Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation

Just one question.

I'm sorry, Senator Durazo. Like to add?

Chaz Alamo, the LAO. No issues with this proposal. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. And Department of Finance?

Cynthia Elmore I have nothing more to add.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Senator Durazo.

Just one question. The proposal adds reporting for breaking barriers to employment and prison to employment only if additional funds are appropriated. Given that the legislature is already investing in reentry workforce programs, why would reporting requirements be conditional on future, appropriations rather than to exist existing funding?

It is conditional on additional funding because both of those programs are closing out.

Okay. Thank you.

Senator Seyarto. Okay. I only had one question. What is the total cost savings to the board for implementing and consolidating these reports?

So for for 10 to 12 evaluations at between 500,000 and 700,000 each, that significantly reduces and that doesn't include our internal staffing evaluation costs in partnership with external evaluators. So this, streamlining will provide a consistent expectant timeline of when, evaluation results will be provided, and then also reduce costs.

Thank you. Okay. Thank you. You did answer. Alright.

Seeing no further questions, that concludes issue number three. We're now going to issue number four. Issue number four is the subsequent injury benefits trust fund s I b t f the trailer bill language and the workload of the b c p were joined by director Jennifer Osborne for opening comments for the department of industrial relations as well as the following panelists. We have, Jazzy Grewal, the deputy secretary of legislation. We have Joshua Iverson, the chief financial officer.

And, Ken Lau, chief counsel of DIR. And then we do have, our representatives, Grace Henry, the finance budget analyst with department of finance. Allison has stayed with us and so has chas. We'll begin with you.

Thank you, madam chair and members. My name is Jennifer Osborne. I am the director of the department of industrial relations, also known as dir. I was asked to just do a quick overview of the department, and then I'm actually gonna yield my seat to another program expert for the following issue just so that we have all the right people up here. As you know, DIR's core mission is to protect and improve working conditions for California's nearly 20,000,000 workers while supporting the state's law abiding employers.

The department plays a central role in ensuring workers are paid the wages they are legally owed, maintaining works safe workplaces, and supporting an a level economic playing field. DIR is California's primary labor and workforce workplace safety agency established in 1927. We administer and enforce laws related to wages, hours, and working conditions, workplace safety and health, apprenticeship, and workforce development, and workers' compensation benefits not to be forgotten. DIR has nearly 4,000 authorized positions and an annual budget approach approaching $1,500,000,000.

Collectively, we protect work protect workers, support employers and compliance, and help strengthen California's economy by addressing unfair competition and activity in the underground economy.

To deliver on this mission, DIR is made up of four key divisions through the Labor Commissioner's Office, also known as DLSC. Laws are enforced to ensure that workers are paid their earned wages, protected from acts of retaliation, and able to exercise their rights under the law. Through CalOSHA, workers are protected on the job through a combination of educational enforcement efforts. CalOSHA ensures wake workplace safety standards are met, conducts inspections, responds to complaints, and provides consultation services.

The division of workers' compensation oversees the administration of workers' compensation claims for injured workers with appeals adjudicated by the workers' comp appeals board.

The goal of the division is to ensure timely benefits and support effective return to work outcomes for employees. And the division of apprenticeship standards also known as DAS supports apprenticeship programs across California and high demand industries, creating pathways to good paying careers and helping build a diverse skilled workforce that strengthens the state's economy.

DIR also carries out several cross cutting functions across the department that are often less visible but still critical to enforcement policy development and compliance and of course we have a seasoned professional staff of administrative professionals who support all of the programs in very many different ways through technology and budgeting and accounting and all of the legal work and all of the kind of things that go with that.

DIR remains committed to protecting workers, supporting compliant employers, and strengthening the economy, and we look forward to working with the legislature on shared priorities. Thank you.

I'm happy to answer questions, but as I said, I'm also gonna yield my seat to one of the people who are gonna be on the panel for the next or for the item that you announced, which is the subsequent injuries benefits trust fund, which is one of the administration's highest priorities in in getting, reforms to this year. I will be in the audience.

Is anyone else making a presentation? Yes. Who's that gonna be?

Yeah. We can see. Okay. Here we go. This.

Good morning, madam chair and committee members. I'm presenting on issue four, the subsequent injury benefits trust fund trailer bill language.

Are you Jassy?

Yes. Sorry. Jassy Grewal with Labor Agency. Thank you.

Thank you.

Over the last several years, there has been an unsustainable growth in the SABTF program's application, backlog, and liabilities that has led the program to become unmanageable. This unsustainable growth is causing long delays for workers and severe staffing challenges for the department. Between fiscal year twenty ten to 2014, around 800 new 850 new SABTF applications were filed per year. Last fiscal year, DIR received over 5,000 applications, a six fold increase. So far this fiscal year, we have already received more than 5,500 applications.

In fiscal year twenty twenty three, there were over 15,000 pending cases in the backlog. We expect the backlog to exceed 30,000 open claims by July, doubling the backlog in the past five years alone. Without amendments to the SIBTF statutes to slow the growth of cases and reduce SIBTF liabilities, DIR estimates total liabilities will increase to approximately $30,000,000,000 by fiscal year twenty nine thirty. This is a $7,000,000,000 increase from last year's estimate alone. The impact on the employer assessment is expected to grow from 14,000,000 in

fiscal year twenty fifteen to one and a half and the state share is expected to grow from 3,000,000 to 44,000,000. And the state share is expected to grow from 3,000,000 to 44,000,000. The administration understands the importance of this important program to our most severely injured workers, and has put forward a proposal to comprehensively reform the program to ensure its long term viability and availability.

All the proposed reforms are included in the agenda on pages 16 to 18, and I can walk through these reforms in more detail if helpful to the committee. I wanted to focus on one critical provision that has generated questions, applying the reforms to the application and open cases in the backlog.

This provision is necessary to reduce liabilities and ensure long term viability of the program. And I just wanna make sure that, we're clear that applying the reforms to the application and open cases would not eliminate any benefits for an applicant who is currently receiving an award from SABTF. It will not require any applicant to start over or reapply.

The reforms would not impose any mandatory timelines on applicants and applicants would not need to take any additional steps unless they or their attorney choose to submit additional evidence. Applicants will remain in the process where they were before the reforms took effect.

Unlike some State and Federal programs that operate a queue, SIBTF does not. For SIBTF, an applicant moves forward in the process once they have submitted all necessary information, regardless of when they submitted their application. An applicant's case is considered open for several reasons. First, the applicant is missing required or requested information for their case. Second, one or both parties are conducting discovery where additional information may be sought by a case examiner to determine eligibility.

And third, the applicant or their attorney and s a b t f have not agreed on a settlement or a workers compensation judge has not determined an award amount. When an applicant files a claim, an award amount is not guaranteed, and only when a workers' compensation judge approves a settlement or issues an award for benefits is the applicants case considered final. By not applying the reforms to the backlog, s I b t f liabilities across all employers by 2031 are projected to increase by $15,000,000,000.

By applying the reforms to the backlog, we would be able to reduce liabilities across all public employers by $3,000,000,000.

More specifically the State of California would reduce liabilities by $500,000,000 LA County and city would reduce liabilities by one by $900,000,000 and public education by $600,000,000 With these changes, the administration estimates that the growth of the program will return to manageable levels, ensure claims are timely processed for our most severely injured workers, and avoid increasing cost to public and private sector employers by billions of dollars over the long term.

With these comprehensive reforms, California will be able to ensure the ongoing viability and long term availability of this important benefit. With me today to answer any technical questions are as Ken Lau, chief counsel at the Department of Industrial Relations, Nicole Richardson, acting administrative director and chief counsel at the division of workers' compensation, and judge Paige Levy, chief judge, division of workers' compensation. Thank you for allowing me to make comments.

Good morning. Thank you. I'm Josh Iverson, chief financial officer for the Department of Industrial Relations. Just a few brief comments on the budget change proposal. The proposal is predicated on the comprehensive reforms included in the governor's budget With full implementation of statutory reforms and approval of this staffing request, DIR projects significant operational improvements.

The additional staffing will allow examiner case loads to be reduced from the current 1,100 cases per examiner to the industry standard of about 500 cases per examiner. We'll reduce attorney court appearances from the current 180 per year to about a 150 per year, and accelerated case resolution reducing waiting time from the current five to ten years to about three to five years.

With the proposed comprehensive reforms and these resources, the program will return to twenty fifteen sixteen benchmarks within five years, resolving the backlog of existing cases within ten years. This request assumes the reforms apply to all open applications in the backlog. If the adopted reforms exclude open unresolved cases, DIR would need a significant number of additional resources beyond what is being requested currently.

And I appreciate the subcommittee's consideration of this request, and I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. Mister Lau, are you presenting or answering any technical questions?

I'm just answering the technical questions.

Thank you, sir. Chas with the LAO.

Thank you. Chaz Alamo with the LAO. Last summer, our office released a report assessing the state's CPTIM program and the major fiscal risk and liability that are associated with the program.

Our report pointed out that the SIB TIF program has evolved over time to include sort of more lax eligibility standards for these benefits from what was originally intended to be a program that would support severely disabled workers who then were injured at work, has become now a program for which most of the applicants are a worker who sustains an injury at work, who has other underlying health conditions, chronic conditions, you know, typical conditions of aging, if you will.

So high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, common conditions listed on CIPTIF applications.

And our assessment was simply that today's version of the program differs greatly than its original intent. We propose several changes that would sort of reframe eligibility standards to again target those workers who have an underlying severe disability and who are injured at work for that original intent. Fast forward a few months, the administration has proposed this trailer bill language.

Our assessment of the trailer bill language is that it largely aligns with the recommendations that we made last year and would be a meaningful step for the state to return CIBTIFF to its existing original intent. A couple additional comments.

The program was relatively small ten or fifteen years ago, a few 100 applicants a year, and that is indicative of how rare these instances were. With the change in eligibility, the program applicants are now up tenfold each year, and that means that the change that the administration has proposed to apply the sort of historical eligibility standards to the existing case load. So these are the cases that are in that not queue, but I don't wanna call it a backlog, but that the cases that are pending.

In essence, that is the entire universe of subsequent injury claims. There are 4,000 claims that have been finalized for which workers are receiving benefits, and there are 30,000 claims still under assessment by the department.

So the trailer bill change isn't so much retroactive in our view as it is sort of recommitting the state to the SIPTIF eligibility standards that were originally intended. To take a moment to discuss the the the BCP, the workload BCP related to the trailer bill, in our view, it's the administration's best assessment of the workload that it will need over the coming years to handle the implementation of new trailer bill language and the resulting workload changes. These assessments are educated guesses.

They're the best the administration can do. Our office, along with the administration over the next couple years, would follow the implementation and assess whether workload needs were greater or lower than were included in this BCP.

We'd be happy to work with the subcommittee to right size the staffing requirement associated with that. And finally, the fiscal pressure for state and local governments from CIPTIF claims is hidden. And what I mean by that is there's no state budget line item that shows a SIB TIF liability. I think the best analog is the state's annual UI interest payment that we made to the Federal Government for the outstanding federal UI loan. That is a line item.

It's heard in this subcommittee and we talk about it. One of the reasons I point that out is that these costs aren't as salient to the state or to local governments because they get folded in with other employment costs and aren't a wide item in the budget. I think that comparison to the UI loan is is an apt one.

The CIPTIF liabilities for public and private employers in the state without changes as proposed in the trailer bill language are right now larger than the state's outstanding principal loan amount for the unemployment insurance loan that we owe the Federal Government. That stands at about $21,000,000,000 and SIPTIF liabilities currently estimated to be about $30,000,000,000.

Happy to take any additional questions. Thank you so much.

Thank you for that background. Department of finance, anything you'd like to add?

Grace Henry, department of finance available if there are any questions.

Thank you. Senator Durazo.

Thank thank you, madam chair. I appreciate all the work that's being done around it, and I'm I'm glad we're tackling it rather than just ignoring it the way that we do with the UI. And I I wanna go to your comment about returning to the original intent, so I get having to do that. The bill requires pre so several specific questions. Just the bill requires pre existing conditions to be documented before the subsequent injury.

So how will DIR handle cases where a worker had a a real pre existing condition that wasn't formally documented, is there a hardship or appeal process for that?

Jazzy Grewal with Laborgency. Happy to take that question. There are two different ways in which a worker who does not have prior medical evidence will be able to establish their preexisting disability existed at the time of the subsequent injury. So first, since a subsequent work injury must be work related, currently a worker is assigned a QME, a qualified medical evaluator.

As a part of that q m e's role in evaluating the subsequent injury, to look at other injuries, conditions, or disabilities a worker might already have through their comprehensive medical evaluation.

For example, a worker who was in a bad accident where they broke their arm over ten years ago, but was unable to access health care due to costs, their arm never healed properly. So in that q m e's evaluation, they would be able to assess that arm injury and establish that it did not occur prior to the subsequent injury. So that's one way. The second way is that the trailer bill does allow for submission of contemporary as evidence.

So in section forty seven fifty four point one of the trailer bill, it allows for medical records, testimony, or other evidence in existence at the time of the subsequent industrial injury.

What is currently happening is that applicants are trying to establish after the fact, after that subsequent injury that they had a preexisting condition. So what the t b l does is it require it allows for that contemporary evidence that was in existence before the subsequent injury. There does need to be proper guardrails to prevent abuse or fraud in determining years or decades old later that an injured worker suffered from a preexisting disability.

And we believe the trailer bill strikes this balance by allowing for additional types of evidence to be submitted and while also using it using its current QME process to establish those preexisting disabilities.

Thank you. The original would you say SIBTIFF? The original SIBTIFF, was designed to protect low paid workers without disability pensions, from employers unwilling to hire them with visible disabilities. How does the EIR ensure the reforms don't inadvertently harm the workers the program was designed to protect? You might have already covered a little bit of that.

Yeah. And I'm happy to expand on that too. So, SABTF or SIBTF, as some love to call it, was established in the nineteen forties, and this is before we had other discrimination disability protection laws on the books. And so since the establishment of SABTF, we now have feeha a d a to prevent disability discrimination. We also have s s d I to offer payments to workers who may be disabled.

And so there are other existing protections that exist in the workplace to ensure that we are continuing to hire workers with disabilities. And so I just wanted to just share that. And the other part too is that workers who have disabilities will continue to go through the process. What we have seen and what LAO has noted is the increase in chronic conditions and trying to establish that it was a pre existing condition after the subsequent injury.

And so for injured workers and workers who have pre existing disabilities and conditions, those cases will continue to move through the process.

The reforms are largely intended, to tackle the issues we have around the chronic conditions.

So the trailer bill will route CMTIF medical evaluations through the QMA process, but the system has a documented shortage of evaluators, and produces significant delays in the regular workers' comp cases. So how will you ensure, that the QME, can afford can absorb these cases without further delaying resolution for other workers who've been waiting months or even years?

I'll I'll take that question. Ken Lau, chief counsel of DIR. So what the trailer bill language does is that it requires the, the SIBTF applicant to use the QME report that was done in the industrial case. So it's a subsequent industrial injury. So, in most cases, when a worker, suffers a work injury, they will have been evaluated by a qualified medical evaluator, as Jazzy pointed out earlier, and with a comprehensive report of the applicant's medical history.

And then you can what the trailer bill language now allows for is for the applicant to use that report, which documents all of the injuries in the subsequent injury claim, which will actually streamline the process.

Okay. Got it. The trailer bill applies retroactively to 30,000 open non final cases, including cases where workers have been litigating in good faith under existing law for for years. Has the, DIR modeled how many pending claimants would lose eligibility, under the new, labor disabling standard, and what transition or hardship provisions exist for those workers?

I'm happy to take that question. I'm currently, there everything would have to be we'd have to manually go through each case and assess each case if for eligibility, so it is very difficult for us to do that in that manual process, it's very time intensive and resource intensive, so we have not been able to do that.

We are in the middle of a modernization project, and so it is all manual at this moment, and so we don't know how many cases will meet the new labor disabling definition. But if the reforms are applied to those open cases and applications that will occur through that process by case examiners and by the judges. How the process currently works is there and I'm gonna speak in very broad strokes because, it's a very complex program with many steps is the first step is the application process.

An applicant applies for s I b t f benefits. The applicant and or their attorney will receive a letter from DWC, the division of workers comp, requesting a number of different pieces of information, and once that information is compiled and sent to DWC, they'll move into the next phase, which is what we call discovery. And in the discovery phase, that is when case examiners review the evidence that is submitted, and then they'll request, if needed, additional evidence to determine eligibility.

And once that case file is closed and all the information that is requested is needed, is in that file, then they'll move to the next is in that file then they'll move to the next phase which is where either they'll get a hearing date with a workers compensation judge to have their case heard or the attorney and the applicant can pursue a settlement with DWC and DIR.

So those are sort of the three phases and so it is very difficult for us to determine who, in each of those phases, would meet the labor disabling definition, but we would be able to, in that process of implementation, have each case examiner and judge examine that evidence, and attorneys and their and the applicants, if they wish to to do so, can submit additional evidence to meet those eligibility thresholds.

So since we don't have all that information, tracking it would be really important, you know, just to see what what what's the reality out there. And then finally, just one more question. The governor vetoed AB 1329 and called for comprehensive reform through the budget process. That trailer bill is now before this subcommittee this trailer bill language. But a a AB 1576 is simultaneously moving through the policy committee process.

So how does the administration view the relationship between the two vehicles?

I'm also happy to take that question if that's okay.

What would we do without you?

The bill continues to move through the legislative process. The department and the agency and the division have been directed via the veto message to come up with a comprehensive proposal, and we really do need comprehensive reform to address this exponentially growing workload and liabilities and growth in the program. And so from our perspective, it is really difficult to do the to address this problem in a piecemeal approach.

So that is why you see such comprehensive reform in the trailer bill, because that is the approach that is needed at this point of where we are seeing exponential growth, of the program. And so we continue to monitor the legislation, have noticed that it was recently amended, and so we'll work to continue to assess the impact that that will have.

But we believe that the comprehensive reforms and the trailer bill is the way to address the liabilities and the workload that the department is seeing. And to truly be able to address this significant backlog. We have workers who are seriously injured who are now stuck in this backlog and taking five to ten years for case resolution. Those workers need to see much faster case processing times to be able to have their cases heard.

And without comprehensive reform, we will be in a very difficult situation to be able to do that.

Great. Thank you. Senator Durazo, the LAO, I think he wanted to chime in. Do I pronounce your name Alamo or Alamo? Alamo. Okay.

Thank you for asking. Did you wanna add something?

I don't wanna step on okay. Excuse me. Senator Durazo, you asked a question related to changes in eligibility standards, and I I think I I only wanted to add a bit of nuance. The legislature has not set the eligibility standards for the SIPDIF program. The laws were written rather vaguely in the nineteen forties, and what has happened is that a series of decisions, some made by the legislature, unintentionally affected eligibility for SIBTIFF.

The Workers' Compensation Appeals Board issued a decision in 2020 that related to a legal question, but had major ramifications for the SIPTIF program. And so what I mean to impress upon the subcommittee is that eligibility has expanded by sort of actions and inertia outside of the legislature's direct action.

So to characterize it as a elimination of an eligibility for a worker is I think giving, the sense that the legislatures recently allowed for all of these uses, when in fact it it was sort of the evolution of the program rather than specific explicit legislative action, like contemplated with this TBL.

I I appreciate your comment because that gives greater context to what we're talking about here. I guess I'm referring not so technically as much as if the end result is that a worker loses because the standard for all these reasons changed, then that's what I'm concerned about. And I know you all too, but that's what all these questions are are aimed at. Thank you. Thank you.

Senator Seyarto?

Thank you. And, fortunately, I don't have any good questions for you because it's it's, pretty well much been covered. But I do have a couple of comments because this is one of the more critical, issues, that we need to get a grasp on. Otherwise, it will it it affects so many things.

And to your comment earlier about you don't see it in the line item from a city perspective, from a government agency perspective, that's because there is no decision to make when your workers' comp insurance goes up from 1,000,000 to $2,000,000.

But all employees see is that, hey. The city made a million and a half more dollars in revenue. Why aren't we getting some of that? Well, it's because that line item is not it's not a decision thing. We don't say, oh, no.

We're not gonna pay the extra 500 or million. They have to pay it. And so all of that excess revenue, and you can see that in the state budget as well. If 15 I forgot how much more billion dollars in state revenue that we we brought in this year, We're spending $3.50 instead of 2 instead of I'm sorry. $2.50 in the general fund instead of about, $2.28 last year.

Well, everybody wants to know, well, where's all that money going? All of it goes into those type of things, and a lot of it is related to programs like this. I've I've been able to see this on on both the workers comp issued later on that we're gonna we're that we're gonna talk about, but, you know, this program as well because, you know, they kinda overlap.

It's one of the most abused systems ever because there is no incentive along the way for anybody to not not do it. From the medical care parts to the the legal parts to the employee parts.

But where but where if we don't get a handle on this, our employees don't get raises because we're paying out money. The people that are egregious that are hurt the most wind up in the system waiting while it's inundated with people that are taking advantage of a system that has basically what he was talking that LAO was talking about was the scope of what the definitions of what these things are has has widened and widened and widened.

And there's nothing we can do about it because we have protection mechanisms in place for a lot of people, and and you can't go after that. It's blatant out there, and we can't go and and reel it in. There are very few cases that actually they investigate a fraud and and are able to hold somebody accountable for that.

There's so much of that out there, and we have to figure out how to to reel this in. These these steps that they're taking are they need to be done. That's one that to me, it's like a no no no questions. We we have to do these. And I applaud the LAO for coming up with those great ideas about how to fix a program.

We have to caution ourselves so that the the people that are truly injured terribly and need the help are getting the help and they're getting it rapidly, which means we kinda have to have a a way of of triaging the most injured, so that they get the the care they need. We can't have people laying in in in bed for four months waiting for their next doctor appointment.

And and so, you know, I I am in agreement that we need this and and I applaud everybody for for recognizing the dire need for it. Thank you. I have no further questions as my colleagues have perfectly brought the key points forward although I do have one point of personal privilege. Miss Grewal is your title deputy secretary of legislation? From the director who's here present that your knowledge of the program far exceeds legislation.

It sounds like you run the program. So congratulations and thank you for your very in-depth knowledge of sharing with the committee.

Thank you so much.

Put that in writing and make sure it's in your documents. With that concludes NC even Senator Durazo concurs. So you got two there, two out of three. That concludes issue number four. We're now gonna move to issue number five, which is the elimination of vacant positions at DIR.

We're joined by the following individuals, the same with the department of finance and l a o and also mister Iverson I believe is staying our c f o of d I r. Let's see if you can match, Jassy. I think she's got you Yes. Pushed on there.

Yeah. Definitely something to aspire to. And hopefully, I do because I'll be with you for the remainder of DIR's issues. So hello again. Josh Iverson, chief financial officer at DIR.

Thank you for the opportunity to provide an overview of DIR's approach to the vacant position eliminations under budget control section 4.12. In response to this budget directive, DIR conducted a comprehensive and deliberate review of its vacancy landscape, operational needs, and program priorities. At the time, the department had roughly 4,000 authorized positions with about 1,000 vacancies.

Our goal was to identify a level of reduction that would achieve meaningful savings while minimizing impacts to core mission critical functions, implementing this budget control section in a balanced and responsible approach. DIR divisions, which there are many, were given the flexibility to identify vacancies that could be absorbed with the least operational disruption.

This decentralized approach ensured that decisions were informed by program level expertise and aligned with each division's unique workload and priorities. The department focused on eliminating long term vacancies and positions that were more administrative or clerical in nature, while taking steps to protect frontline enforcement and service delivery to the greatest extent possible. Even after the reductions, DIR retains several 100 vacant positions, providing continued flexibility to address the highest priority needs as they evolve.

We recognize the concerns raised regarding workload and backlogs in certain areas and remain committed to monitoring these pressures and adapting within available resources. Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.

No. Alright. I have I have one or two questions. For the pre apprenticeship programs, what are the completion you may not have this specific thing now. What are the completion and placement rates for the Erika program and for the high road trading partnership funded building trades pre apprenticeship?

Hello? Okay. Yes. For the pre apprenticeship programs, what are the completion and placement rates for the Erika and the High Road Training Partnership funding, building trades, pre apprenticeships, and what share pre apprentices successfully enter registered apprenticeships. Obviously, that's a that has to be part of the goal, right, to actually move through the apprenticeship programs.

So first that, any any information on that?

Yeah. So Adele Burns. I'm the Chief at the Division of Apprenticeship Standards, And, those are great questions, and I'm happy to take those and and follow-up specifically since those were about two programs. One thing that I will just clarify is, DAS obviously does run the the Erika grants, and so we can gather that data for you. And we do track it in our system, so we can do that analysis and follow-up with you about that.

The high road to construction careers, some of those programs are registered pre apprenticeships with DAS, but not all of them. And that is a grant program administered by the California workforce development board. So, we may need to I I will probably be able to give you a partial answer on that, because, of course, if they are not registered with DAS, we do not have the ability to tell you which of those individuals have matriculated into an apprenticeship.

But this, of course, is part of why we are broadly encouraging the registration of pre apprenticeships so that we can have exactly those kind of metrics. And, so we will follow-up with you also about the completion rates of pre apprenticeship programs, but I will say just high level pre apprenticeship programs typically range from two weeks to twelve weeks.

So the completion rate is usually pretty high on those. Where there's more variation in completion rates is in apprenticeship programs. So the I will say the key metric that we track with pre apprenticeship is more around the matriculation into an apprenticeship program. So we have the the stronger data around that.

I was privileged to visit a I forgot the name of it, in in Los Angeles, the women's pre apprenticeship program.

Winter, perhaps?

Yes. Yes. Yep. And it was fabulous. I mean, the experience of what it takes, and things that you maybe maybe weren't as a bigger challenge in more traditional careers, but to be in the construction career.

How how your family responsibilities, childcare is really different to have to get to work at four or 05:00 in the morning on the other side of town. I mean, really, just down to the nitty gritty, it was really, really wonderful. So I could see how that's gonna increase because just saying, okay, apprenticeship programs should have more women. You know, okay, you know, you can say that all you want, but without these preparations for the apprenticeship program won't won't work.

So given the success of these programs, shouldn't we consider additional resources?

And I'm you know, we all know that we need more construction careers, more people in construction careers with the fires and so many other housing. We're doing a lot on the policy level to increase housing production, but we're all the people who can actually build. So I would really encourage you as part of our vision for California and the needs for California, this could really use additional resources. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator Durazo, for not only your good questions, but covering for me there. You're a great wingman all the time.

I just have one more. Yes. And can you provide a status update on the California Youth Apprenticeship Program? Happens to be my bill. Anyway, my understanding has been a a model for federal programs, and other states.

So if you could get that to me, that would be great.

Absolutely. Is there any particular area of the Youth Apprenticeship are you thinking specifically about the pre apprenticeships funded by the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship Grant? Are you looking for sort of the same metric for that program?

Whatever you have.

Whatever okay.

At 50,000,000 over three years. Right?

Yeah. So I mean, I can give you just a high level update about the, we call it the COIA grant, the California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship Grant. And we have been allocated $65,000,000 over three different budget years, and we've done two rounds of awards.

We've awarded $46,000,000 in grants, and there is a third round of that grant that we are soon to announce the awardees, and what we did with the third round of the grant was actually to provide continuation funding to the round one and two grantees that have really met significant milestones and registered their programs, whether it be a pre apprenticeship or apprenticeship, and providing continuation funding to those programs to help them launch and continue to scale and serve more opportunities.

So that's kind of the the high level, but happy to provide any other further updates you're interested in.

Thank you. Seeing no further questions, that's gonna conclude our issue number nine, and now we're moving to issue 10, which is the increased support for judgment enforcement we will be joined by the following panelists for this issue we have miss Garcia Brower from the the labor commissioner with the division of labor standards and enforcement Mister Iverson, who's still hanging in here, and then we have our final same representatives from the LAO and department of finance.

Are you going to are we gonna do miss Brower First, mister Iverson?

I'd like to be consistent and and go first myself, if that pleases the chair.

You haven't convinced me why yet.

Because I wrote it down and everything. I

Well, she's prepared too. Go ahead, Mr. Iverson.

Alright. Thank you. I appreciate it. Good afternoon. Josh Iverson, Chief Fiscal Officer at the Department of Industrial Relations.

This request is for 14 permanent positions phased in over two years and up to $2,300,000 in fiscal year '26-'27 with $2,000,000 ongoing from the labor enforcement and compliance fund to expand the labor commissioner's judgment enforcement unit. This unit plays a critical role in ensuring that workers actually receive wages that have already been legally determined to be owed to them through the wage claim adjudication process.

When employers fail to comply with final orders, the judgment enforcement unit uses legal tools such as liens, levies, and asset investigations to recover unpaid wages on behalf of workers. The unit is currently managing a substantial and growing volume of enforcement actions, reflecting both increased enforcement activity and continued challenges in securing payment from non compliant employers. This proposal will allow the department to expand its capacity to process referrals, pursue enforcement actions more quickly, and improve outcomes for workers who have already prevailed in their claims.

Strengthening this function is essential to ensuring that judgments are meaningful and that bad actors are held accountable. This proposal supports the core mission of the labor commissioner's office to ensure a just days pay for every worker and to promote a level playing field for employers. Thank you, and I'm happy to take any questions.

Thank you. Miss Brower, did you have anything you'd like to add?

I'm available for questions.

Okay. Thank you. Alright. LAO office, any comments?

Chaz Alamo with the LAO. Only comment is to say that several years ago, our office reviewed the administrative data behind several years worth of wage claims at the labor commissioner's office. And one of our key findings was that oftentimes when an award is made by by a staff member through the the the proceedings and hearings of a wage claim, the word cannot be collected. And that is the the sort of responsibility of this entity.

And so pointing that out here, that's clearly a a shortcoming of the current wage claim adjudication process, and these positions would go toward writing that, something that we'll be following more closely in the future, and also suggest that the subcommittee continue paying attention to as the the labor commissioner's office manages its its growing backlog of wage claims.

Thank you. Department of finance, anything you'd like to add?

Your Department of Finance, nothing further to add, but here to answer any questions.

Thank you. Senator D'Orazo?

Thank you. I just wanna thank the department for all the work that you've done on in this area. My first year I was elected, we had a budget hearing. And I remember so distinctly, there was this long line of garment workers who had these judgments from employers who owed them, and it was and they've done everything, and it was still years later. So that really left a big impression on me.

So thank you all very much. So what is the current backlog of unaddressed judgment referrals and in dollar terms, and how much in unpaid wages do you estimate you could recover with the proposed additional staffing?

Good afternoon. I do not have the dollar amount, but we can share that with you later. We have on the liens, we have 28,000 is our current backlog. On levies, it's 30,000, and I'm estimating. On the the demand letters under labor code two thirty eight two forty, we have about 3,500.

And on in-depth investigations, so those are generally low wage industries that we prioritize, and

we have about 15 and we have about 1,500 in those.

Do you have idea what the dollar value is?

I do not have that.

Thank you.

Thank you, Senator D'Orazo. Seeing no further questions, that's gonna conclude our issue number 10. Thank you for your participation. Before we move on to public comment, I wanna give, Senator de razzo, any final opportunities of questions or comments, based on today's agenda.

I don't wanna repeat the specific ones. Thank you, madam chair. But, obviously, you know, there's progress that's been made on certain fronts, and I just don't want us to go backward, you know, on other fronts, especially dedicating where we know there's an issue. We know it. We we just can't walk away from working people.

I'm really proud of the apprenticeship programs, worked with certain people here in the room on those apprenticeship programs over several years. The youth apprenticeship program, the women's apprenticeship pro it's it's really great to see moving in that direction. That's why I don't wanna see us work backwards in in other parts of the work. So with that, thank you very much. And I will fight hard alongside of you madam chair for the resources that are needed.

Thank you. Thank you very much. With that, that concludes all the items that we have and now, we'll you may wanna listen to some of the public comments before you depart. Thank you very much. We will now move on to public comment to ensure that everyone has a chance to be heard.

Please limit your comments to one minute AND, THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Cesar. Madam Chair, members, Cesar Diaz here with Capital Advocacy.

Just a moment. Could everyone please keep things down so we can hear the comment? Just a moment. Let them get a chance to okay. Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair, members. Cesar Diaz with Capital Advocacy on behalf of the California Hospital Association. Here in item number four in support of the SLBTF. Thank you.

Thank you for staying.

Good afternoon, and thank you for your patience while you're with us. We'll be very brief. My name is first, I just wanna say good afternoon, chairwoman, Madam Richardson, and members of the Senate Budget Committee. My name is George, and I work with the California Coalition for Worker Power, CCWP, and I'm a constituent of yours in the beautiful neighborhood of Lincoln Heights. First, we just wanna thank you and this committee for the leadership in supporting our budget request last year for the California Workplace Outreach Program, CWAP.

Just wanna share some quick numbers. Through CWAP, we have reached over 4,000,000 workers in the state, had over 800,000 interactions from 89 organizations in over 45 languages. Workers right now need our help more than ever with federal immigration enforcement endangering our communities. A lot of workers don't know who to go, who to trust, where to get these resources. And so these community organizations behind me are trusted messengers that reach our most vulnerable workers and provide them with the resources they need.

We have brought some of these organizational stakeholders to share the impact they have made to workers and constituents of your district. I'll close by saying, it is for these reasons we request your support for 30,000,000 per year for five years to front CWAP. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Good afternoon. This is my name is Soraya Leonard from the April Parker Foundation. We're based in Long Beach, so it's nice to meet you. For the CWAP program, we've been doing a lot of groundwork with individuals in the workplace and understanding what their experiences are behind the scenes as we help engage and empower them as they understand what their workplace rights are, both inside and outside of the workplace.

It's clear that workers need protections in their workplace and the fact that they feel taken advantage of, and not understanding their rights is a big issue, something that we're trying to absolve. So for example, I had met one worker that was denied giving getting time to be able to take care of his, family member back home, and, other workers who felt racially discriminated against and targeted in the workplace, and just don't feel safe to, go to work on a on a daily basis.

So this work and the CWAP program helps us give them some insight on what their workplace rights are on a daily basis. So just wanted to give you some notes on that. Thank you.

Thank you. So, I was a little lenient on the first two because we were kinda warming up and you guys were so great and participating today, but please try to keep to a minute. And if you get to a minute, I'm gonna say please summarize. Okay? Alright.

Yes, ma'am.

Great. Thank you. Greetings, chairwoman. I'm also a constituent, in Long Beach of yours and to the rest of the budget committee. My name is Dawn Motkins.

I'm the director of the Southern California Black Worker Hub. We coordinate black worker centers throughout Southern California, reaching more than 15,000 black workers. Please fund our CWAP program, 30,000,000 per year through the 2031 term. We are also members of the California worker of the CCWP, California Coalition for Worker Power. It has proven critical to our abilities to deepen reach and education and engagement around worker rights with black workers across all industries, public and private sectors.

Through our c wap echo black voices project, we've become the trusted messenger in connecting workers to our local and state agencies like EEOC, DIR, Cal OSHA, civil rights departments, and to support their worker protections where so many have never trusted these government agencies before. The outcomes are workers are more activated and empowered to actually address the insisted worker workplace.

Please summarize.

Yep. Violations that so many are harmfully harmfully experiencing. And in addition, please also fund the 14 staff positions at the labor commissioner's office. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Senator Richardson and other committee member. I'm DJ Yoon. I'm from beautiful city of Inglewood. Special shout out to my Senator. I'm with the organization, Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance.

My Long Beach people, I used to represent most of Long Beach. Now I only bit, but Inglewood's full in the house. But I still I still love Long Beach. Yes.

So I'm also with the organization Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance in, Central Los Angeles. I follow in, to share a story why CO OP is so important. A worker from a L'Oreal restaurant, it's a local chain in Southern California, reach out to us because he and his workers were so fearful of going to work while ICE kidnapping was separating so many families in Southern California.

So we met with workers and owners, and we will agree that business cannot open while workers don't go to work because of the worry about being kidnapped by the ice. So we had a great relationship with the owners and workers.

We provide a direct know your right education to all workers and the owners in multiple location. I think this truly demonstrate the Siwa program, help us to build a partnership among owners and workers and community organization to protect the workers also to protect the workplace businesses. So this is a very critical moment for your support, and your support will continue and build up our partnership to protect our local economy. So thank you so much for your support.

Thank you. If you're representing an organization, if you would kindly leave your organization's name and address, email, and phone number so we can follow-up if needed. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chairman and the members of the Senate Budget Committee. My name is Cammy Johnson, raised in Long Beach, now I'm a current resident of Englewood. I just wanted to let you know. The Southern California, I'm from the Southern California Black Worker Hub, represent over 15,000 black workers across Southern California. I'm a proud resident of Inglewood, California.

And I'm asking you to support allegation for $30,000,000 per per year for the five for five years to fully fund our California worker outreach program, CWAP. Especially as tourism events are coming and world events are increasing, I'm right nearby, all of the, you know, all of the areas in that that are world events that are happening that are coming to New York City. We want to ensure our workforces are informed and protected. This is our trusted we are trusted messengers.

Keep, keep us connected to our government agencies and well and worker right protections.

Please adequately fund CWAP.

Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon, y'all. My name is Sirach McKeel, and I'm a black worker organizer at EBACE in the East Bay. Alongside these wonderful people from all over the state, I'm in support of full funding, which exists because of fees paid for by bad actors. So let's make sure this funding can educate and protect workers.

And on the other issue, hiring adequate staff to recover lost wages. Thank you so much and appreciate you all.

Thank you. You did excellent. Less than a minute.

Good afternoon, Chairwoman and Members of the Senate Budget Committee. My name is Flower Alvarez Lopez with Universidad Popular, which is based in North County, San Diego, beautiful sunny San Diego, serving communities alongside the 78 And 76 Corridor in the rural areas of Julian, which is in Senator Seyarto's district. We support workers and small businesses across North County San Diego region. We're here in strong support of additional funding for CWAP. Our organizations reach some of the most underserved and vulnerable community members.

Thank you.

Thank you. Great job. Thank you. Thirty seconds. You were great. And your name is Laura. Right? Laura.

Flower.

Flower.

Oh, excuse me. Alka Seltzer is clogged.

Good afternoon, Chairwoman Richardson and Members of the Senate Budget Committee. My name is Alondra Alvarez with Universidad Popular from North County San Diego. Our team reaches constituents of Senator Seyarto's district, laborers across the rural area who rely on us to connect them with workers' rights resources. As those trusted messengers, we are here in support of CWAP funding to continue the necessary work our organization provides to the force and backbone of California labor. Thank you.

Thank you. Wow. Great.

Good afternoon. My name is Daniella Urban. I'm the Executive Director of the Center for Workers Rights here in Sacramento. I'm gonna speak first on item one then on items five and ten. So on item one, since 2020, we have convened the UI, the unemployment insurance network of advocates that support claimants on their, unemployment claims.

EDD next rep represents a major opportunity to modernize California's employment development department across all three benefits programs. However, we are highly concerned about the lack of oversight and accountability and independent review of the modernization efforts, as well as the meaning lack of meaningful insight from claimant advocates like myself. For example, the recent update on the SDI and paid family leave phone lines have not resulted in any noticeable difference to claimants, and yet EDD moves forward with implementing these systems on the UI program.

We wanna make sure that these concerns are not replicated as they go through the ICMS system and as you approve the considerable amount of funding for that work. Thank you.

Now moving to items five and ten, I am also here, obviously, at the Center for Workers' Rights, but also speaking for Wage Justice Center, LA Worker Center Network, Santa Clara Wage Theft Coalition, Bet Tzedek Legal Services, and La Raza Centro Legal. For item five, we strongly oppose the eliminating of these crucial positions at DIR. The roles are essential to carrying out the agency's mission and ensuring California's labor protections are actually enforced.

The workload facing current DIR staff cannot be overstated, and reducing staffing will only limit workers' access while worsening morale and retention among existing workers. On item 10, the impact of judgment enforcement unit in enforcing fundamental workplace protections like minimum wage and overtime cannot be overstated.

Without this step in the wage claim process, wage theft judgments are often just a piece of paper.

Please summarize.

The enforcement tools to JU are powerful, yet they need the extensive resources provided by staff, and we would support the expansion of that staff. Thank you.

Thank you.

Afternoon. Good afternoon, Chairman Richards, Chairwoman Rich Richardson and committee. My name is Minnie. I am with the Web Resource Center. We are based out in the High Desert Apple Valley.

And going out in the community and educating the workers, we are asking that you support the c y, funding. We are literally boots on the ground going out to different, you know, businesses and communities and just educate educating the workers so that they don't have fear in being retaliated against whether it's wage theft or discrimination. So you, helping, you know, to, keep the funding going is helping us to do our job in educating the community. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Good afternoon, Chair, Chairman Richardson, and Members of the Senate Budget Committee. My name is Nerissa Gonzalez from Filipino Workers Center from Southern California based in San Diego in LA. We strongly support the CWAP budget request through our outreach efforts. We have been able to stand with our Filipino community, helping workers who have struggled for far too long recover their hard earned wages. These are not just numbers.

They are families trying to survive, parents trying to provide individuals fighting for dignity and fairness. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Excellent. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Senator Durazo. Paul Bauer with Actum on behalf of Freeworld, which is an end to end employment platform for returning citizens for the formerly incarcerated. We support a $6,000,000 augmentation for the Workforce Development Board to help gain employment for formerly incarcerated individuals in the, specifically, in the truck driving industry where right now there's a big gap of 17,000 commercial driver's licenses that have just been canceled by the Federal Government.

So we know that this is a pipeline to employment for our returning citizens and an opportunity to both help in this economic struggle for the need for these drivers that's currently out there along with helping on a social benefit in terms of gaining a gainful employment for individuals to help them on their path as they return home. So thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Senator Richardson and Members of the budget committee. My name is Veronica Alvarado, and I'm with the Warehouse Worker Resource Center. We're the co chairs of the California Network for Immigrant and Worker Justice. We are working with Assembly Member Garcia on a budget request that has been submitted on the assembly side to provide funding for immigration enforcement emergency funds, which would provide income replacement assistance to families whose earnings and livelihoods have been disrupted by the devastating immigration rates and kidnappings taking place in our communities.

We look forward to presenting more details of our proposal to this committee in the coming weeks.

We're thankful to the many legislators who have already expressed support for this proposal, especially the Latino legislative caucus for including us in their budget priorities for this year. We hope to be able to work with this committee and your counterparts in the assembly to find a way to get the support to our immigrant families who so desperately need the support. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, respected Senators and subcommittee Members. My name is Scott Warren, and I'm a qualified medical evaluator. Three years ago, I evaluated miss Sanchez, and I'm here today for her. I believe that the current trailer bill language for the SIBTF program does not adequately fix the the problems in the system, and it would potentially hurt her and many others that I've taken care of and evaluated over the years. And so I'm gonna turn it over to miss Sanchez.

Thank you very much for listening today.

Thank you for coming.

Good Good afternoon, Members of the committee. My name is Miriam Sanchez. I was born with a severe disability in my left arm, but that never stopped me. I worked my entire life and always supported myself. I was happy to work.

But in 2018, I injured my other job on the job. Now things that used to be easy for me have become almost impossible. My case with the SIBTF has already taken years, and I'm scared that these budget changes will take away my chance to be heard before my situation is ever resolved. I'm not asking for anything that isn't fair. I just want my case to move forward.

That is why I'm asking you to move these changes to Assemblymember Liz Ortega's bill AB 1576. I feel that's the right place to discuss these issues rather than making a quick decision on the budget. Thank you very much for listening to me.

Thank you. Muchas gracias. Please leave your contact information so we can find out who your appropriate representative is and ask them also to assist on your behalf. Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Benjamin Feld of Giterman Giterman Feld representing some of the most disabled workers seeking benefits from the subsequent injuries benefits trust fund, people like miss Sanchez, including veterans, first responders, laborers, field and farm workers. We can agree that reform of the system is needed, but this benefit was created. The claim that this proposal merely manages a workload or returns the program to its original intent is simply false. It only reduces workload.

And that was never the original intent of the program. Retroactive changes tied to prior findings cannot be revisited. They strip eligibility for many, while the new barriers make access nearly impossible for most others to get this benefit in the future. Again, like miss Sanchez. Tens of thousands of injured workers who have spent years waiting for these benefits could lose them outright with no meaningful recourse.

Even those who qualify face diminished value that make it nearly unreasonable to go after these benefits in the first place.

Please summarize.

This is not reform. This needs to be addressed at the legislative policy level. Thank you.

Thank you. Yes, ma'am.

Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Hannah Zuckerman. Born and raised Californian. I'm gonna throw on some more pie love for Long Beach Long Beach State alum.

And I am here as part of our CWAP crew. I work for EBACE, East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy based in the East Bay in Oakland. We represent low wage workers and tenants, and CWAP has allowed us to really really help support workers in filing those claims. We are those trusted messengers.

My favorite thing about my job is I get to see the light bulb go off, and, when folks understand that they have been taken advantage in the workplace, and when they get to say, I've never learned my rights.

Why am I just learning these them now? And they're in their adulthood and just, you know, well into their work life. And so they're just understanding what their work rights at work are now. And so CWAP funding is fundamental to workers knowing what their rights are and addressing violations in the workplace before we even need to take them to DIR or even bring them up to the state so they can, actually bring home the wages that they're owed in the first place.

So please consider funding, continued funding for the CWAP program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everybody. First of all, I wanna thank our legislators. I think many people don't really realize the work behind the scene work that goes on here. And I wanna thank everybody here regardless of whatever org you're from. Continue to make a better place for workers.

Just try to make the state a better place. Real quick, my name is Leonard Brown. I'm from WorkSafe. We're more on the legal side. We're also a member of CCWP on the CWAP.

We our pocket is a little short. So we we're trying to get additional funding. So we're asking that. Not only do you fund CWAC, 30,000,000 for the next five years, but also hired additional staff at the labor force so that we can continue to hold bad actors accountable and get the workers their due just. You know, I spoke I spoke to God this morning and he said, in God we trust, all others pay cash.

Thank you for being here. Yes, sir.

Hi. My name is Jason Beck. I'm with the California Coalition of Injured Workers. And as a taxpayer, I oppose the SIBTF Trailer Bill. Proponents of the bill touted as a cost saving measure.

However, every applicant that receives benefits is deemed permanently disabled by board certified physicians, and the responsibility for to care for these disabled workers does not go away with the passage of the bill. The bill does not eliminate those costs. It simply ships them. It ships the cost, from the private sector to the California taxpayer through an increase in welfare programs and catastrophic injury claims. This is a budget increase bill.

I implore you to do your research on the unintended consequences of this bill before you consider its passage. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Good afternoon, Chair Richardson Richardson and Senate Budget Committee. My name is Mary Nguyen. I'm with the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, also here for CWAP. We work with the nail salon workforce that comprises of licensed manicures who are often Vietnamese immigrant women, and a lot of the work that we have been able to do with CWAP has been educational outreach in language for our members, to understand their rights as workers.

And so, we hope that, you know, we hope that you are able to continue the CWAP funding so that we can maintain our role as the trusted messengers of our community. Thank you.

Thank you. Who's the last person in line? Okay. If you're in line, you need to get up because we actually are gonna need to close in about thirteen minutes and there's more than 13 people. So please, try to keep your comments less than a minute.

Yes, sir.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and other committee Members. Special shout out to Senator Durazo. I'm not your constituent, but you are my Senator.

That's right.

So my name is Ben Takemoto. I'm from the Fresno Madera Tulare King Central Labor Council and here on behalf of the California Coalition for Worker Power. I'm here to ask that you fully fund CWAP with $30,000,000 per year for the next five years because my daily work is educating and empowering workers by working shoulder to shoulder with them to assert their rights, recover their stolen wages, and advocate for safer and healthier worksites.

Before I did this work, I didn't have language or know how to describe that I had been an exploited worker before I got into this role. So please fund CWAP fully.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Sheheryar Kaoosji. I'm the executive director of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center in San Bernardino, Riverside County. I'm also the co president of, the California Coalition for Worker Power. I'm here to echo the support for this continued funding for CWAP.

We're also part of the California Network for Immigrant Worker Justice. Wanna emphasize our support for this budget authorization from Garcia on the assembly side for the immigration enforcement emergency fund. Thousands of workers have lost work immigrant workers have lost work and economic opportunity because of the raids that have been happening for the last year. And we need to make sure that we do move some resources to take care of our most vulnerable workers. And then related to item five, which I think is related to CWAP.

CWAP cannot replace the work that happens in the, in the Department of Industrial Relations. These positions that are being eliminated are critical. As we at CWAP build more cases, build more, evidence, we'd be able to move cases to the state that are gonna need to be staffed, as well as build private cases that'll be able to, build the Paga Fund. So all of this works as one machine. We wanna make sure that we we do keep DIR intact as we're moving to a new administration.

Because otherwise, I'm gonna take that as the baseline. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Julissa Seja Cardenas on behalf of the California State Association of Counties in strong support of the budget trailer bill proposal for the SIBTF program. We believe that TBL is critical to restore the program to how it operated for decades to ensure the program is sustainable for those who depend on it and to contain costs for public agencies. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, Senator Durazo. Ashley Hoffman on behalf of the California Chamber of Commerce as well as APCIA today to express strong support for the budget trailer bill related to the SIBTF.

We would echo the testimony of both DIR and the LAO that this is necessary not only to bring the fund back to its original intent, but to cut off what is becoming a fiscal crisis both for the department, but also for private and public players alike, and for workers who are now waiting ten years to have their claims adjudicated. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Dylan Hoffman on behalf of the California Coalition on Workers' Compensation. I wanna echo my comment echo the comments of my colleague from the California Chamber in support of the governor's proposed trailer bill on on the SIBTF. Also wanna express the dire circumstances for public entities related to SIBETF on behalf of Prism Public Risk Innovation Solutions Management, or JPA, that provides risk pooling for local entities.

We pulled data on the exponential growth, of the assessments for public entities from their 2020 assessment to their 2025 assessment.

I've just got a few that are exemplary here. The County Of LA experienced a 248% increase in their assessment. City Of LA, a 182%. LADWP, 267%. City of Inglewood, 329%, and the LA County Office of Education, a 181%.

Sadly, these aren't cherry picked numbers. These are representative of public entities across the state and in every single district, so urge your strong support for the proposed trail of language. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Mike Robson here on behalf of the American Staffing Association and the California Staffing Professionals in support of the governor's trailer bill language related to the SIBPF. Thanks.

Thank you.

Afternoon, here with CWAP and CCWP. This funding is critical for the Inland Empire for Inland Empire black workers. Hundreds of thousands of black workers in the IE face persistent wage theft, unsafe conditions, discriminatory retaliation, abuses that directly undermine the families and communities. By fully funding the the California workplace outreach program, together we can ensure that black workers know their rights and can exercise them without fear of being fired or intimidated. Black workers are visible and deserve our protection.

By funding CWAP for 30,000,000 for over five years, we can continue to stamp out the exploitation that California laws were written to stop. Thank you.

Thank you. Great job. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Jin Kim. I'm from Koreatown Immigrant Working Alliance, and based on Koreatown . I do outreach I'm an organizer of the outreach for community and the and with the worker, and we're asking, you know, and to support the budget for CWAP.

Thank you.

I'm gonna translate it. My name is, Park Eunae. I'm working for So people like us, immigrant worker, we work hard for our family, for our future. We're asking you support through this program through CIWA. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you for coming.

Hello. I'm doctor Stefan Johnson. I perform SIBTF evaluations. So for SIBTF, I'm boots on the ground. And the first thing I wanna say is that most of the patients have had devastated injuries.

And after reviewing a lot of records, I'm just not able to see the amount of fraud that was being referenced during the discussion. I also wanna say that the agency's remedy for failing to have medical evidence put into the SIBTF process would not work because most cases get settled without a QME, and most cases get settled before the appropriate medical evidence could have been introduced. So that would leave them out of the process.

As you can tell here, there's a lot that has not been properly considered, and we request and we urge you to consider doing this through a legislative process. Thank you.

Please, leave your contact info. Thank you. Yeah.

Hello. My name is Eugene Day on behalf of the Crop Organization. We specialize in reentry workforce development, and, we deliver these services in Oakland and Los Angeles. And I'm proud to say that almost all of our graduates find employment with $60,000 or more a year family sustaining wage. I respectfully ask you that you support our current budget ask.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Matt Braden. I am the director of operations and one of the founders of Crop Organization. And in the three years that we've been delivering our reentry workforce development program, we have served over 200 people, We have a 0% recidivism rate, and almost everybody who's graduated from our program is currently employed in long term sustainable employment, and they are securely housed. Not only does our program save the state of California money, but it promotes public safety.

So I respectfully request that you support Crop Organization's budget request. Thank you.

Which which program was that? Organization. What? Crop organization, CRO. And what department are you funded out of?

CWAP also? Okay. Thank you.

Afternoon. I'm Emily Mills with the California Association of Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors. Just wanna register our support for the trailer bill language for the SIBTF. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Steve Chamberlain with the California Coalition for Injured Workers, and we oppose the trailer bill. We feel that eighty years of legislation and court precedent should not be overwritten in the budget, but should instead go through a legislative process. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Mariah Cinea. I am a crop sales fellow. I would like to ask that you humbly support our budget as crop has provided me with housing of the skill that I need to rebuild my life with dignity and respect. Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Good afternoon. My name is John Stebbins. I am currently a fellow in the CROP organization.

What CROP has done for me is provide me with a very high level of growth mindset and leadership training, and more importantly, my training in the a alcohol and drug field, which currently got me registered into the field and I will soon be a peer support specialist, state certified, and just got a job at La Familia organization where I'll be working with the youth, which is very vital for the future of our great country, and I respectfully ask that you fulfill their budget request.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. Congratulations and good luck. Thank you.

Faith Borges, on behalf of the California Association of Joint Powers Authorities in strong support of the governor's proposal to reform SIBTF, Most local governments utilize the JPA mechanism to self fund their workers' compensation benefits, and so when we're talking about annual doubling of assessment rates, those are resources that are coming out of Prop$98, local government budget dollars that are then not being able to be spent on those critical resources. So we wanna elevate that message as well. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is Tiffany Faulkner with United for Respect. We support Walmart and Amazon workers across California by providing the resources and resources and support they need to make workplaces safe safer and more just. I urge you to support the 30,000,000 annually for five years to ask the ask of, fully fund CWAP.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm the senior director of programs at Crop Organization, and I'm here to urge you to support our Ready for Life reentry program, an initiative that not only changes lives, but strengthens communities in measurable ways. Graduates from ready for life gain critical digital literacy skills, mental health support, job training, employment, and housing resources that result in approximately 90% employment rate and a 0% recidivism rate. That means safer neighborhoods, reduced correctional costs, and a stronger skilled workforce contributing to our local economies.

I respectfully ask for you to expand the funding to our reentry efforts. The impact is real and the need is urgent. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon. Catalina Sanchez with the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation. We are here in respectful opposition to issue five, the elimination of the vacant positions at DIR. So during the pandemic, this legislature and the administration prioritize getting through the unprocessed unemployment claims at peak during the pandemic at 1,600,000.

But yet, since at least 2017, there continues to be a 47,000 backlog over at the, in terms of the wage claims. And so Sierra Leone Foundation just greatly concerned about this elimination. Real legal services programs has currently about 250 open wage claims right now with the longest being six years, and we haven't had a hearing on that. This is comparable to the exact egregious backlog delays that the LAO audit found.

And so, again, I respectfully encourage the legislature to address this backlog by staffing up and not down.

And I support we support the identified 35 positions, that the JLVC identified going towards wage claim wage claim backlog and also 36 to investigate workplace safety. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good morning, Chair. Good morning, Members. My name is Darius Ali. I am a graduate of free world org, which is a commercial driver's license training for pro leagues and ex felons. I myself ex felon, of course, when I came home after fifteen years, I didn't know what to do with myself.

I didn't know how to work or nothing like that. And FreeWorld presented not only just an opportunity, but a a new way of life for me. They gave me a new career through the CDL training. I was able to use my CDL to find a career in the engineers operating engineers local three union, and it changed my life. I did a 180.

I don't recognize myself at all, who I used to be, and it's all because of free world. If you guys really care about ending recidivism, please fund this program. I've had no police contact. I've been home since 2022. No police contact.

Off parole. Married. I have a beautiful baby boy now, and my life is just going up, you know, and and I owe it all to free world, honestly. And I want everyone to just to take advantage of this program, and they don't nobody knows about it. You know?

In my world, they think that I got lucky to think that I'm a unicorn, and I'm telling them, like, no. It's you know, it's real. Just gotta believe in you, you know. And, yeah, I just thank you for your time. Thank you.

Thank you, and congratulations. Good luck.

Thank you, Chair Members. Elmer Lozardo with the California Federation of Labor Unions. First, I wanna strongly support maintaining the funding in the budget for the Public Employment Relations Board. Over the past two years, we've seen labor rights at the federal level steadily eroded, and the agencies that protect and enforce worker rights themselves be hollowed out.

And PERB has been able to step into that void performing over 300 private sector mediations in the past two years, and every one of those could have averted a strike by promoting open communication and facilitating this, these agreements.

And also with the passage of AB 288 from last year, ensuring that workers who have lost protection under the National Labor Relations Act, they can go to PERB to ensure that those rights are protected. So at a time when workers face attacks from all directions, we have to ensure that flagship agencies like PERB are able to maintain the confidence of the labor management to resolve conflicts.

Also, we wanna ensure that, folks are aware that improved staffing at the Labor Commissioner's Office remains one of our top enforcement priorities, and workers in California are facing a crisis in enforcement due to the understaffed agencies and the limitations on private enforcement. So we are urging Cal HR to streamline and update hiring and promotions to allow them to fill vacancies faster and retain qualified staff.

We also wanna ensure that the legislature and administration extend the emergency hiring period so that staff who have been hired and trained in the past year and a half can can stay there instead of being terminated when that emergency hiring authority expires.

And finally, we wanna make sure that folks are aware that we are adamantly opposed to the elimination of vacant positions, especially since eliminating these positions does not save money for the general fund. They are special funded. Eliminating these vacant positions in the l LLCO goes against everything we need to do to expand and strengthen the enforcement of our workers' rights. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Thank you, madam chair and Senator Durazo. Megan on behalf of the California Professional Firefighters here to express some concern with the administration's SIBTF proposal. As drafted and as proposed to you all, there are some technical concerns that we've outlined in a letter to the committee, and we've been talking to the labor agency about what I really would like to point out, one deep, deep concern we have with the retroactivity app application of the, trailer bill language.

This would mean that for legitimate injured workers who have claims pending in the system, and we believe they would have to either reapply or wait for the department to make a determination that they're still eligible under the new requirements, and then either their claim falls away or they're delayed for that period of time. Problem created by injured workers, so we have deep concerns about solving the issues in this manner.

We do think there are, provisions that are worth consideration by the legislature, but would like to stress concern with that provision. And then just would like to express our express our our support for item number 22, funding implementation of AB 1181 for firefighter personal protective equipment. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi. My name is David Johnson. Nice meeting you, Senator. I wanna talk about the economy that we have going on, and I wish you wanna see the economy could be lower down for our taxes and our rent and our economy. The people are struggling right now.

I wanna see if we talk to the Senator to drop the low low cost on property taxes and rent and and see if the economy be better.

Thank you for coming. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Matt Easley on behalf of the California chapters of the Associated General Contractors. We're here in support of issue four, the SIBTF budget proposal. It's imperative that we get the cost growth under control, and I'd like to align my comments with my colleague from the chamber. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. Nick Chappie with the California Trucking Association here to comment comment on the issue four. We align ourselves with the comments made by the California Chamber of Commerce and urge the adoption of the governor's proposed trailer bill language. Thank you.

Thank you. Nice to see you again. Alrighty. We did it. Having heard from all the members of the public, members, are there any further questions or comments?

Seeing none, thank you to all the individuals who participated in today's public testimony. If you were not able to testify or complete your comments, please submit your comments or suggestions in writing to the budget and fiscal review committee or visit our website. Your comments and suggestions are important to us and we want to include your testimony in the official hearing records. Thank you everyone for your participation, particularly staff and our sergeants and everyone thank you.

We had a a big hefty day diego was very aggressive in his ideas for us to cover which were excellent by the way we have concluded the agenda for today's hearing the Senate budget subcommittee on number five on corrections and public safety judiciary labor and transportation is now adjourned.

Thank you.