Assembly Standing Committee on Appropriations

Good morning, everyone. We're here. Okay. Welcome to the 04/22/2026 Assembly Appropriations Committee hearing. We have 86 bills to consider this morning as part of our regular order hearing.

We encourage the public to provide written testimony before the hearing by visiting the committee's website at Apro.assembly.ca.gov. Please note that any written testimony submitted to the committee is considered public comment and may be read into the record or reprinted. The hearing room is open for attendance. All are encouraged to watch the hearing from its livestream on the assembly's website. We will accept any sorry.

We will accept public comment on any bill placed on the suspense file by the committee today and for which the author waived presentation before the close of the regular order hearing testimony. Any such bill will be limited to the to statement of name, organization, position on the bill. The committee will allow no more than forty minutes of testimony in total. As you came into the room today, the sergeants directed your attention to the rules for public attendance and participation, which were posted outside the door.

I encourage members of the public who are in attendance to be aware and observe those rules.

Please be aware that any violations of these rules or other violations of general courtesy or decorum may subject you to removal or other enforcement processes. With that, I would love to establish a quorum.

Wicks? Here. Wicks present. Hoover? Here. Hoover present. Arambula? Here. Arambula present. Calderon?

Caloza? Dixon? Here. Dixon present. Fong? Here. Fong present. Mark Gonzalez? Here. Mark Gonzalez present.

Krell? Here. Carell present. Muratsuchi? Pacheco?

Here. Pacheco present. Pellerin? Pellerin present. Solache? Ta? Here. Ta present. Tangipa. We have a quorum.

We have a quorum. Fantastic. I would like to dispense with the consent calendar. We will take up the bills on the consent calendar in two separate motions. The first motion is do pass to cons do pass to consent applies to bills that enjoy unanimous support in this committee and are eligible for the assembly floors consent calendar consistent with assembly rules.

Do we have a motion on this?

So moved. Second.

Motion and second.

The following are assembly bills. 1773 Blanca Rubio, 1785 Hoover, 1828 Chen, 1873 Bennett, 1918 Dixon, 2001 Stephanie, 2085 Alanis, 2173 Wallace, 2412 Tar, 2536 Blanca Rubio, 2644 Blanca Rubio, and 2781 Committee on Judiciary.

Great. The those are out on a roll call. The second motion do pass applies to bills that also enjoy unanimous support in this committee but are not eligible for the assembly floor consent calendar consistent with assembly rules. Do we have a motion on this? Second.

We have a motion and a second.

Consent part two. Motions do pass. 1544 Krell, 1555 Hadwick, 1614 Dixon, 1621 Wilson, 1637 Caloza, 1704 Mark Gonzalez, 1816 Davies, 1933 Hoover, 2529 Johnson, 2559 Ward, 2663 Rogers, and 2731 Adams. Great.

And those are out on an a roll call. And let's go listen. Let's, have our authors come up.

Our first author is Miss Addis. She is presenting AB 2393. You can begin when you're ready.

Thank you so much Madam Chair and staff. I'm here to present AB 2393 that makes it easier for victims of false imprisonment and arrest to seek justice for the harm they have suffered by establishing fixed statutory damages for specific harmful actions. According to the analysis, the bill has no significant state costs. It does not create a new cause of action, but simply adds an alternative damages measured to existing claims for false imprisonment and arrest.

The bill also exempts peace officers, custodial officers, and public entities, so there's no state or government local government liability exposure.

AB 2393 will hold those operating outside the rule of law accountable and hopefully prevent these in incidents from happening in the future, and I respectfully request your aye vote.

Thank you.

Do you have any primary witnesses in support?

Not at this time. Okay.

Any additional folks in the room wish to express support? Any primary witnesses in opposition? Any additional folks in opposition? Okay. We'll bring it back to committee.

We have a motion and a second. Great. Would you like to close, Miss Addis?

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

That is on call. We need to wait for a couple more folks to come. But the motions do pass. Mister Kalra, you are presenting AB 1697 and AB 2534. You can begin when you're ready.

Whichever one you wanna go first, go forward.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. I'll start with HD, AB 1697, which will delay the implementation of recently enacted AB 692 by one year. AB 692 prohibited employment contracts that require workers to pay their employers a debt if they leave their job regardless of whether that work was fired, laid off, or quit.

By delaying implementation under AB 1697, any contracts that would apply under this provision of prohibited debt employment contracts would therefore not apply until 01/01/2027. This delayed implementation result in cost savings of the courts to the extent that any civil actions that were already brought on behalf of a worker pursuant to AB 692 but no longer be, in order upon the immediate enactment of this bill.

I expect to be asked for an aye vote.

Great. And do you have any primary witnesses in support? Any additional folks in the room wish to express support? Any primary witnesses in opposition or anyone else in opposition? Okay.

We'll bring it back to committee. We have a motion and a second. Would you like to close, mister Kalra?

Respectfully ask for an aye vote.

The motion is do passed. It's on call at the moment.

Thank you.

And you can begin in your second, Bill.

Thank you. AB 2534 will extend restraining order protections under the Domestic Violence Prevention Act to it, to attempted forced marriages and survivors of forced marriages. By adding this under the existing DVPA, survivors will have access to timely relief before any harm occurs. AB 2534 will have minor and absorbable costs, to the judicial council for the adoption of the new form and minor cost to the courts for filings and hearings. I respectfully ask for an aye vote.

Great. Any folks in the room wish to express support or opposition? Okay. We'll bring it back to committee. We have a motion and a second, and the motion is do pass.

That is out on an a roll call.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next, we have miss Wilson presenting AB 168. You can begin when you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Members. I'm pleased to present AB 168. The California high speed rail project has a normal potential to simultaneously improve mobility and reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our state. Oversight that better ensures that every dollar is spent wisely is critical because we have lost a federal funding partner. And at this time, we are completely reliant on state funding to deliver this significant infrastructure bill.

This bill strengthens the inspector general's office by giving it permit excuse me, by giving it position, classifications, and contract authority it needs to hire staff with the appropriate qualifications and acquire specialized services in a timely manner. As well as require the office to make its reports public and at the same time give its protections to ensure that the inspector general can keep confidential for a period of time information that could harm the state and jeopardize whistleblowers.

This bill has been called a model framework for how independent offices of inspector general can balance legitimate confidentiality needs with the public's right to know about government and, activities. Per the analysis, any cost to the IG is minor and exorbitable within the IG's budget. Ask for your support on this important bill that will improve transparency and oversight.

My witness is Ben Belknap, inspector general, office of the inspector general, HSR.

You can begin when you're ready.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Ben Belknap, inspector general. The passage of AB 168 will result in more timely, robust oversight of the California high speed rail project. This project is at a critical inflection point.

My office estimates that we are only two years away from major schedule delays caused by a lack of near term funding. To avoid these delays, the High Speed Rail Authority must secure financing. At the same time, it is also trying to complete major procurements necessary to keep the project project on schedule.

Without having yet resolved this immediate problem, the authority has signaled that it plans to expend up to 500 up to the $500,000,000 cap on spending outside of the Merced To Bakersfield segment imposed by SB 198 and is requesting that state lawmakers lift this cap entirely. The office of inspector general, the high speed rail, provides independent oversight of the project and is an important resource to state lawmakers at this time.

Two months ago, my office published a review of the authority's procurement processes, and we're currently reviewing the accuracy and completeness of the authority's draft business plan. We also plan to complete our review of the authority's construction quality program, review how compliance with environmental requirements is affecting the project, and review the authority's change order process.

However, my office has been slowed in these in its efforts to complete these reviews by a lack of access to job classifications that match the skill set required of my my office and a lack of purchasing authority that would allow it to hire needed expertise in a timely manner.

In addition to establishing reporting requirements and a work paper retention framework, AB 168 would grant my office access to job classifications already used by other oversight agencies and would provide my office with purchasing authority up to a million dollars. Absent AB 168, my office can develop its own classifications through SBB and can seek can seek a purchasing delegation through DGS, but both of these tasks would take years and would take more administrative resources than my office presently has.

For these reasons, I urge your support of AB 168.

Great. Any additional folks wish to express support in the room? Any primary or other, folks wish to express opposition? Okay. We'll bring it back to committee.

Any questions? Nope. Do we have a motion?

We have a motion. Second. Oh, we have a question.

We have a motion and a second and a question. Okay.

Thank you, and good morning. So I've got a couple questions. It really sounded like the well, first, actually, I'll ask this question. Are we aware that the California High Speed Rail is currently the most expensive infrastructure project happening in the world?

My focus is on the California High Speed Rail project. I haven't looked across the world.

So with this $126,000,000,000 is what we're looking at from the total high speed rail portion. Do we believe that this bill diminishes transparency for that project?

Absolutely not. This this bill provides maximum transparency and accountability. Currently, the, high speed rail our office of IG, which is, our eyes and ears to what's going on at the high speed rail authority as well as for the public, doesn't have to make, doesn't make their reports public except their annual assessment of the business, plan. This would make all of the work that they do transparent and public.

So in the bill, it states that the bill would authorize the inspector general to hold that report or a portion of that report confidential as specified if the inspector general determines that the report or portion of the report would describe or otherwise reveal weaknesses that would pose a substantial and articulable risk to the project or the state operations if publicly disclosed. To the inspector general, this now empowers you to hide information from the public.

Could you give me examples of what you would deem as a potential risk to the project if the public knew?

Mister Tangipa, if you could confine your questions to the fiscal impacts of this specific bill, that'd be great.

If you were able to find out that the funding for the High Speed Rail Project was not in place, could you hide that could you hide that if you believe that it was detrimental to the project?

No. That is not listed in the law. The law lists specific examples, of things that would be held confidential, and that is not.

What are some of those specific examples?

So it specifically lists, information security, physical security, fraud detection controls, and then also pending litigation. Those are the matters that would that could potentially be held confidential for only a period of time, not for all time.

So and I would also like to note to, to my colleague is that those things are not public now. And so what this bill is requiring I mean, all pub all the reports are not public now. What this bill is requiring is that they be made public. And if there are those very narrow set of circumstances, they could be well held for a period of time, allow for to the public, the justification for why they're being held, and then that is reviewed every single quarter.

So it is not something that is held indefinitely.

But it's just it's interesting because the argument made by the inspector general today was that there is a potential of significant delays to the high speed rail project, and we need confidentiality on-

That's not what his testimony was. What he noticed there were significant delays.

And the way our system works, there is a procurement process that, slows down the work that he needs to do, that as you navigate through the nor the procurement process that he operates under now, it takes too long, and he would like to be able to expedite that so that he can get answers to us more quickly, as well as job applications that he is not able to access to have the right people in the right position and paid the right amount.

And so he's asking for those. And so the testimony that he, that he noted was specifically related to that.

Well, and I understand on the

And just the the purpose of this committee is the fiscal impacts of this bill, which is negligible. So if you have a question about the negligible impact of the cost of this bill, this is the appropriate committee for that. If you have policy objections, that's for policy committee or the floor debate. So just keep the focus on that, please. Thank you.

On that specifically, earlier this year, there was a 530 plus million dollar, change order delay settlement. Could that information be hidden? Because I think that has a massive fiscal impact on the state of California.

No. And he noted it as a part of his testimony.

Alright. Thank any other questions from anyone else in the committee? Okay. We have a motion and a second. Would you like to close?

Thank you. Let me get back to my little remarks. I want to equip the office of inspector general with everything it needs to ensure the high speed well construction project is a success, and that the project is delivered as efficiently and effectively as possible with maximum transparency and maximum accountability. I ask for your support of this important bill to give the inspector general the tools it needs to perform the critical oversight this project needs. Thank you.

Thank you. And the motion is do passed, and that is out on a b roll call. Thank you, Miss Wilson. Next, we have Mister Lee. And Mister Lee, you are presenting AB 1916.

You can begin when you're ready.

Alright. Good morning, Chair, Members. AB 1916 allows American sign language interpreters to participate in the same collective bargaining processes as other certified court interpreters under the Trial Court Interpreter Employment and Labor Relations Act. The fiscal impact is expected to be minor with the Judicial Council of California indicating no significant statewide cost pressures. Bill is sponsored by California Federation of Interpreters.

I respectfully ask for your aye vote.

Thank you. Any additional folks in the room, primary witnesses, or additional folks who wish to express support? Oh, the mic's not on. There we go. Okay.

Thanks. Good morning. Ignacio Hernandez on behalf of the California Federation for Interpreters, sponsors of the bill. Just ask for your support.

Thank you. Any primary or other witnesses in opposition?

Second.

We have a motion to second, and we'll bring it back. Sorry. We'll we brought it back to committee. We'll let you close.

Respectfully ask for an eye vote.

Great. The motion is do pass, and that is out on an a roll call with Mister Tangipa not voting. Next up, we have mister Lowenthal. You can begin when you're ready.

Okay. Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. I'm pleased to present AB 1803. This is developed in partnership with the Select Committee on Racism, Hate, Xenophobia, Chaired by Assemblymember Corey Jackson.

AB 1803 requires California businesses with five or more employees to include anti hate speech training as a component of their existing workplace harassment prevention training. This bill does not add training hours. It ensures that hate speech is addressed so workers know how how to identify it and report it when they encounter it. Additionally, this is not about duplication.

Employers whose training already covers hate speech or existing abusive conduct requirements, such as those outlined in the civil rights department standards will not need to overhaul or supplement their materials.

We're simply ensuring that every workplace training covers the full scope of what workers are actually experiencing. For those reasons, I respectfully ask for I vote on AB 1803.

Great. Thank you. Any primary or other witnesses in support? Any primary or other witnesses in opposition? Okay.

We'll bring it back to committee. We have a motion in a second. Would you like to close?

Respectfully ask for your aye vote.

That the motions do pass, and that is out on a B roll call with miss Dixon and Mister Ta not voting, thank you. Miss Pacheco will be presenting AB 1821. And you can begin when you're ready.

Thank you. And good morning, Madam Chair and Members. I am here today to present assembly Bill 1821, which makes a modest change to relieve the growing strain that time intensive public records requests are placing on local agencies. Public access to government records is an essential part of our democracy. That principle does not change with this bill.

However, agencies across the state are experiencing a sharp increase in requests that are exceptionally broad, time intensive, and costly to process. In some cases, request span years of records, require the review of hundreds of thousands of documents and takes months or longer to complete. Regardless of the intent, request at this scale requires significant time and resources to process. These kinds of requests slow down responses for everyone else including journalists and community members using the system in good faith.

This surge has exposed a gap in current law.

Currently, timelines are calculated in calendar days. While the actual work of reviewing, redacting, and legal processing happens during business hours. AB 1821 takes a narrow step to address that issue by aligning response timelines with business days, allowing for more realistic and reliable expectations for the public. It is my intent to continue working with stakeholders and any additional changes to the language will remain consistent with the intent of improving how the Public Records Act process functions.

And with me today to testify is Brian Mohan, city manager for the city of Moreno Valley, and he is also here to answer any technical questions.

Thank you. You can begin when you're ready.

Thank you. Madam Chair, Members, obviously, the Assemblymember mentioned my name. I just wanna mention that this particular bill is also cosponsored by Cal Cities, and Moreno Valley is in support of AB 1821. Public agencies, take the, CPRA or California Public Records Act very seriously. We are committed to transparency.

And, for most requests, records can be provided within hours. But the volume and complexity have of those requests have grown significantly, especially as electronic records must now be provided free of charge. Municipalities are seeing large scale requests that require substantial time staff time. In 2023, for example, every city in the five Bay Area counties received a request for all emails to all elected officials to feed an artificial intelligence algorithm for a commercial product. This reflects a broader trend towards more expansive and complicated requests.

Expanding, responding to these large requests involves a detailed multi step process. Agencies must, first identify all public agency officials who likely have responsive records, and those local officials must conduct initial searches often across multiple systems. And until all records are located, we cannot know which records may be exempt from disclosure or which will require redaction. All of this information is expected to be included in the initial determination.

Because of all these complexities, a lot of jurisdictions, including Moreno Valley, have made meaningful and measurable investments to strengthen transparency and expand public access to public records.

Treating this ongoing commitment, supporting, real tools and real results, our city has launched, implementation into a modern Laserfiche, public records portal, which expands the digital services and has made accessing our records, our repositories, available twenty four seven to our resident and our stakeholders. However, despite these particular advancements, the complexity related to the comments I had stated remain resource intensive, placing strain on staff and capacity and impacting the city's ability to sustain and further enhance these accesses these access improvements.

AB 1821 makes only a narrow practical clarification by converting the CPRA timelines from calendar days to work days or business days. This aligns the law with how agencies actually operate, ensures timeless or time, timelines reflective actual working days when staff are available to process request. It does not reduce access, to the records nor does it change any of the timelines and what must be disclosed.

As noted in the assembly appropriate appropriation committee analysis, this bill has no state fiscal costs. We appreciate the author's work and respectfully ask for an aye vote. And with that, thank you to the committee.

Thank you. Any additional folks in the room wish to express support?

Good morning. Kendra Begley on behalf of the California Municipal Clerks Association, California Association of Recreation Park Districts, City Of Carlsbad, City of Redwood City, and City Of Rancho Cucamonga in support.

Good morning. Johnny Pena with the League of California Cities. I'm proud to be a cosponsor of the bill and also wanting to register support on behalf of the urban counties of California. Thank you. Thank you.

Good morning. Eric Loyer speaking on behalf of the California State Association of Counties, proud cosponsor, and also registering support for the Rural County Representatives of California. Thank you.

Thank you. Any primary or other witnesses in opposition? Okay. We'll bring it back to committee. Any questions?

Nope. We have a motion and a second. Would you like to close? I respectfully ask for your aye vote. Great.

The motion is do pass. It's out on a B roll call with Miss Dixon and Mister Tangipa voting aye. Thank you. And Miss Pellerin, AB 1919. We have a motion and a second.

Good morning, Chair and Members. I wanna thank you, committee staff, for your work on this bill. In 2022, the Santa Cruz Metropolitan Transit District Metro initiated reimagine metro, a plan for faster, more frequent, and reliable service in areas of high demand. Reimagine Metro, which expanded bus routes and increased ridership by 43%, was funded by a one time infusion of $28,300,000 in 2023. This funding will run out in 2026.

Failure to secure additional funds will impact service to residents of Santa Cruz and Watsonville and will lead to significant metro employee layoffs and route cancellations. By providing clear election procedures, AB 1919 will give voters the power to decide the future of their transit system through a citizen's initiative. State costs are minimal, if any, since all costs to Santa Cruz County will be reimbursed by Metro. And with me to testify in support is Michael Pimentel representing Santa Cruz Metro.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Members. Michael Pimentel here on behalf of Santa Cruz Metro. The assemblywoman covered well, I think, the genesis and the motivation for this bill, so I won't reiterate those points. But the one thing that I would emphasize and I think appropriately noted by our author and in the committee analysis is a fact that all of the fiscal impacts that would be associated with this bill are ones that would be fully reimbursed by Santa Cruz Metro. It's spelled in the statute.

We just encourage your aye vote today. Thank you.

Thank you. Other folks who wish to express support?

Madam Chair, Members, Louis Costa with Smart Transportation Division, proud cosponsor and support.

Thank you. Any primary or other witnesses in opposition? Okay. We'll bring it back to committee. Any questions?

Nope. The motion and the second. The motion is do passed. Would you like to close?

I respectfully ask an aye vote.

Great. That's out on the B roll call. Okay. And AB 2393, Addis, the motion was do passed. It was on call.

It is now out with with a B roll call with mister Ta not voting. And AB 1697 by Mister Kalra, the motion is do passed. That is out on a B roll call with Mister Tangipa and Mister Ta not voting. And with that, I'd like to, dispense with the suspense calendar, Madam Secretary.

Fifteen fifty two, fifteen seventy, fifteen seventy four, fifteen eighty four, fifteen ninety one, sixteen thirty eight, sixteen forty, sixteen sixty one, sixteen ninety nine, seventeen zero five, seventeen fifteen, seventeen forty three, seventeen forty four, seventeen fifty five, seventeen fifty six, seventeen fifty eight, seventeen seventy five, eighteen eighteen, eighteen twenty three, eighteen forty one, eighteen fifty nine, eighteen seventy one, eighteen ninety, eighteen ninety three, nineteen forty seven, nineteen fifty five, nineteen sixty five, nineteen ninety one, twenty zero two, twenty thirty nine, twenty forty six, twenty seventy two, twenty seventy six, twenty ninety nine, twenty one zero four, twenty one forty three, twenty one fifty seven, twenty one eighty four, twenty two sixteen, twenty two seventeen, twenty two thirty four, twenty two fifty three, twenty two fifty six, twenty two fifty nine, twenty three ten, twenty three forty nine, twenty three sixty, twenty four forty one, twenty four fifty seven, twenty four eighty eight, twenty five fifty one, twenty five sixty three, twenty five eighty two, and twenty six sixty seven.

Great. Those are deemed approved on suspense. Okay. To be discussed at another date. With that, let's open up the room to anyone in the public, which was which is to express support or opposition on any of the bills today on the suspense calendar.

Okay. Alright. Meeting adjourns.