Senate Standing Committee on Human Services

Good afternoon. The Senate Human Services Committee will come to order. We're holding our committee hearings in the 0 Street Building. I'll ask all members to be present in Room 2200. We have 12 bills in today's agenda.

Three of those bills are on proposed consent calendar. It looks like we have a quorum. So before we hear the presentation on bills, let's establish quorum.

Becker? Here. Becker, here. Niello?

Here.

Laird, here. Perez?

Here.

Niello, here. Laird?

Weber Pearson?

Here.

Weber Pearson, here.

We have a quorum. Okay. We have three bills and proposed consent calendar file items 10, SB 1345 by Wahab. File item 11, SB 1410 by our Pro Tem Limon. File item 12 by SB 1421 by our Pro Tem Emeritus Maguire.

Do any consent agenda. Okay. Could you please call the roll on the consent calendar?

Becker?

Aye.

Becker, aye. Nilo?

Aye.

Aye.

Nilo, aye. Laird?

Laird, aye. Perez, Weber Pearson?

Aye.

Weber Pearson, Aye.

Okay. Four to zero. The consent calendar is adopted. Okay. We'll have our, first author.

Okay. Excellent. So, I see Senator Choi, you are here to present SB 971. Please go ahead when ready. This is file item two.

Thank you, Chair and the Members. I'm pleased to present the Senate bill 971, which acknowledges that the California's growing older adult population deserves access to the knowledge and the resources necessary to live and thrive in today's world. At its core, SB 971 is about empowering seniors and ensuring that they are not left behind in a rapidly changing society.

SB 791 will establish a statutory framework authorizing counties to deliver older adult education and the technology training through local public health systems in partnership with the community-based organizations and the local school districts to improve health, independence, and the quality of life for California's age 55 and older. These counties would also be granted the authority to determine the content of their programs based on their existing needs and available resources.

SB 971 also recognizes the challenges that many seniors face, such as modern technology, managing bills and finances, preparing meals, maintaining health, keeping active, and staying connected with the loved ones. Counties can include the program modules, like a guidance in technology assistance, physical activity, music and arts programming, cultural programming, language learning opportunities, and shared meals, but are not limited to these options.

The bill will strengthen social connections for our seniors and will help them remain active, informed, and engaged the members in our communities. I hope our witnesses here joining today is Steve Lipson, with the bill's sponsor, the California Senior Legislature, and Brian Rutledge with the California Association of Adult Day Services. Go ahead.

Okay. You have two minutes.

Chair Becker and members of the committee, my name is Steve Lipson, and I serve as a Senior Senator in the California Senior Legislature. I'm here in support of SB 971. This bill reflects a simple idea as California's older adult population grows. Our system should be able to respond in flexible, locally appropriate ways. SB 971 does not create a mandate or impose new requirements.

It provides a permissive framework allowing local entities, whether public health departments, area agencies on aging, school districts, or others to partner when it makes sense for their communities. We know older adults benefit from opportunities that support health, connection and independence. And increasingly, that includes areas not being addressed consistently today, particularly digital literacy, fraud and scam awareness and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence.

In that way, SB 971 directly supports the goals of the California's master plan for aging, especially reducing isolation and helping older adults remain independent. Without access to trusted community-based learning, many older adults are left exposed to financial harm or effectively shut out of the digital world.

Some may ask whether this duplicates existing services. What this bill does is encourage coordination. It recognizes that no single system currently owns this space and enables collaboration across those that already serve older adults. Importantly, implementation is entirely optional and dependent on local capacity. This is not about creating something new.

It's about enabling communities to build on what they already do well. If AI is shaping California's future, SB 971 helps ensure older Californians aren't left out of it. With no opposition on file and a unanimous vote in Senate health, I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm Brian Rutledge from the California Association for Adult Day Services, CADDs. Thank you, Chair and Members, for the opportunity. So we're here to support SB, 971. One, because the premise of the bill makes sense. The goal of offering opportunities for lifelong education to seniors, is critical.

It helps, move forward on the master plan for aging. Just generally, supporting older folks is not only currently critical, but it's gonna be increasingly critical as the state continues to age. We also support the bill's structure. So this was designed with the amendments to be a prescriptive framework, and that's something we can get behind. It's optional.

And it, ultimately, in terms of the impact, we support that it enables collaboration. It promotes, people who are already doing work in this space, whether that's state agencies, AAA's, local entities. It promotes them, to continue in that direction, and this could potentially leverage those efforts by encouraging new types of coordination. So with that, we ask for the support. We appreciate it.

Okay. Thanks to both of you. Any others, in support who would like to weigh in, in support of this bill? Accept the mic. Thank you.

Andrew Mendoza on behalf of the Alzheimer's Association in support.

Okay. Excellent. Alright.

We will now turn to opposition. Are there any opposition witnesses? Any other folks who wanna register their opposition? Seeing none, we'll come back to the committee then. Any comments on the committee?

Is there a motion for the bill?

I move to the bill.

Okay. Again, for my part, I'll be supporting the bill today. I wanna thank you for tackling agent.

Thank you for both of you for being here. But with an aging population here in California, we very much need bills like this and ideas like this. So I wanna thank you, and with that, we'd like to close.

Thank you, Chair. As, most elder Senator in the legislature, I'm so happy, to receive the bipartisan effort and the support also by the Republicans and the Democrats. And SB 971 reflects our shared commitment to supporting California's older adults. I respectfully ask for your aye vote on SB 971. Thank you.

Okay. We have a motion from Senato Niello. Please call the roll.

File item two, SB 971. Motion is do passed to the floor. Becker?

Becker, aye. Niello?

Aye.

Aye.

Niello, aye. Laird?

Aye.

Laird, aye. Perez? Weber Pierson?

Aye.

Weber Pierson, aye.

Alright. 4-0. That bill passes.

Thank you, Members.

Alright. I see Senator thank you both. I see Senator Alvarado-Gil, you have two bills in front of us. Start with whichever one, you would like first.

Thank you, Mister President. I'm thinking to start with Senate Bill 1234, please.

Excellent. Great. It's file item five, SB 1234.

And I do have some witnesses, if I can invite them forward?

Yes. Please step forward to the table.

Mr. President, or Mr. Chair, permission to use a prop as one of our witnesses has a photo of a family member with her?

Permission granted.

Thank you so much. And as previously agreed, Assemblymember Hadwick is here to share a tie with me in the presentation.

Okay.

Alright. Thank you. Alright. So good afternoon, mister chair and members. Today, I will be presenting Senate Bill 1234 which is the Accountability Before Custody Act or the ABC Act.

This bill ensures that when a juvenile court is in a dependency case already orders a parent or guardian to undergo drug testing, that testing includes fentanyl. At its core, this is a child safety measure grounded in both lived experience and current public health reality. Dependency courts are tasked with making some of the most consequential determinations in our system, whether a child can safely remain in or return to home.

Those decisions must be based on the most complete and accurate information available. Right now, there is a gap in that information. The fentanyl crisis in California is not only affecting adults but increasingly is it impacting our very young children. According to a December 2025 report, from the California Department of Public Health, Substance and Addiction Prevention Branch, a report that I do believe was provided for you.

Just want to confirm that you have that in front of you. Yes?

I received it. Yeah.

Yes. Thank you. There were fifteen California children ages five and under who died from fentanyl related causes in 2023. Most of these children were under the age of two. The vast majority of these cases occurred in the home with a bystander present.

These are not abstract statistics. These are children dying in home environments where dependency courts are being asked to make reunification decisions. The same California Department of Public Health report confirms that fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and a 100 times stronger than morphine, meaning even extremely small exposures can be fatal. It also documents that fentanyl exposure in the very young children We're talking about infants.

Frequently occurs in homes where drugs or drug paraphernalia is not secured, stored, safely and where exposure can happen with without immediate recognition.

These realities are exactly why this bill matters. Now, Senate Bill 1234 does not expand when courts can order drug testing. It does not create new requirements for families. It simply ensures that when testing has already been ordered, fentanyl is included in that panel. And because if fentanyl is now a leading driver of preventable child deaths and exposure in California homes, it should not be excluded from the tools courts use to assess safety. This bill also honors angel families; families across California who have lost children from fentanyl exposure. These are parents and grandparents who could never imagine that a single exposure could take their child's life or their grandchild's life.

Often, in what appear to be a safe home environment, their experiences underscore the urgency of ensuring that fentanyl risk is identified before critical custody decisions are made. Our Senate bill strengthens an existing process in a narrow targeted way. It ensures that courts have the information they need at one of the most critical points in the child welfare system.

I have with me today to testify in support of Senate bill one two three four, Nevada County Sheriff's Office Captain Sean Scales and Corinne Frostick, the grandmother of Charlotte. And representing our Angel families, we have in the audience support members as well.

Their presence reflects both the public safety perspective and the deeply personal impact of this issue. I'll now defer to our witnesses.

Okay. Well, thank you. You and you both have two minutes.

Okay. Hello. My name is Corinne Frostick, and I'm with my daughter-in-law here, Stevie Frostick. I'm here in full support of Senator Marie Alvarado-Gil's ABC act accountability before custody SB 1234. Our lives and our family was forever changed on 05/09/2022.

When my son Evan called me to tell me he had relapsed and I needed to get to the hospital ASAP. When I arrived, I found my beautiful 15 month old granddaughter Charlotte had passed away. Charlotte was a beautiful girl with the sweetest smile. She absolutely adored her parents and she was a light in their world. She was just beginning to talk and was curious and inquisitive. She had had her 15 month well baby checkup just days before her death and was perfectly healthy and happy girl meeting all her expected milestones.

Nothing appeared wrong. The loss of Charlotte has shaken our family to its core. There are empty places at every family gathering from Sunday dinners to birthdays and holidays. I also have a photo of Liam Savoy O'Neal alongside Charlotte. Liam and his father Patrick both lost their lives a few years before Charlotte in our same hometown.

At the time, I couldn't fathom how something like this could happen. But I've come to understand that addiction is an awful disease. It does not discriminate and it does not addiction is an awful disease. It does not discriminate and it does not care who is caught in the crosshairs. And it is absolutely important to emphasize that both parents of both Charlotte and Liam were good people, parents with an awful disease. This bill would not have saved Charlotte or Liam as both parents had been clean and then relapsed and were not under CPS care.

That being said, what this is showing me is that sometimes the risk to a child is not visible even when parents are being monitored.

That is why this bill matters. When a child is being returned to a home, we need every safeguard in place. SB 1234 ensures that fentanyl is included in drug testing when it is already required. Fentanyl is different. It is fast.

It is deadly. And without testing for it, a serious risk can be missed. So, today, I stand here to support ABC Act, whole heartedly. My goal is to save innocent children and raise awareness about the devastation that addiction causes. Thank you for your time and consideration. God bless you all.

Thank you. And we're sorry for your loss. And thank you for being here to testify. Go ahead.

Good afternoon. Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to speak about SB 1234, the ABC Act. My name is Sean Scales. I'm a captain with the Nevada County Sheriff's Office. I'm here on behalf of Sheriff Shannon Moon who is unable to attend but is a proponent of SB 1234.

Nevada County is a rural community of a 100,000 residents running from the foothills of the Western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the Nevada state line. As a rural community, we are often not subject to some of the crimes that occur more frequently in areas with a higher population density, but sadly, that is not the case with illegal fentanyl. Over the past five years, there's been a total of ninety three fentanyl related deaths in Nevada County.

In response, all peace officers in Nevada County now carry Narcan and local ambulance crews are utilizing Narcan on many calls for service where their circumstances are unknown because there's always a chance someone has been exposed to fentanyl. Drug use has never been more dangerous than it is today as those purchasing substances on the illicit market often have no way of knowing what what they contain.

We found fentanyl mixed with cocaine, methamphetamine, counterfeit prescription pills, and many other types of drugs. Often the purchasers of these drugs have no intention of purchasing fentanyl but when purchasing drugs on the illegal market there is no one you can trust. Our deputies have turned over children to child welfare services from houses where parents who suffer from substance use disorder are often incapable of seeing the harm that drugs could do to their child.

In December 2024, our deputies and medical partners responded to an unresponsive two year old child who'd been exposed to fentanyl by those who are supposed to be caring for him. The boy's life was thankfully saved due to several doses of Narcan at the scene.

Deputies found methamphetamine, fentanyl, hypodermic needles, pipes, and other contraband all within child's reach at the residence. Of interest, there was also Narcan at the residence indicating the child's parents knew the dangers of fentanyl yet exposed their child to it anyway. I can assure you there is no call for service more terrible than a deceased child. While we believe adults are free to make choices, children should be shielded from those who would choose fentanyl over their child.

SB 1234 ensures fentanyl will be included on the drug test panel when ordered by a court prior to trial reunification.

This will increase child safety and potentially prevent loss of life. Sheriff Shannon Moon and I urge you to support SB 1234. Thank you for your time.

Thank you for your service and thank you for being here.

Thanks, sir.

Anyone else, in the audience who would like to register their support, feel free to step to the mic and register support. Okay. So, you know, and at this time, is there any opposition? Do we have a lead opposition witness or anyone who wants to register opposition? Okay.

I don't see anyone right now. So we'll turn it back to the committee. Any No. Okay. We have a motion for Senator Niello.

Any discussion or debate? Well, I'll just say thank you both for being here. I know it's incredibly difficult to tell the stories and, you know, relive these moments, but it helps us. It makes it a huge difference when you come on up here, and I appreciate that. I thank the author, for bringing this up and, for moving this forward.

So thank you both. I will be supporting the bill, today. Would you like to close?

Thank you, mister chair. With minimal cost and a very narrow scope, this bill will strengthen child safety decisions with using clear evidence from the California Department of Public Health and lived experiences from our Angel families. So I respectfully ask for your aye vote on Senate Bill 1234.

Okay. We have a motion from Senator Niello.

File item five, SB 1234. Motion is to pass to the floor. Becker?

Aye.

Becker, aye. Nilo?

Aye.

Aye.

Nilo, aye. Laird?

Laird, aye. Perez? Weber Pierson?

Weber Pearson, aye.

Aye.

Okay. Four to zero. That bill is out. It passes. Thank you.

Thank you both. Okay. Your next bill which is come back to Parlour M 4. Great. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Today, I'm presenting SB 1109. In Alpine County, rural communities are being asked to absorb complex juvenile justice responsibilities without the same level of state support, creating real tension between community safety and rehabilitation goals. In communities with limited law enforcement resources, residents in rural areas have raised concerns about oversight, accountability, and whether these facilities are equipped to safely manage higher-need youth populations.

We've also seen across California longstanding concerns with conditions, safety, and oversight in juvenile facilities, underscoring the need for caution and strong accountability measures. For rural counties, the issue is not just policy. It is capacity.

Without adequate funding, staffing, and infrastructure, facilities risk placing both youth and communities in difficult and potentially unsafe situations. We all share the goal of ensuring that young people are treated fairly and given opportunities for rehabilitation, but we must also ensure that policies are workable for every part of California, not just large urban counties with more resources. For these reasons, I respectfully ask for your aye vote, and I am joined today by Senator Alvarado-Gil.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. I want to talk a little bit about this bill and thank the consultants for assisting us in coming to today's hearing. Senate Bill 1109 is about ensuring that when we place our most vulnerable youth in treatment facilities, those placements are actually safe, that they're appropriate, and they're supported by the necessary infrastructure. As someone who personally went through the foster care system, I know how important these programs are.

I also know that short-term residential therapeutic programs, there's few and far between, yet they serve a critical role for youth with higher behavioral and therapeutic needs. But where we place these facilities matters just as much as the services that they provide.

Senate Bill 1109 takes a reasonable, common-sense approach to accountability. It simply says that if a facility receives five or more serious citations in a year, or if it's located in a county of 75,000 residents or less without basic infrastructure--basic infrastructure like a hospital, or a high school, or even a 24-hour law enforcement response--it should be placed on annual review by the state.

This bill does not shut down facilities. It does not remove licensure. It only ensures that when there's clear red flags, there is increased oversight, and unfortunately, we have a clear example of why this is needed: Alpine County, our smallest county in California with a population of just over 1,100 people. In fact, the population recently increased by one when the sheriff deputy had a child.

That's how small this rural community is. I'm going to be presenting data and stories according to documents from state agencies and media reports and ask you to bear with me. Over the past decade and a half, California moved away from the prison-pipeline model, shifting more and more young people into the system, into county-run programs, and I wholeheartedly support that. Governor Newsom also made an emphasis to say that the primary lens for youth rehabilitation is on health. Number one: on health.

Well, in 2022, the Legislature crafted a budget deal that transitioned the division of juvenile justice from purview of corrections to the California Health and Human Services Agency, and under this plan, juvenile justice had been reorganized into a new department called the Department of Youth and Community Restoration. Okay?

The idea is to keep troubled youth closer to home and provide them with better mental health, better healthcare services, social services, and educational and job training so that they will be less likely to reoffend later and that can be rehabilitated. Newsom proposed this change that aligned with California's approach with rehabilitated mission and core values.

He also recognized that trauma that many justice-involved youth have experienced and the importance of adults as a source of support and mentorship. Now, this isn't modern brain science. This is looking at the data and citing fundamental developmental differences that we've seen between adults and people under the age of 25. Now, I'm gonna walk you through some real-life occurrences of experiences of our California youth.

The Silver State Academy, run by a private contractor, Rite of Passage, in 2015, had three days of mass riots; December 7th, a massive fight that local authorities described as racially motivated, prompting wide law enforcement response.

The next night, a second riot occurred, resulting in the arrest of some of the juveniles of the facility. Now, as Rite of Passage staff began working with local and state juvenile justice officials to improve the security of this group home, a third riot broke out on a Saturday night.

This time, youth were armed with makeshift weapons, brawled, set fires to two buildings on the campus, and injured two staff members. We know that children that go to these programs have significant drug or alcohol abuse problems and potentially gang involvement, but they're still kids.

They're youth, ages 13 to 17, that were assigned to the Silver State Academy. Most of them were from California. Would it surprise you for me to tell you that the Silver State Academy was actually located in Nevada? Yes.

We were sending our California kids out of state, as many as eight counties having contract with Rites of Passages, placing our teenagers in these programs. In 2011, auditors faulted the facility for failing to conduct adequate background checks to ensure that staff did not have criminal backgrounds--the most basic, basic in California: check for criminal background before you have trust with our kids--and asked Rite of Passage to strengthen their supervision. 2011, okay?

In a report by California inspectors, a report detailed serious rights violation, dilapidated housing units, fire safety violations, inadequate criminal background checks for staff. A tribal inspector found that staff was physically restraining students for reasons other than to protect students from others. Cited in a California report was the use of physical restraints was out of hand--not my words, California report--is out of hand, illegal, and must stop immediately. In another report-- this is 1999.

I'm gonna take you back, okay? Same organization, Rite of Passage, found that two students were inappropriately restrained or touched. Four students reported witnessing or being blocked by staff for leaving when they were trying to observe what was happening. Staff was quoted as saying, when are we going to start dipping these little m-f-ers?

Why do I have to put up with this retardation all day long? Using terms like brain dead, and moron, and retard to talk about our kids. Talking about kids that were known to AWOL being forced to sleep in their underwear, getting their shoes removed and their clothes removed. This is not new.

These grievance and complaint policies are in report after report of California oversight of Rite of Passage. Now, when kids would file a grievance, they would either-- grievance staff would throw it away, ignore them, or administration would fail to respond. Youth were not permitted to write in their language of native origin. This is cited in the California report. A child who wanted to write to his parent in Spanish was prohibited from doing that.

Issues involving children's records, because again, if it's not on paper, never happened, right? ROP failed to report at least one incident of alleged sexual abuse in this placement unit within the required time frame. This is the most basic that our kids deserve.

Now you might say, okay, Senator, that was 1999. You gave us circumstances in 2015. Well, let me tell you about 2021, Los Angeles County. Rite of Passage, the contractor, was in full compliance with only one of 10 applicable areas between Los Angeles County and the contract for compliance review. One.

One out of 10, okay? This meant that criminal clearance for staff members, five out of five, did not have a criminal clearance in their file. Five out of five did not have training on emergency intervention. Five out of five did not have training on child abuse identification, commercial sexual exploitation, or even transgender-in-questioning training.

Five out of five. One of the vehicles didn't even have vehicle registration, the most basic. This is not my words. This is a California state report. Six out of six children's bedrooms were not safe or properly maintained. None of the five children's files that were reviewed--random, right? Random--had documentation showing that the contractor could and has provided medical care to children over age 12.

Two staff did not have medical or tuberculosis screenings. The same two did not even have CPR training. I could go on, but this is about us doing right by kids. Alpine County has two STRTP facilities within its responsibility and they're both under the supervision of Rite of Passage.

There's no acute hospital in Alpine County. The nearest hospital is across state lines, almost a one-hour trek. The youth placed in these facilities are attending high school in Nevada, in Douglas County--California kids getting healthcare out of state, getting public education out of state. Law enforcement resources are already extremely limited.

What happens to that young person that follows through with a threat of self-harm? We already know that there's multiple violations of Rite of Passage staff not even knowing CPR, not even being trained. Okay? I fear for these kids who are my constituents and I ask you to engage in this conversation with me.

Because what's even more concerning is that while we place these facilities in a county as small as Alpine County, we don't even get a valid letter from the agency that's going to be responsible for caring for these kids. I've made good-faith efforts to work with all parties on this issue. I've been working on this for two years alongside Assembly Member Hadwick.

I've even met with the opposition and asked, how, how could we continue to protect California kids if we are not talking about the bad actors and if we are not talking about facilities that are not providing the lens of healthcare for our kids? I've also attempted to work with Community Care Licensing but received limited response.

Despite those efforts, we were unable to reach a solution that adequately addresses these safety concerns, and so now, I'm forced to legislate and appeal to this committee to ask for your support to move this bill forward. We should not have to legislate the welfare of our kids and the protection of our kids, but when we have a bad actor like Rite of Passage that continues year after year to be cited for serious violations and has continued to care for our children in California, I ask for your intervention.

It's also important to recognize that many of the youth placed in these facilities are girls of color, including Latina and African American young women, and they deserve access to safe environments with proper healthcare, education, and oversight, not placement in isolated areas without basic services that our state is compelled to provide. Let me check if we have witnesses today. Do we have our witnesses?

I'd like to ask our two witnesses to come up and speak in support of 1109: Alpine County Board of Supervisor Chair David Griffith and Alpine County Chief Probation Officer Brian Lowry. I also invite members of this committee to ask questions, and I have my citations on some of the data that I presented as well.

Great. Sure, we'll have discussion, but first, let's hear from our witnesses. Thank you both for being here. You each have two minutes.

You want to go first?

Sure. Good afternoon, Chair Becker and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Brian Lowry, and I serve as the Chief Probation Officer for Alpine County, California's smallest county with a population just over 1,100 residents. I've spent my career working with youth across multiple roles, and I strongly support the mission of STRTPs. These programs were designed to provide short-term, clinically appropriate care, and that's a mission that I stand behind.

However, what we're seeing in rural communities like ours is not a failure of providers; it's a mismatch between placement decisions and local capacity. In Alpine County, two STRTP facilities serving up to 12 youth, often much less, generated 236 calls for service and 116 reports over a five-year period. That accounts for 12% of law enforcement activity in our county, an impact far out of proportion of the population served.

When a youth is in crisis in Alpine County, there is no local clinician to respond, no nearby hospital to stabilize them, and no 24/7 law enforcement coverage to ensure safety. Emergency response relies on unlimited law enforcement staffing in all volunteer fire department and out-of-state paramedics.

Simply put, we do not have and cannot realistically build the infrastructure necessary to support this level of need. This isn't about limiting access to care. We all share the goal of helping high-needs youth, but when placements outpace local capacity, youth experience more disruptions, more crisis response, and ultimately, worse outcomes.

While Title 22 governs safety and operations, it does not gauge the clinical or community impact. California has already recognized the dangers of inappropriate placements, most notably through the elimination of out-of-state placements following serious safety failures. This is not the failure--

We had a long presentation. You reached two minutes, so, thank you. We'll move to your next witness.

Thank you, Chair Becker and honorable committee members, for the opportunity to testify on Senator Alvarado-Gil's SB 1109, related to the operation of short-term residential therapeutic program group homes in small rural counties such as Alpine. My name is David Griffith, and I am the current Alpine County Board of Supervisors Chair where we have, not one, but two of these facilities.

Current state policy does a disservice to the youth in these facilities by placing them in small, rural counties where they are not safe and places an unreasonable burden on our limited law enforcement. With only 1,150 residents, we simply do not have adequate resources to host these facilities. When both homes are full, they are 1% of our population, but over a five-year period, we're responsible for 12% of the calls to law enforcement that required a response.

Incidents involving juveniles require extensive reporting, meaning the impact on law enforcement is significantly greater than 12%. Many of these calls also require a response from our volunteer fire department and occasionally paramedics from neighboring Douglas County in Nevada. Reasons for the calls vary and can include violence between youth, violence between the youth and the counselors, and youth who wander off, often at night, and need to be found and return to the group home.

We do not have law enforcement 24/7, resulting in slow response times when it is necessary to call in an officer. Most, if not all of the youth, are from urban areas and are not accustomed to the hazards present in a rural environment.

Residents know not to go wandering off at night through the brush where they may encounter aggressive wildlife and know not to wander off during the winter through the snow without adequate clothing, but the youth in these group homes do not. Current state policy, which allows these facilities in small, rural counties with inadequate resources, places unreasonable burden on the county and exposes the youth to risks they do not understand.

I urge you to approve Senate Bill 1109, which improves current state policy by ensuring that youth are only placed in counties that have the resources to give them the care that they deserve. Thank you for your time.

Excellent. Thank you. Thank you both for being here. Okay. We'll now have anyone who wants to add on in support. Just name and position on the bill.

Sarah Dukett, on behalf of the Rural County Representatives of California, in support. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. We will turn to the opposition. Do we have a lead opposition witness?

Right. You have two minutes.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Becker and members. Annie Thomas on behalf of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services, respectfully in opposition unless amended, consistent with the committee's requested amendments to SB 1109. As amended, this bill remains deeply problematic because it would require an annual license renewal framework that's overly broad, untethered to actual risk, and likely to further destabilize STRTP capacity at a time when the state urgently needs to preserve it. STRTPs already operate within a rigorous state oversight framework.

The Department of Social Services enforcement structure includes required annual visits for higher risk facilities, complaint investigations, case management visits and plan of correction follow ups. On top of that, the Department of Health Care Services regulates their mental health programs that already are subject to an annual on-site review. If a program is not meeting those standards, the Department of Health Care Services can issue a notice of noncompliance or non-renewal.

Additionally, Type A violations involve immediate health and safety risk, while Type B violations involve a potential risk. This bill treats five Type A and Type B citations in a year as the same trigger for annual renewal without regard to the severity or whether the citations reflect a true pattern of unsafe care that departs from the state's existing enforcement framework and risks imposing major licensure consequences based on citation count alone rather than the risk to the youth.

Lastly, the rural county trigger is arbitrary and harmful. It is disconnected from actual program quality or safety and it risks discouraging providers from operating in rural counties where youth already have limited placement options. At a time, when youth needs are becoming more acute and placement capacity is already fragile, adding new barriers risks delaying or limiting access to the right care when youth need it most.

For these reasons, we are respectfully in opposition unless amended, consistent with the committee requested amendments, and happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Okay. Anyone else who would like to weigh in in opposition? Okay. Seeing none, we'll bring it back, to the committee. Senator Weber Pierson?

Thank you. Chair, thank you for bringing this bill forward and allowing us to have this conversation. Horrific what has been happening to the residents, the youth in your area. So I guess my question is, you know, we have a desire to ensure the safety of all children, not just those who are in counties that are less than 75,000.

So why are we just focusing on counties less than 75,000?

Yeah.

I align with your sentiments. I believe that this particular bad actor has found a loophole program in a community that does not have the services. So the way that this bill was written was to protect those 200 plus STRTPs that are operating in California under this rigorous framework that we already have. But unfortunately, to put Los Angeles next to Alpine County is a very different model.

The way that this bill is written is to say that most basic services is if you don't have a high school and you don't have a medical facility, again, through the lens of health and through rehabilitation that it's not an appropriate placement for youth of this of this nature.

And there's actually only two counties in California that this would impact. Modoc County, which is represented by Assembly member Hadwick, and Alpine County, which we both represent. So this is us closing a loophole on a community that simply cannot provide the health services oversight that these girls deserve.

I guess my question is, they do deserve that stringent oversight, but I would say that those who are in other counties would deserve it as well.

Absolutely.

So, again, why are we just focusing on those that are less than 75,000? Because just because you have a hospital I mean, we all talk about this all the time. Right?

Just because you have a hospital doesn't mean that you have access to the services that they have. Just because you have a high school there doesn't mean that, you know, there are placement opportunities for you there depending on the area or maybe overcrowded. You know? So I'm just wondering, why are we just limiting? Why are we not stating that this is the standard up and down the state?

Yeah.

And I'm happy to increase the standard. I think that we need to protect all of our children. This bill really highlights the fact that most of our kids at these two schools, two homes in Alpine County, are MediCal eligible. The closest MediCal facility is Barton Health in Lake Tahoe, which is almost an hour, driving at night and inclement weather you may or may not get there. So at this point, they don't have access.

Right? And so this is really putting a spotlight on rural communities that are simply don't have the resources. If the direction of this committee is let's make it more stringent for all counties, I would be behind that. And I think that, you know, we have the duty, as you say, to protect all youth in California. And I would love to champion that.

So with the, and I'm sorry. I may have missed it at the beginning of your presentation. So, you are accepting the committee amendments?

I believe that if the proposed amendments will protect lives of our students, will ensure that we are operating with the lens of health and that we are ensuring that the existing system will protect those girls in Alpine County, I will gladly support the amendments.

That's a yes?

Yeah. I'm so

That is a yes.

Okay. Okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Laird, for your clarity.

Okay. Any other comments? Senator Niello?

Just a quick comment about counties like Modoc and Alpine. They really are unique. Now the amendments are accepted and that makes good sense. But the challenges to really small counties are I think frankly perhaps even impossible for people from larger counties to understand. So, I can see why that's why I can appreciate the focus.

But at the same time, you've accepted the amendments so that particular issue is academic. But I just wanna stress the challenges faced by counties like that, particularly by those of us from larger counties are very difficult to understand and they are unique.

Just a brief comment and a brief question. The comment is your disposition on amendments was going to decide how I was going to vote. If you weren't gonna accept amendments, I was not gonna vote for this bill. And if you accepted the amendments, I was. And your statement about the nearest hospital was an hour to the east.

Does that mean both of these strips are in the Eastern Part of Alpine County?

I see that.

Northeast Of Markleyville.

Just asking. Yes. Because as a family who's a property owner in Western Alpine County, the Mark Twain Center in San Andreas is much more closer to us over there. Than it is on the East Side.

On the East Side.

So I thought that must mean both of these are on the East Side.

Yeah. And that's one of the reasons that the girls get carted off to Nevada for school and for medical services. And that to me in and of itself is something that I'm

Well the phrase getting carted off to Nevada. Yes. Sounds kind of inflammatory. Alright.

Transported off to Nevada.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Okay. Well, from my part, I appreciate it and appreciate all the testimony and again, all of you for coming up here. I do appreciate the burden that this place and you know your service to the county what you've been trying to do. I do wanna point out as this is kinda going through me some of the testimony was about the old model of the group homes. So just wanna really be clear on that.

Some of that was in the group home model before this really moved to this model. But you know, that being said, it is incumbent on all of us and from each year and the committee and for us to interface with the agency to make sure that these are that you know, that these situations are dealt with, clearly, consistently, timely.

We do think that the bill, again, with the amendments, with this number of citations will be helpful here, but across the state. But we understand, and Senator Niello's point is well taken, we do have to have a particular focus here, on rural counties and making sure this model can work. So I appreciate you moving forward in the spirit.

Let's see if this helps and clears this up. But you know, imagine, you know, if we need to revisit, we will.

Thank you.

And with that, I'll and supporting them as I will support the bill. So would you like to close?

Yes. Thank you. In the spirit of collaboration and knowing that every member of this committee, I believe in both houses, we want to protect kids and ensure that the infrastructure that we have in California is doing just that. So thank you for the opportunity to engage, in thoughtful conversation.

I look forward to championing more stringent guardrails to ensure that our kids are being protected and in the spirit of the lens of health care that our young people are able to see a life past a STRTP residential time frame. So-

Okay.

Thank you. And I urge an aye vote. And, for the record, I need to say that I do accept amendments.

Is that right?

Yes. Okay. You got it. Thank you.

Senator Niello moves the bill. Please call the roll.

File item four, SB 1109. Motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations Committee. Becker?

Aye.

Becker, aye. Niello?

Aye.

Niello, aye. Laird?

Aye.

Laird, aye. Perez? Weber Pierson?

Aye.

Weber Pierson, aye.

Thank you.

Okay. 4 to 0, that bill passes. Thank you. You see, Senator Ashby has been waiting and you have file item one, SB 961.

Thank you, sir chair.

Okay. I am here to present ready? Okay. Good?

Yes. Go ahead

Let's go. I am here to present SB 961, which we call the Student Food Access Act, building on the good work of many of my colleagues, many of who are sitting up there, including yourself and several of you, actually.

You know, this bill is about CalFresh. And normally, I would get up here and read off a bunch of speaking points from my staff. But the truth is that I was a single mom in, undergrad and in law school. And it would have been great for me if when I filled out the materials for all of the student aid that I was eligible for as a young single mom, that somebody would have told me I was also eligible for CalFresh, which at the time was food stamps.

But, unfortunately, that didn't exist. And so, I, at a really young age, like many young people, had to figure out how to navigate systems. And, you know, I spent a lot of time in the financial aid office at schoo I spent an equal amount of time in a social services office in Sacramento County trying to figure out how to navigate those two systems. And I am not the only legislator.

Mister Tangipa, someone who has a very heartwarming story about this as well because he was also food insecure in college and also trying to play football while not being able to access, enough food for himself.

So I think it's really important that we do what we can administratively to connect people with the resources that they're eligible for. So, this bill really only seeks to do one thing, notify students when they're applying for financial aid that they may also be eligible for food stamps. Mister Chair, you asked me to look into another component. It is beyond the scope of this bill as you suggested that it might be your intuition was correct.

It's outside of the realm of what this bill would do.

This bill really just lets students know that they're eligible and connects them with that resource. So then they can pursue it themselves and figure out, if they're eligible once they've done the entire package. It doesn't change that piece. It just lets them know that from what they have submitted on, behalf of themselves for their scholarships or for their financial aid, that this may also be an opportunity for them. I have a couple of really incredible witnesses with me today that I think you'll enjoy meeting.

One is UC Davis, right? Aggie. An Aggie. Go Aggies. Lorraine, this is her first time testifying, right?

So she's gonna do great. She's the lead coordinator for UC Davis' Aggie Compass Basic Needs Center. So hopefully, she'll tell us a little bit about what that is. This is Lorena Alvarez Flores.

Yes.

And then we also have, an expert witness with us today who will I'll let them introduce themselves so they can tell you a little bit about the programs they represent. And just really quick before I hand it over to them, I was really proud. We didn't ask them to do this, but the UC students and, the CSU students and the community college students all chose this bill for their lobby days as they went around and met with our teams.

Because, you know, they understand what it's like to be food insecure. And if they're not food insecure, they have friends who they know are.

And so they're trying to look out for each other. I think this feels like something we can do in a tough moment where a lot of us don't know other ways to help. This is one thing we can do. So with that, if it's okay with chair, I hand it over to my witnesses.

Excellent. Alright. Now, we're more excited to hear from you. You each have two minutes.

Good afternoon, chair and members. My name is Lorena Alvarez Flores. I'm currently a third year undergraduate student at UC Davis and the center lead coordinator at the IE compass basic needs center, where I assist the thousands of students each academic year who are facing food insecurity, financial insecurity, and housing insecurity. In this role, I act as a student liaison, helping students navigate food resources, addressing barriers to accessing government benefits, and advocating for more equitable and efficient access to nutritious meals.

I'm here today to support SB 961, the CalFresh for Students Act.

I speak as a first generation college student and as someone who works directly with students experiencing food insecurity as an advocate for basic needs and as a student who currently relies on CalFresh benefits. At the basic needs center, we serve over 13,000 students per academic year. And out of those, we serve 3,000 in CalFresh support. This does not reflect the number of students who have yet to reach out or to be aware of our services within this institution.

Due to my experience working, I realized that students do not seek help until it's their last option, until they are down to their last meal.

Students come to the center in urgent need trying to figure out how they will afford their next meal. This isn't just an issue impacting food access, but it directly impacts how students pay rent, how they manage other living expenses, and how they perform at school. While I can't connect students to food pantries, meals, and help them begin the CalFresh process, it's not enough. No student should have to wait until they are in crisis to access food support.

SB 961 helps change that by informing students about their eligibility for CalFresh when they're are applying for financial aid.

It gives students the opportunity to access support earlier before they are struggling, before they're skipping meals, and before they it affects their education. It allows them to be informed about their eligibility before they even arrive on campus. As a former incoming student, I should have been informed of all of the services and resources. No student should have to experience food insecurity before they even have a chance to adapt to college. They deserve to enter higher education knowing that they will be supported.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Wonderful. Thank you.

Hi. Hello, chair and, committee members. My name is Alex Zuko. I am a past president of the Junior League of Sacramento and part of the Junior Leagues of California, and we are one of the co sponsors of nine '61.

Junior Leagues of California have been around since 1971, advocating on these sorts of issues with one more than one in five Californians struggling with food insecurity is the focus of many of the leagues in California and across the country and now globally as we include Kenya and France, England and Mexico.

Working to remove these barriers especially in California for students that are experiencing hunger is vital and essential for their post secondary, success. Johns Hopkins completed a study in 2021 that found that forty three percent of students that reported that they were hungry did not finish school and they left. And that is such a drain on what we're trying to actually encourage with our students. It's the inability to concentrate, to perform, due to unnecessary hunger is just too much.

Connecting students right away with Cal Grant through the web grants portal is one way to do this and improves their chances of successfully navigating the process.

When students have that, notification, they are getting it not only from their college, which was part of one of Irambula's bill a few years ago, but now they're receiving it also from Cal Grant, another trusted partner. They're receiving it from multiple places that they may be eligible. They just need to take the next steps. It also, in a sense, helps streamlines programs to include those of your employability.

We wanna thank Claire Ashby for her support on this, again, and from the Junior Leagues of the California.

On behalf of the 7,000 California women in the Junior League, we would, urge your support on this measure.

Alright. Excellent. Thank you. Do we have others in support who would like to express their support? Please go ahead.

Thank you, Chair and members. Keshav Kumar with Lighthouse Public Affairs representing the California Academy in Nutrition and Dietetics. We are the largest statewide trade association of registered dietitians. We're in strong support and appreciation of the author's work. Excellent.

Good afternoon. Eric Dowdy with the California Dental Association also in support.

Hello, chair and members. Oscar Sandoval with the Center for Healthy Communities. We do outreach to every CSU, UC, and, community college in the state in strong support.

Good afternoon. Bella Kern on behalf of the Michaelson Center for Public Policy in support.

Good afternoon. Josh Wright with the California Association of Food Banks in support.

Good morning. Cindy Lee with the University of California Student Association in support.

Good afternoon, chair and members. I'm McKenna Mestaza with NextGen California in strong support.

Good afternoon. Namrata Deepa, UCLA undergraduate student and CalFresh recipient, on behalf of the UCLA external vice president in strong support. Thank you.

Koy Seateu the coalition of California Welfare Rights Organization in strong support.

Good afternoon. I'm Zoey Ley Baker. I'm a UCLA undergraduate student, and on behalf of the UCLA external vice president's office, we're in strong support.

Good afternoon. My name is Edward Rodriguez, an undergraduate student at UCLA and a CalFresh recipient, and I urge strong support.

Hello. I'm Ocenie Jean with USPIRE, policy intern, a CalFresh recipient, and I'm in strong support.

Good afternoon. Javier Nunez Veradugo, UCLA undergraduate student, CalFresh recipient, first generation, and student with disabilities in dire need of CalFresh, and strong support. Thank you.

Hi. Carol Gonzales on behalf of the Cal State Student Association, proud to support and on behalf of our friends at the Alliance for Better Community and also in support. Thank you.

Thank you. Excellent. Well, thank you for all of our students and everyone for being here. Opposition, we've lead opposition witnesses. Anyone else in opposition wants to register their opposition?

I see none. We'll take it back to the committee members. Senator Ladd, we moved the bill. Well, I wanna thank you first, Senator Ashby.

Thank you for sharing your story.

Yeah.

Because, you know, every time we do that, it reminds us of the importance of the work that we're doing here and and certainly the importance of this particular bill and all the students who shared the importance of that for them as well. Be strongly supporting this bill today and I'm really proud of the work we've done to increase CalFresh access.

The piece that you and I discussed, it's outside the scope, is I do hope that we'll continue with our data sharing, making it easier for counties and because I think the schools do have a lot of this information that like as per this bill have a lot of information about student the student condition, when they apply for financial aid and in many cases better than than the counties sometimes have.

So I think if we can facilitate that information to make that easier to determine eligibility, we can probably do that. We can do that without this bill, but, something that comes to mind.

But, in terms of what you're trying to accomplish here, very much a strong support. Would you like to close?

This school's hard enough. We ought to be able to make sure they're connected to food. Thank you guys so much for your support. Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Alright. Please read the, should we have a motion for Senator Laird?

Sure. File item one, SB 961. Motion is do passed to Appropriations Committee. Becker?

Aye.

Becker, aye. Nilo?

Aye.

Laird, aye. Perez?

Aye.

Nilo, aye. Laird?

Weber Pearson, aye. Thank you, colleagues.

Weber Pearson?

Aye.

Four to zero. That bill passes. Thank you. Senator Reyes, you're up next. File item three, SP1099.

And as you present, I'm gonna pass the mic, the, the gavel to Senator Nilo briefly.

Well, thank you, Mr. Chair and Members. SB 1099 clarifies California local government's authority to provide state or local public benefits to all residents under the statutory exemption provided in the Federal Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, also known as PRWORA. Historically, California has relied on a statutory exemption under PRWORA that allows local governments at their discretion to provide state and local public benefits to all residents.

Thanks to this exemption, our local governments have been able to provide critical services such as health care and safety net programs to all residents without worrying that they are in violation of federal law.

Unfortunately, the California statute that provides for that provides this pro war exemption is too vague as and is not directly tied to how "local and state public benefits are defined at the federal level". This creates risk because if the federal definition changes or is reinterpreted, our California exemption may fall out of alignment, potentially exposing local governments to compliance issues. SB 1099 addresses this by explicitly tying state law to the federal definition, ensuring clarity and consistency with federal requirements.

While technical, this is a high impact bill that has received bipartisan support because it strengthens and protects local government's existing authority to serve all residents. Here to testify on the bill are Dylan Elliott, Legislative Advocate for the Civil Prosecutors Coalition, and Luke Edwards, Supervising Deputy City Attorney for the City Of Oakland.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mister Chair, Members. Dylan Elliott, Legislative Advocate for the Civil Prosecutors Coalition. Standing in today for, Santa Clara County Council and chair of the Civil Prosecutors Coalition, Mr. Tony LaPresti. The Civil Prosecutors Coalition is proud to sponsor SB 1099 alongside our cosponsor, the County of Santa Clara.

Our coalition is comprised of 7 City Attorneys and County Councils from the City of Oakland, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and the counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Santa Clara. Represent some of the largest public law offices in the state and advise local government clients on all issues, including protecting the authority to use public funds to benefit the most vulnerable residents in our jurisdictions.

And that is why we are very glad to be here today before you and working alongside Senator Gomez Reyes on SB 1099. This bill is a straightforward clarification of long standing California law that allows local agencies to spend state and local funds that offer critical programs and safety net services to all of our residents. Cities and counties know their residents and communities needs best, and they design programs to respond to those needs.

And that is why local control over spending state and local funds is so critical. This bill does not require local governments to do anything. Instead, it clarifies in statute their authority to develop and maintain programs that serve serve residents based on criteria established locally. City Attorneys and County Councils do their best to provide as much legal certainty as possible for their local government clients. This bill will minimize risk and uncertainty, particularly in these difficult budget times.

Would ask for your aye vote at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair and to the Committee for the opportunity to speak today. And thank you to Senator Reyes for bringing forward SB 1099. My name is Luke Edwards, and I'm here today as a Supervising Deputy City Attorney for the Oakland City Attorney's Office to speak in support of this bill. SB 1099 makes a simple but important change to state law.

It reaffirms and clarifies local authority to provide essential services to all community members using local and state funding regardless of changes to federal public benefit eligibility. Local governments are on the front lines of providing essential and emergency services to Californians, including emergency shelter, crisis intervention, health care, and food distribution. For these programs to operate effectively, they must move quickly with minimal barriers where it is often unrealistic to collect identifying information before providing services.

For example, outreach teams conducting providing services to unhoused individuals often have only minutes in which to make contact. In that time, they focus on crisis de escalation and transportation to shelter.

Many of these unhoused individuals have lost access to the types of vital documents they would need to prove eligibility for more restrictive programs. In the context of behavioral health interventions, those programs rely on quick action and low barriers to access. Suicide hotlines, for example, are anonymous by design and do not collect identifying information in order to avoid chilling individuals from accessing them.

Ambiguity in current law may cause local governments to hesitate in providing these services or to restrict eligibility and redesign these programs in ways that make them less effective. SB 1099 accepts the invitation from the federal law to remove any doubt that local governments may choose to provide services like these using state and federal dollars to all residents at their discretion.

SB 1099 does not require any government action, but makes clear that local governments retain discretion to craft programs to best serve their communities. Thank you.

Thank you. Do we have other witnesses, in support? Any lead witness opposition? Any opposition? Me too.

Seeing them to get back to the, committee. Any discussion or debate? Move motion?

I would move the bill.

Okay. Senator Laird moves the bill. I appreciate sorry, I missed a little bit of presentation, but I very appreciate very much appreciate the intent and the execution of this bill. We have a motion. Please call the roll.

File item three, SB 1099. Motion is do passed to the floor. Becker?

Aye.

Becker, aye. Neillo? Laird?

Laird, aye. Perez? Weber Pierson?

Aye.

Okay. That is 2-0 right now. We will keep it on call.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Reyes. Senator Grove waiting very patiently. You have SB 1190.

When ready, go ahead.

Thank you, Mister Chair and Members. Before I begin, I wanna thank the Chair and the committee staff for their analysis and for working with my staff on amendments. I especially wanna thank the sponsors of this bill, Paris Hilton, on behalf of all the survivors associated with 11:11 media impact for their tireless engagement, the bravery of sharing their own personal traumas to advance protections for bono vulnerable youth.

As some of you may know, Paris Hilton was ripped from her bed in the middle of the night by strangers and transported across state lines. This bill is a direct response to that trauma she experienced, as well as the experienced the experiences of many other survivors including those before you here today.

My commitment to protecting the most vulnerable, in our state, women and children, has been the heart of my work in the legislature. In 2024, I authored SB 1043 which pulled back the curtain on the use of restraints and seclusion rooms in youth treatment facilities. Later, last year, I passed SB 373 to ensure California kids placed in our out of state facilities were protected and never forgotten and just left there.

Both measures sought to ensure that California's vulnerable children receive protections that they deserve. SB 1190 represents an important next step in an effort to addressing some of the most significant remaining gaps of the oversight that strengthening protections for vulnerable youth.

We've addressed the care of these children receive, and now we have addressed what they've, where they were sent, and we've actually spent money from the governor's legislative budget at a few years ago to pay to bring these children back. And today, we finally address the bridge between them.

When a parent makes arrangements for their child to attend an out of state residential facility, oftentimes the facility itself will be very forceful and persuasive and strongly represent that that parent hire a youth transport company to escort the child to their state facility. For far too long, we've allowed this shadow industry to operate in the dark.

These companies often hire security type individuals who show up in the dead of night, awake and startle children from their beds, ask them if they wanna make it the easy way or the hard way.

They take their cell phones, they place them in a vehicle, often hooded and handcuffed behind their back, and transport them across state lines and stopping in hotel rooms along the way. We're seeing a trend of these minors being transported are subject to physical restraints, blindfolds, and abuse, and severe emotional distress all being moved across country, is this is completely unacceptable.

The Safe Passage for Youth Act will provide much needed oversight for this industry in creating a mandatory licensing and regulatory framework within the Department of Social Services. It ensures that the company transporting our youth must be licensed by the state and that every individual they employ must be fully vetted and background checked. It requires these companies to follow strict safety standards which is just crazy that this is not in place already.

It we wanna prioritize the child's where well-being and strictly prohibit the use of restraints unless it there is an immediate serious physical danger to the child. If if children are transported at all, they should be provided with regulated and safe passage that respects their dignity. Here with me to testify today on support on behalf of our sponsor is a strategic advocacy lead for eleven eleven media, Miss Caroline Cole.

And additionally, we have a survivor from the troubled teen industry who's here to tell her horrific story and be she has now become a fierce advocate. Alex Gaeta.

Thank you. You both have two minutes. Go ahead. Go for instance, start.

Thank you, Chair Becker and Members of the Committee. My name is Alex Gaeta. On 06/23/2019 in Menlo Park, California, I was woken up in the early hours of the morning by two strangers standing over my bed. They told me that they had been hired by my parents to take me somewhere, but would not tell me where.

They told me that I had to get up and go with them immediately, and they warned me not to resist, that they would make a report on my behavior when I got where I was going, and things would be worse for me if I disobeyed.

I was 14 years old and terrified. Because it was the summer and it was hot, I was not dressed while I was sleeping. I asked the transporters, one male and one female, to leave the room to let me dress. They told me no because I was a flight risk. They both watched me get dressed, not even turning their backs to give me some amount of privacy.

I begged them to let me say goodbye to my dog, and they again said no, telling me that we had to leave right then. Once I had clothes on, they each grabbed one of my wrists and one of my shoulders. I have a connective tissue disorder, and they held on so tightly that the joints partially dislocated, causing excruciating pain. The transporters marched me out of my house and forced me into a car to the airport.

When we got there, we went to the special assistant's desk where they presented paperwork showing that my parents had sent over a temporary legal guardianship to them.

At the airport, I asked to go to the bathroom, and the female transporter followed me into the stall, claiming that I could try to run away if she didn't. I didn't understand what I had done for this to be necessary. I ended up being transported out of state and forcibly institutionalized. I was a child with no history of dangerous or destructive behavior. I had straight a's in school.

It didn't matter. It has been almost seven years since that night, and I still have nightmares that wake me up. I cannot sleep in my childhood bedroom because the environment is so triggering. Nothing can change what happened to me. I will carry the trauma with me for the rest of my life.

But today, you have an opportunity to take meaningful action to ensure more stories like mine are not created. Please support SB 1190. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, and Members of the Committee. My name is Caroline Cole, and I'm the strategic advocacy lead for 11:11 media impact founded by Paris Hilton. We're proud to sponsor SB 1190, the Safe Passage for Youth Act. I wanna be very clear. These transports are not just about getting a child to treatment.

The in fact, the intent of them is to be startling and disorienting and scary, for the kids. Two men entering a child's bedroom in the middle of the night, waking the child up, confused, terrified, oftentimes being zip tied and handcuffed, sometimes being physically restrained, and told that they have no choice and removed quickly before they really have the ability to understand what's going on. And this is how treatment or help is started.

Paris has spoken publicly about her own experience being taken from her home in the middle of the night by transporters. She thought that she, in fact, was being kidnapped, and that terror has stayed with her for many for all of these years.

Excuse me. And I too actually, know this issue personally. I was transported from my home in Carlsbad to a facility in Far Upstate New York, where I would stay for two and a half years. What's so interesting about this is that, this is such a common experience that when survivors of these transports first started telling their stories publicly, the general public actually did not believe us. And the stories were also similar that the public thought that they were scripted.

But really, they are similar because this is a pattern. Parents are being misled, and that's really at the heart of this. You have very well intentioned parents who think that they're doing the right thing to help their kids, and many do not understand what these transports involve until it's happening. I even have flashbacks to my mom standing in the hallway outside my bedroom in tears.

So these parents are left shocked, questioning whether they made the right decision, and many learned that the damage to their relationship with their child and the trust that you have with your with your child has been permanently altered.

And one more thing I want to point out. Anyone right now can start a transport company. I could walk out these doors, throw up a website, and I'm a transporter. There are no requirements, no education, needed to start this business, and, and and I can start taking kids across state lines. And unfortunately, many consumers, many parents don't know what questions need to be asked.

They are assuming that this industry is legitimate.

I'd like to ask you to start to wrap up.

Thank you. So this bill is really a basic overdue step towards creating a framework that will allow us to have some checks and balances here, and so I ask for your support for SB 1190. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Do we have others, wanna register their support? Please go ahead.

Chelsea Feiler. On behalf of the Institutional Child Abuse and Advocacy Network, we strongly support this bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Natalie Wills on behalf of 11:11 media and Ikappa. I strongly support this bill as a survivor. Thank you.

Thank you. Michael Mendoza on behalf of the Anti Recidivism Coalition and Latino Justice in strong support.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Mister Chair and Members. Conrad Crump with Disability Rights California, also speaking in behalf, on behalf of Youth Law Center. Both of us have a share a support if amended position. Really commend the author for the bill and wanna continue to have conversations to get to that full support.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Okay. Do anyone in opposition? Lead opposition witnesses, anyone else to register opposition? Seeing none, we'll take it back to the committee.

Senator Laird.

Thank you. First, I guess interrupt me with that anytime. I wanna thank the author for bringing the bill and I think there's been a lot of discussion about this. This is completely unregulated and it is clear it needs regulation. And there have been some concerns expressed. There there was one, just witnessed that said they would like to to see some amendments.

And I think the the for for today's purposes, the overriding situation is is we have nothing here and we have a proposal. And it it should not be the choice between those two. And I suspect that there's lots of nuances about this and and I know that from some cases that I am familiar with personally.

And so I just hope the author will just continue to work on this in a way because I suspect there's potential for unintended consequences and and against what the real issue is is making sure there's some guardrails here to protect people that need protection.

And so I intend to vote for the bill today and just hope that in that spirit, with the doggedness that I know the author has, the the author would mix that doggedness with an attempt to just work out some of those issues as it moves forward. So appreciate that.

Thank you. Chair, can I respond?

Okay. Why don't you, you're closed in a second. That's great. Okay. I'll just add a couple comments.

I think we're about ready. I just wanna say, you know, we've had a lot of powerful testimonies you're saying. This was incredibly powerful. I really appreciate and I represent the community that you grew up in. And so, really appreciate you being here and and sharing your story.

I know it takes a lot of courage, to do so. And and thank you to all the survivors who I represent here. Clearly, something needs to be done. I I will be supporting the bill here today. Would would you like to close?

Thank you, mister chair. The witness here today, both of them, but Alex Gaeta, was ripped out of Harabedian basically a t shirt and underwear and flown to Hawaii. So before she even realized what was happened to her, she was on a plane. And the horrific testimony that you hear from a lot of these victims is that there was no choice. And there is no choice.

This bill will address some of those issues. And I appreciate the responses from the dais. In response to the disability rights and the youth law center, you know, we've worked with them in the past on several pieces of legislation and we will not stop now. I often say that legislation brought in a vacuum or legislation that doesn't participate with individuals on the ground that are actually implementing these types of situations, they have to have a seat at the table.

And so I will continue to work with the opposition so that we can or the tweeners, unless amended, if we can come to an agreement.

But this is something that's incredibly important to not only Paris Hilton and eleven eleven media, but the thousands thousands, not hundreds of survivors out there that are still looking for a solution for these transport companies that can just put up a shield and start picking up, you know, hey, this is what we do. And they work mostly with the out of state or the organizations that will take the kids and these these youth. And the facilities actually talk their parents into doing it.

It's gonna be easier. You won't have to drive them ten hours.

We can make sure they get there safely. This is the best solution for your child. And when you're in a parent in a situation with a troubled teen, which they all admit that they have these some issues, it's very difficult to turn that down. And so it is an industry that does need to be regulated. I've listened to survivors tell their stories about going four days on the road and having to spend the night in a hotel with male staff.

No women present. These are female youth offender, female youth. And these are kids that need our help. They don't need to be traumatized on the way to treatment. They need our help.

And so I respectfully ask for an aye vote. And going back to my colleague's comments, I will work with the opposition, and you know I will. And I am dogged about getting this passed as well. Thank you. Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Okay. We have a motion from Senator Niello. Please call the roll.

File item six, SB 1190. Motion is do passed to Public Safety Committee. Becker. Aye.

Becker, aye. Niello. Aye. Niello, aye. Laird. Aye.

Laird, aye. Perez. Weber Pierson. Aye. Weber Pierson, aye.

Four to zero. That bill passes.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister Chair. Thank you, members.

Thank you. Okay. I see Senator Jones. Thank you. For Bill and food, you are one of two staying between us and dinner.

But go ahead.

I will be quick. I still have, I think, a lot of committee left downstairs. I'm hoping they get a lot done while I'm gone. Thank you, Mister Chair and Members. I will I will be presenting SB 1325 dealing with the Cal Food Program eligibility.

And to, which has been narrowed and targeted, as a measure to help feed more people throughout San Diego County. I wanna thank the chair and the committee staff, for their work on the bill, and I will be accepting, your committee suggested amendments, which, which exact does exactly what I said, makes this bill a district bill tailored to San Diego County. SB 1325 creates a limited pathway for Feeding San Diego to participate in the Cal Food Program.

Existing law limits CAL food eligibility to food banks affiliated with the federal emergency assistance program or TFAP. As a result, an established local hunger relief provider like Feeding San Diego can remain excluded from the program even though it already serves families at scale throughout its existing network.

In fact, Feeding San Diego is already operating at scale in San Diego County serving approximately 1,900,000 households last year and currently operating 76 cool school pantries with more than 62 additional schools on a waiting list to be served. SB 1325 addresses that problem through a narrow local fix, not a broad statewide restructuring of cow food.

The bill requires feeding San Diego to meet TFAP equivalent compliance standards, demonstrates that it serves households in its current network that are not being served with cow food by any by the county's TFAP food bank and use 100% of any CAL food funding it receives for food purchases. These are more stringent requirements than currently in place for eligible TFAP food banks. SB 1325 does not disturb existing TFAP eligibility.

It preserves the current CAL food framework and creates only a limited additional pathway for Feeding San Diego to participate. With me today from Feeding San Diego is Bob Kaminski, the CEO and retired Navy Rear Admiral and former State Assemblyman Jeff Marston to speak in in support of the bill.

Okay. Welcome, gentlemen. Please, each have two minutes.

Good afternoon. Feeding San Diego was among the top 10 food banks in the state. We are a feeding America partner member and are recognized as a preeminent food rescue organization. We focus the major portion of our food sourcing on recovery of excess food from retailers, grocers, and farmers in direct support of organic waste reduction, Senate Bill 1383. We have seen a demand increase from a 155,000 households per month back in July 2025 to this post recent month, 224,000.

In addition to meeting our baseline operations, we are heavily committed to expanding our school pantry program for families of students, increasing our presence with active duty military families and the veteran community, and in rural San Diego County for underserved communities. Currently, we are excluded from the Cal Food Funding Program based on legislation passed in 2011. There were concerns by others regarding the initial language of the bill. With the narrowing of the bill's language, these concerns should now have been addressed.

In conclusion, the Feeding San Diego food rescue model is unique in its magnitude and efficiency of operation.

Cal Food funding will offset purchase food costs, allowing our donor funds to be used in the food rescue operations that create sustainable sources of food year over year and support environmental sustainability. I have a simple question written on my office wall when approached with good ideas. Will it help us feed more people? SB 1325 will do that. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Feeding San Diego and fellow San Diegans we serve.

Thank you. Thank you. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair Becker, Senators. I'm Jeff Marston representing Feeding San Diego. SB 1325 is about equity and creating opportunity. It's about allowing Feeding San Diego via inclusion in the Cal Food Program to leverage state resources to expand our hunger relief efforts across San Diego County. As Bob alluded to, our business model is unique and designed to allow for current, undesignated funds for food purchase to be redirected to other areas to serve more people.

For example, currently, our food rescue program consists of over 75% of the food we distributed. That totals 34,000,000 doll 34,000,000 pounds last year. As you know, food rescue is a major component of SB 1383. Allowing Feeding Food in San Diego to expand food rescue is a win win. More hungry people served and a significant impact towards the food rescue goals of SB 1383.

In fact, the City and County of San Diego, along with a number of our cities, have called on us to advise on how they can meet SB 1383 requirements because it's what we do. Bob touched on our school pantry program serving over 15,000 families per month. We currently serve 76 schools countywide with another 64 on our waitlist, and I would say for the record, 34 of those seventy six and twenty one of the 64 waitlisted are in Senate District 39.

Again, use of Cal Food for their intended food purposes allows us to redirect our own unrestricted private donations to reduce that wait list. Finally, as the need for hunger relief is ever growing, we would like to also go on record as supporting California Association of Food Bank's efforts to increase the cal food funding in this year's budget.

Chair Becker and senators, we appreciate your consideration, and we respectfully ask for your aye vote. Thank you, sir.

Thank you very much. Others who wanna add on in support? Okay. We'll turn to opposition witnesses.

Do we have a lead opposition witness or two? You can sit at the table if you would like. I see.

Go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Stacia Levinfeld. I represent the California Association of Food Banks. We represent 43 member food banks, including Feeding San Diego, who partner and diligently serve their communities through a network of over 6,000 community based organizations.

CAFB is opposing SB 1325 because it risks fraying the fabric of California's charitable food system, which delivers nearly 9,000,000,000 pounds of food to our communities each year. The question today shouldn't be about reallocating scarce resources because of a food bank's membership affiliation. When the legislator created Cal Food in 2011, they connected Cal Food eligibility with the emergency assistance food program to ensure the program's fiscal integrity.

Food banks participating in TFAC are subject to hefty oversight processes, including pre vendor certification, ongoing service data, reporting, and regular audits by CDSS. Adding even one more food bank to CDSS's workload will increase the price of administering this program, reducing the amount of money that can be passed down into our communities to purchase food.

With all due respect to my members in San Diego, this is a situation that should be handled at the county level. Other CAFB members that are non Cal Food eligible receive ongoing food from their partner food bank at the county who is TFAP, who is receiving TFAP and Cal Food money. Writing eligibility into law for another San Diego food bank to receive Cal Food funding will not improve provide more food to San Diego. It will shift resources from one to another food bank.

A word of caution on the amendment language.

While it's admirable, requiring distribution of food without administrative cost is a huge risk, and a dangerous precedent to set in statute about this language. Many of our rural food banks rely on administrative administrative costs for this program to for the incoming freight for the food and the distribution of the food in rural communities. With food banks serving more than 6,000,000 people each month and thousands more who will be turning to food banks when they lose eligibility for SNAP.

Our conversation today shouldn't be about changing CalFresh program for one food bank. It should be about how to ensure that CalFresh is adequately funded to meet the deep level of need in communities across California.

Thank you.

Thank you. Any other folks who would wanna weigh in opposition? Go ahead. Just sit to the mic.

Josh Wright with the California Association of Food Banks in opposition. Also in opposition, the San Luis Obispo Food Bank, Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, the Jacobs and Cushman San Diego Food Bank, and the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank. Thank you.

Legislative advocate. Coalition of California Welfare Rights Organization is not opposing SB 12325 at this time, but shares concerns that California's limited resources must be directed as efficiently as possible to serve the greatest number of food insecure Californians.

Good afternoon. Kili O'Brien with CCWRO, we have no position at this time, but do, want to express concerns in alignment with the California Association of Food Banks. Thank you.

Okay. We'll take it back to the committee. Senator Laird.

Thank you very much. The two years before I was elected to the Senate, I was the Co-Chair of the holiday food drive for the second harvest in in Santa Cruz County. And one of the major factors was is that as was described in some of the testimony, they were a member of the organization. They got major commitments from the statewide money, but then they distributed food to 200 non profits or or food banks or or pantries.

And and one of the more interesting duties in that volunteer service was going out to a selection of them and seeing them.

You know, there was, there were people on the local campus. There were people that were in shelters due to domestic violence, there were people that lived in collective living situations and were struggling economically. And it was really the major food bank that raised the money, marshaled the resources, and was able to distribute the food to those 200 agencies. And I think that model really works.

And the challenge here, I would have had a real problem with the original bill unamended because it takes a fixed pie and then says we're gonna start to distribute it to more people and everybody's gonna get a smaller piece of the pie when there's an economy of scale to the regional food banks, everybody donating, them having the high profile, them cleaning food from fields that's left, doing all the things that requires the food to distribute it.

And it seems to me there is an issue that still needs to be addressed regardless of the of the amendments in the bill, which is over time, how are we gonna make sure that some of the different food banks have adequate resources? And how are we gonna do it in a way that it doesn't take a fixed pie and just slice it into smaller pieces, which is sort of what the original proposal was.

And so and given the testimony, the the Senate Democrats rolled out our budget proposal at the end of last week and where the ongoing to food banks is $8,000,000 and that's where the governor started in his budget. We proposed augmenting it by a $100,000,000. And last year, it was 60,000,000.

And after the bill passed at the federal level after our budget was adopted, we put another 20,000,000 in because we know that the food banks are gonna be the safety net with cuts in different food programs. So I'm willing today to support this bill with the amendments, but I think it begs the issue of a larger problem that we haven't totally addressed. And and to me, the solution is not just slicing it into smaller pieces.

It's either expanding the pie, figuring out how how that economy of scale works when you look at it. And I think it requires a larger sort of just analysis of how we do this because just for those that might not have been in the legislature since the pandemic, when everything closed, when the childcare food centers closed, the school lunches closed, the senior center lunches, it left the food banks.

And the state put in 360,000,000 that year to food banks to fill the gap. And and where Cal Food comes from is is the continuation of that. As these programs have come back online. The amount that's been the commitment has dropped every year but it turns out it still serves an amazing safety net service that that that still needs to be there.

So I just don't want my vote on this bill with the amendments to be interpreted as sort of a position on this larger issue because this larger issue still needs to be addressed in a way that we're just not cutting people on a time that that is very difficult.

So appreciate the discussion. Appreciate the author forcing the issue even if it's unpleasant in in some ways and I hope this conversation will continue after whatever happens today.

Thank you. Thank you, Senator.

Thank you, Chair. I wanna thank the Senator for bringing this issue forward as well. And maybe the opposition could can answer. I was under the impression, and we're speaking of of San Diego, that the San Diego Food Bank does distribute food to other organizations, including Feeding San Diego if they're interest if if they want. Is that not the case?

That is the case. That's why I was saying, with all due respect, that I think the issue should be dealt with at the local level. There are other counties that share a TFAP contract. For example, Orange, Del Norte. There are also several of our members that don't have TFAP contracts that partner with the the the larger food bank in their county to get food on an ongoing and regular basis.

Okay. So then I would ask, the author. Why is it why are we here on a state level Sure. Dealing with a local issue?

Mister Chair, if it is a it is a local issue as as we've dove into this program and issue. My understanding in a lot of the counties across the state, and I certainly can't answer for all the counties. There is a cooperative agreement like that, but I think it would be appropriate for Admiral Kaminski to kinda answer to that. Mister Chair, if that's okay for him to kinda explain what's different about San Diego versus some of the other counties.

Sure. Go ahead.

Hopefully, I'm now I'm up. Good. San Diego County receives the second largest apportionment of cow food funding behind Los Angeles. We have two food banks. San Diego food bank is about 52 to 54,000,000 pounds of output.

This year, we're gonna be about 42,000,000 pounds at Feeding San Diego. We both cover the entire county of San Diego, and it is a large community as you know to make distribution throughout. We both have agency networks, and our network is comprised of about 200 501 c 3's with some overlap that occurs with San Diego Food Bank. But it's not a complete saturation between both in the regions that we work.

So there are a large number of agencies that would be or currently are disadvantaged by not having access to foods that are being or funding that are being distributed through the cow food program, which is state resources.

The TFAP program being federal, people have to register for it, and there is no contention on our part with TFAP. It is with state funded cow food resources that we are not able to reach members of San Diego County who are members of the network that we are providing food into.

So understanding that there is a limited resource and the people are talking up here about, you know, splitting up the pie. So this is not increasing the amount of resources that we have. It's just splitting up the pie. Question, what what avenues have you all looked at at a local level with the county? Because it was stated, I guess, that there are some counties that have different types of contracts.

So what have those conversations been like when you have gone to the county?

I've had the opportunity to speak with the CEO of San Diego Food

Bank on a couple of CEO of San Diego Food Bank on a couple occasions and with other CEOs of Feeding America affiliates in the surrounding community of Southern California. San Bernardino, I assume Correction, Riverside and Orange County both have two food banks, both of whom are TFAP food banks and they all receive Cal Food funding. So there is an a precedent where those, counties already split cow food funding between two food banks.

San Diego, in my discussions with the CEO at Feedings at San Diego Food Bank is amenable to talking about well, maybe I can provide to you some of the foods that we get distributed or that we receive through the Cal Food Funding Program. But it is not something that would be appreciable to the percentage of the county population that we are servicing.

My contention is not so much about receiving the food from Cal Food Funding. It is about how I can leverage our current private donations that we are spending on food purchasing, which is expensive to do. And use the cow food funding to offset those private funds so that I can re employ them in an area that we have unique expertise and that is large scale food rescue. Last year's amount was over £34,000,000 that we expressly received through our logistics efforts by way of food rescue.

I can amplify my food rescue with more resources that I can organically take from my funding sources and apply to the rescue operations.

Understand that. So my question was around your conversations with the county to see if they are able to change the contract, amend the contract. How have those conversations gone when you have discussed it with the San Diego County?

I have not had discussions with San Diego County regarding the Cal Food funding or and it would not be in our interest for TFAP because that is a federal contracted program.

Right. But understanding that, as was stated, various counties have decided to change their contracts, alter their contracts, distribute it amongst other things. I'm just saying because this is very much a local issue that is now being brought to the state. I do have concerns about the impact of money being spent on administrative rather than on food with the change in the structure. We have very limited resources, and yet we have more people needing food on a daily basis.

And so that is really very concerning to me. I'm also, you know, would have preferred to have heard how things how conversations went, you know, with the with the county board of supervisors to see what could have been offered on a local level besides instead of bringing it here to the state, to try to change, you know, statewide statute. But, you know, have no idea what will happen with this bill.

But, you know, hopefully, conversations can be had at a local level with those that actually oversee the county. Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you. Okay. Well, I wanna thank you for bringing this forward as as discussed. I I also had concerns about this building. You and I had a lot of discussions on this.

And I do hope that going forward these discussions that we've talked about here you know can continue. We still have four or five months left in this process and and it's possible that maybe something can be worked out locally. We don't need legislation but I'm happy to allow this bill to move forward here today with the amendments that we've put in place with the standards. I appreciate the the the discussion from my colleagues.

I think a lot of important issues, were brought up and, look forward to continue the discussions with you as well.

With that, do we have a motion?

I'll move the bill.

Okay. Sooner than I'll move the bill. Will you please call the roll?

May I close the Oh,

sure. Yes. I apologize.

It'll be brief. I promise.

Yes.

Because I don't wanna talk you out of your vote. I I wanna make, you know, very clear that, you know, in in my opinion, 1325 is obviously currently now narrow in a in a district specific bill and does not broadly expand Cal foods statewide. It it creates a limited and conditioned pathway to address specific need throughout San Diego County, and I appreciate the comments from the dias regarding local conversations and and, certainly will be encouraging that.

The, you know, the one thing I wanna make absolutely perfectly clear is that I support both food banks, to the point that my wife has volunteered for one and I have volunteered for the other. So we do want and we've we've been to events for for both food banks.

They're both doing great work in San Diego. In addition to the great work that the that the two main food banks are doing, I'm very familiar with some of their subsidiary organizations that they serve to distribute the food that that both organizations work with. The reason for me bringing this bill today was that food shortages are a serious concern across the state.

But what's impactful to me is that when you have schools that are on a waiting list that want to get the services of a food bank and they're being denied those services because of an archaic old state law. I think it's time to update that and make those services available to the schools and the organizations that want them.

That's why I brought this bill forward, and I hope and ask for your aye vote today. Thank you.

Thank you. Again, I appreciate that for us all in both the food rescue and the food distribution, all the work that you all do. Senator Niello has moved the bill. We'll call the roll.

File item nine, SB 1325, motion is do pass as amended to Appropriations Committee. Becker. Aye.

Becker, aye. Niello. Aye. Niello, aye. Laird. Aye. Laird, aye. Perez.

Weber Pierson.

Okay. 3 - 0. That bill passes. Great. Thank you.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Alright. Senator Caballero.

We

Bring us home. Our last bill of the day. And would you have one on call? We'll we'll cover that Yeah. And then, Senator Weber Pierson comes back.