 36 has been implemented in the state, as well as some of the challenges associated with that implementation. I will also touch upon the ways that the funding is used or being planned to be used in the future. I was planning to start with a lot of caveats about our data, but it all the information that I would have provided is in the reader report on page 11, and that goes through sort of some of the challenge that challenges that we have with the data collection. And I just wanted to caution, because of some of those, I would caution against using a lot of inferences related to the outcomes that you will be talking about.

I also wanted to say that in the report, you do not have information related to the impact of proposition 36 on specific demographic groups. That is not a data, element the courts can collect with consistency. We hope to have a little bit more of that information next year when we get data from the Department of Health Care Services that will be getting some of that through county behavioral health. But in order to really understand the impact of the proposition on that community, I would suggest looking to the research community or local justice system partners such as public defenders, prosecutors, and jails and county treatment. So in 2025, California courts received nearly 35,000 felony filings for proposition 36 cases.

Approximately 55% were for felony drug charges and and 45% were for felony theft charges. So courts received about 15,000 over 15,000 felony theft cases under proposition 36, approximately 38 of which resulted in a conviction during the reporting period. However, many of those cases were still in the process of adjudication during the time period. We don't have any statewide information on sentencing, so we don't know exactly what happened to those cases. Some went to prison, some were likely put on probation, or other ways forms of of disposition.

We do know that some of the theft cases ended up in our collaborative justice courts, either pre or post conviction or in diversion programs. So moving on to the treatment mandated felony cases, about twelve percent of the treatment mandate felonies, of the more than 19,000 cases filed, involve defendants that opted for treatment during the reporting period. Of those, approximately three percent had their cases dismissed because they successfully completed treatment, seven percent had their judgments imposed, and 67 percent were still in treatment. The remaining cases were either somewhere in the process or their whereabouts were unknown. There's a variety of reasons why these numbers appear to be relatively low.

Some of these cases may have, also have higher level violent or violent charges that would make the defendant unlikely to be offered treatment in lieu of incarceration. Also, it's important to note that defendants can opt into the treatment option at nearly any time in the adjudicate in the predisposition process, so it can take a long time for them to decide if they actually want to take the treatment option. And finally, the treatment takes a long time. So to be effective, the courts are varied on how much treatment that they are suggesting, but drug courts, for example, traditionally will ask for at least six to twelve months of treatment. So that's why we don't expect to see a lot of graduates in this first year.

Finally, we don't have the information on when the defendants who opted in for treatment or access treatment actually came into the system. So any of the defendants who came in sort of later in this reporting period likely have not had their cases fully adjudicated. The court's report that prop 36 has had a significant impact throughout the criminal justice system beyond just processing of those cases. They are telling us that, there is an increasing workload for misdemeanor cases. Defendants are less likely to want to plea to a a offense that may be considered priorable, and they're more likely to go on to trial as a result.

Courts have implemented new ways to process these cases with many created dedicate creating dedicated calendars modeled after drug courts. However, there are some challenges associated with that because of the lack of resources, particularly for a justice system partners such as probation or treatment, who at the time of during this reporting period had not yet received their funding. It's my understanding that the those funds have now gone out, so we're hoping to see some some different numbers in the upcoming report. We, are very, very appreciative of the funding that the courts received to process these cases. They received those funds in September, and it's, a three year as Henry mentioned.

So we don't have a lot of information yet about the specific expenditure amounts. However, we do know about how they are planning or have been using the money. They're adopting diverse strategies. Most courts have used or plan to use the funds for staffing, contracting, administrative cost, and treatment court related expensive. Specifically, we have and we know that some courts are hired or plan to hire subordinate judicial officers to hear the cases or collaborative court coordinators to help shepherd them through the system.

Business operations analyst who might streamline the operations and enhance program efficiencies. And finally, it's important to note that it takes about three times the amount of of time to process a felony case as it does a misdemeanor case. So there's a lot more clerk time, court time, etcetera. So the courts are actually using some of the funding, to pay clerk time to cover that over overload. We so and so we cannot we don't yet know what the ongoing need will be.

We're hearing that it's quite a bit of impact, so we suspect that there will be an ongoing need before those three years are completed, and we should be able to assess that need in a, more comprehensively in our next report. That's all I have. I'm open for questions.

Thank you, so much for that. Kate Beaker?

My apologies if I will repeat some of what Francine just said, but, thank you again, Chair Ramos, for allowing me to opportunity to speak on Proposition 36 and the impact to the courts. The California courts are fully committed to implementing the measure as enacted by voters and appreciate the funding provided to do so. Early implementation shows the measure provides a valuable tools and account accountability and treatment, but it also has created some operational demands on the courts. Successful implementation will require continued partnership between the judicial branch, the governor, and the legislature. There have been varying methods throughout the courts on how to address the increased case loads under prop 36.

Several courts, including Los Angeles and Ventura, we've just folded them into existing courts and treatment courts rather than creating a separate court calendar. However, Orange superior court having 28% of the workload from prop 36 has created an entire clerk's office and courtroom to address the managing workload. And as Francine stated, San Bernardino has hired a subordinate judicial officer at this point limited term due to the funding to preside over these cases. There have been challenges for courts, clerks offices, and courtrooms with implementations and increased case filings, court hearings, compliance reviews, and probation related proceedings. Implementation requires additional judicial resources, including court hearings to determine ineligibility to prop 36, increased felony case processing, treatment compliance monitoring, and probation review hearings.

In order to gauge the success of prop 36, there's a need to update case management systems to capture the data elements that Francine was mentioning for the program, which creates additional demands on case management systems, court data tracking, and compliance monitoring processes. Courts must invest in technology and administrative systems to track these outcomes. Understanding that prop 36 reflects voters' desires for both accountability and treatment, and California courts are committed to implementing the law effectively, but long term success will depend on sustained investment in court operations and treatment capacity. The courts look forward to the continuing partnership to ensure measures achieved its goal measure that measure achieves its goals of improving public safety, addressing substance use disorders, and maintaining access to justice statewide. Thank you.

Thank you so much for that testimony. As now, we go to mister Zuleko.

Again, here just to provide any answers to questions that may come up.

Alright. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. LAO?

Thank you. Caitlin O'Neil with the Legislative Analyst's Office. We have a technical concern, relating to the admin the estimation of the state savings attributable to proposition 47 that's calculated by the Department of Finance. Specifically, the department subtracted the entire proposition 36 impact on the prison population from its baseline proposition 47 estimate. So in other words, it assumes that all components of proposition 36 interact with the sentencing provisions of prop 47 when actually only a portion of the prop 36 sentencing changes had the effect of reversing or partially reversing Prop 47.

So we would recommend that the legislature direct, the Department of Finance to correct this at the May revision.

Henry Ng, Department of Finance. So we agree that the impacts of proposition 36 are still uncertain as the proposition has only been in effect since November 2024. However, we are still working with CDCR to refine these estimates and methodology. So we will we will present, additional adjustments to proposition 47 at the May revision. And this will be in consultation with the government's office.

Thank you so much for that testimony as now we bring it back to the dias. So member Lackey?

Uncertain, is the fact that, implementing Prop 36 been estimated to to cost about $400,000,000. I see here about 130, which we're thankful for something. But another thing that's not uncertain, cost savings from prop 47. I would challenge that in a very serious way on a number of fronts. Number one of them is think just because you're jailing less people doesn't mean there's not other costs.

Let me mention one. Whip into a Walmart or a Target or any of these retail centers, and how many items are locked up? Why do you think that is? Thank you, prop 47. Well done. Not so much. That was an errant policy, in my opinion. And prop that's why prop 36 was so overwhelmingly popular statewide. It wasn't because there's a wave of conservative thinking. It's everybody's impacted by this.

Everybody. And we are not showing the support for the voice of the people. Shame on the governor for that. That is not right. It's unfair. And to try to sell it as a cost savings, No. Doesn't work. It's not real. And I I would just say that before it's all said and done, because, obviously, we have the May revise. We have all these other opportunities.

The budget has not been drafted yet. Prop 36 deserves to be funded more than a 130,000,000. It just does for a number of reasons. I could go on and on, but I won't bore you. But I do think it deserves to be said what I just explained.

Thank you for your comments. Assemblymember Schultz?

Yes. Thank you very much, mister chair. Thank you all for the presentation. I have sort of two topics I'd like to cover. One is more really related to metrics and data and then I'll I'll talk about pretrial in just a moment.

Mister chair, I don't know if this is gonna fall under the purview today or if this is a budget sub one jurisdiction, but does Department of Finance or for that matter, any other panelist, have a sense of the demand for behavioral health treatment space versus existing county capacity?

the information at this time, but we can definitely circle back and get back to you.

We do have

Thank you. Yeah. For the sake of time, we'll move on, but that is some information I would like to have as we navigate the budget process together. So thank you for that. The second is in reference to the original text of proposition 36. Did the proposition include any way to assess the actual outcomes of treatment mandated felonies? What I'm really looking for are those metrics of success. Anyone have a thought on that? Maybe judicial counsel?

Well, in the budget act, they've provided the funding for us. One of the things we are tracking is the number of people with the treatment mandated felonies who were their cases were dismissed as a result. And we do have that in the data. It's a little early to assess now, as I mentioned because of the time it takes to get into treatment. It's right and that's why I was mentioning it's a very low number right now.

It's just hard to say because we don't have access to individual level data. We can't track over reporting periods. So we know how many people for the year and, and how were how many filings and how many people graduated, as it were, or have their cases dismissed. But we don't know when what time those folks came into the system. I think next year when there's been a full year of implementation, we'll have much better data on that.

Okay. Thank you very much for that. And the only comment I'd make before I move to my last topic is, I agree with, our vice chair of this committee. Obviously, I wanna see proposition 36 implemented. That is the will of the voters.

However, I would point out, as I have before, the proposition 36 did not include a funding mechanism. Even the metrics of success, I would argue, really weren't present. And so these are the issues that the legislature has to now grapple with. The only thing I would push back to the vice chair is I believe that everyone, all parties here at the table, are proceeding in good faith and trying to implement it given very limited resources and what I would characterize as a pretty tough budget here. So appreciate you all being here.

The last question I have is really on the issue of pretrial services. I think this is probably most appropriate to Judicial Council, but anyone can answer. What have we seen in terms of pretrial services caseload trends, especially over the last 24 months as we've seen the passage of prop 36 moving forward? And do you expect further increases as we see proposition 36 continue to go into effect?

Yes. We have seen, I don't have the numbers in front of me. I apologize. But we have seen a fairly significant increase in the number of pretrial cases and assessments that have been done. We think part of that is the cases are being held longer in the jails. There's more time to assess, and the case loads are going up significantly. Mhmm. Can't remember the percentage, though. I'm sorry. I can get that.

That's okay. Do you I mean, so is it fair to say that in the next twelve months, you expect to see even more

demand? Continue. Yes.

So I guess that begs my final question, and that is do you think, given what we have in this early January forecast allocated for pretrial services, do you think that's gonna be enough? Do you think that there needs to be a look at further resource allocation to really build the robust pretrial services that we're gonna need to implement the full vision of Prop 36?

I know the Judicial Council fully supports the, governor's budget, as we've said before, and we're very appreciative of that. I do think that the impact of prop 36 will have a continued workload impact on pre trial services moving forward, and, decisions will have to be made at the local level how to cover that, that caseload change.

I appreciate the answer and I'll tack on one more. And I'll try to ask it in the most fair, way that I can. Appreciate the support for the governor's proposal. Is it the position of judicial council that there might be a need for even further resource allocation above and beyond what the governors initially proposed?

I think we are hearing from the pre the courts with pretrial fundings that they are having to look at their services and, cut back in certain areas given the amount of funding that, hit that they are. The reduction that they are anticipating. Okay.

Okay. Good answer. Thank you all very much. Look forward to continued conversations before the May revise.

Thank you so much. And and on the prop 36 data that's still coming in, we heard that that different data that you're presenting today could escalate in the future. And looking at that time, what would be the optimal cycle to really collect data? Would it be the the year, the two year, the three year, and do we see that as increasing with the data that's coming in?

Excellent question. I don't think it's so much about the cycle. It's just more about the limitations that we have to track the cases over the reporting period. So whatever because we have to get aggregate level data from each court, so we'll never really be able to align it correctly. What we will see is as cases move forward next year, there may be or at some point, there may be more people that opt into treatment than there are filings, for example.

It'll never quite line up perfectly because we have to get aggregate level information just on the reporting period. So it's not about the timeline, unfortunately. It's more about the capacity to track individual cases. I do think, though, that's where we talk about the report actually reaching out to the research community and others who actually might have the capacity or doing local evaluations. We may try we will try to do maybe in some courts that will love us, try to do a more in-depth look to actually get some timing, some more time related data in the next system as well.

But again, the court's case management systems are rather limited and are not built to track outcomes in this way. So looking to the research community or justice system partners may provide more more objective data that would be useful.

So it's extracting data from different, multiple, software components that might not be compatible?

You might so so so you're for courts, it it tracks the life of the case. Right? So so yes. And there's a there's multiple case management systems. We we but we extract and we do send to the judicial council certain data elements.

But it's it's also, like Francine said, it's not a matter of, like, a filing, but then someone could get treatment maybe six months down the road and then they enter into treatment. And then they're they're either somewhat successful, they can get certain treatment and that kind of life of their case is tracked, not through the courts though, because the court's only doing it through, like, the life of the case itself. But behavioral health or probation might be tracking those kinds of outcomes. So, yes. I'm I'm saying yes that, like, it could be different case systems that come together to try to give you a look of a of someone specific case.

Does that make sense?

In a in a in a And and it adds to having someone look at all the information that that's more equipped to looking at and bringing up data that way. So it sounds like there's following the the court case, but then in between, if someone opts into the prop 36 eligibility, non eligibility, goes to the program, there's not a mechanism that's tracking all that You

got it.

To bring that data out. And so okay. So we'll take a look at that. But it is interesting that the statement has said that as time goes on, you believe that there'll be an increase in in some of this this data that's coming before us now.

So there'll definitely be an increase in what we're talking about as the outcomes because it takes so long to get to treatment, and to then once you're in treatment to be successful or not. So because it's the first year, our report has people we don't know exactly when they came in, but let's say if you came in in September, you're not going to be tracked in the reporting period for this report most likely because there hasn't been enough time to make for those decisions points to happen. So next year, we will see people we will still look at the reporting period, but there will be a lot of defendants that entered into the system this year and are having their outcomes sort of going through, say, in March or something like that. Just under because we have to only get a get level. It's really a snapshot of data for the reporting period, but there will be more time in second and subsequent years for those treatment outcomes to be realized.

I believe in your testimony, those that were going after prop 36 to be eligible were found ineligible because of the offense was more of a a violent felony that took him out of that eligibility for prop 36. Can you elaborate a little more on that?

And

Sure. And I don't know if technically it's eligibility, but yeah. So you if you have some a defendant who gets a prop 36 charge, but also has another sort of higher level charge or violent charge, it is unlikely that they would process the prop 36 case per se because they wouldn't want the person out in treatment. So typically, and you probably know better than me, but they would, plea or, reduce the charge on the Prop 36 case as part of a plea bargaining process, but then perhaps have it be incarcerated on the higher level charge.

Okay. Thank you for that. And then the case load on the courts, prop 36, the challenges that are there, can you elaborate a little more specifically on those challenges?

Well, so it it it's interesting because so I'm right next to, San Bernardino from Ventura, and we we don't we haven't seen the number of petitions, but they they have hundreds more than, other courts. And I know that, Alameda is also seeing that the higher filings. It it somewhat depends on, the district attorney's office if they're filing for prop 36 petitions. If the the there are fences that that like like Francine was saying is are they higher level? If they're felony depending on if there are multiple charges with them, it it it just depends really and it's all over the place.

When we've we've talked to my fellow CEOs, it's I can't really give you a specific except it depends on possibly the DA, possibly how many petitions are filed under Prop 36, and how the court has decided to to manage those. So it's it is really all over a spectrum. So it's hard hard to give you a specific answer, but it is it's a spectrum from from all court. Even I thought LA would have had a far larger amount of petitions, they don't. Mhmm.

But Orange has an entire unit. So yeah. So it's just it's kind of varying. So it's we're not exactly sure because we're also still kind of implementing through our CEOs and our our allocations. So where it's I can't give you a very specific answer, but to tell you that sometimes it's depending on the DA, depending to go with, charges with Prop 36.

Okay. Thank you for that. And it it in the testimony, you mentioned there was twelve percent that, seeks treatment during under Prop 36. What was the success rate again?

So, again, the, there's twelve percent. I think it was only three percent during that reporting period that had their cases dismissed. But, again, we don't know that there might be quite a few more of those defendants that opted into treatment that will have their cases dismissed in this reporting period. So this is from December to I mean, January to December. They may have opted in. So that's where why I wanna just have a lot of caution about looking at the outcomes right now.

Okay.

Next year, it should be we'll have a little bit more information to be able to sort of be make better guesses about the those numbers. But because treatments, you know, most I don't know how long it is in your county, but treatment programs in order to be effective really do last several months. And so just it may not have happened in the reporting period that we have data for.

Usually twelve to eighteen months.

Twelve to eighteen for drug courts.

More long term.

Yes.

Thank you for the Department of Finance. You mentioned that you're gonna be coming back with May revise figures. Can you elaborate on on areas that you're actually looking at and hearing about the the data collection? How that could be a a constraint to get true information back to justify increasing dollars here. Can you elaborate a little more what it is you're gonna be specifically looking at?

I'm sorry if I may. So the the additional information that we'll be providing, the May revision, has more to do with the prop 47 estimates. We're not we're not exploring any we're not necessarily proposing any, like, new data requirements or additional funding. It's just a new methodology for determining the Prop 47 figures.

Prop 47 continues to bring in some of those dollars to offset prop 36. But we're hearing to get a truer picture, maybe even a cycle of a time frame to understand what truly is happening. Sounds like it's not throughout the state of California, every court. It's sporadically different courts that are filing at higher rates for prop 36. I think getting that data would actually start to have a clearer picture of where it is that that we're headed.

So certainly, if you could put some time into that to try to figure that out a little bit more based on the testimony that we're hearing here today, that would be appreciated. Any other comments? Questions? We wanna thank you, for your testimonies. Now we'll move to issue three. Remote remote court proceedings. Jessica Vivancinci, policy and research director, judicial counsel of California. The honorable Rodney Cortez, presiding judge for San Bernardino Superior Court. Drew Soderbergh, legislative analyst office. Mark Jimenez, Department of Finance.

And Henry Ng, Department of Finance. Who is gonna lead?

I will kick us off.

Alright. Thank you.

Thank you, chair Ramos and committee. My name is Jessica Davencenzi, and I am with Judicial Council's Office of Policy and Research. Today, I will share key findings from our most recent report on trial court's use of remote technology. Remote proceedings, as we now know them, were an emergency response to the Covid 19 pandemic and have since become a structured statewide framework. As part of this framework, judicial counsel is required to report annually on the use of remote technology in both civil and criminal proceedings.

Because of this data collection efforts, we know that since March1, 2022, California courts have held over 6,000,000 remote proceedings. And during our most recent reporting period, courts averaged 7,098 remote proceedings per day in California. This means that every day, thousands of court users were able to avoid taking time off from work, arranging childcare, or traveling long distances in order to attend court proceedings. Diving a bit deeper into the numbers, between 09/01/2024 and 08/31/2025, there were 1,746,288 remote proceedings statewide. About 1,200,000 of those were civil and a little more than 500 and 50,000 were criminal.

Beyond the numbers, we're finding that the impact on court users is significant. Ninety five percent of users reported a positive experience during the last reporting reporting period. And in Los Angeles, the court began tracking tangible benefits of remote proceedings. In an eight month period, over 6,200 users reported saving time and money on transportation, and rough approximately 4,000 users reported avoiding missing work to have forwarded having to miss work to attend hearings. These feeling these findings help demonstrate the remote proceedings enhance access to justice, and the court's use of remote proceedings prioritizes access, fairness, and accountability.

Thank you for your time. I'm available for questions.

Thank you so much. Presiding Judge Cortez.

Hey. Good afternoon. It's good to see you. Good to see you. Chair, Assembly Member Ramos, and members of the committee.

My name is Rod Cortez. I serve as the presiding judge of San Bernardino County, and I very much appreciate this opportunity. And I, of course, appreciate Assemblymember Lackey's comments and passion for the needs that we have in San Bernardino County. And I certainly appreciate this opportunity to address you today regarding remote proceedings in our California courts. The current authority permitting courts to conduct remote proceedings is set to expire at the end of this year.

We're hopeful the legislators will act to extend this. As Assemblyman or Lackey pointed out, San Bernardino County is the largest geographical county in the Contiguous United States, home to over 2,200,000 residents. We operate 12 court locations throughout the count throughout the county. And depending on where residents live, traveling to a courthouse can take anywhere from four to six hours, and that's one way. That's assuming that they have access to a vehicle.

In 2025, our 103 judicial officers conducted approximately 64,000 remote proceedings between 200 and fifty and 300 per day across all litigation types. 33% of juvenile proceedings involved at least one remote participant. 59% of probate hearings were conducted remotely. But today, I'm going to focus on the human impact behind these numbers. Remote proceedings began as an emergency response during COVID.

Today, they must be recognized as a critical and permanent pathway to justice. For many in our community, appearing remotely is not a matter of convenience. It is the difference between having their voice heard or being shut out of the system entirely. Without it, people face impossible choices, spending money on childcare that should go to food, risking their jobs to take an entire day off, or in the case of juveniles, missing school to travel to one juvenile dependency courthouse in Iron in our entire county, one courthouse that's serving 20,000 square miles. Let that sink in.

I'd like to share a few examples that my judicial colleagues have shared with me in anticipation of me coming before you today to give you some of what they have witnessed firsthand. Some youth in juvenile hall are medically isolated with compromised immune systems. Exposure for even a few minutes could be life threatening. Remote proceedings allow their cases to move forward. Youth at our Pine Grove Fire Camp face an eight hour one way drive to court.

Remote eliminates a sixteen hour round trip. For our parents in the military stationed out of state or overseas, remote appearances have transformed participation from nearly impossible to routine. Remote access ensures no voice goes unheard, giving our juvenile court judges the out of state testimony they need to fulfill their obligations under the Indian Child Welfare Act without burdening families with the cost of hardship of travel. In family law, a mother broke her leg in a car accident and couldn't drive to court or to the custody exchange point. The father filed an emergency motion claiming she couldn't care for the child.

She was able to appear remotely from a hospital bed in her home via Zoom. The judge made made the necessary orders, and she continues to appear remotely throughout her recovery while keeping her shared custody. An elderly man sought a domestic violence restraining order, but had mobility issues, no reliable transportation, and lived in one of our remote mountain communities. He filed his request and appeared at his first hearing via Zoom. Access to justice would have been impossible otherwise.

For victims of domestic violence who fear encountering their abusers at the courthouse, video appearances allow them to participate and testify when they might otherwise not go through with the hearing at all. And for parents and child support and custody matters, many living in different counties, states, or countries, remote appearances mean the courts get more information rather than less information. That is always the best interest of the child and the children that we serve. These examples are merely a highlight of various cases we hear daily throughout our county by way of remote proceedings. There are many more examples from criminal, from civil, probate, conservatorship, and traffic.

In closing, remote court proceedings are not merely an innovation. They are a lifeline. By preserving this option, we reaffirm our commitment to adjust the system that is truly inclusive. One that does not ask people to choose between feeding their families and having their day in court. I wanna thank chair assembly member Ramos and members of this committee to allow me this opportunity to address you today on this very important issue. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony. LAO?

Drew Soderborg, legislative analyst's office. We're just here for questions on this one.

Thank you. Department of Finance?

Henry Ng, Department of Finance. So while there is nothing new in the government's budget for remote access, I want to note that the '22 budget act did include 33.2 million and 2022, '23, and 2023-24 and an ongoing 1.6 million to support remote access in court proceedings. And the government's budgets maintains that ongoing 1.6 million to continue to support that infrastructure.

Thank you for that. It's now bringing it back to the dais. Any questions, comments from the dais? Assembly Member Lackey?

Yeah. I'd like to just thank judge Cortez for making the point and validating how important this program is, especially to these rural regions. But this isn't just the rural people that benefit from this. Urban people as well. I dare anybody to rebut that. Bring them on. Let's hear what they have to say. There there is no such rebut. And this is one thing that I'm proud of that we've done well. And why why it's in jeopardy?

Thank heavens it's just a time line. But, even though our resources aren't as plentiful, we have to do this. This is one of the things that we've done well. Why in the world would would it be in jeopardy? Thank you for being here and for validating the very points that need to be validated.

And I'm I'm it's not just me, but many people are so thankful. I mean, people that live in Needles, people that live in these very remote parts of San Bernardino County, they don't have a lot of money, many of them. They struggle and they're trying to comply with court demands. Even a traffic citation, it becomes a very serious matter. And, anyways, thank you for being here. And I I couldn't agree with you more, and I'll all I have to say is thank you for being here.

Thank you so much for your comments. Assemblymember Schultz.

Thank you very much, mister chair. Couple of questions and then a brief comment. So as I as I see from budget act last year did include the trailer bill to extend the remote court policies, through the end of this calendar year. My question for the administration is when should we expect to see a proposal, I would assume, to continue the extension of remote? Is that coming in the May revise, for example?

Oh, we don't we currently don't have a proposal for the May revision to extend the remote to extend the timeline. We don't. That was gonna yeah.

Alright. Thank you. I have a I have a oh, did you have anything else, Sali? Oh, okay. I have a brief response to that, but I'll save that for comment. The question now would turn, to our representatives, of the judicial branch. Assuming that it were extended, do we have sufficient resources baked into the judicial budget to, continue to facilitate all of the technological upgrades that we'll need to do to to continue to offer the service?

I can't speak to the budget without just speak to San Miguel County. We have upgraded all of our courtrooms, which, as we pointed out, are lacking, but they are all able to provide for these remote proceedings. That's our county. Okay.

And is locked with the rich from the Judicial Council? It's a great question. And there have been significant investments in upgrading our courthouses and courtrooms. And that's an ongoing need that we evaluate based on the resources that are available. And to the extent that there was a need for some additional investment, we would be working with the administration and legislature to to seek that. But but for now, courts have received resources to upgrade their their technologies.

Wonderful. Well, thank you all for your answers. I'll just echo the comments from our vice chair. I definitely encourage more collaboration and would love to see, frankly, a a made permanent in in in the budget process. I understand there might be policy reasons why we want to continue to extend it from time to time, but I will just offer the comment of one member of the budget committee.

In In my prior career career, I worked at California Department of Justice, and we very much, utilized and took advantage of the remote policy. I think it should be made permanent statewide. And here would be just two very concrete examples I can offer. At DOJ, I was prosecuting major fraud cases all across the state, and it was incredibly helpful to me. And I like to think that I offered more service to the people of California in trying to keep them safe by being able to appear remotely in Ventura County in the morning and San Bernardino County in the afternoon, which I recall one specific instance I had to.

I don't know that it could have been in two places at once, and I was able to work more efficiently being able to use the technology that very much exists to be in, like, quite literally two places at once. I'd also mention, again, crediting the vice chair's comments, I I appreciate the testimony about the the need for this tool in rural areas or more rural areas, I should say. But in urban areas, I would argue that the, busing system that we have for those incarcerated in Los Angeles County is incredibly unreliable and not all that uncommon to see, attorneys appearing in court, myself included, for three hours at a time only to find out that the inmate wasn't transported. It was a complete waste of a day for everybody and an inconvenience for the person incarcerated who just wanted to have their day in court. Point I'm trying to make is the technology exists to prevent, quite frankly, what I would categorize as waste in the system.

So my feedback to the administration is appreciate all of your leadership over the last few years, to get us to this point. Would love to see it made permanent. I think that's frankly talking of wins as the vice chair said. Everybody benefits from making that policy change in that investment. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your comments. And speaking in testimony, there it was mentioned that 1,200,000 civil cases were utilized remote court. Is that right?

Correct.

And then 550 criminal cases. And that's statewide statistics?

That's statewide. Yes.

Then there was a 95% participation. What was a 95%?

That is individuals who reported having a positive experience with the remote proceedings.

Thank you. So you can see the statewide approach to being able to utilize remote course that was instituted by the COVID pandemic that we've seen. But we also now seen that this is a program that's successful in the state of California throughout the state. Right? Now narrowing it down to San Bernardino County, presiding judge Cortez. You mentioned that 250 to 300 cases a day go through San Bernardino County Superior Court, the remote? Remote.

Yes. Correct. And does that That was 2025 statistics.

And does that follow the statistics of civil versus criminal also?

It does. It's across all case types.

And you brought into the real life issue of individuals, youth, that have immune system disorders that would be put at at harm's way within the judicial system if they were forced to appear in person. Can you elaborate a little bit more on that?

Well, when you have a like in that circumstance, a juvenile that is immune compromised and putting them on the bus or the transportation to get them to the court and the amount of time that it takes to get there through the traffic, as well as then sitting in the jail holding facilities. It's I'm not a physician, but I understand when we get that type of a notice from the physician that this person's life is at stake. As a judge, we're going to find any opportunity to ensure that that life remains stable, but also provide an opportunity for them to have access to justice. And if it's via remote, we're going to find a way to justify that remote proceeding.

And it's staying with, life saving action through remote court proceedings. Restraining orders was something that was, administered through remote remote court proceedings that then restrain orders were granted. That then might not have been granted if they had to appear in person.

You know, now as a presiding judge, I don't sit in a courtroom. But in my twenty years on the bench, I've had nineteen years in a courtroom. And it's not unusual to have litigants that file for emergency protective orders not show up for that very reason is they are scared. If they come to court, they're going to be face to face with this particular individual that they're seeking to have protection against. Providing this gives them one more opportunity, and so we can see and recognize and this opportunity for them to have their voice continue to be heard.

Thank you for that. And you also mentioned that remote court offers Indian child welfare act cases to be able to be heard. It'd be interesting to see on the statewide level how many of those cases are also being heard for California's first people in this nation. And Department of Finance, I think, hearing all these things, I believe when you go back and look at the May revise, there's enough here to warrant the extension of this program that we would be looking at favorably coming back to this committee. Thank you so much.

Thank you for your testimony. It's now we'll move to issue four. Orange Central Justice Center facility modification proposal in the LAO's assessment and recommendations related to trial court construction costs. Zlatko, Tamir, Ahmed, Drew Soderbergh, and Henry Ng. Oh, Amanda Garcia too. And then I'll do the titles. It's getting a little it's the fourth one, so I'll get keep it going. Alright. Zlatko, are you first?

I am and I

am. Appreciate the opportunity this afternoon. Let's give a quick overview, then I will turn it over to mister Ahmed to talk about the specifics related to the Orange Central Justice proposal. First, we appreciate the the funding that's proposed in the governor's budget for this project as well as the rest of the facilities projects. They meet a lot of, important needs.

We also appreciate the, the recommendations from the LAO in terms of their support of the projects and recognizing that in this tough budget that there will be investments that are needed. We have, you know, looked at the the recommendations as it relates to, sort of the notion of the funding structure. And and and we we appreciate the the the interest and the creativity. But but generally, we feel like the process in which we submit our proposals to the Department of Finance for consideration, and then, assessment, in the annual budget has been working. We know that be it whatever methodology is used, we're still constrained by the funds that are available each year in the budget.

And so that is, again, an an important part of of us being a partner with both the the governor and his and his staff, as well as the legislature in funding our facilities program. And then as it relates to oversight, we are, you know, we are a branch who wants to be transparent, and we will do what we need to in terms of working with our our partners at the Department of Finance. We already do work with them in terms of assessing whether projects should go down a capital outlay path or a facilities modification path, which mister Ahmed will will discuss. But, again, we we welcome transparency and oversight and, and want to be good stewards of public funds. And I'll turn it over to mister Ahmed to talk about the specific project.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chairman Ramos and Members of the subcommittee. My name is Tamar Ahmed. I'm the Director of Facility Services for the Judicial Council. I want to express my sincere appreciation to the governor and the legislature for their support of the Judicial Council Facilities program.

Today, I wish to clarify the distinction between Judicial Council's facility modification program and the capital outlet program and explain why both are indispensable to the successful operation and stewardship of our statewide court facilities. The facility modification program, also known as FM, is intended to help extend the life of a facility. FM projects cannot change the function of a facility or expand a facility. Currently, because of funding limitations, the Saudi modifications are dedicated to urgent and essential repairs that ensure our buildings remain safe and functional. The current funding levels address emergency needs, such as a chiller or a boiler replacement an elevator repair when they are down.

They the annual FM budget allows us to respond swiftly to unforeseen events, minimizing disruption, and maintaining building safety and reliability for court users. Larger critical projects are deferred until sufficient funds are available. In contrast, the capital outlay program focuses on major renovations, construction of new courthouses, and large scale facility replacements. Capital outlay projects are prioritized based on a statewide assessment of need as required by the legislature in considering factors such as seismic safety, overcrowding, security, and poor physical condition. These projects are typically multiyear investments planned and funded through the judicial council's five year infrastructure plan, which guide request to the state for facility construction and substantial upgrades.

Both funding categories are essential and complementary. Facility modifications maintain and protect the integrity of our existing programs while capital outlay investment transfer our infrastructure. I want to turn our attention to the Orange Central Justice Center Fire Life Safety Project. I want to briefly describe its scope and factors that led to increased cost. The Central Justice Center is a major facility spanning 592,000 square feet, 11 stories, and housing 66 courtrooms with additional counsel owning the the building and the court occupying 92% of the space.

Prior to property transfer from the county to the judicial council, the county upgraded fire alarm, fire sprinkler, and emergency voice systems on certain floors. The judicial council project would expand these upgrades to the basement and lower floors. However, the work as progress, several unforeseen challenges emerged, revealing hidden hazardous building material, leaking pipes with fireproofing and multiple ceilings in above ceiling spaces. The most significant cost drivers were the discovery of noncompliant original construction fire rated corridors on the plans were not completed for the above ceiling areas. The state farm marshal required additional egress analysis to ensure these corridors ensuring adequate exit in emergency situations.

Thank you for your attention for these essential funding programs and projects, and I'm more than happy to answer any questions when my turn comes.

If I may just supplement that for a moment, we understand that, you know, cost increases like this are are are going to happen, but they are in our best interest and the state's interest to make sure that we are managing our projects and and the scope of costs in an, you know, an aggressive manner. And if, Tamara, you might be able to just speak as to how you and your team try to manage costs, I think that would be helpful for the community here, especially as this cost was quite a substantial increase in what is that you do in your team to to make sure we're we're stewards of of Yeah.

We funds. Yeah. We before any before before we start any project, we did took take a look at the scope. We we make sure that we try to do as much investigation as possible. But in this condition, especially with the central justice system, it was kinda hard to do that because the project is in a in a state, you know, is an occupied facility, that was hard to get to.

And also we look at as bills in order to build off of that. Unfortunately, with this particular project, the county did not build what was on the plants. And that's what really, you know, caused a tremendous increase to the, the project cost.

So the project was constructed in 1966 and was not designed to the to the blueprint or built It

was not blueprint.

So when they went to make their estimate, the the belief was that it was built to what was the spec. Only upon initial demolition that they noticed that the the above rafter sections were not built to fire code. And so it's a matter of if if the building was built consistent with the plans, then the scope would have been correct.

Yeah.

But they, upon demolition, found that it was not built the way it was supposed to.

Thank you, for that. It's now we go to LAO.

True. So to board legislative analyst's office, we don't have any concerns with the, proposals for funding for the projects that are in front of you today. However, we do recommend that the legislature consider how much additional general fund it's willing to dedicate to court facility projects on an ongoing basis. Given the magnitude of the judicial branches facility needs and the, serious condition of the general fund, it's not possible for the state to address all of the judicial branches needs in the short run. Instead, what we recommend is that the legislature establish an amount that it's willing to dedicate to court facility projects on an ongoing basis.

And doing so would give the ability of the court system and the state to make both short and long term plans. And to further this, we recommend that you direct the judicial branch to provide a long term plan for facilities based on the amount of funding that the legislature is willing to provide. Specifically, we recommend that this plan be required to be provided on January 2028 and that it include details on how the funding would be divided between construction and facility modification projects to maximize the amount of time that existing facilities can continue to be used. It could also include other things such as innovative ways to finance new construction. The legislature could also consider whether or not, it should provide additional funding to the judicial branch to reassess its facility needs.

So in your agenda, I believe it's on page 15, it's outlined that there is about 80 different projects currently valued at about $21 million. A portion of those projects were reevaluated, the Los Angeles projects, and that increased their cost. And so the legislature get a to get a sense of how much the total need is, could consider presiding providing funding to the judicial branch to do a reassessment. How much additional funding would be necessary to do this would depend on what the legislature wanted the assessment to include. For example, it could, direct the branch to reconsider its facility needs in the light of changes to its operations, such as increased use of remote proceedings.

We also recommend that the legislature consider providing additional oversight of facility modification projects. So as you heard, there were difficulties that the, the judicial branch ran into on the Orange Central Justice Center project with the cost increasing substantially beyond what was originally estimated. While this is, you know, this is a relatively unique circumstance, it does raise the consideration that the state might want to exercise more oversight of these facility modification projects, particularly if we're going down a path where we're investing more in facility modification projects to keep our existing, facilities in good condition. This oversight could take different forms. It could be as simple as directing, the Department of Finance to ensure its cap outlay staff

review facility modification

projects, a more significant form, and you could direct the, judicial branch to submit its, facility modification projects to the cap outlay process. So it'd come under the overview of the state public works board. With that, I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you so much for that. Amanda Garcia, Department of Finance.

Yes. Hi. Amanda Garcia, Department of Finance. On the capital outlay side, we are proposing trial courthouse projects in order of need as identified in the 2019 reassessment. Our priority is to balance the efficient completion of projects while being mindful of the availability of resources.

As each project is unique in scope and costs, the state proposes that we continue to both individually fund each project and provide the existing oversight through the state public's works board. We do at capital outlay work closely with our state administrative manual to determine whether projects are considered a support or capital outlay project. There are existing and legitimate reasons why these projects should be classified one way or another. We also do feel that these projects should follow the statewide approach of reviewing each project on a case by case basis and ensuring that each project does have the appropriate oversight.

Thank you so much.

Department of Finance. Henry Ng, Department of Finance. Just to add a bit more to your oversight. To the extent project cost increases, the additional branch, of course, has to put in a a budget change proposal for additional resources. And, of course, these are reviewed by finance, the legislator, and or and or addressed in in these hearings.

So in that sense, there are some, to an extent, some some oversight. And the legislature can always, of course, request for informational hearings if additional details are necessary. However, we do recognize that there has been some delays and project costs have increased. So we are open to the legislator's input, and we can certainly take that back, to find for consideration.

Thank you so much. As now we bring back to the dais, any comments, questions? Assembly Member Schultz.

Thank you very much, mister chair. Thank you all for, your testimony today. I don't have a question. I did wanna just provide some context. This is now the second hearing, that we've had this year where we're discussing significant increased cost for projects.

In this case, I understand the project, nearly doubled in price. There are certainly factors that are unavoidable like ex like inflation. And before I go on, I do wanna say that in the short time I've been here in all the hearings, I do really appreciate the representatives of the Judicial Council. You probably gave one of the most thoughtful and detailed answers and really walking me through why this happened. And look, I understand that this is a very unique situation, but I bring all this all this up to say that I am beginning to notice a pattern here.

And while I completely respect and appreciated the comments from the administration representatives, I have to wholeheartedly agree with the recommendations, laid out today by the LAO. When I am noticing a pattern develop, I do think we need to do even more to make sure that when we're seeing continued overruns of cost, that we're at least doing everything that we can to exercise the greatest legislative power we have, and that's of oversight. So thank you all for your testimony. No question today.

Thank you so much, Assemblymember Schultz. Looking at, can you elaborate a little more on the 1966 plans? Certainly plans were adopted, moved forward to the local level. But the approval of those plans and oversight inspections, those relied on at the local level.

Yeah. That this building was built by the county. Okay. It's only since in the early two thousands when the state, through the Trot Court Facilities Act, took control of, you know, almost 500 county buildings. So this was built under the auspices of local government and not us. So we relied again on the plans that were approved then to assess the need to remediate the the shortcomings of the fire life system. And, again, it was the the building was not built to the to the actual blueprints.

What year was that that the state then start to oversee the construction of over

in the early two thousands. It was a multiyear process of building transfers based on agreements between the county, the the court, and the Department of Finance about transfers to of those buildings.

Thank you for that. And so that does go into the what's being presented. Right? Budgets and different things for projects when we're not sure that pre 2000. Right?

If they're gonna fit the the blueprints that are there. So that adds to some of the constructional management. But another question is, on the systems and the rating of of the different projects that are moving forward, and the list that's out there, best guess it's on a ten year plan. Does that also allow for those assessments to have moving variables? Meaning, what's going on in the climate at that time with the with the different political or different things that we're seeing and the need in in certain areas of courts

and the justice system throughout the state of California. Is there opportunity to take those into consideration also? What what at a high level, the the there was statute passed that directed and gave us specific criteria to use. It was so it was not just a a judicial council determined methodology, and and so that's how the list was created. But any future amendments to that would require resources.

We understand that the budget is tight. We appreciate, you know, that that that's acknowledged by the LAO. But at this point, we know that we we we need to do an assessment. We just we we this is not the time given the budget considerations for us to embark on that, again, given the the the available resources.

So do you believe that

we need we do we know we need to do one, but we're gonna work with with the administration and the legislature to get that funded at some point.

So do you believe the list that's there now is something that continues to be needed in the state of California?

I I Or would an

assessment change any of those proposals?

Suggest that, again, I could have mister Ahmed get more detailed on. But at a high level, the projects that are in that immediate will remain in the immediate need, and the notion that somehow there may be some leapfrogging happen is highly unlikely. In fact, when we did the assessment initially, it didn't not all not all counties and courts raised their hands. So it's it's likely that that list will grow, but the criteria effectively are gonna keep those, you know, those those projects in the immediate need category likely in the same place. It'll be what happens as we will look at other commissions and more courtrooms and courthouses will need to be on the list that were not on the list previously.

Counties who because of our pace of of maintenance and deferred maintenance, what might have been in '19 or 20182019 we're in an okay place, have now come to the point where they might need to be considered for replacement or renovation.

Yeah. And in in addition to that, you know, the list is a valid list because it's I mean, it's it was done in 2019, and it's a very valid list because it take into consideration the immediate critical need. But also when emergence when when critical projects are needed to be funded, changes have been made. For example, you know, you have approved the district six court of appeal that was inserted in the list because the court was going to be thrown out because of the end of their lease. So there are when when emergency situations happen to amend the list in order to bring a project forward, those have taken place.

Based on on emergency, based on liability, based on safety?

Yeah. Safety, the court is not gonna have a space because their their lease is expiring. For example, in front of you, there is a proposal for to relocate some courtrooms for the LA court because the Federal Government has decided to dispose of the building. So a lot of courtrooms had to. We came up with a plan in order to relocate them to for, into, you know, existing space. And this was the most economical way that we found out that was supported by the governor.

Thank you, so much for that. And thank you for your testimonies. Now we're gonna move on to the office of emergency services issue five. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, so much as we now move to issue five, victim services funding. Eric Swanson, deputy director finance and logistics administration, Cal OES. Ricky Hammett, assistant director, grants management, Cal OES. Sarah Metz, Psychological Director of Trauma Recovery Service National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers. Leela Chapelle, director of survivor advocacy for the Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking. Chair Gonzales, Gonzales government consulting, Heather Gonzales, LAO, Drew Soderberg, LAO, Sarah Swan, Department of Finance, and Zachary Voss, Department of Finance. We'll start with Eric Swanson.

Good afternoon, Chair Ramos and, members. I'm Eric Swanson. I'm deputy director of finance and logistics administration for Cal OES. And with me is Ricky Hammitt, our assistant director of grants management. I'm gonna start by just talking a little bit about our victims grants programs as a whole, and then, your consultant asked us to Kinda narrow the focus to, VOCA.

Cal OES administers approximately 315,000,000 annually, which funds 70 serve, victim service programs, providing financial and technical assistance and support to victim service providers to ensure victims and survivors in California receive trauma informed victim centered services, which include rape crisis, sexual assault, domestic violence assistance, human trafficking, transitional housing, homeless youth and exploitation, Internet crimes against children, child abuse treatment, and underserved victims. Now kind of do talk a little bit about the subset of VOCA within that, within the victims programs. A significant number of our programs are funded through the Victims of Crime Act or VOCA victims assistance funding. These programs serve as a critical lifeline for crime victims across California, supporting 35 Cal OES administered programs and approximately 800 grant subawardees, assuring the delivery of essential trauma informed services in communities across the state in large urban areas, down to rural and underserved areas as well. VOCA provides direct services.

For examples, hotlines, crisis intervention, emergency shelter, and traditional housing. Programs are designed to meet the diverse needs of California victims, including services for all kinds of crime victims through victim witness assistance centers and targeted support for specific crime types such as domestic violence, sexual assault, child abuse, and specialized services for historically underserved populations, including elders. This last fiscal year, VOCA supported more than 330 unique victim service providers and had services to more than 402,000 victims of crimes, of which 68% received services for the very first time. The amount of VOCA funding, federal VOCA funding has fluctuated dramatically over the last few years. The highest amount we received in California was in 2018, which was 396,000,000, and the lowest was 201487,000,000.

In 2025, California's allocation was almost 143,000,000. To account for these reduced state allocations, recent budgets have included one time state backfills to support victim services. For example, the 2021 budget included a 100,000,1 time general fund available over three years, and 2024 and 2025 budget cycles included about a 100,000,000. Cal OES estimates that maintaining current current service levels would require around 220,000,000 in 2026. And with that, we're available for questions once the rest of the panel goes.

Thank you, so much for that. Because now we go to Ricky Hammitt.

I'm just here to respond to questions.

Alright. I'll just go down the list. Sarah Metz.

Hi. Thank you. And good evening, chair and members of the subcommittee. And thank you so much for this opportunity to present to you today. It's my honor to be here.

My name is Doctor. Sarah Metz, and I'm here representing the National Alliance of Trauma Recovery Centers. This is the organization that's responsible for replicating the UCSF trauma recovery center model across California and the nation. Today, there's 20 TRCs in California and 53 nationwide. Trauma recovery centers provide life saving comprehensive services to California's most underserved survivors of violent crime.

We are a critical element of the victim services, public health, and public safety ecosystems, helping survivors access much needed comprehensive mental health care and case management. TRC services help survivors to stabilize housing, access medical care, navigate the legal system, and return to work and school. The Trauma Recovery Center model was developed at UCSF nearly 25 years ago with bipartisan legislative support. And since then, state investment has expanded access across California where our centers now serve more than 9,000 survivors annually. The reason trauma recovery centers work is not just what we do, but it's how we do it.

TRCs are specifically designed to reach survivors who are least likely to access traditional services, low income survivors, communities of color, immigrants, unhoused individuals, and victims of violent crime who often fall through the cracks of fragmented systems. Our model is evidence based and multidisciplinary. We combine community based assertive outreach, mental health care, comprehensive case management, medical advocacy, legal advocacy under one coordinated team. Survivors do not have to navigate five different systems alone. We bring those systems together around the survivor.

Unlike traditional clinic based model, TRCs use assertive outreach. We meet survivors where they are, in hospitals, homes, shelters, community settings, reducing barriers to care and increasing engagement. Our services are time limited, intensive, and focused on stabilization and recovery, helping survivors regain safety, housing, employment, and emotional functioning so that they can move forward. When survivors receive comprehensive trauma informed care early, we reduce long term health care costs, decrease reliance on emergency services, improve cooperation with law enforcement, and reduce the long term social and economic impact of violent crime. And this model works.

Over the course of our sixteen week evidence based model of care, we see measurable reductions in survivors' need for ongoing medical care, legal intervention, substance use services, and financial crisis support. Compared to usual care, clients that receive TRC services experience a 56% increase to return to employment, a 41 greater reduction in homelessness, and this happens all at 34% lower cost than usual care. Additionally, clients have more than a 40% reduction in post traumatic stress disorder and major depression symptoms and report reduced disability related to the crime. And this is not incremental improvement. This is meaningful recovery.

This means survivors have fewer emergency room visits, fewer repeat crises, less reliance on public benefits, and in short, survivors leave tier c safer, healthier, more stable, and less reliant on high cost public systems. And these aren't short term improvements. They're long term cost avoidances for the state of California. And I was asked to speak to some of the differences between trauma recovery centers and, programs that are funded by VOCA. So some of the main differences for us is we don't silo our survivors of crime, clinic.

Similarly, we focus on comprehensive clinical case management and mental health combined with an emphasis on outreach or measurement guided treatment. And we really focus on outcomes and we help to coordinate our services across multiple complex systems. So we're coordinating with district attorneys, with victim services, with special victims unit, with hospitals, with employers, really trying to get all survivors back on their feet. And we are currently facing a severe funding disruption that threatens the sustainability of this model. The initial report by the legislative analyst office could be upwards of 85% reduction, and what that would do is bring us from 20 TRCs across the state down to four, bringing our service numbers from 9,000 survivors to 1,000.

And these survivors, they're not gonna disappear from us. They will turn to emergency rooms, urgent care clinics, and already strained public health and entitlement systems, often at significantly higher cost and with far less specialized support. The likely downstream effects are increased unemployment, housing instability, and worsening medical and mental health outcomes for generations to come. When we invest in trauma recovery, we invest in public safety, we invest in public health, and the long term stability of our communities. And California has spent 25 years building a nationally recognized evidence based model of care, and the question before us is whether we protect that investment or we allow it to unravel. And thank you for your time.

Thank you, so much for that. As now, we'll, move on to Leila Chappell and...

Good afternoon. I think almost good evening now, chair Ramos and members of the committee. My name is Leela Chapelle. I'm the director of policy and advocacy at the Coalition Abolish Slavery and Trafficking, also known as CAST. I am here today, very grateful to be here today to be in support of assembly member Mark Gonzalez and senator Lena Gonzalez' request to authorize funding for the human trafficking victim assistance program or the HTVAP.

For more than two decades, CAST has worked directly with survivors of both sex and labor trafficking across California. And through that work, we've seen firsthand that escaping trafficking is just the first step for a survivor. The work that is required is a coordinated set of services that address housing instability, legal barriers, trauma, and economic exploitation, and that is exactly why California created this program in 2015. This program recognized that traditional victim services were not designed to meet the specialized needs of human trafficking survivors. HT VAAP ensures that survivors have access to comprehensive continuum of care.

And under this program, providers are able to offer critical support including a 24 hour crisis line, emergency confidential shelter, temporary housing and long term housing assistance, legal assistance, and that includes filing for T Visa applications, protective orders, things of that nature, as well as clearing criminal records tied to their exploitation. Providers also have to provide things like food, clothing, all of those emergency needs that come up for survivors, transportation to court hearings, and medical appointments, emergency financial assistance, counseling, and referrals to referrals to community partners like the ones that are represented here. In practice, this means that when a survivor escapes trafficking or needs help escaping a trafficker, there is someone that they can call. When they have nowhere safe to sleep, that means that there's a place that they can go. And when they face legal barriers, whether it's immigration relief or a protective order or a criminal record tied to their exploitation, there is an advocate and an attorney that is trained, specialized in that assistance, and is ready to help them.

The most recent grant cycle that we have for this program demonstrates how essential this infrastructure has become in California. We show that we've served nearly 5,000 survivors in the last year through these partners. Over 2,000 of those were children and young adults, and 88 percent of the survivors served in this program identified as people of color. Those numbers reflect not only the scale of need, but they reflect something more important about how trafficking operates in California. Survivors intersect with multiple systems, housing instability, immigration processes, the criminal legal system, and the labor market.

Without specialized services that understand these intersections, survivors will fall through the cracks. This moment also raises a broader question about the role that the states play when federal protections become unstable. CAST provides, federal TTA to providers across the country, and so we can speak to what we're seeing federally in areas directly related to human trafficking services and survivor safety. One example that we would really like to flag that we're working with our federal partners on is the removal of the not one more report from the Department of Justice website. This is report that is congressionally mandated and is developed through testimony for more than 250 tribal members, trafficking survivors, and families of missing loved ones and federal partners.

It documents the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous people and outlined concrete solutions to protect vulnerable communities and the intersection of human trafficking. While there is a lack of universally agreed upon or California specific data, the data that we do have comes from the 2015 study from the National Congress of American Indians. It suggests over forty percent of sex trafficking survivors identify as native or American Indian or Alaska native, and the majority of those come from homes that have been fractured by forced residential boarding schools, but we know that that statistic is very low. Another example that we would like to bring forth from the federal perspective is the removal of all victim identification and sensitive location protocols by the Federal Immigration Enforcement as well as ongoing litigation in California regarding the deportation of immigrant survivors who have protective visas. Earlier this year, when one of Cass's clients with lawful status was detained and almost died in detention when their prescribed medication was withheld from them, it was HTVAP providers that were able to not only defend their rights, but help them secure their freedom.

These providers are really at the frontline of making sure that survivors' rights are defended. We've defined their rights, we know their rights, and we're often really the only ones who know where these survivors are. California has historically stepped forward in these moments. HTVAAP is a clear example of that leadership, and it recognizes that survivors cannot rely on a patchwork of programs that were not designed for their circumstances or their needs. They need specialized providers who understand trafficking dynamics, immigration protections, and the long term stabilization that is required to prevent retrafficking.

Today, over 31 community based organizations across California provide these services, and without this specialized network, many trafficking survivor, particularly immigrants and survivors from marginalized communities, would lose not only access to services, but also the protections that prevent retrafficking, detention, and continued exploitation. Programs would face service reductions, wait lists would grow, and survivors seeking help would encounter fewer safe places to turn. The loss would not simply affect service providers, but it would perfect the survivors and their children who rely on these programs to rebuild their lives. Maintaining HDVAP is not only a survivor support issue, but it's also a matter of public safety. Our law enforcement partners rely on these services to ensure that survivors are stable enough to cooperate with prosecution and are able to prosecute these cases.

This is also a matter of the responsible stewardship of, you know, the state's existing investment into these services. California has built this specialized network to respond to trafficking. So reauthorizing this funding is essential to ensure that this network remains intact and can meet the need of survivors across the state. Without reauthorization, funding will revert to pre pandemic levels on 07/01/2026. So we face a funding cliff that is imminent, and these 31 service providers and the survivors that they serve are looking to the State of California to see what will happen next, and especially now, human trafficking survivors are waiting to see how will California support them.

Thank you again for your time and your continued commitment to addressing human trafficking in California. Myself, and our legal counsel. Sure. We are happy to answer any questions.

Alright. Thank you so much for that testimony. Chair Gonzales, are you there for technical? Or I'm

just here for technical questions, mister chair.

Thank you so much. LAO?

Nothing to add.

Thank you. Department of Finance.

Thank you. Zachary Voss, California Department of Finance. The Federal Government has not indicated the amount of federal VOCA funding California is set to receive for the next fiscal year. That information is critical to considering the magnitude of this funding need and its general fund impact. The administration is sensitive to the importance of this funding and the discussion of whether there should be a state backfill for any potential federal reduction in VOCA funding is something considered in the broader context of the condition of the general fund, broader cuts to federal funding, and the universe of funding needs.

Thank you, so much for that. Any questions, comments from the dais? Mister Schultz?

Thank you, mister chair. Thank you all for your testimony. Wanted to start on the issue of, VOCA funding. It's my understanding that we have certainly seen this this growing gap, this decline in VOCA funding available to California. Lot of contributing factors, one of which is a sharp decline in the prosecution of federal white collar crime over the last ten to fifteen years, which as a matter of policy is concerning enough.

But I guess the question in terms of the budget is has OES been involved in seeking a permanent federal solution? And if not, if there haven't been discussions there about a federal solution, has the administration considered possible options at the state level to help stabilize these programs as opposed to the sort of every year coming back and revisiting it with the one off solution.

So as far as a federal solution, we haven't been involved in talks around that. And then, for the state solution, we are still in this annual request for a backfill. It was just as you know, the crime victims fund allocation has varied dramatically from, like, 396,000,000 in '22018 to '87 and million in 2024. So that is something we can consider doing more of a permanent solution versus having to, you know, come to talk about a backfill.

Thank you. Anything, anyone have anything they wanna add? Okay. The only, before I go to my other question, I would just say, appreciate the willingness to engage on the issue. Would definitely encourage discussions with our Attorney General.

We have a little known but pretty robust white collar prosecution group in the Special Prosecution Section, Criminal Division at AGO. Don't know what he would say, but I would just be very curious to see if the staff has any thoughts on a state approach to stabilizing the funding.

And then, of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that it would be awfully nice if the federal prosecutors involved were as equally focused on going after those with incredible power and resources who are very much committing crimes.

Very concerning that we've seen such a sharp decline in white collar prosecution. I can tell you from experience, it's very much alive and well that that organized crime syndicate, and yet we haven't seen the prosecution there. Okay. Shifting gears. Trauma recovery centers. Little bit of an easier question, I suppose.

I'm just wondering, aside from referrals from DAs and law enforcement, how do folks know about your services? That question number one. And then question two would be, do you offer services to folks that aren't necessarily the direct victim of a crime, but maybe someone who is a witness to it or family of victims? Just what can you tell me more about that?

Yeah. Great questions. Thank you. So each trauma recovery center has different referral pathways, but a lot, some of us are also connected with level one trauma centers or the our local department of public health. So we'll get referrals from health systems, from hospitals, from other community mental health clinics, from shelters. So it really varies.

Our goal with our model is really to eliminate barriers to accessing care. So we have a very low threshold from that perspective. And then an answer to your other question, absolutely, we serve derivative victims.

So we serve derivative victims of homicide. Sometimes we will also serve derivative victims, so parents whose children have experienced crime or abuse, as well as folks who have potentially been in harm's way during a crime, but weren't themselves a direct victim.

Thank you so much, Assembly Member Schultz. VOCA funding, we always find ourselves in a game of waiting to see what comes from the federal government before we land on a number that's there. In 2025, we landed on 143 million. So it'd be interesting to see when that those dollars start to come forward from the federal government to see where we're at and putting money back into VOCA.

So we'll be looking forward to that update in the future. To the trauma recovery centers. I wanna talk a little bit more about your funding. Is it similar to the VOCA funding where the federal government does put money into it, or is it all state funding?

Yeah. So right now, it's for our treatment programs. It's all state funding that gets delivered through the California Victim Compensation Board through the TRC grant.

Thank you for that. And you're saying that what's being proposed is a 85% reduction?

That's correct. That was based on the initial report from the Legislative Analyst Office, and this also speaks to, I think, that impact of Prop 36 on Prop 47 savings. Because I think about 10% of the Prop 47 savings were allocated to TRCs.

Oh, okay. I understand. Okay. Thank you for that clarification that's there. And then the trauma recovery centers, you mentioned that it's not, that it's not done in silos. Is that correct?

Correct.

It's can you elaborate a little bit more on that on the treatment, longevity, those types of things?

Absolutely. So we're a short term model. So our goal really is to get folks back to their pre-morbid, so pre-experience level of functioning, if not better. What I'm meaning by the siloed is we coordinate care basically with any entity that has been, you know, that that survivor is interfacing with, and also we don't limit which survivors can access our services, meaning we don't just limit to sexual assault survivors.

We don't just limit to IPV survivors. We serve survivors of any type of interpersonal violence. Many of our TRCs serve clients across the lifespan. Yes. And we really work to address any area of their life that has been impacted by the crime.

Which, you know, could mean helping them to apply to entitlements that they're eligible for, helping to work with their employers to kind of mitigate, you know, impacts like job loss, you know, helping to mitigate impacts like being evicted from their home because they can't work, because of the injuries.

So we really have a very comprehensive approach in supporting our survivors. That can include additional things like helping them to get U visa or T visas. So really each treatment plan is individualized to whatever that specific impact was for that survivor.

And do you believe that this is more of a preventive measure that's saving resources down the road for the individual?

Absolutely. I mean, I'm not only a director of a clinic, I'm also a clinician, and we absolutely, hands down, prevent folks from, like, incarceration. We prevent folks from having to go to acute emergency services for psychiatric needs that our interventions really do mitigate those impacts, not only for that person, but for their community.

So that can include things like helping to mitigate future violence that's perpetuated with untreated, you know, impacts of violence, helping folks again to remain employed, to remain housed. So we really come in very early and very comprehensively to stop, you know, whatever impacts we can at that point and within a short period of time.

Thank you so much for that. And then can you elaborate more on the HTVAP funding, federal versus state funding?

This is general funds. This is all state fund.

All state.

Yes. And it was first passed in 2015. That was 10 million a year. We knew that 10 million in a year was never going to be enough for the largest human trafficking population in the entire nation, but that was what we took to get our foot in the door.

And then in 2021, the pandemic in 2020 hit, and the funding became a real crisis point because we've literally had nowhere to put survivors who were, who needed help. Remember, emergency shelter is one of the biggest points of the HTVAP.

It's there are many portions of that program, but the emergency shelter. Because you cannot take a human trafficking victim and place them in a regular homeless shelter. Every trafficker, I can guarantee you, knows where the shelters are in their community. It is their favorite recruiting grounds. They need secret facilities.

That is what human trafficking victim services offers under the HTVAP. These are secret safe houses that a survivor can go to and be safe from their trafficker. So the funding was passed in 2015. We got an augmentation in 2021 of an additional $10 million.

That's when the funding became much more adequate for what we have in this state, which is, again, the largest human trafficking population in the country. That funding then was reauthorized in 2023. We are now in 2026, which means July 1 is the cliff. We fall off.

We go back to pre pandemic funding levels for the largest population in the nation. So that's why we're here today to talk about how important it is that we do not allow this funding to lapse. It has to be reauthorized in this year's budget. What it is, it's a three year, just like in the past, it's three years of funding as a one time funding. So it's one time spending appropriated over three years.

Alright. Thank you so much for that. In July 26, would revert back to pre pandemic levels.

Exactly.

Because there was one time funding given at one point.

So it was in the 2015 Budget Act. It was 10 million ongoing. In 2021, there was an additional 10 million. It was $30 million to be appropriated over three years. That brought total funding to $20 million. We had a reauthorization in 2023, and now we need that additional reauthorization in 2026 or we go back to the 10 million pre pandemic level.

Alright. And those, that's one time funding or ongoing funding?

So the regular funding is ongoing, but the request has always been one time. It's $30 million. It's appropriated over three years. And then every three years, we come back to you to ask to reauthorize that funding.

Thank you so much for your testimony. And to to all of these topics and testimony coming forward, VOCA, trauma centers, and certainly human trafficking are areas that, you know, the work is out there and it needs to be done. And taking all this testimony to heart.

Right? And to make sure that we do have a cake for the funding that's there and to make sure that the voices are being heard and resonate in these chambers. And certainly, looking back to Department of Finance, looking to see if some of this testimony and looking at some of these things coming forward May Revise.

I know VOCA, we wait to see what the fund is gonna be at the federal level. But looking at these both, if I understand it, are both state entirely funding on it. Certainly, we could take some of that back and relook at some of those things for May Revise.

Sara Swan. Sara Swan, Department of Finance. We'll certainly take this back and the information has been provided today. Thank you.

Thank you so much. Any final comments? Thank you so much for your testimony and your work in keeping people safe. Thank you so much for that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As now, we're gonna move on to our next issue, which is issue six. There'll be two panels that will be discussed on this issue itself. The first panel will be Steve Yarbrough, Deputy Director, Public Safety Communications, Cal OES. Eric Swanson, Deputy Director, Finance and Logistics Administration, Cal OES. Heather Gonzalez and Drew Soderborg, LAO. Sara Swan and Zachary Voss, Department of Finance. And we'll start with Mr. Yarbrough.

Good afternoon, Chair Ramos and Members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to give an update on California's NextGen 911 system. You'll hear us refer to it as NextGen, Next Generation, or NG 911. California remains committed to delivering a modern, reliable, and secure Next Generation 911 system that works for all Californians.

To achieve this goal, we've developed a transition and implementation plan with milestones that have been presented to the 911 Advisory Board. The NextGen 911 will allow emergency call centers to receive voice calls, text messages, images, and video from callers.

These capabilities significantly improve situational awareness for responders and dispatchers, allowing them to better understand and respond to emergencies. California's NextGen 911 system is acquired as a service from our vendor partners and is funded primarily through a dedicated surcharge on all in state telephone users.

Cal OES is confident that the system will deliver what we're, what we're referring to as the best in class solution or most advanced technology available for life saving service, and I'd like to give a little bit of a history of the of the deployment of the project so far. Between 2019 and and the fall of 2024, Cal OES worked with contracted service providers to deploy NextGen 911 using a regional approach.

This this approach divided California into four regions, and then it also had a statewide backup provider as a fallback position in case one of the regions ran into trouble. The regional model, as it was designed, was intended to improve resilience of the system and to make sure it was, the availability of the system was always there, but it also introduced significant complexity.

Each region effectively operates as an independent system, and the interaction between the regional providers and the statewide backup provider requires custom interfaces and routing logic. During testing and the early deployment of the NextGen 911 system, Cal OES and our local partners identified issues related to call routing, transfer functionality, and system reliability. In several cases, calls were routed incorrectly, or they were transferred improperly, or they experienced degraded voice quality during handoffs between the systems.

Public safety answering points experience operational challenges that further complicated things, requires the dispatcher who's answering the 911 call to handle calls from both the legacy 911 system as well as the Next Generation 911 system simultaneously. And it requires the human to then figure out which of those two types of calls are coming in and treat them differently.

That puts an extra burden on the dispatcher that we think should be solved by a technological solution rather than a human solution. So rather than, rather than risk expanding these service disruptions to other public safety answering points throughout the state of California, Cal OES made a deliberate decision to pause future transitions of new public safety answering points onto that network and to carefully assess the architecture and its, and its confounding problems.

This decision was made with one priority in mind, and that was to protect the residents of California by providing a stable and functional system. So what Cal OES learned from this episode as after it undertook an extensive review of the system and engaged directly with local partners, first among those was visiting the public safety answering points.

And then second, of course, was sitting down and talking face to face with each of our vendor partners and all of the dispatchers and emergency call centers throughout the state. Cal OES looked at the best practices that are available within the industry and also what could be learned from other states deployments of NextGen 911 systems.

The feedback we received and the observations made were invaluable, and it became clear that the regional architecture introduced unnecessary complexity for PSAP operations and created multiple points of potential failure. As a result of that review, Cal OES developed a revised strategy focusing on simplifying the system architecture and adopting a statewide approach consistent with the national best practices. Under the updated strategy, California would move to a statewide model rather than the regional model.

This approach simplifies the architecture by eliminating the regional providers and the custom interfaces between the systems that were needed. The statewide provider model aligns with the standards which are published by the National Emergency Number Association and covers the technical standards required for 911 systems.

A long term statewide provider will be required to deliver a system that will achieve 99.999% availability. It will be supported by multiple data centers and it will have redundant network paths and geographically diverse infrastructure. By adopting those standards, we can eliminate the California specific design elements that were included in the regional model, and we will be able to provide a proven secure architecture that is already operating successfully in other jurisdictions.

Our goal remains unchanged. We wanna deliver a reliable modern network for all Californians. But our strategy is updated to reflect the lessons learned from early deployment and aligns with California's system with national standards and best practices.

By simplifying the architecture, adopting a statewide provider, and implementing strong oversight and reporting, we are confident that the state is in now on the path toward a successful NextGen 911 deployment. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you so much for that. Do we have Eric Swanson? Wanna add to that?

Eric Swanson. Just available for questions.

Thank you. LAO?

Heather Gonzalez with LAO. Good afternoon, Chair and Members. As you know, OES is moving rapidly toward major changes in the state 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 whether if faced with options and trade offs the legislature would adopt, amend, or reject the changes that OES is pursuing. For this reason and others that I'll cover more thoroughly in this presentation, we recommend that the legislature temporarily pause forward movement on this project while it gathers the information necessary to either increase confidence in the plan OES has proposed or enable it to work towards an alternative that the legislature prefers.

Now, you should have before you a handout we prepared for this hearing. It contains summarized information on Next Generation 911 systems. It's pulled from this brief, which you may also have as well. The state's more than ten year effort to plan and deploy such a system is included in here, as are recent challenges OES faced during deployment and what they propose to do next.

The handout also summarizes our findings and recommendations. Now by way of background, we direct your attention to page one of the handout, which explains what Next Generation 911 is. Simply put, Next Generation 911 uses Internet protocol based technologies instead of copper wire to deliver and route 911 calls.

This system consists of four major components, networks, core services, geographic information systems, and call handling equipment. We include formal definitions of these 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 are the traffic control, which 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 in the right jurisdiction, and the first responders go to the right locations.

And call handling equipment is in the local control rooms where dispatchers receive and manage emergency communications. To work together like they should, all of these components as well as the phones and the carriers that use the system must be interoperable.

That is to say, they must all speak the same digital language and not just the same language. Ideally, they should have the same dialect. Getting everyone in this system, the dispatchers, telecom companies, phone carriers, and so forth to speak the same dialect is one of the central challenges of our transition to NextGen 911.

Turning to the state's effort to upgrade our 911 system to a NextGen system. As you'll see from page two of the handout, we have traced the overall state effort to as early as 2010 when the state developed the road map 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 get started on this project.

That said, it was not until 2018-19 that meaningful amounts of funding became available, and that's when OES was able to execute the contracts with the regional vendors and the statewide backup vendor, which we colloquially refer to as the regional approach of the regional system, and that would build and deploy the Next Generation 911 system we have now.

Deployment of this regional system included trenching and laying fiber 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 and materials could be repurposed, especially least expensively 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 27, 2026 report to the legislature, they reiterated previous statements indicating that the regional system is currently delivering caller location and text to 911 services to all dispatch centers in California and that 23 dispatch centers have begun transitioning voice calls to the system. Turning now to our assessment and findings.

As OES has explained, when an initial tranche of dispatch centers began 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 reviewed the information provided by them so far, and our assessment may be summarized as follows. Number one, this project is overdue and future budget needs are unclear.

We feel especially strongly that the legislature be provided with the best possible estimates of the cost needed for Next Generation 911, the legacy system, and support for dispatch centers in this budget year and future years under any plan that is adopted.

Two, we wanna be very clear that we believe that major changes OES has proposed may be entirely appropriate. However, all changes come with trade offs, and we do not yet have enough information about the options OES considered and the ones it didn't to be able to lay these out fully.

But as an example, unless the statewide system envisioned by the updated transition plan is designed carefully, a regional approach may offer greater redundancy and may be more able to withstand failure as a result. On the other hand, the regional approach may have too much redundancy and may have become so complex that it suffers inoperability compared to the envisioned statewide system and is effectively fatally flawed. So different things to weigh.

Cost may also be a trade off, although we have no information on which to judge at this point, as will management needs. It may be easier for OES to manage a single contract with a single vendor than it would be to manage multiple contracts and vendors.

However, relying on a single contract could expose the state to price increases, unfavorable contract terms, or even reduced innovation because it will be painful and expensive to switch vendors again and because competition between vendors is an advantage to the state as a buyer.

We just don't know what the options are or what the technical cost or managerial trade offs would be if these options could be compared. Our third finding is that changes of this magnitude to a system this important are best undertaken under close oversight, and that is currently lacking.

The state 911 system has an advisory board, but it is only advisory. As we've been told by CDT, as a public safety telecom project, this project is not subject to the typical CDT project approval and oversight processes. And to date, of course, the legislature has not been provided with a statutory proposal, trailer bill language, or a BCP for consideration of this change.

Our fourth finding is that 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 OES encountered with the regional system, and will the new plan solve these problems? Now before I move on to the next four, I wanna pause and really stress these first two, nature and scope of the problem, and will the solution address the problem.

And the reason that I wanna highlight these questions especially is because when we asked independent experts and stakeholders what advice they would give you if they were faced with a question you are now facing, the near universal response we got was to get very, very clear on those first two questions.

In addition, we have four other questions that we would include, which are 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? Which takes us to our fifth finding. 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. You can likely identify a date at which the legacy system can be decommissioned, but that doesn't mean Next Generation 911 will be complete. It's a system that is going to change over time, and this will likely happen at a much faster pace than was possible historically. Now to our recommendation.

Based on these findings, we recommend the following. First, oversight hearings, including 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 can make the most informed decision possible when the budget is adopted in June.

We strongly recommend these hearings focus on the key questions we have raised and that they include a meaningful comparison of options and trade offs including cost. Two, if this analysis is not possible, we recommend that 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 or team.

Which could include the State Auditor, a blue ribbon commission, or even a select committee is able to do this comparative analysis. Third, to strengthen oversight of the current project, we recommend quarterly fiscal reports and monthly progress reports to the legislature until legacy 911 has been fully decommissioned.

And lastly, looking at the long term future for these systems, including the potential for nationwide interoperability and future innovations and the myriad of trade offs and policy questions that might develop as a result, we recommend that the legislature consider whether ongoing oversight is appropriate and what form that might take. Thank you for your time and attention. We're available for questions.

Thank you so much for that in depth testimony. Department of Finance.

Thank you. Zachary Voss, California Department of Finance. We don't have anything to add the background at this time, but we're here to available to answer any questions.

Thank you so much for that. Back to the dais. Is there questions, comments? Thank you. Assembly Member Schultz.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So appreciate all the testimony. And I wanna ask this question in the way that I would imagine that the constituent would ask me. Because if they see this tape, they will probably ask me the question. So over the course of the last decade, we've spent nearly half a billion dollars on the implementation design and rollout of this program.

My understanding, by the way, is about, like, if I'm not mistaken, 85% of it was expended on the vendors. The question is, what was the public benefit for all that? I don't know what to tell them. What did the public benefit in spending all of that money? Because right now, I see none. And I wanna be clear. I'm not trying to be hard on anyone. I just, this is a question I know i'm going to get asked. So what would you have me tell them? In what way did the public benefit?

Well, I think it, yeah. It ties back to the nature of the way we acquire NextGen 911, the system. And what we're, what we're paying for is the service or the use of that network for a period of time. And so, similar to if you were, you know, using your cell phone, for example, you might, pay for access to the network for that month. And beyond that month, you don't have an enduring benefit.

And so you get the use of the network for that month or that year. And so your point about the 85% is tied to the monthly recurring costs for that. So paying the assortment of vendors who provide the NextGen 911 system, 85% of that $450 million number is the monthly recurring cost.

So as to the benefit that was received, it's the use of the network such as it was during that time. And so that means it was there for our use for the five year period of time that that contract was in place. And then, obviously, once the contract ended, then it transitioned over to being paid for and acquired under the tariffs under the Public Utility Commission.

And so the payments continue going forward from there. So as we, as we continue to look at this, it's important to recall that or remember that it's going to continue to require a payment to have access to that service, you know, off into the future. So it's the use of the service.

I appreciate the answer. I guess the one question or I guess the point back I'd raised to you is, sounds like we spent a lot of money on something that didn't work very well. Would you agree?

Yeah. I think the the facts of the case would bear that out. Yes.

I guess the next question I would have is, to the point that the LAO made, I think 2018 makes a lot of sense as a starting point. Because although there was prior direction, I know the first tranche of significant funding was in 2018. Why is it 2026 and we're only now talking about the ineffectiveness of the program? It just seems to me like we spent hundreds of millions of dollars when we should have been having this conversation years ago.

So I think there's a couple of factors that come into play on that. Obviously, in 2020, the COVID pandemic arrived, and that slowed things down significantly. So our progress was hindered by the fact that we weren't able to actually go in person to do the work necessary to transition.

Also, pertaining to the pandemic, there were supply chain impacts that required delays where usually there hadn't been any. So acquiring equipment also was slowed down. Now that's not to say that that answers the question entirely. Obviously, there was planning that went on in the early phases, deployment of the network that needed to take place.

And then when we start transitioning, that's when we began seeing the impacts that were so concerning that it caused us to make the pause. And so I think it's a confluence of those factors together that caused the delay that you're or the length of time that you're talking about.

Now forgive the naive question. I'm not an expert in most things. But to me, it seems like a statewide approach would have made the most sense from the beginning. Why the regional approach? To me, that's nonsensical.

I think at the time, deference was given to the idea that California is a very diverse and very large state. And so it it made sense at the time to, I think, approach each of the regions in such a way as to treat them as being a unique area.

I don't, what I think, you know, the issue that you're putting your finger on is that it deviated from what had been successful in other places. And I don't have an answer as to why that particular decision was undertaken. I can certainly go back and go through the records and see if we have an answer for the specific reason why.

But I know that that's one of the factors that weighed heavily in our analysis as to the path forward was it it seems like it's buying more difficulty than is necessary to produce the outcome that we need. And so for that reason, you know, the difficult...

And I think the LAO mentioned this as well is, you know, when you're making something this complicated, you're opening up the surface area for difficulties of being able to design it in such a way that it works, or you're also exposing yourself to increased cybersecurity vulnerabilities. And so I don't have an answer as to why.

Oh, yes. Would you like to add?

If I can add, as it's been explained to me, part of the value of the regional approach is the decentralization.

Speaking of following on Mr. Yarbrough's comment about cybersecurity, there's one argument that could be made that having a regional system where you have multiple places where you could stop before you get to a statewide outage, that that could theoretically provide that. There may be other ways to architect a statewide system that could allow for that still. That's something that would need to be but that is my understanding of why it was developed in the work that way.

I appreciate both of your responses. And I think that what you made about the point you made about cybersecurity is a good one. It also speaks to your earlier point about there's no right or wrong way to do it. There are pros and cons with either approach. It would just seem to me I mean, obviously, if I had a time machine, there's a lot that I would do.

But one thing I might go back and say is, while there are certainly benefits in terms of security to a regional approach, could we not foresee issues with, the different vendors, the different systems communicating with each other? Again, it's just I guess I'm speaking to, preaching to the choir here, but it really speaks to the need to have foresight and anticipate some of these questions before we expend large sums of money. Last couple questions, Mr. Chair. So, again, I'm, I wanna ask you these in terms of just as I would have a conversation with my constituents when they come and inevitably ask me questions, what exactly have been the technical issues that you have run into in the rollout of NextGen?

So, the, the technical issues we've run into is in the routing of the call. So, when the call comes in, it needs to go to the correct public safety answering point. And if it doesn't, then that impacts the efficacy of the system at large. That's one of the things that we've run into. And so, misrouting. Another one that we've run into is dropped calls.

When we go to transfer a call from one location to another, if the call doesn't actually get transferred and received at that secondary destination. Third is when a successful transfer does take place, if there's degraded audio quality when it arrives, then that's another problem that we've run into. So, those are the three top ones, I think, that come to mind.

Okay. Thank you. That is very helpful and something that I can wrap my head around. So, the next question that they would then have and I certainly have is, so walk me through how transitioning to a statewide approach would resolve any of that.

Yeah. So, in terms of, you know, cobbling together, you know, the different regions, if you have the interface controls between those two regions aren't mapped appropriately, then you're going to end up with the traffic taking a wrong turn to, to use the, the highway system analogy. There's many ways you can get there. But if you if you take a wrong turn and end up at the wrong destination, then that's the problem. And so, eliminating the, the need to figure out across the boundaries of the two disparate networks.

Right? Because you're talking about they need to speak the same language of the same dialect. And so, if it's all native to one provider, then the different dialects go away. And that's, I think, the, the main focus as to how you solve that problem is by removing the different dialects from the conversation.

What other options did you consider?

Well, I think those are the two primary ones is remain with the status quo of a of a multi-vendor solution or go with what has worked in and we've seen work in other states, and it doesn't require custom development or coming up with a California specific solution, and that is the statewide model. So, those are the two. Okay.

Alright. That's all for now. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your testimony and some questions do come up. Certainly, the first one from LAO. I mean, would you be willing to pause the the system now and to relook at it?

Well, I think there's a—I don't know that it has to be an either or situation. I'm reluctant to pause given the fact that it's going to continue to cost us on the order of a $100,000,000 a year to pay for the network that we have. And, and if we pause transitioning, then the meter is still running, so to speak. So, I would be in in favor of continuing to solve or solve for transitioning public safety answering points onto the network while simultaneously figuring out the things that we can figure out. And I, and I recognize that it, it isn't an ideal situation, but what I'm thinking of is while there is no finish line, there is a, a date at which we have all of California's public safety answering points with the technology that is intended here.

And the further we delay that out into the future, there's risks associated with that that, you know, are happening to the public and to the first responders who are out there trying to serve the public. So, I wouldn't wanna delay getting the 440 something PSAP onto the network unduly. So, if there's a way to balance those competing interests, then I think that's probably a a better approach to it.

I was just gonna say too, let me add that one important factor to consider, as you know, is that we have so many big events coming to California in the future. And part of our our, emphasis is to make sure that we're ready for when those come. So, that's sort of our our sense of urgency as well.

Thank you for that. LAO?

I, I just wanted to add that our recommendation on pausing is to get you through to May Revise. So, because your mechanism, of course, would be June.

Definitely. And, and so, tied to the BCP request, is that a way that we could monitor the progress of this project without final approval in in one BCP?

Yeah. I think there's a couple—it doesn't have to be all through the BCP. I think we would agree with the LAO that we can have discussions on what the level of oversight and transparency is. And for sure, I think we've tried to, to work with we've met couple of times with your ledge staff. We have reports that we gave this year.

We let folks know last year through a BCP that we had sort of—we needed to rethink the direction we were going in. There will be eventually, as we we've come up with a plan of how we think is the best way to move forward, there will be a funding update associated with that eventually because we, we do owe you as well. We agree with the LAO. We do owe you the cost associated with that funding plan as well.

Thank you for that. And to the, $455,000,000, it's already been spent, surcharge, towards users. Right? The consumers actually paid for that. Can you tell us how much of that is still being used? How much of it was wasted? How much is still being part of the whole program moving forward?

Yep. So, the $455,000,000 was for the term of that contract from 2019 to 2024. And so, we had the use of the service during that period of time. And so, I, I, I don't think of it in terms of it was wasted. I think in terms of we acquired a service for a period of time and we received that.

Since then, we've been under tariffs and have continued under on that basis. So, I, I think more where the heart of the question is going, though, is is there is there an enduring benefit that comes from having spent that? And the short answer to that is no. It's, it's similar to if you're renting a house, the landlord may put in a new carpet and paint the walls for you, but you don't get to take the carpet with you when you transition to a new rental property. It stays there with the with the house.

And, and that's how I, I view the, the one-time cost to build this network the first time around. 85% of the monthly recurring fees, so the other 15% were startup costs. And that's gonna happen anytime that we, that we transition to a new provider for our system. And so, what you what you're looking to do though is have a relationship in such a way that those costs become smaller and smaller as time goes on, in, in terms of percentage of the total payment. So, that's how I, I, I prefer to look at it.

So, just so I'm clear, you're—are you saying 85% of the 400,000,000 plus is retained and is usable for the ongoing structure that you're presenting?

No. No. Unfortunately, that was for a service period that ended in 2024.

So, we're basically starting again in the beginning or at, at zero.

Well, I think $0.

I guess, the way to think about it, I think, again, is that, for that period of time, we, in the state, enjoyed the, the benefit of those services, and that's what we paid to get those benefit of those services.

Thank you for that. You, you did mention that there's, success, success in other jurisdictions. Can you elaborate on those jurisdictions?

Yeah. The the first one that comes to mind is North Carolina. They have a a single provider for their states. And as they rolled it out, they also were challenged with some weather events such as Hurricane Helene, if I'm not mistaken, was the one. And during that, their network operated as intended and survived the event such that they were able to route traffic around the impacted public safety answering points.

And so, we've seen it in places like North Carolina. I believe there's, you know, as many as 15 other states distributed throughout the nation. So, some of them in the Midwest, some of them on the West Coast, up north further from here. So, we've seen it play out. And I, I think what it does is it points to the fact that this design, this regional design, was conceived of, in 2018, let's say, and begun implementation.

That was gonna be another question. When, when that was established in that state.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, so, yeah, here in California, we conceived of the regional approach, but we've learned a lot since then.

Mhm.

And, you know, I think learning from what we've, the experience that we've had and the experience of, of peer states throughout the nation, is, is one of the ways that we make sure that we don't end up in this situation again in, you know, a handful of years down the road. It's because we're taking best practices and standards and building them into the solution so that we aren't building something that has never been accomplished before.

And that was one of the challenges with the regional model is it just hadn't been proven out, in such a way that it was successful. And so, rather than continue down that road, we choose something that has worked in a number of jurisdictions and go with that so that we don't end up having to have this conversation again in five years.

No. Definitely. I think we're all in agreement. We don't wanna be here again, close to half $1,000,000,000 investment that were there, we're now we're not even seeing any component to that. The question was, you looked at South Carolina, when did South Carolina start that that 911 system?

I don't have the answer in front of me right now, but I can certainly pull it up.

Thank you. And, and, and discussion on oversight, what is—what are you proposing as far as the oversight? Is there a matrix, that if you did move forward BCP that would have that built into it, as far as matrix oversight that then would allow for a continuation versus, versus the way how we got here today? And do you have any input on that?

Yeah. The, well, the, the, the way I was looking at oversight is that we, on a quarterly basis, meet with our 911 advisory board and, and report to them what we've accomplished and what we're looking to accomplish in the near term. And so, a quarterly reporting structure seems to make a lot of sense to me in that regard. So, that's the approach that I was looking to take.

So, we would—we would like to see more in-depth. Right? More to the project itself. If a, a vendor is hired at a certain area for a statewide vendor, then maybe we understand where that's at, and that could be a step forward before we get to a point to where we're sitting here again at, at close to half $1,000,000,000 of surcharge towards the consumer.

I understand that it's not coming from the general fund, but it's a surcharge to consumers, constituents of ours. And so, building in something of that sort, I'm asking you if you would have an idea of when that update should be there before the legislature starts to enact and say, here's when we want that reported back to us.

I don't think I have a specific answer to that question. I, I know over the last year, we've produced a couple of such reports to the legislature. One, one was in the November time frame, and one was here recently in the March time frame. And so, I feel like, in, in conjunction with the other elements of oversight in, you know, I think that works pretty well.

I, I guess the question is, do you believe there should be oversight? And if there was oversight, by the legislature, will we be at the the point to where we are today?

I, I firmly believe oversight is valuable and don't have any objection to that.

Thank you so, so much for that. And I do want to try to put people's minds at ease. There is a 911 system functioning in the state of California. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Yes. So, we have what we refer to as the legacy 911 system, and it is out there and operational at, at all of the 440 plus public safety answering points right now, and it will remain so until such time as we get all of the public safety answering points transitioned successfully onto the next generation 911 system. And so, in a manner of speaking, we'll be having the legacy system while we were—are building and deploying to the next gen system. Once that's done, then, of course, we could decommission the legacy system that's based on copper telephone lines and analog routing structures. So, yes, all the, all the calls are going to an answering point right now, and it will continue to be that way forever.

Now, moving forward, you're looking at securing vendor contracts for a statewide approach that has been proven successful in areas like Southern California, which you'll get me the.

Yes.

The time frame of when that went active in South Carolina and other jurisdictions. Now, moving from, I guess, the old, old system to the new statewide system, regions versus statewide, have all the vendors and contracts been made whole? Is there any liability moving forward that we should know about?

No. There, there is no liability. The, the contracts that we had with our vendor partners for the regional system all expired in 2024. And so, there is no further, further obligation on our part to that. Since then, they've been operating under the tariff structure, and that is essentially a month-to-month concern. And so, we continue to engage with them through the month-to-month service process, and we will, of course, give them the thirty days notice, before we end up canceling the service with them.

And thank you. And, and just one more question, then I'll go to LAO. Now, moving to the statewide model, has there been any action taken by OES to start moving that direction?

So, yeah, there's a couple of steps that we've been working, developing the statement of work for an open solicitation that we intend to put out, onto the street and ultimately award, in the fall time frame of 2026. So, that is a statement of work that is intended to meet industry best practices and standards and also build in the resiliency that we all know is necessary from a mission critical public safety communication system. So, working with experts in the field to make sure that we have the right terms inside of that statement of work and working with our partners at the Department of Technology to make sure that we have all of the new telecommunications terms and conditions built into this contract, as well as cybersecurity terms and conditions. Some of which are new since the last time we went out for a contract, and so, we wanna make sure all of that's built in. So, that's the coalition of people who are involved in moving that forward.

Thank you so much for that. LAO?

I just wanted to make sure that we included in the conversation that the, the statewide model absolutely can work, but there have also been statewide failures. There have been, like, Pennsylvania had a statewide failure. So, it, it—we need to look carefully at how the model is developed to ensure that it doesn't expose us to that. The other challenge with a single vendor is what is known as vendor lock in, which basically once this next vendor comes, it's gonna be really hard for us to back away a third time.

And so, whatever choice is made now that kind of adds ramps up the importance of it. And the third thing is that while we're talking about the, the network here, we also have to remember this is a system and the network is part of the system. There are other parts of the system like the dispatch centers. Will they have the right technology to be able to take these calls? We have to move everybody together.

Will the, will your, your telephone carrier who provides your, right? Will your iPhone have, have the GIS information in it to send to the system? Will it carriers—where all of these various entities are moving slowly in this direction. But even if we had a flawless network, the fiber optic was perfect, the core services were perfect, there could still be other aspects of the system that could still be a problem. So, I just wanna expectation set with that, and make sure that that's part of our understanding.

Well, thank you, for that. And looking for that information on on best and worst case scenarios on a statewide model. Mentioning South Carolina as a success model, maybe we need to see worst case scenarios out there also. Assemblymember Schultz.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I forgot to do two things. Sir, I just wanted to thank you for being in the hot seat today. I came in pretty skeptical and I thought you did a good job, all things considered. The only thing I wanted to close with as you all prepare on the May—working on, on the May Revise, you'll be back before us soon.

The analogy was used, you know, it wasn't a complete waste necessarily. It's like renting up a place. You can't take things with you. I get that. Just so you have the mindset of one legislator.

Yeah. We rented the apartment and I guess we have the space, but the lights and the plumbing hardly worked. So, before I renew the lease, I wanna know that those are gonna be cured. And at this point in time, without more information, I have to agree wholeheartedly again with the LAO's analysis. I don't have a degree of confidence. So, that's what I'm looking for between now and May. Thank you.

Thank you for that. And thank you so much for being forthcoming with all the information, and we look forward to working with you and getting the information moving forward. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

As now, we move to panel two, as we give a little time for panel one to clear out before panel two comes forward.

Our second panel is Dan Ferguson, CEO of NGA nine one one systems. Barbara Wynne, chief growth officer, NGA nine one one. And chief Daniel Muncy from San Bernardino County Fire Protection District. Welcome, chief Muncy.

Thank you.

Alright. Who's leading the discussion? Is Don Ferguson gonna lead it first or who's leading?

Out out of respect for the chief There. If you want to start or I can start.

I would. Listening to the hearing today was very educational. You have 99 problems, and I don't think this needs to be another one. Today, what the public doesn't understand is a lot of the technology that they have every day on their cell phones do not translate public safety. I often joke and say my wife's been tracking me since 2009.

Yet we have a very difficult time knowing where the callers are. They're calling the 911 system. Think about my kids. I wanna know where they're at. And if they're in a situation where they can't call, maybe that's in an active shooter situation.

Maybe it's in the the mountains that we have in our backyard. If they can't get a solar signal, the ability to text 911 is extremely important. Today, we live in a data world where we share data. The public wants to send us videos of what's happening. This is great for the firefighters that are responding so we can develop the situation awareness that we need or the appropriate resources so that we can mitigate incidents quicker.

That's the promise of NG 911 that was given to us in 2018, and it's a promise that we've been building our systems on. We have spent an immense amount of money in our local, dispatch center, con fire, JPA, to prepare for NG 911. We bested our staff's time. They've had the software, the hardware, the training come in to start moving in that direction. And as we've been waiting for the promise of 911 we've had system out outages from the legacy system, Whether that's copper wire theft or other issues that have led to our 911 system being temporary, unavailable.

The greatest fear that I have as a fire chief is undoubtedly a firefighter passing while on the job. But the second greatest fear that I have is a massive failure of our 911 system. So to keep that firefighter safe, almost everything we do is based on a PACE plan. A PACE plan means we have a primary plan, an alternate, a contingent, an emergency plan. So you can imagine that when I think of the next generation 911 system, how important you you must understand that this is a redundant system.

And I think the LAO's report was excellent. I thought your comments were excellent. I think that you described exactly the feeling of the fire service. So I'm a little bit more than just the fire chief for the county of San Bernardino. I'm also the California Metro Fire Chiefs president.

I sit on the FireScope Board of Directors. I sit on national committees, including the past president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs Tech Council widely. And those three groups, the fire chiefs agree with what I'm saying. When we look at the top three issues facing a fire service, this conversation comes up. Our legacy 911 system, how it's, prone to failure, the promise of the next generation 91 and why has, so much time been invested in this over the years?

Is it making it better? Is it making it harder? Is it just simply making it easier by moving away from redundancy? So I'll stop and allow, NGA to to place their comments. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Go ahead.

Chair members of the committees, thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today, and thank you for your ongoing focus on public safety in California's 911 system. My name is Don Ferguson. I'm the CEO of NGA 911. Our company operates next generation 911 systems across The United States and globally.

In California, we've deployed Los Angeles and central regions. It is NENA compliant and Cal OES tested and approved. We built it on the most modern cloud services available, Amazon Web Services. We subject ourselves to annual well architected reviews by AWS. The architecture is not only locally geodiverse, but also nationally diverse, ensuring a modern, robust, flexible, scalable, and up to date 911 system for Californians.

California's transition to NextGen as approved by the legislature in 2019, is similar to the regional architectures deployed in Florida and Texas, where risk is mitigated across geographic regions and multiple vendors. To add some historical context about California NextGen, in June 2021, the NextGen core system was validated at the Cal OES testing laboratory, including successful interoperability testing between the regions and statewide provider. The first PSAPs went live later that year. Additional deployments followed in 2022 and early 2023. By 2024, the NextGen infrastructure installation was completed at all 449 public safety answering points across California.

Currently, the next gen network is connected to more than 100 telecommunication service providers, geospatial routing is validated, and the system has been fully and successfully tested statewide. Around August 2024, in the middle of pre migration readiness testing, when at least 62 PSAPs were readied for turn up, the project was paused. Meetings were canceled, and all communication from Cal OES stopped. This was very odd and confusing. In November 2024, Cal OES asked NGA to provide a detailed record of 134 system incidents that occurred during the early deployment of NextGen.

These incidents occurred in 2022 and 2023 during the initial deployment and were highlighted by the media. Unfortunately, the media was not interested in the fact that the early incidents were all corrected. In any event, we complied fully with this request. We provided approximately 3,000 pages of documentation, including logs, trace files, root cause analysis, maintenance records, and operational procedures. All the empirical, factual data provided lessons learned that have been applied to the to the impressive system in place today.

Here are some findings in that detailed analysis. First, the regional provider was a single point of contact, so all issues were reported to the region. This had the appearance that all issues were caused by the regional provider. That is a false narrative. Second, only 21% of these very early issues were attributable to the region.

And the breakdown of these 21 tickets is as follows. 12 tickets were related to test configuration or spam mitigation. Six were serviced degradation where 911 calls were still delivered. One was an actual outage that affected only T Mobile calls to Tuolumne County Sheriff, which lasted approximately forty minutes. One triggered the automatic fail failover to the statewide provider, and 911 calls were unaffected, demonstrating the importance of a multivendor regional architecture.

The conclusion is that the regional architecture was not the major contributor to these early issues. So a plan to dismantle the regional architecture does not align with the lived experience of the California NextGen 911 project. Third, and this is very important, the majority, 79% of the early issues encountered had nothing to do with the regional provider at all, but rather were associated with various other issues, alignment to the legacy system, the statewide provider, adjustments to next gen call delivery from the carriers, operational procedures, PSAP training, or project communication. 79%. It is important to note that incidents that occur during early deployment were not concentrated in a single vendor or component, so singling out one vendor does not seem logical.

The incidents were distributed across the broader ecosystem that makes up a 911 system. This is what a real system integration effort looks like. Many of the challenges encountered during this period stem from a reality that every state in the country faces. Namely, that old legacy 911 equipment is an obstacle to a perfect 911 system. The question is not whether modernization should continue.

It absolutely must and at a much faster pace because the legacy system has been failing for a long time as evidenced by large scale legacy network and CPE outages in Los Angeles where I live and other parts of the state in the past six months. The question is whether decisions about the future of this system will be guided by the evidence of how the system actually performed or by narratives that do not reflect or fully reflect the operational record. The regional approach adopted by the legislature and Cal OES is the correct approach and is, in fact, currently able to function as designed and anticipated. Public safety infrastructure should not be redesigned based on misinformed journalists looking to create a story. Redesigns affect real costs and risks.

The regional networks continue to provide service today and have not experienced systemic or systematic technical failures. The ESInet is solid. There have been software application bugs, all of which have been aggressively addressed during the life of this project. The design to pause has placed the entire state at risk as people are forced to rely on a failing legacy 911 system. The situation worse worsens every day and the risk increases.

The Olympics, World Cup, and Super Bowl are coming to California. Lives should not be entrusted with lives should be entrusted with a robust regional design that is ready for turn up. We welcome oversight and accountability along with technical review. All of the region regional components are ready, and we are excited to turn it on. Decommissioning of the legacy system can start and does not need to wait for 2030.

Interim contracts and solutions are unnecessary since the current active tariff structure can hold vendors accountable to high service levels. And there's no need to build a new system since the one we have works and is ready for turn up. If we have learned anything from the LA fires where I live, it's planned for the worst. Don't put all your eggs in one basket and have multi multiple contingency plans. When the single network when the single statewide provider architecture fails, it will take out all 449 PSAPs affecting all 400 all 40,000,000 residents across the state at the same time, just like it did in Pennsylvania.

That is a tragedy we can avoid with a little more oversight and a regional design that divides the state into four distinct regions. Let's turn on the regional system we know works and deliver Californians the system they already paid for. Rather than risk rather than ask them to wait another five years, spend hundreds of millions more for a lesser system. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.

Thank you so much for your testimony. Is that NGA 911's testimony or do we have a second?

That is our testimony. Thank you. Thank you. Alio?

Nothing to add.

Thank you. Back to the dais. Assembly member Schultz.

Oh, you knew I'd have questions, mister chair.

Yeah. Herve been Thank

you for the testimony. I'll be candid. I don't know if we're gonna agree on approach, but that's not the point of my question. You, maintain that the regional approach is the right proven way to go. I I do hear that.

If I think back to what I heard from the last panel, they felt pretty strongly that shifting statewide would resolve some of the idea the issues that they identified. So in all fairness, my question to you is please walk me through why they're mistaken or why they are wrong. Why wouldn't a shift to a statewide approach be better for California?

Sure. Thank you for the question. There were three issues that were identified, call routing, drop calls, and audio quality. I'll start it with audio quality, and, my background is technical. I've lived, eaten, and breathed these projects in 2019.

Higher quality, on on next gen or for that matter, any phone call can be from the caller going up to the carrier's network, being handed over to the ESINET, passing through the EZNET, and landing at the PSAP. Audio quality can affect can be affected by all of those. So they're moving to a statewide provider is not going to handle an audio quality issue. That's one. Two, call routing.

I can specifically talk to call routing. The call routing that we're talking about or the situation that I have in mind is is this, that the Verizon I three network that we deployed took us eighteen months to build that with Verizon. And, when a caller hung up, so it's a hang up call, that hang up happened at a certain period of time within that call, and the just at the ingress of the call, it didn't know how to route it. That's a bug. It affected about nine calls a day, and those calls were default routed to Mono County.

So Mono County was handling abandoned call events and calling them back. We own that bug. We fixed it. We built a patch, and we're waiting for Cal OES to approve the application of that patch. Dropped calls, I I think, is more on, transferring our calls.

We had a bug. The bug affected one to three transfers a day, and we developed a patch for that, and that patch is waiting to be applied. So it's a couple patches that are already done, and, this system will continue to evolve. It'll continue to get pressure from the way from from from changes in the way that the carriers interact with 911 services. It's it's we're no longer in this static world of legacy 911.

This is a dynamic IP system that is going to continue to evolve. There will be problems. The the the handling is to have the processes and the procedures in place to handle those quickly and effectively.

Thank you. The other question that I had, since you mentioned legacy 911 I may have misheard you. I just wanted clarification. It sounded I didn't write it down, but it sounded like you were saying that the legacy 911 system was failing or perhaps there were defects with it. I would certainly agree that there are so many positive additive qualities of next gen, so much more that we can do to respond quicker quicker.

But is your testimony that you feel legacy 911 is failing in California?

It is, in fact, failing. It's it's not a it's not an opinion. It is, in fact, failing.

And walk me through it like a kindergartner. In what ways do you feel that it's failing?

So the the details of exactly precisely the failures in the in the legacy system and the root cause of those failures in the legacy system are better asked of Cal OES. But

And I will at the right but but since you are here before me, please describe how you feel it's failing.

What I what I specifically I live in Los Angeles. That's our home. I have three boys, wife. We love LA. Sacramento's not bad either since we're all here in Sacramento.

There have been two major outages, one at LASO, and I would I would recommend bringing LASO to, calling them, asking them the nature of that outage and what the root cause was. The second was LAPD. And, the LASO was about twelve hours, I think, but I don't don't quote me on that. And LAPD lasted multiple days. Degraded service, and I would certainly invite LAPD to talk about those outages, and those are all in the past six months.

Just as two. There are many others, but those are just two.

I I appreciate it. I'll I'll leave you with a very similar posture that I left the last panel. You know, there is some common ground between what I heard heard from both panels, but there's also disagreement in the solution. And as I sit here, looking at the budget season, I definitely need more information. I'm not yet convinced that what Cal OES is proposing is a better solution, but I equally would want to see over the course of next few months greater degree of confidence that this system that has been initially invested in, that has started, can continue to work and get more effective.

So that's just my invitation to you as one member of this budget subcommittee. We'd love to get more information in the coming weeks and months before we have to make a final decision. Thank you, mister chair.

Thank you so much. Chief Muncie, you mentioned the legacy system and certainly the terrain of San Bernardino County Mountains, and we have all the different trains there. Can you elaborate more on on where the the system is failing? That so that we know that that there is a need, an urgent need to continue to move forward in the 911 system.

Well, to be to be clear, I think our legacy 91 system is the very best nineteen seventies system that there is in existence today. The problem is is that our requirements are to be 2030. That's what the public expects. That's communication that we need, from everything for the use of robotics to just positioning location. So moving into that next generation is the most important thing.

As far as the fill points, a lot of it is just that legacy systems is getting tired. It wasn't built for the number of calls that are currently routed through it. The the the routers, don't have the capability. It's just not modernized to what we're trying to do today. So we put a lot of fixes on that system.

We use third party solutions. We tie our CAD systems together, all to bandage a legacy system, and that these create new fail points. This is really a government's, and it's about interoperability. And when you talk about governance of multi systems create that redundancy, that reliability, it takes a lot of work. You need very good project managers. You need very good agreements, and you need oversight to bring this into fruition.

Thank you for that. And we heard certainly from the last panel, and and you heard our our need for oversight during that time, during our comments. I also wanna get to the point that you brought up with the 911 system that you believe that some of the criticism is more driven by the media, not by fact driven facts. Is that correct?

Correct. Yes. Correct. That is correct.

Can you elaborate a little more

on that? So, this I I I I'd like to elaborate on that and at the same time answer, one of the questions that you asked the prior panel. In fact, I wrote down your questions and would like to offer answers. So, this this all really this pause, this time out, whatever you wanna call it, all started with, NBC News reporting that NextGen correct me if I'm quoting it wrong, was gonna kill people. NextGen Californian NextGen system in California was gonna kill people.

It was really over the top reporting. It was, driven it was driven from issues that were that I shared with you that were experienced in 202120222023 like, from older days, older lessons learned. And that right around that time is when the pause came in. We were doing pre migration readiness testing. The, NBC News gets wind of issues with the NextGen project.

I don't know how. And then this pause comes. So I draw a direct correlation between those that news reporting and the and the pause.

And to to your understanding, there there is no fact driven reason for that pause to have happened?

I I I think it's always good to reflect. I I think that taking a time out and and saying what are our lessons learned or is is is very healthy. I think eighteen months is way too long, though. And, you know, how long do you need a time out? I can tell you during that pause period, NGA, one of the we are a regional provider.

We cover half the state. We were not brought in for a single discussion with Cal OES about our lessons learned in in in the five years that we were were running the project. That was odd. That is odd for me.

Thank you, for your testimony. Do we have a follow-up question, something in results?

I would say just in fairness, it sounds like you wrote down my question earlier. Would love to hear your answer as

well. Please.

And if you could maybe just remind myself and everyone else in the room So

what

the question was.

So, what did the public benefit? The answer the the the the raw truth of it is is and we're a service provider for half the state. The answer is nothing. If you wanna be honest with them, nothing until you turn it on. This is why I'm here advocating to turn it on. Hold us accountable. Make sure that we've crossed every I dotted every t. Follow these protocols that the chiefs follow because they work. Hold us accountable. Turn it on.

Then you can say it was well worth it. That's one. Why now? It's the, the NBC news story started. There was at the same time a change in leadership at Cal OES. Those two correlated. I think a new person came in and said, I wanna do it my way. Short of it, that's why now. And you can correlate those. Regional versus statewide, North Carolina has 11,000,000 people.

The project started from 2015, finished in 2024. Turns out North Carolina is almost the same size as a region in California. California is a bigger state. It's a liar larger geography. The logic between be behind regions is you cannot suffer a statewide outage.

You need to have vendors that you're you're you're spreading your risk. Fund fundamental. And you're spreading even you're you're distributing risk even further by having a statewide backup. Because if my region doesn't get it right, I can fail to that backup, or I can fail to the other region. But what you will not encounter is a statewide outage with a regional approach.

Mitigate risk, multiple vendors, competitive landscape. Make sure all your eggs are not in one basket. Make sure that they follow the NENA standards so they are interoperable. And if they are not interoperable, write an SLA, hold them accountable, and say make it work. We do not as a regional provider, we do not have a single SLA or corrective action plan against us. That's a fundamental tool to engage your vendors and to hold them accountable. We have none of that. That's a now point.

Thank you so much for your comments. Chief Muncie, you know, it's good to see you here. We go back to the days on the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors, con fire. We've worked on a lot of these issues. We looked at different, facilities at in the valley and up in the High Desert to make sure that there is repeaters and those things moving forward.

And it is terrain. So this is an issue that really has gotten my attention, the 911 system. I I will say though that we had a hearing last year on the 911 system and the fires Altadena. And we did identify that 911 locally went out, and it took a little while than the state. Now when one system came into place, so there is a mechanism that is working out there.

And I wanna let people know that if you call 911 today, there will be somebody, answering that call. So 911 is not in jeopardy today. We are talking about the future of the 911 system to make sure that it is compatible with the growth that's there with the cell phones and the different things that are moving forward. And so I I do wanna thank you and thank you. Achieve Muncy for taking the time to be up here and bringing not only San Bernardino County's perspective, but the statewide perspective also to this body as we were given a lot of information around this subject here today.

So thank you so much for your testimony as now we'll move to our final panel. This one. That's the one that issue seven. So thank you so much for your testimony as now we'll move to our final panel. This one. That's the one that issue seven.

Alright. We're moving on to issue seven. Southern California wildfire recovery updates. Rob Robin Fennegan, deputy director, recovery, Cal OES. Eli Owen, assistant director, recovery operations, Cal OES. Eric Swanson, deputy director of finance and logistics administration, Cal OES. Sarah Swan, department of finance. Zachary Boss, department of finance. Heather Gonzalez, LAO. Drew Soderbergh, LAO. And we'll start with deputy director Robin Fenigan. Yeah.

Thank you very much, Chair Ramos, for inviting us here today. Committee members, nice to see you all. My name is Robyn Fennig. I am the deputy director for recovery at Cal OES. Here with me from our recovery directorate is Eli Owen.

He's the assistant director of recovery operations, and we're happy to answer questions about our engagements to help support the ongoing recovery efforts in Los Angeles. Eli and I both, serve as state coordinating officers, for the state for this disaster, and have done so since the disaster was federally declared on January 8, the day after the fire started. This declaration turned on the public assistance, individual assistance, and post disaster hazard mitigation programs, and also afforded California the access to direct mission tasking by FEMA with support from other federal agencies. Cal OES Recovery, including Eli and myself, deployed to Pasadena on January 10, and the wildfires were only about 20% contained. During that time, we worked with our FEMA counterparts to set up what's called the joint field office or a JFO, and we began our operations the next day on January 11.

Strong coordination was maintained with our local jurisdictions, our federal and state partners, and we remained on the ground for, almost all of 2025 with our team. We attended late night town halls, met with survivors at disaster recovery centers, and coordinated with our partners across state, local, and Federal Government. We've I I would say officially returned to Sacramento, November 21, when the JFO closed. And we continue to secure as much funding in, technical assistance support for our partners, and across the state of California. After the JFO closed, we had we transitioned to a satellite office down in Southern California, where we have 40, Cal OES recovery staff engaged, to help support our local partners.

We also continue our biweekly calls with both the city and county of Los Angeles, and monthly calls with the city of Malibu. And I think as recently as just a few days ago, at the end of last week was our last set of calls with all three stakeholders. One of the main topics that we have been asked to discuss with you today is soil sampling. I first want to start off by saying that Eli and I, I would say are pretty pretty especially in the last year, we are experts in the delivery of the public assistance programs, as well as the hazard mitigation programs. We're not the subject matter experts for contamination, remediation, toxic substances, thresholds, for concern, public health impacts, and the like.

We're cost recovery facilitators. You know, and we're working to help support our state agencies, our our tribes, and local partners to get as much funding reimbursed, from the Federal Government, through our grant programs as possible. We have listened to the discussions and findings of these experts through our soil work group, that

emerged through our joint field that emerged through our joint field office operations and still remain engaged there today. So first and foremost, Cal OES is very committed to advocating for the safe, timely removal of wildfire debris. And we evaluate each debris mission by its own merit. So we look at the size, the scope, the breadth of the removal process, local jurisdictions, capabilities, and capacities. And the state role in wildfire cleanup really depends kind of on that scale and complexity of the event.

I will say that Los Angeles is not the typical event that we we do, and we do a lot of debris operations, but it's not typical. In some cases, local jurisdictions have the capacity to manage their own debris removal programs. In these instances, Cal OES will provide technical assistance and help facilitate potential reimbursement through the California Disaster Assistance Act or CDAA. For larger magnitude or more complex events, we will, as the state will work with our, CalRecycle partners to lead debris operations, and that's really when local capacity, is exceeded. And then there are those certain magnet certain events that are of magnitude that are that are this kind of the size and scale of something like LA, where we have access to direct federal aid.

And at the state's request, the Federal Government will then lead the debris operations. In regard to soil testing, the role of Cal OES is limited to cost recovery. Up until 2018, FEMA's policy was to initially remove three inches of soil and test it. And if the testing failed to meet certain standards, they would go back and then do an additional three inches of soil removal and then have additional testing. After the campfire, FEMA changed their approach and stopped funding soil testing after the debris removal and instead opted to implement a standard of removing the full six inches, right away.

It was faster and more efficient to help speed local, disaster recovery. Any soil sampling that the state chooses to do will not be reimbursed by the Federal Government. Despite this, the US EPA began an ongoing effort that started in January. The US EPA conducted soil testing for data analysis on cross sectional sampling of 100 randomly selected properties in the Eaton Burn scar, testing only for lead level lead levels. The US EPA has stated that they will share the results of the samples when they are available, and, the EPA will share it with both the county and the state with the general geographic information, but will not disclose any of the privately identifiable information about particular properties or property owners.

But individual property owners will get their confidential results. They just will not share the those confidential results with their the government partners. Another top line asked from the committee was to also discuss ongoing FEMA reimbursement efforts. There are currently 696 active FEMA public assistance projects, totaling approximately $1,200,000,000 in estimated eligible costs. We'll can we'll continue to to evolve those those costs as the scopes of work and insurance settlements and and appeals are finalized.

Reimbursements from FEMA are taking a significantly longer, time frame than the historical average. To date, only about 4% of anticipated federal share has been obligated by FEMA with over $500,000,000 pending obligation. Cal OES continues to press on FEMA to increase the amount obligated so that we can get much needed federal funding into California communities. Since late 2024 FEMA has implemented multiple program delivery changes that obligate projects faster administratively, but the reimbursements and construction timelines are slowing because of some of those post obligation, revisions that have to take place. People have to submit change requests and it slows down the entire, program for the local communities trying to access funding.

And there are a lot of eligibility disputes that result during all of those processes. Cal OES is actively supporting applicants through their appeals, helping with technical assistance and coordination, and also pushing on FEMA to help resolve some of those eligibility issues. To provide immediate relief, the legislature approved $2,500,000,000 in wildfire response and recovery funding under a b 100. With the chair's permission, I will now turn to my colleagues, from the Department of Finance to introduce the control sections.

Thank you.

Thank you. Zachary Voss, California Department of Finance. So I'll start with a high level overview of the control section. Control Sections 90.0 and 90.01 authorized a cumulative $2,500,000,000 in total augmentation authority, and this is for a variety of purposes related to disaster response and recovery. The various authorities and their associated expiration dates were authorized by three separate bills.

The first, control Section 90 of the 2024 budget act, authorize the director of finance to augment any department or agency appropriation up to a total of 1,500,000,000.0 for a variety of disaster response recovery efforts, and these include State Department Disaster response costs related to the wildfires in January 2025, funding to Los Angeles County and cities within within the county for response recovery from the Eaton and Palisades fire, and backfills to taxing entities who lost property tax revenues as a result of the Eaton and Palisades fire. Second, control Section 90.01 of the 2024 budget act authorized an additional $1,000,000,000 in augmentation authority, bringing the total to the 2,500,000,000.0 that I mentioned previously. Lastly, control Section 90 of the 2025 budget act authorizes augmentations within the cumulative 2,500,000,000.0, authorized by the prior two from the 2024 budget act for continued state agency recovery costs, also related to the Eaton and Palisades fire. Los Angeles County Community College response and recovery costs related to those fires, and state agency costs related to the enhanced public safety, resulting from, fiscal year 24-25, and 25-26 public demonstrations. And then control sections ninety and 90.01 also require finance to post the Los Angeles wildfire response and recovery expenditure report on our website with regular updates.

And as noted in the most recent report, finance has approved a total of $547,000,000 in augmentations to date. And I'm happy to answer any specific questions on the control section.

Thank you so much for that. Alio?

Nothing to add.

Thank you, so much. Did that conclude the testimony, from OES? Yes.

It did. Thank you very much, chair Ramos.

Thank you so much. We have any questions, comments from the dais? Assemblymember Harbinian.

I do. Thank you, mister chair. Thank you for having me, and thank you guys for being here. It's good to good to see you. Thanks for everything you're doing for the communities affected by the wildfires.

I represent the areas affected by the Eaton Fire, so appreciate everything you guys have done there and and what you continue to do. And I'm just gonna go through just some questions. I understand that you you might not be subject matter experts for some of these, but your best answer and to the extent someone else, maybe you can just point me in that direction. But there were a number of questions here that the staff report had outlined that, we were hoping to get answers for, and and I just didn't hear a lot of that in the testimony. So I'm just gonna, for purposes of fact finding, make sure that we go over these.

So one of the things about the recovery in both Eden and less so in the Palisades is soil testing and whether there's gonna be funds for that. So there's obviously three options for paying for soil testing. It's Federal Government, the state, or local government who ultimately decides which of these entities actually pays, for testing soil testing?

Well, I mean, ultimately so the the request itself starts with the local government. Right? An entity has to make a request to Cal OES for us to even evaluate what various levels of support to turn on, and to show that it does, you know, exceed their local capacity. In terms of who actually pays for the soil soil sampling, I mean, post 2020 the Federal Government has not reimbursed any soil sampling. So it will either caught it would either fall to the local or state, various funding streams to actually pay for it.

And it really depends on what assistance mechanisms are turned on. I think throughout the years, there have been a variety of different state packages to assist, for certain for certain disasters and certain time frames. But, I mean, ultimately, it starts with a local request, and it really depends on what mechanisms are available for particular disasters. And they've varied widely over the years.

Anything to add or is that consistent with your understanding?

Yeah. Nothing to add, yeah,

to to any of that. I I'm imagining you're moving toward the control section, funding question.