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

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.

got it.

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.