Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation
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Speaker 2
We currently have more than 600 grant agreements with more than $1,500,000,000 currently out in the field right now. Our staffing infrastructure has not grown as on pace with that growth in workload which is why we're seeking that additional position authority as part of the BCP process. I would just note that the positions that we are seeking come from our existing administrative funds. We're not seeking additional general fund authority for those additional positions. And with that we appreciate your support for that proposal.
At this point, I'd like to turn it over to Alison Ganter to provide a brief update for in custody death review.
Speaker 3
Good morning, madam chair and members of the committee. My name is Alison Ganter. I'm the director of the in custody death review division at the BSCC. In accordance with senate bill five nineteen, our goal is to understand the causes of deaths in custody, both from an operational and a medical and mental health perspective, and prevent future deaths by reviewing investigations of deaths in local detention facilities, making recommendations to facility administrators, revising the minimum standards for, jails, and creating best practices for the reduction and prevention of those deaths. We have been collecting data on in custody deaths since 07/01/2024.
There have been one hundred and thirty six deaths in jails, since then. And just a couple quick updates, we've hired about one third of our staff. We plan to complete our hiring this year. We recently received funding for medical and mental health team members in the 2526 budget. We've held multiple listening sessions with community members, and through recent trailer building, which we've clarified our access to the field, access to records related to death investigations, and have also been designated as a health care oversight agency.
So we'll have access HIPAA access to to medical records, is very important. Within the last two weeks, we began receiving in custody death investigations and related documents, and we are completing our reviews, getting ready to complete those reviews, release those reports, and putting our health care team together. Happy to take any questions you have. Thanks. And
Speaker 2
then finally, madam chair, we'd like to just do a brief overview of the administrative processes that the board does for grants programs.
Speaker 4
Alright. Good morning. My name is Colleen Curtin. I'm deputy director of the grants division at the board of state and community corrections. Currently, we're administering 11 different large grant programs, eight from the state and three from the federal government.
Our process includes convening executive steering committees whenever we release a new grant to the field.
Speaker 5
So, we bring in subject matter experts from around the state to help develop the parameters of the grant the parameters of their request for proposals our subject matter experts score those proposals we rank those proposals we put the money out into the field and then we have a staff that goes out and monitors the grantees through site visits we monitor financial invoices that come
Speaker 4
in we monitor progress reports that come in from the grantees and all of our grantees are required to do an outcome report at the conclusion of their grant. Currently, we have 1.5, I think Erin mentioned, 1,500,000,000.0 out in the field right now through more than 600 grant contracts. We have a staff right now of 38, and we're looking to increase that by 11 positions to help us with oversight, to help us be able to do audits. We have two audit staff right now. We're looking to stand up a full audit team so that we can do random and targeted audits, and we're looking to bring on additional staff to help with the increased technical assistance needs that some of our grantees have.
Happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 6
Caitlin O'Neill with the legislative analyst office. We don't have any concerns on the position authority request before you. We do have couple comments on the prop 47 savings estimate which just in brief are that the administration's estimate assumes that all components of proposition 36 have the effect of reducing the prop 47 savings when in fact only portions of prop 36 interacted with prop 47. So this assumption causes the savings to be underestimated and so we recommend directing the administration to correct its methodology before the May revision and we will of course review the estimate at that time.
Speaker 5
Good morning. Kyle Gayman, Department of Finance. No further comments on BSCC, but on the Prop 47 comments. We would just mention that we agree that the impacts of Prop 36 are still uncertain. It's new, been established in November 2024, and we continue to work with CDCR to refine that and how it affects proposition 47, and we'll have updates on that as we move into May revision.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Okay. With that, colleagues, we'll start with you, mister Ciardo, this week.
Speaker 7
Thank you. Very little comments. In regards to the prop 36 and the effect on prop 47 funding and things like that, we're not gonna know that until prop 36 is appropriately funded and implemented. And then there's gonna be a period of time where you have to actually accumulate data. And then then you'll be able to actually see that.
So at this point, we're kinda just guessing. Is that correct?
Speaker 5
I would say that yes, we're still waiting to see how the data plays out and how admissions come in. So it will take some time to see steady state numbers and the estimates will continue to be it'll take some time for them to
Speaker 7
Because even the even the data that's coming out now is not going to reflect the true impacts or or results from prop 36 because we're not even close to funding it at the level that it's should be funded according to the measure itself. So so I would just caution against thinking that that is the number because until we get it fully funded and fully operational, that's when we'll have the real numbers about what the effects are. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Following up on that comment, just wanting to clarify. Last year, we did put a $100,000,000 in for prop 36. I haven't seen I don't recall yet what the number if there is a number for this year, but we definitely did put in a 100,000,000 last year. Mister McGuire, based upon the comments of both the LAO and finance, are you prepared that you can give us an update and look at the formula, and the comments that they made, so we can have an update before the May revise?
Speaker 2
In in terms of the estimated, proposition 47 savings that will be expected to administer?
Speaker 6
Sure. We're just noting that the methodology that the administration uses to calculate the estimated reduction in the prison population attributable to prop 47 is shaving is is assuming that all of the people going to prison as a result of prop 36 are shaving off that prop 47 impact when in fact there's elements of prop 36 that had nothing to do with prop 47 from just a pure law interaction, sentencing law interaction perspective. So that's just a methodological assumption that would result in underestimation of the prop 47 savings kind of on a systematic level regardless of how prop 36 is implemented or what the that's yeah. So, it's just sort of a technical assumption that isn't reflective of how the the two laws actually interact with each other.
Speaker 1
So, miss O'Neil, could you provide to mister McGuire in writing specifically what you're requesting? That way, they have an opportunity to respond by May revise.
Speaker 1
Okay. And, Anthony from Department of Finance, could you restate what you said, so that way, mister McGuire knows what we need?
Speaker 5
I'll know first of all that finance is the one that does the methodology for proposition 47, not BSCC. They are one of the recipients of the grants. So they know after we calculate how much money they're gonna have for the following year. But yes, we're continuing to work on the methodology and we'll publish updated estimates at Bayer Vision in line with what we normally do. It's a twice a year population process.
So you will have updates on that.
Speaker 1
Okay. Great. So then that helps clarify, miss O'Neil, what we're actually doing is getting it to mister Gaiman
Speaker 1
Who will provide the information, not mister Maguire. I'm glad I'm sure you're happy about that.
Speaker 1
your thing. One last thing. Anthony, did you have anything you wanted to add? No. Okay.
Alright. Senator D'Arrazzo.
Speaker 9
To clarify that, so department finance, do you agree that correction is needed and and that it it will be made by the May revision?
Speaker 9
Thank you. Thank you. For BSCC. So ten individuals died in LA County jails in just the first two months of 2026. So my question is what patterns and causes have the in custody death review division identified, and what concrete recommendations have you made to local, facilities?
Speaker 3
So, we are just now getting updated manner and means of death. It's taken quite a bit of time to get updated records. So I don't have the ones from Los Angeles from this year specifically. It does take quite a bit of time to to get those records to us and and review the documentation. The patterns that we see in the manner and means that we have recorded are the top cause is accidental death, overdose being the cause, natural, and suicides by hanging.
Those are the top three causes of death in local detention facilities. And we have not made recommendations yet because we are just starting to receive complete investigations, and we are just come starting to conduct our reviews.
Speaker 9
But you'll does that mean when you say accidental or overdose or hanging suicide, does that mean you leave it at that, or is there
Speaker 3
Oh, no. Deeper Yes. That's terms of Yes. That's just what the yeah. The what the coroner or the medical examiner has determined is that the manner and means of death.
We will then take the complete investigation, which includes the the coroner, medical examiner, toxicology, all of the reports generated by the investigation. Look at it, you know, as as a as a complete picture of what happened with that individual, and we'll make our recommendations based on not just that documentation, but the operation at the local detention facility and what was going on with with that individual's medical and mental health care. So our recommendations will be, you know, based on a a full review of of that that information.
Speaker 9
But previous years, let's put aside this year because you don't have sufficient information. But based on previous years, what have you found?
Speaker 3
So we are brand new. So we're just, the the Department of Justice has been collecting, data on the manner and means of deaths in local detention facilities, for for quite some time. Their top reason their top manner and means over the the last few years are the same in a in a little bit different order. And again, these are DOJ data. We're just starting to put our data together and do those analyses.
Natural from 2005 to to 2025, natural was the the most common manner of death, suicide, and accidental falling underneath. Obviously, with the rise of, opioids, fentanyl use, in the community, in local detention facilities, those numbers, are are are, you know, turning upside down a little bit, but we don't have full records from the the one hundred and thirty six deaths that have happened since 07/01/2025.
Speaker 9
Okay. What for the BSCC, historically, you used a fraction of authorized administrative allowance. 5% was the maximum allowed with the remainder going to local programs. What specifically changed that now justifies using the full administrative amount, and what is the estimated reduction in local grant dollars as a result?
Speaker 4
Do you wanna Sure. We are grant programs have tripled in the past five to seven years, really, and so part of the reason we didn't use the full amount of administrative funding was we didn't really need it, and now we really do. We have over 600 grant agreements out in the field we need additional staff that not only have the numbers of grants grown but the complexity of our grants has changed and the type of grantee that we work with has changed and we're seeing increasingly that we're working with community based organizations who are sometimes new small don't have the administrative infrastructure that is required to to monitor and administer a grant and it's taking a lot of our staff time to to provide the technical assistance and support that they need to be able to fulfill their grant obligations so all of those changes combined have have led to the realization that we need additional staff. We need additional accounting staff, audit staff, and oversight staff to be able to provide the appropriate level of of monitoring.
Speaker 9
Do you see that as big this transition as temporary, or do you see it as permanent? We see it
Speaker 9
dollars. I'm not saying you deliberately, but the result is you're taking dollars from from the from the local grants.
Speaker 4
Our our biggest grants prop 47 prop 64 the cannabis grant and the California violence intervention and prevention grant are continuously appropriated grants and so any administrative funding that we don't use rolls back into local assistance, we can and put put that out to the field. And so we don't anticipate it will have a substantial impact on the amount of local assistance dollars going out. I'm sorry. I didn't quite We we don't.
Speaker 9
If you increase the part that you're taking for administration, that you're those are dollars that otherwise would have gone to the grants.
Speaker 4
That that is true, but we we I I think what we're anticipating is that we we've done projections about, you know, on how much of the money we will need to sustain these new positions. If for some reason we we don't need all of that, it rolls right back into local assistance. But we we haven't we don't anticipate it will be a substantial impact in the amount of dollars that have gone out we've been able to already identify you know the dollars that we're not using and put them out to the field It's not a substantial amount. Okay.
Speaker 9
Okay. And then with regards to the LA County juvenile halls. Could you give an update regarding your involvement and in the spec inspections of LA County's juvenile halls?
Speaker 2
Sure. And and we continue to go out and inspect those facilities. Our inspector was out there just last week and so we continue to to monitor those facilities. What has changed slightly is that the board recently decided to join in litigation. So we have filed a motion to to file a friend of the court brief before the court.
We filed that brief in February, late February, which will be heard at the in on March 25. We are urging the courts to take additional action with respect to the monitoring oversight of the Los Angeles County facilities. And we're joining joining with the attorney general to support that endeavor. So that's the current status. The you know the facilities in terms of where they are right now, the board declared that the Los Padrinos juvenile hall is unsuitable, that the Barry j Neidroff juvenile hall is unsuitable.
Those facilities still are unsuitable and then we continue to monitor as and there and there's multiple court cases that are going on right now. So the juvenile court there has ordered the depopulation of the Los Padrinos juvenile hall. That's currently in progress. We are also monitoring the transfer of youth from that facility to the other facilities including Campus Kilpatrick, which we are also regularly inspecting right now.
Speaker 9
Okay. And so you're basically waiting for the the court to make this decision. You expect that on March 25?
Speaker 2
Well, with in in terms of whether or not we are joining in that litigation, there's there's three active court cases right now in Los Angeles. We are participating well, we are are a party in one of those because we've been sued by the County of Los Angeles. And then we are providing information to the courts so that they are informed as to what next steps that the court should take to further improve the facilities.
Speaker 1
Thank you, senator. I just have a few questions. First of all, for miss can Ganter. Could you tell us a little bit about family notification? That's been one of the issues that's been noted in the press that, unfortunately, if someone has passed in custody, the family hasn't necessarily been notified in a tam timely manner and certainly providing details and so on.
So what's the process? How quickly, are family members notified, and what happens?
Speaker 3
So right now, that's a local procedure. So every sheriff's department, police department that has a jail, they have their own policies and procedures for how to notify family members. That's not something that we have, state minimum standards for. It's something we're interested in reviewing as we, begin to review agency policies and procedures to understand what that looks like. There could be, changes to minimum standards in the future if there aren't, you know, statewide, recommendations for having more consistent practices across the state, but right now, every individual department has their own policies and procedures.
Typically, it's a it's a pretty quick notification. Some agencies have entire teams that go out that notify the family members, provide support. Every agency does it a little bit differently.
Speaker 3
Absolutely. Yes. Family members are often looking for more information. They're often waiting for investigations to be complete, or they don't receive, information in a timely matter from what they're telling us. So we are considering all of that information how our role would would impact that.
And as we dig into our reviews, we're certainly going to keep that top of mind as we're going through agency policies and procedures. But from what we've heard from family members, it is it is a concern.
Speaker 1
Is this something you need legislative assistance to direct to happen, or is it something your department, can establish on your own?
Speaker 3
If it's a minimum standard, our agency could develop a minimum standard that each agency would need to have policies and procedures to do such, notification. So that's something that we could do, through the BSCC and through our reviews. And that, again, is something that's top of mind for for me, absolutely.
Speaker 1
So what do we need to do to have you do that? Do I need to request it of mister Maguire or what?
Speaker 2
Sorry. Certainly, madam chair, we can we can take that request back to the board.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. My next question for mister McGuire. I appreciate your request of the additional positions.
It was good that we heard from the LAO and DOF that they didn't oppose. However, I will tell you that we have a very serious budget situation. We're hoping that we're going to be able to not have a deficit this year based upon the revenues that have come in, but we are projecting the governor and LAO and others, Department of Finance, were projecting that we do, in fact, have a structural deficit. So if there were to be cuts in your department, do you have any idea where that would come from? I know, I guess, it was in '24, there were department wide, reductions of about 8% that were recommended.
But other than that, what other areas do you see that we could potentially consider that would not decimate your department and impact the programs and services?
Speaker 2
That that's that's a a difficult question to answer on the on the fly, madam chair. Certainly, would work with the Department of Finance to to identify any reductions. In terms of it. You know, we do administer a lot of grants that go out for local assistance in terms of the impact directly to the department. You know, reduction of those funds, we would not need as many positions as we're requesting now if there was a commensurate reduction in in in grant funds.
But I think that's those are difficult cuts to make and but happy to provide input to the extent the the legislature needs some additional information.
Speaker 1
So we're gonna be asking that of, you know, all of the individuals in more of a management capacity. So I'm gonna officially request that you could provide to the committee any potential areas that you could foresee that could have a modest reduction without impacting the programs and services. K. Thank you, sir. Okay.
Last question for miss Curtin. Last year, we heard concerns about compliance issues that organizations with, the adult reentry and CalVIP, grants were having. Have those issues been addressed?
Speaker 4
Yes. It it it it goes back to something I was talking about earlier is we we did find with the adult reentry grant that we were working with a lot of organizations that that just weren't ready to take on a grant of the magnitude that ARG was. And so, we have developed protocols. We're looking at we have a new risk assessment tool that we're that we're starting to use at this at the front end of a grant. We are identifying issues earlier on, and and frankly part of the problem that we saw was due to a lack of staff.
We we back when those problems were happening, we were short staffed. Staff their grant caseloads were too high, and we have right sized our grant caseloads so that our staff are able to provide the level of technical assistance that's needed and to identify problems earlier on, address them earlier on, work with the grantee to come into compliance. So, I feel confident that we have made tremendous progress in that area in in identifying issues early on and working with our grantees to be successful in their grant projects.
Speaker 1
Thank you. If you could, upon your next time of coming, just share with the committee more specific details about these two programs and that the issues have been addressed.
Speaker 1
Yes. Thank you. Seeing no further questions, we're gonna move to issue number two. Issue number two is an overview of CDCR with secretary Jeffrey Maycomer, joined by the deputy director of fiscal services, Cynthia Mendoza. Please come forward.
Speaker 8
Thank you Madam Chair and members of committee. It's good to see some familiar faces. Know, CDCR's population and parolee population is holding relatively steady with about 90,000 incarcerated and about 33,000 parolees. As usually is the case with CDCR, we have a number of challenges going on, but we also have seen some recent successes, and I'll just spend a couple minutes going over those. Obviously, you've seen some of our proposals.
We do have some relatively significant structural budget challenges driven by things such as lump sum payments for staff that are retiring, workers' comp expenses, and our healthcare partners have been clearing out specialty appointment backlogs that have driven some additional medical guarding and transportation expenses for our department. We continue to struggle with a high violence rate. Our homicide rate is much higher than I'd want it to be, and the violence against staff is also much higher than I would like it to be. We have our infrastructure challenges. We built our prisons thirty, forty years ago with the idea that we were going to warehouse people, built for a younger population and not the type of individuals we have now.
We don't have air conditioning in a lot of our facilities. Our HVAC systems are outdated. And we also have pretty significant ADA needs. We didn't build our presence with elderly patients and the ADA needs that we're seeing now for our population. Obviously, as the secretary, I view my goal is public safety is number one and we want people who are returning to the community to have the tools to succeed that they need.
And what I mean by that is we're giving them the right programs, rehabilitation, healthcare, mental healthcare that they need. And people often ask is, you know, well, what about more prison closures? And we're in the process, obviously, of closing the California Rehabilitation Center right now. But when we close a prison, what effectively happens is we send, you know, about a 100 individuals to every other prison in the state. Results in more overcrowding, less rehabilitation, less normalization, less, you know, dynamic security.
And and the quote I often like to say is if you or a loved one went to prison, what would you want that experience to look like? Would you like to sell share a 60 foot square foot cell with another individual with the bathroom, or sometimes you eat your breakfast and your dinner and you know, I haven't had anyone raise their hand and say, that's what I would want it to be like. And so, is a big downside to additional prison closures. I want to make sure my point on that was clear. We've also seen a number of successes in our in our department.
And from your perspective, you know, I I noticed in the write up for today's hearing, it it had a ten year budget summary. CCR's budget was 9% of the state budget ten years ago. It's 5.6% now. So, we continue to go down. The the custody and admin portion of our budget is down well over $1,000,000,000 over the last few years.
We continue to save money and operate efficiently. I'm also pleased to announce that we're working on a twenty year plan to address some of our infrastructure needs. It's no secret that it's getting hotter. And as I mentioned before, we don't have air conditioning and the right tools to basically have acceptable temperatures, not only for the incarcerated but for my staff as well. I want what, you know, other state employees have, which is, you know, air conditioning in state buildings, you know, Wi Fi access, things like that, that we really need an investment in infrastructure.
And we're really trying to be mindful of comments from this committee and others in the past that we wanted a master plan of what that looked like. And what I mean by that is I don't want to put an air conditioning unit on a 30 year old roof. You'll see a proposal that we have failing fire alarms and the fire marshal orders fire watch. So, when we go do these construction projects, we want to be mindful of we're going to fix the roof, the fire alarm, and the air conditioner at once. And we're do that in a way where we might have to take down a facility at that prison we're at in order to have that swing space to get this done because you can't do that kind of construction while you're using housing.
And so just being mindful that we're going to need that swing space as we embark on these projects in the coming years. I'm also pleased to announce our recidivism rate continues to go down. We're now below forty percent. We see a lot of successes when we get people in programming. We know if folks leave our department and and release to the community, they have a GED or high school diploma, their recidivism rate drops 12%.
I know if they get an AA degree, it drops to an 8% recidivism rate. So, know, people question why are we, you know, providing college for inmates. I get that question a lot. And, I just say, I think that's a hell of a return on investment when you have that few folks with a degree returning to prison. Those with a BA or a master's degree when leaving prison have a 0% recidivism rate.
So there is a great return on investment there. Pleased to announce we do have well over 10,000 incarcerated in college programming right now, and we continue to expand into the reentry field with our male community reentry programs out in the community. We know that folks that go through that for male inmates, that recidivism rate drops by about thirteen percent. For female inmates, it's over twenty percent. So, the advantage of that is folks are doing their last couple years in a community setting where we have low violence, lower recidivism, and the ability for folks to work in the community before they release, which allows them obviously to earn funds, to do the things that are keys, to success.
Housing, jobs, being able to buy a car are all very important things. Also pleased to note that our San Quentin Rehabilitation Center is more or less complete. We anticipate occupying that very shortly. That was on time, on budget and I believe it was the fastest capital project in the state's history. So, we do have some successes.
We also, as I mentioned, are in the process of closing the California Rehabilitation Center. That is on track and on schedule for the September 2026. Thanks again for giving me a few minutes today. I know I have a number of my team members here to answer some questions on our proposals, and I'd be happy to take any questions from the committee today. So thank you.
Speaker 7
you very much for coming in today and giving us an update on on some of the things going on. First question I have, when we do a facility or a a prison closure, there is a savings for that. Right? Does that savings go back into the general fund, or does it stay with the prison system?
Speaker 8
Yes. See, for example, with the California Rehabilitation Center, they were reducing my budget by about 150,000,000 as a result of that closure. And one of our challenges with that is there's about 1,200 folks that work at that facility. Those folks then migrate to other prisons throughout the state, which further lowers our salary savings rate, which creates a challenge for us in the short term. Historically, our department has been able to absorb certain unfunded expenditures because we had a high level of salary savings that we don't have anymore.
And so we lose that money and my budget actually gets tighter because of absorbing more positions.
Speaker 7
So what I was getting at with that that question was that, you know, with the high amount of other needs in the prison system, including facility needs, you talk about the education and rehabilitation part of it, It it would be nice for I visited these a few of these prisons, and it would be nice for them to have a education facility that actually looks like an education facility. So it kinda removes people out of that because these are people that are getting out. These are people that are going back in society that puts them in an environment that is conducive to the learning part of it and the improving of skills. And when we're taking money from this in in from the state perspective, when we take money and then we pull it out and then we try to find money later to do some of these projects and tell them, well, we can only do half. What we should be doing is every dime that is saved in the prison system within the prison system should go back in to start accelerating, fixing some of these issues, addressing the HVAC issue, addressing, you know, the fire issues, and things like that.
Because if we're just taking it out, putting it in the general fund, they lose it forever, obviously, there's a compounding issue with with with the with the secretary was talking about. And and then we had in addition, we wind up trying to find money for the other things when we should already have that. My second question, my last question, the facility down in Norco, it's closing 20 in 2026 in September. The city is trying to work with the state. We have to make it easier for the communities to absorb the loss because they're they're losing some economic vitality from that, and at the same time advance some of the other mandates that they have under.
I understand that the city has been trying to work with CDCR to do some preliminary work because I believe they want to purchase the land and then have that become part of their affordable housing plan. And they're having a lot of difficulty, let's call it that, animosity when they're trying to access and and at least do some of the preliminary stuff. They're not trying to go in there and start grading. We're talking about I don't know whether they soil samples and things like that. It would be nice if we are closing facilities in these communities that CDCR work with the communities to ensure that they are, working towards that transition that is gonna have to happen for the community.
Because if they if they don't, what happens is everybody is on on hold until it you know, the day that everybody moves out, and then it's on hold while this one or two years of transition of, you know, we don't know what we're gonna do happens. And then the city has to start a process. It's probably gonna take them eight to ten years because of the way we do things in California just to do affordable housing. And somehow we have to speed that up both for the community and for the people that may live in those affordable homes later on down the road. And so do you have a comment on what has been going on there or Yeah.
Why there's been this this butting of the heads between the city and the state?
Speaker 8
I was not aware of the butting of the heads, and I'm certainly willing, you know, to meet with the community there. And just a point of clarification is when a prison closes, we eventually turn that property over to the Department of General Services that handles the disposal piece. So I'm certainly open to sitting down with the community and general services and finding creative ways to move that along. I don't wanna hold on to closed facilities, believe it or not. I have to provide a little bit of staffing.
It's unpopular. There's security risks. We have people break in because who doesn't wanna run into break into a closed prison?
Speaker 7
It seems like a win win for everybody. Nobody has to go look for something to buy the land.
Speaker 8
We can be helpful, I'm I'm more than willing to personally involve myself, senator. I appreciate that.
Speaker 9
I know that's not the subject today, but just going along with senator Ciardo's comments, I really agree. But maybe at another time or in another meeting, we can talk more about what the community goes through. And then, sure, it's different from one place to another, but how do we work with them in advance? How do we really try to do a plan so that those kinds of issues don't get you don't get bombarded with them reacting? So I think they're really legitimate and and important for our communities.
Good to see you, secretary. On the issue of the the savings ongoing savings, there's been a drop in the in the actual savings as I understand it.
Speaker 9
Well, just in general, the budget the '24 budget act assumed the 190,000,000 in efficiency savings. Yes. And then that went down to 186,000,000. So the the savings are decreasing. So I just wanna ask you about that is in in general, but in particular, what will happen to in prison programming if the savings fall below the budget at 375,000,000?
Speaker 8
And so the the the contract with the Boston Consulting Group where we continue to work collaboratively with them and the Department of Finance to look at options to save dollars, which was the goal of that contract and is getting close to completion. So I think in the near future, we'll be able to share what savings are realistic. I don't anticipate at this point doing any reductions to rehabilitative programming. We tend to avoid that if we can. I spoke earlier about our structural shortfalls and you'll see a number of our proposals are meant to address some of those long term structural issues so we don't have to look at reducing rehabilitative programs because we do know that rehabilitation is public safety.
If I cut programs, those recidivism data I just read off are not going to be what they are now, and that's just not the direction we wanna go for the state.
Speaker 8
We we have a a number of cost control measures in the state to monitor overtime expenditures and the like. Part of, like I had mentioned before, our challenges is, you know, over the years, we've had a lot of days of furloughs and personal leave programs and things like that. And I have a couple thousand staff that retire every year and we have to pay that out at the end of the year. I don't have a budget line item or any funding for that item and that's usually about on average about $103,000,000 a year we pay out as an example. In prior years, we had very high levels of salary savings where we weren't necessarily filling our rehabilitation programs and other positions.
We're not in that space anymore. We're relatively full and our ability to absorb unfunded costs are much more difficult now than they were previously. I will point out again too that our share of the budget continues to go down and our budget on the custody administration side, in the department continues, to decrease over the last several years and continues to do so.
Speaker 9
Thank you. On the, you mentioned or I think gave examples of the climate protections. Do you have a rough estimate of what the full statewide cost of, those kinds of climate protections would be?
Speaker 8
Well, we're we're finalizing the proposal now. The legislature approved, like, our last air conditioning project at our prison in Blythe about five years ago. And that was about $155,000,000 for one facility now. With the way inflation is hitting, it's you're probably looking at $225,000,002 50,000,000 now for one facility just for the air conditioning. We're also looking at and I appreciate the approval of the pilot program to test out air conditioning and insulation units so we could get the best product before we go spend some money.
We're also going to look at insulation on our concrete buildings. I can tell you having worked in those buildings, if you're in a place that gets a lot of heat, that concrete absorbs that heat all day long and continues to radiate out. So we're also looking at insulation on the exterior of those buildings and are hopeful as part of our pilot to see a five to eight degree reduction, which is huge in and of itself. And it's not just heat. We have some facilities that we have heat challenges.
You know, we do steam heating and other options. It's not just air conditioning. It can be heating as well in the winter.
Speaker 9
Mhmm. So how do you balance out the interim, you know, taking interim steps at the same time, the longer term infrastructure things that that you need to do that could be years away. I imagine you don't wait until you have enough money to do the long term, more serious ones. Do you what what do you do in the interim?
Speaker 8
We we triage the best we can, and we have a high heat events. We have what we call a heat plan in place to help both incarcerated and staff. And that could be things ranging from providing ice water to when it gets too hot, we'll actually have health care staff do medical rounding. And so, are doing those type of things. But we have some places that regularly get over a 100 degrees that do not have any air conditioning at all.
That's that's the challenge we're in.
Speaker 9
Right. So I guess that's what I was asking is you'll have to you have to do that short term, for both your staff and
Speaker 9
And plan for the more serious? Yes. So how does that all come together? Is that that twenty year?
Speaker 8
That's that twenty year plan where we wanna give that comprehensive look where we're not just requesting product or products. Buildings and infrastructure upgrades on a one off basis. We can also look at potentially at places where it may cost more to retrofit, where some places may make better sense to rebuild. We have our prisons are old. We have prisons that are 170 years old.
In some instances, it's going to make better sense to construct a new housing unit versus trying to rehab an existing one. I don't want to throw good money to bad, if that makes sense. And as I mentioned before, a lot of our facilities were not designed for things like ADA access that are a more important issue now that if I can rebuild and provide greater access. And as soon as Saranto said earlier, if I can provide, as I do that, better rehabilitative facilities tied to those housing units, everybody wins there.
Speaker 9
And do you, maintain the records of any, you know, heat related incidents or smoke related incidents and transfers and deaths
Speaker 9
recurring basis. How do we how do we get that from you? How do you do you report that to us? How do you how do you do that?
Speaker 8
So we have a heat plan that's in effect from May to the October where in every housing unit, we take the temperature hourly, so we know the temperatures. We're also piloting it two prisms right now. We're hoping to go statewide where we're taking automated temperatures. We're using WiFi and things like that to do automated temperature readings, which is a huge benefit because we're gonna know well ahead of time, not just at the local level, but we can review it at our facilities level if we have a unit go down, we see an anomaly in the temperature. So we're hoping to get to automated temperatures.
And then we use those temperature readings to know when we have to provide additional measures for the incarcerated and staff. We talked about additional ice water, cool showers, you know, more breaks, things like that that go into effect once we hit those triggers.
Speaker 8
That was the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Yeah. And I think you were there at the kickoff, weren't you?
Speaker 9
But so it it worked there as far as the timing, the the funding that was needed to make it work, and now you're gonna be able to move in. What what happened there that we need to make happen elsewhere?
Speaker 8
I think we're trying to change our mindset of not thinking about projects as we historically have. We used a progressive design build model that allowed us to move the project along quicker and really looked at it differently to move that project along. And I'm glad you brought that up cause we've had conversations with the team that we are not gonna leverage what we did there to move our projects along quicker for the benefit, you know, of the incarcerated and our staff. And I really think it's an important issue to get ahead of. If we don't get ahead of it, we're gonna face another, you know, more litigation on this issue that's gonna cost the state even more money.
And I really want to avoid that and show that we're capable of managing the system and, treating our, you know, employees and incarcerated how they should be.
Speaker 8
something It was using a it was using a process where we we, you know, did the design and planning and other steps that overlapped. And I think you're gonna have my director of facilities is here, and I think he's gonna talk later that will speak more eloquently about it than I will. But you're you're running some parallel processes to move a project along quicker.
Speaker 1
you, senator D'Arrazzo. I have a few questions here. Thank you, secretary, for being here in person and presenting. First of all, my financial numbers differ a little bit from your testimony. My notes show that despite the prison prison closures and efficiency reductions, the CDCR's total budget is basically the same as it was the last five years, while the population has decreased by about 10,000 people.
And in the five years before that, the budget actually increased by 2,000,000,000 while the population dropped by 30,000 inmates. In 2024, CDCR was directed to make reductions of around 400,000,000 but only made half of that. And then the CDCR came back and asked for 400,000,000 more due to overspending its budget. This is not acceptable. And in the meantime, we're facing serious threats to health care and social safety net issues and many competing priorities that this legislature has to deal with.
So where is the fiscal responsibility, and why isn't the CDCR able to, once you set your budget, keep it? Because we're not going to be able to have continuing to come back and ask for $400,000,000 more. Could you share more specific steps that the CDCR is taking to ensure that we don't end up with another year of not meeting your budget?
Speaker 8
Yeah. Thank you for the question. I think, as as I started with, we have some structural issues that we're trying to address. I do not have a choice if someone retires. I'm mandated by law to pay out their lump sum payments.
So that's unused vacation, furlough time, PLP time. I don't have a choice on that. When I have the health care staff saying we need to send more people out for specialty appointments, I have an obligation to provide the custody staff to bring them out there. And so, when those costs exceed our budget, that's when we're coming back and asking for the right amount of funds to pay for that. Excited And get to to
Speaker 8
excited And there's a lot of ways to spend the budget future. Numbers, And and I don't want to sound like I'm spinning it. When I quoted the number that we were 9% of the budget ten years ago or 5.6% now, our percentage of the budget is, in fact, going down. And a lot of when you when you bring up that
Speaker 1
The percentage may go down, but the amount of money isn't necessarily correlated. So that that's kinda apples and oranges.
Speaker 8
And I'm that's where I was headed next is, you know, I have about 57,000 employees and typically we get cost of living adjustments every year. A department our size, that could be $300 to $500,000,000 a year in impact. So, when you see it not going down, lot of that is those COLAs that go into place, which is why I use the percentage, the total budget that our piece of that pie is going down. So, a lot of that increase is not bad spending. It's those COLAs and it's also investments that the legislature has made to bring back rehabilitative programs, substance use disorder treatment, treatment for hepatitis C that I think you made the right decision in funding those in past years.
You can look at the size of, as I referenced before, the custody admin budget and see that the number of positions and the budget is trending down.
Speaker 1
Okay. Sorry. My job is the chair of the subcommittee, so, you know, it's my responsibility to speak very frank with you. Again, I'm gonna read that despite the prison closures and efficiency reductions, CDCR's total budget is basically the same as it has been in the last five years while the population has decreased by about 10,000 people. And in five years before that, the budget actually increased by $2,000,000,000 while the population dropped by 30,000.
In 2024, CDCR was directed to make reductions of about 400,000,000. You were directed to do so and did not do so. So what I'd like for you to do is if with miss Mendoza, take a look at these numbers. If they're not correct, let me know they're not correct, and I'm okay with that. But if they are, then we need to have an honest discussion about, the budget.
Right now, we're facing that we can't provide health care for people in the state of California. So although I can empath emphasize, no. I can have empathy and understand what you're saying. We have departments throughout the state of California who are having to pay lump sums. We have everybody where we have an aging population of employment and people are retiring.
So these are consistent things that we see throughout the state, and all departments have to make the appropriate adjustments. So I reread those for the record. If you could come back and share with us, whether you feel these are correct or not correct. But, certainly, going forward, what we have to convey is that the budget whatever we end up setting the budget, what we can't have is coming back in the middle of this next fiscal year and saying we need 400,000,000 more because we don't have 400,000,000 more to give, unfortunately. So we just wanna be upfront to make sure that you understand that.
With that in mind, you talked about the need for ADA improvements and so on. At the 31 facilities, how are they divided up? Do you have them kind of geographically, or do you have the age population more in one location, people with health needs in another location so that maybe we could if, for example, all the prisons you have, you know, all of them have age populations, all of them have health issues in the private sector. Oftentimes, what you do is you consolidate so you can minimize having to have all of them have multiple multiple, you know, health support. So is that currently done at the 31 prisons?
Speaker 8
Correct. So we try to cluster our population based on their needs. So, obviously, if we have a lot of folks in a wheelchair, we'll put them at, you know, our our our newest facility, the California Health Care Facility. And also, lot of our newer prisons that are built more recently were built with ADA in mind, and so we have better ADA access. You go to certain prisons, you'll see a lot more walkers, a lot more wheelchairs.
You'll go to places like the California Rehabilitation Center, not very level terrain. It's like almost built on a I wanna call it a mountain, big hill maybe, where you will not see the number of walkers and wheelchairs and things like that. So, we do cluster, and not only for ADA, but we try to target putting mental health programs at places we can recruit, for example. So we try to leverage, those issues to to have the right people in the right places.
Speaker 1
So I know that your facilities person is coming up later, in today's hearing. If you wouldn't mind providing that information by facility, kind of how you cluster these different areas. My next question is, the CDCR in regards to vacancies, you have had some positive results of reducing your vacancy rates. However, in regards to the medical and mental health areas, those numbers are still pretty high in the double digits. What are you doing to address those vacancy rates?
Speaker 8
So we have a number of initiatives. We hold hiring events, and I know we had one this week where we're really looking to bring more folks on board and reduce our reliance on registry. Because a lot of times when we do have vacancies, we supplant those vacancies with bringing in registry folks, which is not where we wanna be long term. We've also had
Speaker 8
Yes. Correct. And then we've we're also looking at, you know, in mental health, for example, we've expanded the classifications that we might use in our mental health programs like marriage and family therapists. We can now hire those. Licensed psychiatric practitioners, we can now bring those on board.
Previously, we were restricted to just social workers and psychologists. So, we're looking at creative options to bring more folks in on a permanent basis.
Speaker 1
So it's my understanding some of your labor partners have offered that in lieu of doing some of your out of state or out of area contractors, that they could provide a registry of their members throughout the state that could potentially be brought in. And it's my understanding that those individuals make a lower rate than those when you're contracting out. Are you familiar with that, and have you looked into that?
Speaker 8
I'm not specifically familiar with that, but we we can certainly follow-up on that.
Speaker 1
Okay. That would be great. My next question is the state spent about at least 250,000,000 on the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, which I know was a priority of the governor. Do you expect to spend any more money, or is that done now?
Speaker 8
The the the capital piece is done or 99.5% done. I think they're working on some land cap landscaping and other things. So now and and and the legislature has funded the additional rehab positions for that facility. And, you know, this fall we're bringing, you know, Cal State LA on for a bachelor's program and hopefully UC Berkeley as well. So, those have been funded.
There will be no requests for additional funding.
Speaker 1
There will be no? None. Okay. Perfect. That's what I wanted to hear.
My next question is, is it true that all inmates have iPads?
Speaker 8
If they want to have the tablet, we don't force them to. And that's done via contract at no cost to the state.
Speaker 8
I I don't think so. It I'm not sure on that, but it's it's the device they also use to make their phone calls and video calls and messaging that the legislature has funded, you know, free messaging for the incarcerated. That's the vehicle they use to make those calls, but also has educational programming and things like that on those tablets as well.
Speaker 1
Alright. And when we get the update of the facilities where we're gonna have info about how you cluster the individuals, can you also provide what the percentage in those locations are single bed versus double bed selling?
Speaker 1
Let's see. Last question. My hardest question, unfortunately, I have to ask. Those were softballs, the early ones. So according to numbers that I have, based upon the court ordered I forget the specific name of how the courts determine what the appropriate capacity level is.
Potentially, there could be it could be viewed that we have 10,000 more. I'm trying to let me make sure how I'm wording this. That an additional prism could potentially be closed given the current population and so on. I realize that you're right in the middle of doing one. What are your thoughts of if in fact we need to come and do a second one, which it appears based upon the numbers?
And I know numbers aren't everything, but that could be called to be needed.
Speaker 8
Yeah. And I and I that's you know, I anticipated this question, so I provided a a little info earlier. So, no, it's not shocking. You know, we're trying to look at at at California prisons differently and obviously some folks in the legislature have gone to Norway and seen how they do things over there and trying to do things differently in California as well. The downside of prison closures, it does impact public safety.
The folks at that prison that get closed, the incarcerated, they don't go home. I move them to other prisons. They go on wait lists for rehab and programming. We add more overcrowding, more double selling, more challenges. If we want to reinvent our system, we need more interaction, more rehab programs for our population, continue the trend of recidivism going down.
So And there is a downside to prison closure, and that is it. What kind of system do we want in California?
Speaker 1
So I appreciate your answer. However, according to the numbers, it would not be overcrowding because it would meet the actual specific, guidelines that you've been provided. So assuming that's not the focus on programming, I certainly agree with and have supported, and I'm sure you're aware of that. But the overcrowding is not according to the numbers of what we've been provided. It it would not be overcrowding.
Speaker 8
Well, I don't I don't disagree that it would not violate what we call the three judge panel capacity. We're under court order to maintain a specific population level, specific overcrowding level. Yes. Excuse me. But what I'm talking about too is my example of when we close a prison, I send an average of 100 incarcerated to every other prison in the state.
So you are gonna increase double selling. You are gonna increase wait lists for rehabilitative programs. Without a doubt, that's just the math of how it works. And so, again, from my perspective as the secretary, I want to provide as much program as I can, as much normalization as can. When I say normalization, as I referenced before, I don't think it's normal for two individuals on a long term basis to sell, to share a 60 square foot cell with a bathroom in it.
I'll be quite honest, that's my perspective on that. And so if I can do more single selling, think it's better for the incarcerated, it's better for staff, and it's better for public safety.
Speaker 1
Okay. So that I hear what you're saying. The overcrowding piece, no, but how you just described. We all have our different perspectives. I too, you know, have understood that single selling, you know, obviously, there's less safety and all these other issues.
However, you know, I grew up in a single bedroom with my sister. We shared a bathroom. And, you know, if I had to choose between two inmates who are double selling, which is allowed and has been done for many, many years versus being able to provide health care for citizens, people who not citizens, for people who reside in the state of California, I would clearly error on that end. And so, unfortunately, those are the things that we're facing, and I'm I'm sure you're aware of
Speaker 1
But we will certainly do the best that we can. All of the programming, we you know, this committee has been very supportive of, and we look forward to continuing to do so. I would just say if you have any specifics, that say that double selling is aside from understanding the preferredness of it, it's my understanding double selling has, you know, gone on for many, many years. So is that not correct?
Speaker 7
And and if they're going to do a report like that, if you could include, some of the impacts, that our legislation has had on forcing, employers like yourselves to spend more money. When we increase just say as a a good example, if we increase the amount of days off people get in a constant staffing organization, every single one of those days is somebody who's getting time and a half to have to fill the person that's going off on that work. So there are some increases that have happened in just the last five years here, that we've created, and and they have no and and so I would like to see a breakdown of some of the things that you can't help, workers' comp costs and all of those other things that have gone up astronomically. And some of it is our own darn legislation. When we're forcing people to do some things, employers to do this and that, there's a cost to that, and especially in constant manning is and that kind of related to in the fire service, we had the same problem.
When overtime happened, you couldn't predict what that that was gonna look like, you know, based on on, you know, leave time for fathers and and kids. You know, their their parental, whatever we call that, when they when they're off, when they have a new new baby. Okay. The the yeah. That added three months on each side to somebody having a child, which meant every single firefighter or every single employee that took off that time winds up getting time and a half winds up causing time and a half in addition to them getting paid.
So there's costs that are buried in there that that's and that's why you see some of these weird numbers. Having been in a public agency and looking at those numbers, I I can tell you, yeah, it's hard to predict sometimes, and and that's why you come back with a, you know, a $400,000 ask
Speaker 7
400,000,000. Well, it's a $400,000,000 ask when you're talking about an agency that large and and in addition to, you know, the cost for, you know, equipment breaking and and things like that that weren't in the weren't in the budget. And so I kind of have a little bit of sympathy with that, but I would like to see, you know, what we can do to re reduce that budget. And not just to reduce it, but to to turn it back into getting the things done that need to get done. Yeah.
You know, if we're gonna save money, let's let's put it back into the things that need to get done first, and then we can save the money after all those things are done. So that's my only comment, and then I have to leave.
Speaker 1
Thank you, senator. Senator D'Arrazzo, did you have any closing comments? I wanted to
Speaker 1
Alright. Sir, thank you for your candidness, for your, the progress that you've made, since you've been secretary. It definitely is noted. And, this committee appreciates all of your work and all of those who work with you, and, we look forward to, supporting in every way that we can.
Speaker 1
Appreciate it. You, sir. Yes. Alright. With that, we're gonna move to issue number three, which is the lump sum payments that the secretary secretary referenced.
Referenced. We will be joined by the following panelists. Miss Mendoza is gonna stay as the deputy director of office and fiscal services. Miss Caitlin O'Neil, will be joining us back with the LAO. Mister Kyle Gayman will be joining us with the Department of Finance, and Anthony with the Department of Finance will be joining us as well.
There you go. Shirley Chisholm said if they don't have a seat for you at the table, bring your own chair. That's what she said. Alright. With that, we're gonna start with the CDCR.
Speaker 11
Thank you. Good morning, chair and committee members. My name is Cynthia Mendonso, deputy director, office of fiscal services, department of corrections and rehabilitation. The department is requesting 91,000,000 ongoing for correctional officers and nursing staff separating from state employment and requiring payment for unused leave credits. We call this a lump sum payout.
Historically, these payments were funded through salary savings from vacant positions, as other departments, handle the same. But reductions in position authority and the operational necessity of these posted positions, including b u six peace officers and and health care nurses, mean there are fewer vacancies available, limiting the use of salary savings for the unused leave. Without dedicated funding, the department would have to divert funds from other areas should salary savings be insufficient, potentially impacting public safety and inmate health services. With that, the department is happy to answer any questions you might have.
Speaker 6
Yes. Thank you, madam chair. Caitlin O'Neill with the LAO. I am going to provide our assessment and recommendations on the lump sum, funding proposal before you as well as our comments on the underlying structural shortfall issue that has generated the need for this proposal, and I'm also going to provide our offices comments and recommendations on the ongoing work to achieve what is currently scored as 125,000,000 in savings in the current year and $250,000,000 in the budget year increasing in the out years associated with the contract with the Boston Consulting Group. So turning to the lump sum payments proposal, we do find that the funding is reasonable in the near term given that the department does appear to have a structural shortfall and it doesn't have a choice as was already stated on whether to pay the payout these payments to separating employees.
However, we find that it's unclear if this vacancy savings issue is going to be an ongoing condition for the department given that it's highly tied to this issue of closing facilities in rapid succession. And so once the state is no longer doing that and reaches sort of a new normal as far as prison capacity whenever that may occur, we may see that the vacancy rate goes back up to historical levels, in which case the department would again have more vacancy savings in its budget, which it could use to pay for these costs. So we recommend approving the funding on a limited term basis and requiring reporting to come in at the end of that period to ensure the legislature has the information it would need to assess whether additional funding is still needed going forward. Moving to our comments on the underlying issue that that there is a structural shortfall in CDCR's budget. We have two concerns.
The first is that this is a transparent this raises transparency concerns because part of the way that departments respond to structural shortfalls is by either not doing certain things that they were budgeted to do or delaying things that they were budgeted to do. And those are typically decisions that are made internally to the administration, the legislature would not be able to know whether or not one of its priorities is perhaps getting canceled or delayed. And then the second concern is that the department could still overrun its budget even if the proposal for the lump sum payment funding is approved, and that would likely not become clear until the end of the fiscal year, at which point the legislature would have little choice but to approve an augmentation, and of course in this fiscal climate that would come at the expense of other general fund priorities. So we recommend the legislature direct the department to report in budget hearings on what steps it's taking in the current year or is considering taking in the budget year to free up funding to address the shortfall, as well as the size of the shortfall and what it's made up of.
And in responding, we would suggest the legislature ask the department to discuss any programmatic implications of its decisions. And then moving to the contract with the Boston Consulting Group that was authorized in the 2025 Budget Act, it's our understanding that the administration is in the early stages of identifying efficiencies and just starting to kind of move toward implementation on some things, but as a result of being in the early stages they still were not able to share much detail. We've also been told that the administration anticipates receiving or anticipates reflecting further erosions in the savings estimates as that are expected to result from this effort as of the May revision. So basically what this means is that you don't have a lot of information now, but you're gonna get some more information at the May revision. And so we would we recommend that the legislature use spring budget hearings to begin to prepare to make a decision at May revise on whether to continue with the contract or modify the contract or end the contract.
And so to gather information, the legislature can ask questions, for example, to better understand the role of the contractor, what expertise the contractor is bringing or benefits there are of having a contractor as opposed to having state staff develop efficiency ideas. Could the the depart the legislature could also seek updates on the progress of the work given that when we spoke to the administration about this, it was already a month ago, and there may be new updates to share. And then the legislature can also probe about other potential benefits of this contract that may be beyond short term or near term savings. In other words, maybe there's benefits that may not help the budget condition currently or in the next few years, but maybe will be worthwhile nonetheless. So when the legislature has gathered that information, we recommend it reassess the contract as part of the May revision given the savings estimates have come down significantly.
So it's important the legislature reaffirm whether it wants to continue moving in with this moving forward with this effort. And if it decides to move forward, we would recommend requiring quarterly updates from the administration. And then finally, just generally, given that we've had two years in a row where the budgets have assumed relatively large unallocated savings that have failed to materialize or have fallen short, should say, we would recommend viewing unallocated savings proposals skeptically going forward. Thank you.
Speaker 10
Good morning, madam chair, members of the subcommittee. I'm Anthony Franzweil from Department of Finance. My colleague can speak to the lump sum payments issue if you wish, but in terms of the LAO's comments on CDCR's work with the Boston Consulting Group, the administration I should say, as the ILO mentioned, that work is wrapping up. There was a contract. There was money set aside in the 2025 Budget Act for that contract.
Contract began in the fall. That work has been ongoing between BCG, CDCR, and Department of Finance throughout this year. Again, it's in the final stages. So the administration is working to see what might be achievable on what timelines, and those details will be provided at the mayor vision as has been done, at the governor's budget. At this stage in the process, the administration does not feel the contract would be able to be reassessed.
Again, that money was approved. The contract has been in place. Work is continuing. And because we're nearing the end of that work, it's unclear what the LAO would like to revisit or restructure, but again, the administration doesn't believe that's feasible at at this juncture. And I think the administration would contend that any savings achieved as a result of the work with BCG are laudable because ultimately even if those savings do take time to realize in out years, ultimately they're going to create a more efficient CDCR and lead to general fund savings.
I'm happy to answer questions or get into detail, those are the high level talking points. Again, we're happy to address the lump sum payment issue as well.
Speaker 5
Sure. Kyle Gaiman, Department of Finance. Just to touch on the lump sum issue. The secretary eloquently touched on a lot of these points earlier, so I won't belabor those. But just to note that as their vacancy savings have declined, it's become a less stable fund source if you will to use for these ongoing structural costs that they are required to cover.
So providing them that funding on an ongoing basis as opposed to a limited term basis, we think it makes more sense for their planning purposes and stability. And finally, I'd like to note that last year when the JLBC wrote a letter to the administration in regards to the CDCR's deficiency at the time, they specifically called out this lump sum payments issue as a driver of that deficiency and something that the administration should address. And they wrote, given the likely persistence of these deficits, it's imperative that the administration act swiftly and transparency to align CDCR's actual costs with its budget. So, that's why we have proposed this ongoing to address that structural piece permanently so that CDCR can pay those costs.
Speaker 9
I think you may have, for for CDCR. So the LAO recommends limited term approval, for the payments. Do you agree with that? You don't agree with that? And what evidence supports ongoing need given that vacancy rates and population levels are gonna continue to change?
Speaker 11
Thank you for the question. We have experienced a high cost for lump sum payments over the last five years that we've provided in the actual BCP. It's ranged up to like $144,000,000 a year to, I believe last year was 126,000,000 So we continue to have those costs. And we have taken a number of position reductions as we continue to do with our population reductions as well as salary saving or cutting positions, vacant positions in the last couple of years. So we don't necessarily anticipate going back to the same vacancy levels as we have in the past.
It is unknown, and so we would just ask for ongoing support for the posted positions because they are unique. The the correctional officers and nurses are posted, so we always have to fill behind those positions. And it's it's more difficult to ensure that the leave credits are being used as they should be. So we're just asking for that portion for those posted positions, and we will continue to absorb the remaining part of this the lump sum payouts.
Speaker 9
So what systemic reforms, scheduling changes, or or otherwise, are you exploring to reduce, leave liability going forward?
Speaker 11
So, I mean, we are doing the leave reduction plans with individuals to encourage their use. We are having management encourage individuals to take time off. Sometimes with the posted positions, it becomes difficult because we always have to fill behind those positions. And so sometimes, you know, we ask people to to stay on. But to the extent that we can, we are trying to encourage folks to use their leave credits.
There's no nothing mandatory. There's nothing we can do to enforce that per se, but we want to encourage that as as much as possible and then also to use the leave reduction plans. And when there is sufficient funding, we like to use the leave buyback programs where we offer to buy back leave credits and pay them at at the rate that they should be paid.
Speaker 9
Okay. So I'm I'm trying to wrap my head around this that what has so dramatically changed, you say there's a structural problem. Right? But it's an existing expense, but it's so why do you need new money? I mean, what what's what's going on to have such a dramatic change?
Speaker 11
So historically, we've had a salary savings. So people changing positions, leaving. For whatever reason, the full authority of positions, there's been funding, And maybe the bodies weren't there, so we've had vacancies, and that creates a pot of savings that could cover that. Our for our correctional officers, I believe that vacancy rate has come down to about 7%. So that leaves very little to cover things like overtime, like fire watch, suicide watch, med guarding, general overtime for to cover behind long term sick individuals, workers' compensation fees, and then the lump sum payout.
So there's some very large costs that salary savings has covered historically, and now those costs remain, but the pod is much smaller. So it puts CDCR in a position where we no longer have the ability to cover what we need. And so we are trying to come forward with with those items that have been deficit drivers for us. So for example, in the last couple years, we've come forward to come for the actual cost of food, utilities costs, waste reduction. These are things that we're trying to come forward for to keep up at least with the the actual costs that we are experiencing.
Because if we don't, those cost increases over time, we just have to continue to absorb. And I can say, like, I was gonna throw this out when the secretary is here, but I didn't. Since twenty nineteen twenty, right before COVID to now, there has been a 26 20 to 26% increase in costs overall in California, just generally inflation costs.
Speaker 11
Not just CDCR statewide. And those same increases in costs, you know, are also, you know, affecting this department.
Speaker 6
Unless I'm happy to help try to clarify further if that if any of that is needed, but no comment.
Speaker 6
Sure. This is really a feature of how the state budgets at a large scale, not just a CDCR issue that's kind of colliding with where CDCR is right now in this facility closure trend that it's been having, and it is something that has been growing over the years, and we have seen proposals come forward tied to this. It's now become kind of more abundantly clear that there's a structural shortfall, which is why we called it out specifically. But sort of the the underlying issue is that or just feature of of how the state budgets, not necessarily an issue, is that the the departments are budgeted assuming all positions are filled. So their budgets start out with dollars associated with salaries and benefits for all authorized positions, but in reality, some of those positions are gonna be vacant at any given time due to Exactly.
And there's and given CDCR has approaching, you know, over over 50,000 positions, and a lot of its budget is just the cost of paying people, that's a lot of money that could potentially that is associated with positions that are actually vacant. Some of it of course goes to paying overtime to backfill behind posted positions, but some of it is money that can be redirected to other things. And the other feature of the states, how the state budgets, is that traditionally departments have been expected to use vacancy savings to pay for certain costs. So it's not that those dollars are just sort of money that can be spent on anything. In practice and and in practice, at least some amount of them are expected to be used for lump sum payments like we've been discussing, but also departments don't always receive inflation adjustments.
So they you know if there's now now CDCR gets an inflation adjustment for food costs, but for years it was kind of like they just absorbed increased costs related to food inflation through salary savings. So what you have happened is that there's dollars in the budget that are budgeted for positions, but in reality they get spent on these other things. And then now we're we've been in a world where CDCR, as you know, is is deactivating capacity. And when we close facilities, we zero out the entire budget basically for that prison, including dollars that were associated with vacant positions that were going to sort of subsidize or some amount of it was actually paying for these centralized costs, and you also have people moving from the closed facility to fill vacancies at other prisons. So there's this double kind of feature, and there was also a vacant position sweep that was done last year that pulled 14,000,000 out of CDCR's budget.
So what at the end of the day, you have vacancy dollars going down by more than the actual costs that they've been historically paying for, so you get this mismatch. We're saying that that may be a temporary condition related to prison closure. Anyways but that's hopefully, that's helpful.
Speaker 1
Thank you, senator. Miss Mendoza, based upon the amount of time we have, I'm gonna ask if you could, in writing, confirm confirm or share another perspective, based upon, information that I have. According to the vacancy savings, my information says that while vacancy savings have significantly decreased since 2022 to 2023, the current levels are similar to or greater than the prepandemic levels. For example, the average vacancy savings in the medical services program for '26 for 2016 through 2017 through 2018 and through 2019 were a 130,000,000. And for 2023 and 2024 through 2025 and 2026, they were 306,000,000.
For noncustody staff, those numbers were 67,900,000.0 and a 103 a 103,700,000.0 respectively. And for custody staff I'm sorry. The previous one, I don't know if I said non custody. This one is for custody staff. It's 380,000,000 and 300 and 73,000,000 respectively.
So my numbers are a little different than what I'm hearing. So if you could please clarify the numbers that we have based upon what your presentation is today.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you. My second question is, let's see. What steps is the CDCR taking to reduce its leave liability and to ensure that officers, nurses, and other staff are able to take their leave so we don't have this lump sum problem at the end?
Speaker 11
Agreed. This is where we are encouraging managers to encourage staff to take their leave when they can as well as using the leave reduction plans and trying to adhere to those. It is a voluntary plan. There is no way to enforce that or to make it mandatory. We are also when when there are available funds, we we will also use the leave buyback so we can buy back some of those credits, which does reduce the liability there as well.
I would like to note that there has been a bargain agreement to provide an additional leave credits for this year and next year as five additional credits per month, so per person.
Speaker 11
So it does it's it's increasing it. And and at this point, we don't have the funds to do the leave buyback, but we are trying to encourage people to use their time off. It is it is a bigger approach, more than ever to get people to use their time.
Speaker 1
So if I were to ask, staff and employees, are in fact they being encouraged to utilize their time, you think they would say yes?
Speaker 1
Okay. Well, we'll double check that. Okay. My next question, last question. Please provide an update on the activities with the outside consultant.
Is CDC are on track to achieve a 125,000,000 in current year savings?
Speaker 11
We, have worked extensively with the consultant, and they've provided a number of, areas to look at, including workforce optimization and in the workers' compensation area, and we are working on operationalizing that. And I think there'll be more information coming in the May revision.
Speaker 1
So my question was, do you expect to achieve the 125,000,000 in current year savings that we are anticipating, especially in light of the fact that you didn't do the cuts that you were supposed to do the previous year of the 400,000,000?
Speaker 11
In terms of the overall savings, we we will implement what we can in the remaining part of the year and then evaluate where we are at that point. I I can't speculate on on the exact amount that will be saved.
Speaker 1
Okay. Well, it's my understanding you were given the charge to do were expected, based upon the budget that was submitted. We were anticipating a 125,000,000 in your current year savings. And the message we're trying to convey is this isn't anymore we're gonna we're gonna try. We're anticipating and basing our budget based upon what we're being told that you're able to achieve.
And if you don't achieve it, that means that's a 125,000,000 we have to take from a pot from someplace else. So it's really important that these budgets that are being submitted and authorized, that it's not a, oh, you know, it's kinda something on paper we hope to do, but it's actually something we need to more closely adhere to because of our limited resources.
Speaker 11
We we really do take seriously the the charge to make cuts. I would like to say and and I know you made the point that our budget has remained relatively flat over the last three or four years, and it has. But what I'd like to say is during that time, we've also seen about 2,000,000,000 increase in employee compensation costs. So what that means is our operational budget had to be reduced, and that's why you see it's still flat because there's been a 2,000,000,000 increase. We've also made significant cuts.
So we we're
Speaker 1
But you've also had a reduction in population as well. So those operational costs of inmates should have gone down also.
Speaker 11
Understood. Yes. And that is that is true. It's not necessarily a one for one for one cut.
Speaker 11
Because we still have to staff a house, with with our standardized staffing.
Speaker 1
And that's why we may need to consider additional prison closures so that you can maximize your staff with the inmates that you have.
Speaker 1
Yes. Yes, ma'am. But I appreciate your comments and concur and understand with what you're saying.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you. Alright. With that, we're gonna move to issue number four, which is our last issue, and that has to do with population estimate and prison capacity. We will be joined by miss Kathy Jefferson, deputy director of office of research, miss Sarah Larson, director of facility planning, construction, and management, and miss Mendoza is gonna stay for a third dose as our deputy director of office of fiscal services, and we have the same individuals with LAO and department of finance.
I will be departing in about ten minutes. Senator D'Arrasso will take over in terms of managing this hearing, which she's more than capable of doing. So, anyway, we will begin. So we're gonna start with CDCR. Please go ahead.
Speaker 12
Good morning, madam chair and members of the committee. I'm Kathy Jefferson, deputy director for CDCR's office of research, and I'll be providing an overview of our fall twenty twenty five population projections. So just to predict future populations, what we do is we utilize historical trend data, including data on core commitments. The fall twenty twenty five projections are provided through June 2030, and the estimates are based on actual data as well as estimates of our the impact of legislation and policy and process changes through 06/30/2025. We expect a net five year decrease of six and a half percent for our institution population and a net five year decrease of 10.4% for our parole population from June 2025 to June 2030.
We also updated our methodology for estimating proposition 36 to utilize actual admissions data through 06/30/2025. With actual admissions data now available, it's no longer necessary for us to rely on the pre prop 47 trends, the store historical trends. Prop 36 admissions are expected to continue increasing through June 2030, but to reach a lower level than what we anticipated last spring. We worked with our office of legal affairs to identify specific prop 36 qualifying offenses and to develop our methodology for estimating the impact on admissions as well as length of stay. For new admissions, we are accounting for individuals that would not have entered state prison if not for prop 36.
So commitment offenses are limited to statutes that were created or amended by prop 36 that either established new felony pathways or, made certain offenses now prison eligible. New statutes included treatment mandated felonies and theft of nine fifty or less with prior convictions. Amended statutes included possession of a controlled substance with priors and also certain grand theft offenses. So for these amended offenses, qualifying elements are manually verified by my team in our systems just to confirm and ensure that they meet prop 36 criteria. We estimate length of stay to be approximately ten months for these new admissions.
Then we have admissions that extend length of stay and we are accounting for those individuals that would have entered state prison regardless of prop 36 because they have another felony offense in conjunction with a qualifying prop 36 offense or enhancement. These are not considered, at least for our methodology, not considered new prop 36 admissions, but prop 36 affects these cases by increasing the total time they actually serve in state prison. On average, based on the cases we observed in just the first six months, prop 36 offenses and enhancements extended sentence length by approximately one thousand days. So the long term impact of prop 36 remains uncertain, but CDCR continues to monitor the data and work with our stakeholders to share information as they become available, and we're working now to make the necessary adjustments for May revision to include, some additional, new data through December. Regarding the California Rehabilitation Center closure, it is on the same trajectory as prior closures completed by CDCR.
The department is taking into account population needs for, programming and family visiting and also, staff placements in nearby facilities where possible. Thank you for your time, and, we are happy to answer any questions you might have.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Miss Mendoza, are you here to support, or did you have an additional presentation?
Speaker 11
I'm here for the closure prison closure, but I'm available for questions.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you. Senator D'Arrazzo. Oh, I'm sorry. LAL.
Yes, ma'am. And if you could summarize your comments
Speaker 6
So on the population projections, we withhold recommendation until the revised estimates are provided at the May revision. We would note that the prison population is trend has been trending a little bit higher than projected over the course of the fall, so that's something we will keep an eye on. Would you like me to give comments on on the prison closure issue now or wait until
Speaker 1
No. I was just thinking we really should have had miss Mendoza speak. Go ahead if you have anything specific about the closure you wanted to share. Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 11
I just wanted to to give a general overview. We expect net general fund savings this in the next year at 99,600,000.0 with the elimination of 522 positions and then ongoing savings of roughly 150,000,778 position authority. And this proposal, it also targets retention and realignment funding to ensure continuity of health care, transportation, IT services, services, rehab programs, workers' compensation obligations, and other statewide operational needs.
Speaker 1
Thank you. So, miss O'Neil, now, yes, you would comment on that. Okay. Now that she's made her report.
Speaker 6
We don't have any concerns on the budget proposals related to the closure of the California Rehabilitation Center. On the state's broader need for prison capacity going forward, we do find that after making various conservative assumptions that the state could close an additional prison within the next few years. We also found that of all of the prisons where there are infrastructure proposed modification proposals included in the governor's budget, the correctional training facility in Soledad appears to be the strongest candidate for closure. Happy to share our the criteria we used in that if if you'd like, and that it would be inefficient to proceed with projects at a prison that is shortly closed shortly thereafter. We also wanted we also note that there are some indications that CDCR has been in the process of deactivating portions of Solano and Avenal State Prison.
However, the administration has declined to confirm or deny this and instead has alluded to potential updates that could be provided at the May revision. This is similar to a dynamic that played out last year as well. And we find that this practice limits legislative oversight of what are significant operational changes from the budget plan that was enacted, and second, limits information to the legislature that is relevant to this conversation about prison capacity. So moving into our recommendations, we recommend directing CDCR to close another prison which would align capacity with actual population trends as well as save general fund money ongoing and we would recommend not approving the two proposals at the correctional training facility unless CDCR identifies or the administration identifies a different prison for closure. And then we recommend directing CDCR to report in hearings on any steps that has taken to date such as formally notifying staff or the incarcerated population to implement yard deactivations as well as passing statute requiring CDCR to report going forward to the legislature when it implements a capacity reduction.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Mister Anthony, you almost yanked that mic. You just so were ready to respond.
Speaker 10
Yes, prepared. Yes. Again, Anthony Fransway, Department of Finance. The administration has not proposed any additional prison closures at this time. And, again, I would just, reiterate the challenges with prison closures that secretary Macumber mentioned.
And naming a closure is not part explicitly part of the prison closure decision process. It's laid out in penal code twenty sixty seven, And that's for a very specific reason is because naming an institution before CDCR has had the opportunity to go through its own internal process and to follow the penal code, that can create confusion and unintended consequences in a few ways. Number one, for the institution and the staff at the institution, not just the custody staff, but, you know, all the other rehabilitative medical and other staff there. The incarcerated population themselves creates a lot of unknowns. The families of the incarcerated, if a prison does get closed without having a final decision, can create a lot of confusion for where their member might go, and they might be in a completely different part of the state.
And then lastly, if also for the surrounding community. As senator Sayardo mentioned, know, the kind of hardships that can create, a prison closure can create in a community. Lastly, I'll just say for something as high profile and sensitive as a prison closure, we don't think holding hostage specific funding for an institution like Soledad until the administration can announce an alternative institution for closure is a collaborative approach for CDSR to thoughtfully manage its operational needs. To speak to the deactivations at Avenal and Solano, more information will be forthcoming about those specific institutions and yards and facilities as part of the population process at the May revision. And, again, happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Mister Gaiman, did you have anything to add? And if we could please summarize and be as brief
Speaker 5
Powell Gaiman, Department of Finance. Nothing to add on the prison closure piece, but just on the prop 36 and and population projections. Just to note that we're continuing to work with CDCR on the methodology and and monitor how those are being counted and projected so we can provide future updates.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Since I'm gonna be turning over the gavel, mister Anthony, we certainly understand your concern of communicating potential sites that may be considered. Speaking for miss O'Neil, I don't I don't think her intentions were to say that that was definite or what anyone had recommended since simply their own individual assessment, which she offered to provide. But, yes, point well taken. We do need to be very careful, when we refer to locations because you're right of all the matters that you discussed.
The only point that I think, miss O'Neil was making that is, spot on, and that is once and as soon as possible that we do identify. And, of course, the legislature has a role to play to say if, in fact, that's gonna be our recommendation as well in the budget. But, miss O'Neil, the point that she's making is, very important in that we don't wanna spend money fixing any potential location that potentially, you know, two years from now, you know, is not gonna be in existence. We see that all the time where, for example, you know, we'll we'll see a road that is resurfaced, and then you'll turn around. And six months later, you'll see, you know, people coming in and lifting the pipes up, and then we have to resurface again, and that costs money.
So it is very important that to the best that we can, we anticipate, infrastructure needs, and we're not doing needs that we shouldn't, because there aren't gonna be needed, going forward. So I think that was really what the intention of the comment was, but point well taken, with that. And, as soon as the legislature weighs in on our perspective of this whole issue and, the administration and departments have an opportunity to weigh in, we hope that that would be considered as you roll out your infrastructure schedule that you would keep that in mind. Okay. With that, I'm gonna turn over the gavel to the very able, capable, my seatmate, senator D'Arrazzo.
And, I will be for the public that's here, I will certainly be getting record of the notes of any, additional comments, that are made. Thank you. Senator D'Arzo, your questions, and then, we'll continue on with the final issue.
Speaker 9
Thank you. Thank you very much, madam chair. Just with this last issue of the notification of closures, and we've struggled with this over several years of the need to give the legislature notice of the closures so that our decisions and the policies and the legislation we pass, the budget that we pass, I'll take that into account. So it's not a it's not a new issue. We we really have to grapple with it.
Senator Ciardo made, you know, comments about the I think it was the Norco, Norco prison. And we just we can't be left out of that process, and, the community can't be left out of that process. So somewhere, it looks like there's a credible conversation taking place about two prisons being closed, and yet it's just hanging out there without our involvement. So I know sooner or later we have to be involved, but that's a that's a pretty serious responsibility on our part. Yes, miss O'Neil?
Speaker 6
Oh, just would clarify, on my comments. It's from what we we are hearing, it's just portions of those two prisons, not the entire prison. The difference this and and I you're absolutely right. We have been continuing to to ask for note of like, information about potential future prison closures so we can avoid infrastructure modifications. In this case, it appears that the administration has actually implemented changes, like, gone ahead and made those capacity reductions.
That's that's kind of what the indications are suggesting or set things in motion, which is a little bit of a different flavor from simply asking for future, for insight into future possible prison closures. So but but this issue is limited to just portions of prisons in terms of the actions that have already been taken as opposed to future notification. Just wanted to clear that up a little, if that's helpful.
Speaker 9
Okay. So so what I'm hearing from CDCR and Department of Finance is you won't give us a precise answer to this to these partial or full closures?
Speaker 10
Anthony Francois again, Department of Finance. I would say regarding the facility closures or deactivations, again, as as Kayla mentioned, kind of smaller units or facilities within a broader institution. Sometimes there are operational decisions, and again, if Cindy wants to add more detail, she can. There are operational decisions that CDStar makes in the middle of the current year that don't neatly line up with the budget process or the population process. So to the extent that something isn't captured in the governor's budget in that population adjustment, that's why we have a biannual population process so that at the May revision, we can notify the legislature of the changes that were made for, you know, x y or z reasons.
And again, on full prison closures, I would just reiterate that there is nothing that's contemplated in the governor's budget and there's nothing, no other prison closures being contemplated at this time.
Speaker 11
I would just echo, Anthony's sentiments. It's it's an operational decision, and we it just the timing doesn't line up with the governor's budget, so we come forward at May revision and have the full conversation once once we know which direction we're requesting.
Speaker 9
Okay. It just feels very awkward sitting here and saying that there's credible conversations taking place about this, but yet not a clear answer to a clear answer to us. That's very difficult to understand. I mean, the whole point of having these hearings is to get that kind of information. It's not the exclusive way to get information, but to get that kind of information that the public should know about as well.
And I'm very sensitive to the to the issues that that you raised, but that does not in any way stop should not stop the process of notifying us when we need to be notified. I just have a a another question on the prop 36 criteria report that you made. Can you explain just a little bit more about Hawaii? Any additional days to someone who's already incarcerated? That's not considered I didn't quite understand.
That's not considered part of a report or part of how how how is it that that's left out? Under what circumstances?
Speaker 12
So not that they're left out. We just distinguish between, brand new admissions under prop 36 versus individuals that would have had another felony offense in conjunction with prop 36. So they would have come here anyway. So what we're trying to isolate in that group of individuals are the extended additional time they would serve in state prison because of prop 36. So we're still counting them, but there's it's a a nuanced approach where we're just trying to figure out how much extra time they're serving due to prop 36.
So we have the new admissions, and then we have those that come in and may have a longer sentence because of prop 36.
Speaker 9
Well, I appreciate that. I like the breakdown because I think not including that is not telling the truth about the impact of prop 36. So I think it's really important for everybody what no matter what side you're on. It's important for everybody to get a real thorough understanding. So I appreciate that.
I'm just just finally, is there a way that you think that impacts the budget? How it's people will be staying longer. So what does that mean?
Speaker 12
Yes. So the impact for for that group and and please note we've we've only included the first six months. So in May revision, we'll have additional data. But the estimate right now for the additional time that these individuals serve is about one thousand days. So what that does is it temporarily temporarily decreases what we thought would go to parole because they're not going there as sooner or as fast as we, had anticipated last spring.
So the the pop is, gonna remain slightly higher and, the institution pop and then the parole pop is going to increase at a later time.
Speaker 9
Mhmm. Okay. Great. Thank you very much. All right.
Here we go. Oh, we go with public comment. Okay. All right. We're going to move on to public comment.
Is that the end? Yes. Thank you all very much. Thank you.
Speaker 9
Could, please limit limit your comments to a minute. Yeah. Approximately a minute. Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Speaker 13
Thank you, chair and staff. Ryan Moore Muni with the California State Association of Counties representing all 58 counties. First, you know, we'd like to acknowledge as it relates to prop 36, we'd like to acknowledge the ongoing recognition of county concerns specifically from this committee. In terms of all the mounting fiscal pressures that counties are facing, especially in light of HR one absent any state funding we will counties will be unable to deliver the level of services required in terms of services programming and treatment and then as it relates to a specific request, we are in support of a request that was submitted by some of your colleagues in the Assembly and Senate last week for specifically for court services and treatment in the tune of $400,000,000 and we're happy to discuss any specific county impacts and needs further with this committee. Thank you for your consideration.
Speaker 11
Good afternoon madam chair. Thanks so much. My name is Micah Doktarov. I'm here on behalf of Smart Justice California. We applaud the legislature's role and this committee's important role in the state's recent prison closures and urge further prison closures consistent with the LAO's recommendation.
As your analysis details, reductions to state operated prison capacity have resulted in roughly a billion dollars in general fund savings annually. It has also allowed the state to avoid funding infrastructure repairs that would otherwise have been needed to continue operating these closed facilities. California's prison population is at its lowest in decades and is projected to keep dropping With current populations far below capacity and thousands of empty beds statewide it is fiscally prudent in general and particularly in this moment given the budget outlook to close additional facilities savings from prison closure can and should go towards services that prevent harm and crisis including violence prevention social safety net services and other critical community safety programs We look forward to continuing this conversation and thank you for your time.
Speaker 14
Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Ayo. I'm here on behalf of the Group Training Institute. We run a year long trauma informed program focused on transformation, emotional intelligence, and accountability in California state prisons.
I'm on issue issue two. We spoke on the importance of education and rehabilitation in this meeting today, and I just wanna emphasize that it's important to not reduce programming, and it's essential to fund the right grant to ensure programs are maintained and keep bringing CDCR recidivism rates down. Thank you.
Speaker 9
Thank you. Okay. That's it for publiccom okay. So having heard from all the members of the public, there's no more members to ask questions. Thank you to everyone who participated in the public testimony today.
If you were not able to testify testify today, please submit your comments in writing to the budget and fiscal review committee. Comments and suggestions are very important to us. Thank you to everyone for your participation. We've concluded the agenda for today's hearing. The senate subcommittee number five on corrections, public safety, judiciary, labor, and transportation is adjourned.
Thank you.
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