Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 2 on Human Services

Hello. This is the Assembly Budget Subcommittee 2 on Human Services issues. Today, we're holding our final information hearing of this budget process. And this hearing will be very timely. A bit different than other hearings as we welcome Members who are not assigned to Sub 2 but have interest and concerns with the budget issues that we have been discussing this cycle.

Again, in order to ensure that we have a just process when it comes to our safety net programs, a just process includes transparency. It includes the ability to ask as many questions as necessary so that we can truly understand the impacts that our decisions will make.

Staff has prepared a background document that is attached to the very, to this very basic agenda for today. It includes summary information about the plethora of reductions and program eliminations that have saturated our conversations this spring. There is a lot of detail because there are a lot of cuts facing Sub 2. As I've talked about at every hearing this year, we intend to fight any cut that will destabilize families and force them into or prevent them from exiting a state of crisis.

We have come a long way in California since the grave mistakes made by the Great Recession, and we have no intention of making the callous and ill conceived mistakes of the past that thrust people into even deeper poverty and homelessness. We all know better, and now we must also be better. We must choose to do better.

We are also dedicated to ensuring that any funding reductions are first made by aligning funding to service levels to prevent, to the greatest extent possible, reductions that directly harm vital services. Today's hearing is historic, as Members will join us to ask questions and have an open, honest dialogue with the Administration.

And then we will move to public comment to allow the community to weigh in again on the issues in this area. I'll now ask the Administration to please have representatives who can answer Members' questions move to the witness table. And I know people will come in and out, depending on the issue area and be prepared to discuss the Governor's proposals and program background. We will now move on to Members' questions. And so first we'll have up are some other budget subcommittee chairs who have to run their own committees as well. So Member Quirk-Silva, you have, you have the floor.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for having me here at Budget Subcommittee Number 2. Good afternoon, and am happy to weigh in on the importance of CalWORKs in the 2024-25 budget. As you have explored and dug deep into this budget, you all are interfacing with some of the most dramatic cuts to our California families.

And looking over this, the major values that we stated as a caucus many times is to do no harm. To do no harm to our California families that we know are already struggling and can be pushed into homelessness and many other dire straits. I applaud the Governor for proposing to pursue the new federal TANF program, Temporary Assistant for Needy Families, pilots to test alternatives to the work participation rate, WPR. The WPR is proven to be a failed measure rooted in racist and sexist stereotypes of women of color.

And it is time for a change. As we move forward in pursuing the pilots and to put families at the center of CalWORKs, I ask that the following be considered. Number one, oppose the proposed cuts outlined in the Governor's January budget, which threatened to undermine the efficacy of the pilots in enhancing family outcomes. Build on the Governor's proposal to pursue the TANF pilots by making key policy reform aimed at centering CalWORKs around family, integrating trauma informed approaches, and following evidence based strategies to build real pathways out of poverty.

Mr. Chair, I've shared draft language with you and your staff, and I'm happy to work with you on this issue moving forward. As I chair now Sub 5, we know that there is work to do in our budget across all sectors, but we cannot balance this budget on the backs of our most vulnerable Californians. Thank you for having me.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much for that. Now we'll have Dr. Arambula. Would you like to be next?

Thank you, Chair Jackson. I'd also like to thank Chair Gabriel for the opportunity to attend today's meeting. I will appreciate Nicole Vazquez and the hearing agenda today, as I look forward to reading every word of it again, and appreciate your characterization and making sure that we focused on the people and not simply just the numbers.

A budget is a reflection of our value, and you will see our values present in many of the previous budgets. This May Revision, unfortunately for many of us, is unacceptable. There are far too many cuts that will hurt our vulnerable populations and will ultimately cut or starve the programs in our safety net. What we need to have is courage for a change to make sure that we are not simply focusing on the math. We've heard from so many that the math is not mathing, but we must focus on the impacts that happen to the people who are reliant upon these programs.

I will remind you that these dollars are the people's dollars, and we're here in the people's house, and it's important for us to make sure that we do the people's work. And I look forward to hearing the people today. Thank you very much for allowing me to participate.

Any other Members would like to make any questions or comments?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I want to echo the words of my colleagues that have just spoken. It gives me hope because as I watch and look at other Members come in to speak today to share their concerns and their advocacy for this issue here tells me that many of us have concerns. And in your opening remarks you talked about fighting. And I also agree that we need to continue to fight.

Not only am I advocating for many of the social services programs that are being cut, but clearly one of the areas that I'm most passionate about is the intellectual and developmental disability program and the rate delay that was being proposed. Delaying that also misses out on some federal matching funds that we could use more so now than ever before. This community has been not only ignored but also unrepresented and underrepresented for decades. Now is not the time to delay this. Now is not the time to push them aside. Now is not the time to say that they need to continue to wait.

And I'm with you Mr. Chair, and I think many of us are with you here and ready to fight with you. I want to say that this is more important and above all of us because this is the people's dollars. This is all about the people. This is about people that continue to struggle every single day. So I want to thank you for the fight, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you for allowing us all to be here. And I want to thank you for championing this. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Member Bauer-Kahan.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and everyone for being here. I think it's so critically important we have this conversation, and obviously we're all fully aware of the budget situation we're in, and it's not easy. And so then the question comes down to how do we solve these problems?

And I think that what you're hearing loud and clear from my colleagues, and I want to echo their statements, is that it is so incumbent upon us that we do everything we can to not impact those who are most vulnerable, that they should be first and foremost in our minds. And I know that that is true for us as a Legislature and also for the Governor, that we take care of the people who most need California support. And I really want to thank the Chair for allowing Women's Caucus Members to be here to speak on behalf of the women of California.

Since I joined the Legislature, we have gone from a quarter women to almost half women in the Legislature. And the conversations have shifted as a result. And one of the things that I came here today to talk about was childcare. As we know, the pandemic resulted in massive numbers of women leaving the workforce.

Not only is that dire as it relates to equity, but also our economy. We need women in the workforce in order for our economy to thrive. And as a mother of three young children, I know firsthand, as I'm sure most people in the room do, without childcare, we cannot show up at work.

And so before our children enter the public school system, we have to have access to childcare. And for so many women, they are leaving the workforce because they don't make enough to cover their childcare. They make less than the cost of childcare in California. And so they do the economic analysis, and they leave the workforce.

And so, you know, I really think it is so critically important that we make the long term investment in women and women working, both for equity goals, but also for economic health of the state. And so I really wanted to touch on some of what we've seen in the proposal as it relates to women and to childcare because I think it's so, so important that we have this conversation in this forum.

And so I appreciate the Chair allowing us to ask questions. And some of these questions I'm asking on behalf of the Women's Caucus, so bear with me. But I know that there's some opportunity to utilize federal child dollars and developmental block grants, which the LAO's estimated $89 million to continue forward progress on expanding access to families with additional spaces.

And, you know, one of the things that I think the concern was in some of these cuts was that we're going back on some of the promises we made to expand access to childcare. And that's really something that I know the women's caucus is devoted to ensuring doesn't happen. So if you could address that question around those dollars that may be available, that would be great.

Good afternoon. Kim Johnson, California Department of Social Services. And appreciate very much the Women's Caucus and the championing of child care and early education issues. So the Governor's Budget May Revision proposes to pause the 200,000 subsidies that were put forward. We have 119,000 of those 200,000 realized. And again, there's essentially a proposed delay in continuing the slots in budget year and budget year plus one. That's the proposal that we currently have in the Governor's May Revision.

Jackie Barocio with the Legislative Analyst Office. Since you mentioned the figure that we had in our report, we identified in April the potential for $89 million in unspent CCDF dollars, a combination of unspent but then also anticipated yet not received new money due to a recent federal increase.

Based off of the May Revision, it seems like the Administration already includes savings associated with using those $108 million of unspent CCDF and offsetting General Fund. However, within the budget, there's still a projected $71 million of CCDF that will go unspent that they have not re-obligated yet. Those dollars are one time. In addition, the budget still does not include those anticipated ongoing CCDF increases that could range between 60 million to 77 million. Those dollars are ongoing.

Did you want to respond to that?

Good afternoon. Jennifer Troia on behalf of the Department of Social Services. We don't anticipate having any unspent CCDF federal child care funding. That is the existing pot of funding. As Ms. Barocio was pointing out, there is an allocation that happens and sometimes there's reallocation.

But we are not concerned that we will be unable to reallocate that funding. Ms. Barocio did acknowledge, and we would as well, that there is an anticipated $60 million in new CCDF funding. We have not yet received that as an official award or a finalized amount. Amount from the federal government.

Okay. And I think all of us, I can say that we want to make sure we maximize the use of those dollars.

Just before, just to make sure that we are, I believe what is our expectation as a caucus is to ensure that, if there are federal funds that are available for childcare, that they're not being used to backfill General Fund, but they're being used as intended to ensure that we are increasing those slots that are available. Is that also the Administration's position?

The federal funding requires us to supplement and not supplant General Fund, and our proposals are consistent with that requirement.

Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, for that. One other question on child care. I know that there's a facility in my district in Pleasanton that received grant money from infrastructure child care infrastructure grant money, about $71,000. When we, we made that taxable. So they are now being charged $23,000 in taxes on that straight grant money that they received, which seems inconsistent with the goals of the grant program, and as I understand, may have been an oversight.

But I think that it's critically important that to the extent that we provided these small business with infrastructure grants from the COVID money, that we not tax it. So I don't know if anybody wants to weigh in on these small businesses receiving these tax bills as of late.

Glad to follow up with you on that item. We don't have a response right at the moment, but we're glad to follow up on that item.

Thank you. Because I know I'm not the only one in the state whose small businesses are receiving these tax bills. So I know it's important.

LAO, do you have any knowledge of this?

We've heard about it, and we're happy to also check in with the department to better understand the tax implications. But also the potential of in future years, if grant dollars were to be provided, if there's a way to exempt it. If I could, Chair, I would want to follow up on your savings clarification if I could.

Okay.

Currently, the identified unspent dollars, they are being used to offset General Fund costs. I think there's a question again of those anticipated yet we have not received funding, and it's not built into the budget. That's $60 million. But I just wanted to clarify that of the savings that we're scoring due to unspent dollars, they're being used to offset General Fund.

When, in essence... So basically, we could be using those federal funds to expand slots, but we're choosing not to. The proposal is just to backfill the General Fund.

I will flag though, those savings are one time where the slots are ongoing. So while we may be able to support slot cost for the budget year, if those savings were used to then shift the General Fund offsets to support that, the General Fund will still need to pick up the cost in the out years once those one time savings expire.

Okay. Number one, LAO, I want to make sure, particularly on the tax issue, once we get some clarification, I'm going to ask for some trailer bill language that we can use to ensure that this doesn't happen again and prevent any future taxations. Clearly, I'm sure this is not what we intended to happen, but we need to close that.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Last question. So I just want to echo some of what we've said and what I said in my opening remarks, which is, you know, I think we're all very focused on these proposals to cut child care and CalWORKs in the May Revision.

And you know, our fear in large part is that it disproportionately impacts children and their families and the most vulnerable Californians, and to be specific, women of color. I think, you know, that's the last thing we want, especially as a member of the Women's Caucus.

So I just wanted to ask the Administration whether you've taken a look at the impacts these cuts will have collectively on working women, women of color, and those who depend so deeply on our services and whether it will impact issues like homelessness for this very vulnerable population.

Thank you for the question, Assembly Member. Again, I would just say this. We completely appreciate the point related to the proposed impact of the May Revision cuts. We have shared with the committee the specifics of the numbers of families, individuals impacted as proposed.

What I would also say is there are a lot of additional investments that we have collectively made between the Governor, the Administration, and this legislative body to continue strengthening supports and services for children and families that remained. The Administration has highlighted in a few different places that, especially as it relates to economic supports, immediate cash.

We have a proposed grant increase proposed in this May Revision budget for CalWORKs. We have a number of additional services, guaranteed income pilots, a lot of newly new investments that will still remain post this wherever we land in the budget.

So I would just point that there has been a tremendous and unprecedented amount of investment in children and families over the last several years that we've made together. And yes, we recognize that there's also impact to the proposals that are coming before you.

Thank you. And I hope I'm not speaking out of turn when I say that, you know, I view this Governor as a feminist, and I think some of those investments really reflect that. And I appreciate that. But I just, I asked the question in part because I think it is critically important that, as we look to how we are going to cut this budget, and again, we all recognize that we need to make cuts, that we do so with a feminist lens, looking at our families, our women and our children. And I appreciate that your commitment to do so. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much. We're going to go to Mr. Alvarez so that he can gavel in his budget subcommittee after his comments or questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was going to ask about the taxation issue. I think it's something, I'd definitely like to see the response on that. So I appreciate colleagues already raising that. The other question that I have, it does relate to the work in our subcommittee. It is a DSS program, but it's legal services, immigration legal services provided at California State University. The program is being drastically cut compared to UC and community colleges. The proportion of cut or the proportion of funding going forward is very off balance.

It doesn't appear to reflect the reality of the number of students that could be served and that have been served. So I would ask, I have asked before, and I don't know if there's a response on why the CSU immigration legal services were cut to the level of equal level of UC when the number of students served is different. Does anybody have a response for that?

Thank you, Assembly Member. I'll defer to my colleagues at Department of Finance for more here. But would just also note, while the proposals are specific in the CSU immigration legal space, we will continue some immigration services, legal services funding that could be available to the population. We recognize that the dedicated funding on college campuses wouldn't be the same as it is as currently proposed, but want to highlight that some of those legal services would remain available. Defer to my colleagues.

Correct. And before you respond, though, we're keeping community colleges at the same level and UC at the same level. There are no cuts associated to those. But at CSU, we are making the cuts. So why the difference in terms of treating the systems differently?

Thank you. Aanam Khan, Department of Finance. So at Governor's Budget, we did propose to cut the CSU funding to better align with the funding allocated to UCs. So there is no changes to that cut at May Revision.

You continue to cut CSU to the $1.8 million figure, which is the UC figure?

Correct.

And my question had been previously and continues to be, with the number of students at CSU who receive services being significantly higher than UC, you've got 10,000 undocumented students at the CSU level. We've got 3500 at UC, triple the number of students. Same funding won't go as far. So is there a rationale for why it was reduced?

Again, as part of the larger budget picture, this solution was proposed to assist in addressing the budget shortfall. But as with the other cuts proposed, we're open to have hearing any alternatives that the Legislature and their staff have.

So, just to clarify, there was no reason, it was just reduced just because UC was at that level? There's no rationale for that?

Well, the rationale was to better align with the funding allocated to the UCs.

Okay, well, I would suggest that to better align to the level of funding for the UCs is we make it proportional. So if UC is at 1.8 and it serves one third of the students that CSU serves, then we should have three times the funding for CSU in order to be aligned to the number of students being served, given that immigration cases take many years.

And so I appreciate that there's continued funding, but these cases require support for years beyond when they initiate, and so it'd be good to be able to continue that. I don't want to find ourselves, we're halfway through next year, and because of the lack of funding, we cannot continue to support someone with their case, immigration case. So I would request that they get reviewed prior to us adopting budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Next we'll have Santiago, then Dr. Bains, and then Mr. Carrillo, and then Ms. Ortega.

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I want to thank you for allowing us to be on the subcommittee for the day, and also the speaker who made room for those voices who have been very, who have been proponents of some of the or scaling back some of the cuts that have happened.

I wanted to add my voice to the issue of childcare because I think it impacts an entire family. And certainly in the areas that I represent in the LA region, cutting back on childcare will have devastating effects on families who have been trying to recover. I also want to echo one of the comments that one of my colleagues from the San Joaquin Valley said, because it's true that a budget is a reflection of values, and some of these cuts don't reflect the best of values of who we are as Californians.

Now, I recognize that it's a numbers game, and I recognize that it has to pencil out. But in penciling out, we should reflect those values that we always say we support in California, and the current proposal doesn't. We're talking about $400 million. I've mentioned childcare, and I agree with the other issues that have been brought up. $400 million to CalWORKs. We're talking the poorest of the poorest families. We're talking about 8.25 million to LA County's public health nursing program.

Nothing's been more important than, if we haven't learned anything since COVID We're talking about 30 million to the Family Urgent Response System, which I believe my colleague, was a program that he had helped set up. And we're talking about 34 million to the healthcare program for children in foster care.

I mean, we're talking about domestic violence victims now. We're talking about communities of color that have been devastated. We're talking about children, and we're also talking about foster care kids. That's not the reflection of California values in the California that I know, certainly.

And I think it would do well for this house and the Administration to take a pause and say, out of a 300 billion, and I use rounded numbers, a budget close to $300 billion. $300 billion. Some of the cuts that are being proposed in this committee or the one that I have set this committee jurisdiction, other one that I've said, are worth saving.

I mean, you really could take a look at them and say in a lot of different ways, really, our budget dust, and they don't reflect the values of California, any of the things that any of us have said, any of the presentations that we have have said, any of the speeches that any of us have ever done, and there's a big disconnect there.

While I recognize there are going to be some tough decisions to make, and I recognize how difficult that's going to be, I would still pause and push back very hard on a budget that is close to $300 billion. How anyone can think on planet Earth that we can cut in the most vulnerable communities. Foster care? Sorry, I get a little emotional about that. Foster kids? I mean, who can do that and be okay with it? CalWORKs? Family Urgent Response Systems?

I mean, some of these programs, and I'm muddling it up, I mean, if there is an emergency at night, and a foster care kid has something that is happening in that family, we would, in effect, cut any ability for that family to communicate with the county to get services to that family in the middle of the night.

Let's say the foster kid is in trouble. What would they do? Just hope everything gets better in the next 12 hours with nowhere to call? I mean, that's kind of the lens that I look at it. When we have close to $300 billion in a budget, and if our values are reflected in a budget, then I probably wouldn't even have looked to propose any cuts in the most vulnerable communities. There are a lot of other spaces that could, there could be cuts.

I feel very, very strongly about it, and I know this committee feels very strong and our house feels very strongly about it. But this budget has to reflect our values. And I know it's tough, and I know you just happen to be here, so you happen to hear this, right? I don't know how anybody can make some of these cuts willingly to balance a number on a budget and sleep okay at night. It's hard for me to imagine that it really is, and it pains me to even have to consider that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much. Dr. Bains.

Thank you so much, Assembly Member Santiago, for sharing that. Because, I mean, we are all concerned over the past several weeks, a lot of us in the Assembly are very, very concerned with exactly what Assembly Member Santiago just said. There are cuts in places that there should absolutely cannot be.

That is not representative of the values of California. We care about our vulnerable populations. We care about people that need us, and we are there for them. This proposal literally tells vulnerable communities, you don't matter to us. There are definitely other places that we can cut funds from. Cutting $111 million to senior nutrition programs.

What are our seniors going to eat? Our seniors are one of the most vulnerable communities out there. Our aging population is increasing, and we're cutting 111 million for senior nutrition programs. Where are they going to eat? Do we not care about our seniors in California? What about housing and homelessness?

We know very well that our aging population is the increasing base for homeless people right now. We don't care about that either? Elder justice, deep cuts to Adult Protective Services. Elderly abuse is on the rise, guys. Do we not care about taking care of our seniors? This does not do it.

And as the Chair of Aging Longterm Care, I am extremely disappointed in what I saw on this revise. California does care for its vulnerable populations, and we as a Legislature will make sure that we will challenge everything that takes away things from vulnerable communities.

Thank you very much, Dr. Bains. Mr. Carrillo.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for allowing me to be here. In what's been mentioned by Assembly Member Santiago and Dr. Bains, rural communities like the ones that I represent, the high desert and the Central Valley, when things are not as dire as they are today, resources are just not equally distributed either.

So this is even a bigger concern. And I wonder if there is a plan that will show our communities how these cuts are going to occur. If it's going to be based on population, is it population on the urban areas? Are they going to get what's left? What's going to happen to those rural areas that I represent in the Central Valley too? Because again, even when things are okay, we still don't get the resources that we deserve because we also contribute to the state's economy.

So I wonder if there is a plan that you will be able to distribute to those agencies for daycare, for CalFresh, for all of those things that have been mentioned, seniors and all of that. Because my fear, again, is that with the distribution of rural areas in the Central Valley, that's going to be worst, I believe, than the urbanized areas. Because I get it, population is there. What about the rest of us throughout the state?

My fear again is that these rural areas in the high desert will be the most affected because when things are good, we just don't get enough resources. So there is a plan that you can show us so that we can anticipate, so that we can, I don't know, prepare if we can, if it's possible. Because again, we are going to be the ones that are going to be most affected. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Ms. Ortega.

I want to thank the Chair and my colleagues for their comments. I think they are a reflection of our frustration and disappointment. And the budget proposal that was put out, it's definitely not aligned with our, you know, why we're here. The reason I wake up every day in the morning wanting to come to work here in this amazing institution is for that reason, to make sure that our most vulnerable are protected and served and taken care of. This budget does not reflect that. I wanted to...

And I also remind myself, just before I ask the questions, while we are, as Assembly Member Carrillo mentioned, in tough times, when we just came out of a budget where we had more money that we know what to do with, they were not prioritized for the underserved communities. And we're still the fifth largest economy in the world.

So clearly some folks are being prioritized over others. With that said, I wanted to focus my question on the elimination of the IHSS benefit program based on immigration status. You have, you're proposing a $94.7 million in savings by eliminating that program, and wanted to ask if you've accounted for the expenses that will occur once that program is eliminated and the clients who are being taken care of home end up in our emergency rooms and public hospitals.

Kia Cha, Department of Finance. So this could be a possibility. At this time, we don't have any estimates, but we will work to make sure we put forth a balanced budget to the Legislature in subsequent years.

So you do not know if this will actually save money in the long run? Just want to clarify. You don't. Because right now you're, with this cut, you are claiming a savings of $94.7 million to keep people in their homes. But if that program is eliminated, and they end up in the emergency room or public hospitals, you don't know if it's an actual savings because the costs will be there just in a different way? Correct?

I think those are secondary and tertiary impacts, and it's difficult to kind of, with certainty, estimate what those costs might be. But to the extent, like I said, that is a possibility, we don't have any estimates at this time. But we will work in future years to put forth a balanced budget in subsequent years.

What about nursing homes? Will the cost of nursing home care go up?

I think similar to the emergency care, it could be a possibility.

I believe, LAO, I believe we also are waiting for some numbers on that. Can you say a little bit about that, please, for the Member?

Juwan Trotter, Legislative Analysts Office. So, yes, we received a request to look into that issue, and we are continuing to look into that issue at the moment, and hopefully we'll get back to you and the rest of the committee on that in the coming days.

Okay. Moving on to a different question, through the Chair, if that's okay. On the issue of the CalWORKs cuts, you include major one time and ongoing cuts to public sector workforce. How many jobs will be lost as a result of these cuts?

Aanam Khan, Department of Finance. So can I ask for a clarification of which cut you are referring to?

I'm not sure. It's just as I have it on here as CalWORKs cuts.

Right. So I guess... Right. So in General, I think the May Revision is just the Administration's proposal to bridge the shortfall that we're facing and present a balanced and responsible budget. But like the Governor's Budget, the May Revision is just a proposal, and we understand that the Legislature may have alternatives, and we're open to working and having discussions with you to discuss those and come to a final budget agreement.

Ms. Cubanski, can you come up if you have any reflections in terms of single allocation with possible ramifications that can have on our counties?

Eileen Cubanski with the County Welfare Directors Association. The single allocation is poised to take a cut of about $355 million. That's over a 21% reduction to the funding for the single allocation. We've estimated the impacts, if we were to take all of that just alone in staffing, to be over 1700 employees statewide that would have to be either laid off or positions held vacant and so forth. These are individuals that provide case management. They provide access to these benefits, they provide other supportive services and access to those services. So these are direct cuts to the core program itself. Thank you, and I'm happy to answer any other questions.

I'm just thinking about how these cuts are going to... The people providing the services who will lose their jobs will now end up needing these services themselves. That is my question. How is that going to help our budget?

Thank you very much. Now we have Miss Bonta and Miss Reyes.

Thank you, Chair, for allowing us all to be here. And I just want to share a bit of empathy with the folks who are here. I know that these are hard conversations that you have been having, and I just want to hit on the comment that I've heard in, sat in a lot of budget hearings, so the public safety hearings, health hearings, and now human services. This idea of needing to be able to balance the budget. We're going to be balancing the budget based on these proposals on the backs of women and children and our most vulnerable communities. And I know that that's not what the administration wants to do, this governor wants to do. But nevertheless, the proposals that have been put forward essentially do that.

And I think we have to own that and do what we can as a Legislature to make sure that that doesn't happen. I'll start where my colleague from San Leandro ended her comments around the single allocation for CalWORKs. I believe that the estimated number of workers who are going to essentially lose their statewide positions or be completely eliminated is about 1,700 CalWORKs positions. So, just think about who those people are.

Those are the people who are largely people who entered into the workforce to be able to support people who are from their communities, who are like us, and who are trying to make a difference for their communities. They're people who are barely making a living wage, who probably face 40% to 50% rent burden to be able to afford to have the honor of service in the State of California.

And they're people who deal with the most dire circumstances, people who wake up in the morning and talk to people who are on their very last breath of hope. That's the 1,700 positions that we're seeking to cut. And it's true that when we cut those positions, what will happen is that they will then become potential recipients for CalWORKs. Now, what will happen to CalWORKs and the people who are on existing CalWORKs when we cut those 1700 positions? At the county level, we know that those workers are people who are frontline workers, making sure that people get connected to their services.

So, while on paper we will have some modicum of resources available for CalWORKs support, we will not have the individuals available to be able to connect people to CalWORKs in a meaningful way, to make sure that they're receiving the supports and services that the state, on paper, on our budget, has allocated for.

So, at some point, I think it's just incredibly specious for us to say that we are balancing the budget because what we're doing is decreasing potential utilization for CalWORKs by eliminating those positions and increasing the number of people who need to be on CalWORKs by eliminating those positions. So, at some point, we just have to stop.

Like, we just, we can't do it. And specifically, I guess the question for you all is, is there any kind of projection on the, perhaps the secondary, tertiary impacts, the negative impacts, the opportunity costs associated with making a cut around even the single allocation? Because it's fine to say that at the end of the day, all the numbers add up and we're in the black. But if we're not actually being thoughtful about the impact of the cuts that we're making in terms of increasing costs in other places, then we're not actually presenting a balanced, from a values perspective budget.

Lourdes Morales with the Department of Finance.

You need to put that closer.

Lourdes Morales with the Department of Finance. The May Revision proposes an approach to address the budget deficit where sort of we understand we're making really difficult choices and the Legislature may not agree with all those decisions. And so, we appreciate this conversation as we sort of think through how to continue to address the core benefits provided across these programs. The May Revision maintains core grants for CalWORKs, for SSI, SSP, food benefits, a sort of a number of other core activities that we intended to sort of protect as we sort of made additional hard choices.

Our approach was generally to try to address sort of one-time dollars that could be pulled back, as well as thinking about things that were newly implemented or maybe were just about to be implemented. And so, we sort of took that general approach to try to balance the budget, but sort of understand that we can continue to have a conversation as we reach towards a compromised budget that will be adopted.

I appreciate that response. It was non-responsive to my question. My question was, has there been any analysis done to understand truly the opportunity costs and the loss of, well, the increased risk we're putting people at when we do things like cut 1,700 frontline workers around, ability to navigate towards CalWORKs' supports and services? Has that analysis been done and is it able, and are we able to see that analysis in order to be able to make a decision that will allow us to be able to, as Assemblymember Santiago said, sleep at night?

We don't have figures to share on that question

And that is a continued theme in every single hearing I've been in. That is incredibly problematic and one that I hope the administration works on because we can't continue to not have any understanding of the impacts of the decisions that we're making in terms of the increased cost of care for individuals or the impacts of those costs. We sit here as legislators and do that.

I'm going to move on now to some issues around childcare and some of the proposed cuts there, and I really hope I don't get the response that I've been getting at every single hearing. So, the proposal is to cut 200,000 ECE spaces that were promised in the 21-22 Budget. In addition, the Legislature has adopted trailer bill language with a timeline for the planned release of the remaining 81,000 spaces. By estimates right now, the governor in his Mother's Day promise of 2021, and the administration is only meeting 59% of the promise that we made to actually ensure that we had ECE spaces available.

You've already addressed the kind of the supposed backfilling that we will be able to do for some of that. I want to move on to having a greater understanding around the adoption of a timeline for implementing the alternative rate methodology. We continue as a Legislature to be operating completely in the dark about that rate methodology, rate methodology that our Assembly,ember Gomez Reyes fought very hard for us to be able to have. Along with Senator Limon, we need to be able to have certainty around that rate methodology. Can you provide a timeline around when we will have that available to us?

Kim Johnson California Department of Social Services. We too, and with the chaptered legislation of last year, are committed to utilizing the alternative methodology and how we set rates for childcare reimbursement. So, where we are in the process is that we'll be submitting a state plan to the Federal Government by July 1st this summer.

That plan will then be hopefully very quickly approved by the Federal Government. Post the plan approval. We'll be working and reengaging with the Child Care Providers United to renegotiate the actual rate structure. But all of the work to get us to that point has been done. We have surveyed the workforce, the programs.

We have utilized that data to then put into a whole framework in terms of what will each of the components of the alternative methodology look like, things like salaries and wages, health benefits, those kinds of components, different components for the children and care. So that has been agreed upon between the administration and Child Care Providers United, that framework.

We are now having that same conversation with the center-based provider, the non-represented parts of the workforce, and then again, the plan will have the reopening with CCPU and engage with the remaining non-represented portions of the program later this year to get to an operational time period by which we'll then implement.

So at the earliest that would be July 1 of 2025. It's going to depend upon the, all of the operational considerations to utilize that methodology. So, for example, will the program administrators need to change their automated systems, those kinds of components? And we're in that analysis right now. And that's also one of the deliverables we have to the Child Care Providers United when our plan is approved by the Federal Government.

And for the chair as a potential recommendation, it might be helpful in trailer bill language to articulate the anticipated guidance and directive around the timeline associated with the alternative rate methodology that was just laid out so that we at least have something documented to make us all be more in sync than I think we have been.

Just as a thought, I wanted to move now to the ECE reversion account. So this account would ensure that the Legislature actually allocates dollars for ECE spaces. The money stays within the ECE system even if the administration faces delays getting the dollars out the door. Is there any information that you all can provide regarding the adoption of the ECE reversion account?

Gabby Santoro, Department of Finance. We don't have any information on this time about this concept, but we're happy to engage with the Legislature to consider this concept.

If I may also, in response to your prior comment.

You need to pull your mic closer, please.

Yes, SB 140 last year was a budget trailer bill on childcare, which did actually outline many of the milestones that the director referenced with respect to the alternative methodology. So many of them are in statute and we also have required timelines for reports to to the Legislature. Happy to talk about any additions that you might be interested in, but wanted to make sure you were aware that they do exist in some form already.

And just before LAO, did you not have some recommendations when it came to the methodology in terms of ensuring the Legislature has making sure we have a proper role as they submit their plan to the Federal Government? Can you touch on that a little bit? I'm not sure if you have your remarks about that.

Happy to provide overall comments, but this has come up in many hearings and we've been in many conversations with budget staff and we continue to be in those conversations with budget staff, but then also stakeholders. I think what we've heard is that some of the concerns with the existing language is that a lot of those milestones and report backs may end at the end of this fiscal year, but there may be lack in detail around getting a better understanding of operational considerations such as it systems.

By when would we know what it system changes would need to be implemented and how long would it take for those changes to be made? So then we have a better sense of then what is that earliest implementation deadline? I will flag that the July 1, 2025 date.

While it is the date in which the Federal Government anticipates the rate structure to be in place, there's still uncertainty on what that actually means. Does it mean we just have to have the survey system in place? Do rates need to be based off of the new rates? Do they need to be based off of 100% of the new rates? Or could we take in a phased-in approach? How would that phased-in approach be determined over what time period? So again, we're in conversations with stakeholders and led staff to try to identify what are those missing pieces within the existing trailer bill language, as the department noted and reporting back to the subcommittee on suggested language.

Appreciate that, and I know that this is all moving very swiftly, so I'm sure the chair is on top of all of this, and I really appreciate your leadership for so long in this. I will end my comments. There are others that I would like to echo just around the CalWORKs, the cuts related to foster children in Emergency Childcare Bridge Program that I think is just. That is money that we can't afford to.

It's priceless work and we cannot build a budget on our most dire, critically needed supports and services for children who are in foster care. So I would urge the Administration and this Legislature to consider not making that particular cut. I'll defer my time. We could go on and on.

Miss Reyes.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I too want to thank you for your leadership. This is, every committee is important, and we're reviewing things in the budget that are so important. But I think this committee and all of the issues that fall under this committee are the ones that affect our most vulnerable. This has been shared by everybody.

And I agree, Dr. Arambala, we're doing the people's work and they expect us to do the people's work. There's no question that there are very difficult decisions that need to be made. We've talked about this over and over again. We have to deal with a budget deficit. It isn't a small deficit deficit. It's a big deficit.

There's no question about that. But I think that to some extent, we may feel a little powerless, but I can only imagine what our constituents feel if we are feeling a bit powerless in our discussions on this issue because we feel passionately about who it is we represent, who it is we're trying to protect, what benefits we're trying to protect.

If we're feeling this, the feeling of those providers who are wondering, what are they going to do once these cuts are put into place? How are they going to protect those jobs? How are they going to, what are they going to do to help those people that are going to be losing their jobs?

I do hope that the administration will continue to explore opportunities to preserve the funding for some of our key safety net programs. This is extremely important. Extremely important. And clearly through our chair, who is hearing us and who has invited us and has agreed to allow many of us who don't sit on this committee to be part of this and to be part of this discussion. I want to thank my colleague for talking about this alternative methodology.

It's so important because I absolutely concerned that if by July 1 of 25, we don't take action, I mean, I heard your response, but I'm concerned that if we don't take action, we're going to return to the 2018 levels. We cannot afford to have that happen. And when you talked about uncertainty, if you have uncertainty, tell us what we need to do. Tell us how we can help, because we cannot have this uncertainty continue on this issue in particular. We worked really hard, and last year we provided temporary rate increases for our childcare providers.

But if we don't take care of the reporting and everything else and what the feds need by July 1, 2025, if we don't take care of that, we could revert back to the 2018 levels. I don't want us to do that. That report has to be in. We have not received our report. It's not due just yet, but I would like some questions on this. When will we have this additional information on the elements that the state will use to calculate the cost of care as part of the alternative methodology that it submits to the Federal Government? It's my first question.

Thank you, Assemblymember. We have submitted a report to the Legislature. We're glad to follow up and make sure that's in the hands of every. We've actually submitted two. One that was a report that outlined all efforts to date on the alternative rate methodology work and again identified the timeline of our next steps.

The second one was an update. So within that report and is actually posted online on our website, are exactly that. The elements that will be included, that have been agreed upon between the administration and Child Care Providers United to be included in that alternative methodology that's posted now and has been submitted to the Legislature. We are working right now with the non-represented members of the workforce to also land that same structure. And that will again, we're aiming for the same July of this year submission to the Federal Government/

And then Jackie Boracio, Legislative Analyst Office. In terms of your specific question of when will we have landed on the elements that will make up the new rates, I will flag that once the as outlined in statute, once the Federal Government approves the state plan, it's our understanding then that the department will open negotiations again with the childcare providers union.

However, I will also flag that not all childcare providers are represented by the union. So there would also need to be a concurrent process for those non represented providers through the annual budget process based off of the timeline laid out in statute would be next year. However, given the uncertainty of how those negotiations may go with the union, that's what kind of makes it difficult to give a certain date around. When will the elements be finalized and.

When do we expect to adopt them and implement them?

Exactly. And to what extent will the system infrastructure be in place to adopt those final decisions? I think Department of Education has flagged in other hearings as well since these rates would also apply to preschool. They've already noted to the extent that the rates do require additional data elements to be collected, it would require system updates, potentially redoing their system completely. And again, that may take more time that goes beyond July 1, 2024.

So what is the administration's plan to avoid a gap between the end of the current CCPU contract in June of 2025 and the implementation of the new alternative methodology that takes into account the true cost of care?

Gabby Santora, Department of Finance as Director Johnson and my colleague Miss Barrocio had noted, we have already collectively done a lot of work to move this process along, and we do want to make sure that what is implemented is consistent with one we agree with for CCP representative providers and what we do as parity for the non representative sector.

This is something that we have done with the, as part of 2021 with the inaugural CCP agreement and the successor agreement that happened in 2023, the Administration is working hard to prepare as much as we can because we cannot anticipate what, you know, we are one party to a two party agreement that should be started to be negotiated.

Very powerful party.

Certainly. We all in all trying to prepare what we can to make sure that what we implement is consistent with what agreement we reach with both CCPU and the Legislature. For the entirety of the field, please.

Know that we're available because this is extremely important. We do not want, these are not gotcha moments. They can't be because it's people's lives that are being affected by all of this. We just have to figure out what our plan is. We do have to have a backup plan.

If we don't take care of business in time and we fall back to the 2018, what is our plan? And I think that it's a fair question and we need to know. We need to know that we're thinking about that and that we are looking at what we're going to do if things don't work out.

I do want to thank the chair in your analysis. I mean, the words that you used, eliminate, decimate, cut off, destabilize. This is exactly how we're all feeling about this. And I want to go to the child care slots.

I know there have been a lot of questions regarding that, but I, and you already know this, more than two thirds of children under age five and under need child care because their parents are in the workforce. 2.1 million children are eligible for subsidized childcare services, but only 11% are actually enrolled.

We have this wait list that is forever. And that's why this was so important to finally provide the slots. And as my colleague said, we're, these are difficult times. We get it. We absolutely get it.

But I hope that you are hearing how important it is for us that as we're balancing this budget, that we not try to balance it using funding that can help the most vulnerable people.

We really do have to come up with a plan to roll out the remaining slots, lots of remaining slots to reach our goal just on that. Another, if I may, Mister Chair, the CalWORKS mental health and substance use disorders services. We have over 126 million being eliminated from this program.

Families that receive these services, counties that use their mental health and substance use allocations to develop and expand their programs for CalWORKS recipients who need these services in order to obtain or maintain employment or to participate in other welfare to work activities are going to be seriously affected. So these proposed cuts are very concerning.

We know that substance use disorder treatment is critical, especially for our families at risk of entering into the child welfare system. Another, and I don't know if my colleagues have talked about it, is the CalWORKS home visiting program. It's a voluntary program that pairs new parents with public health nurses to make regular visits to clients homes.

Such an important, important program. It's a critical program that connects parents with the necessary resources. I'm very concerned that that is another cut.

And Mister chair, if I may, 2 other programs that I'm very concerned about is for our foster youth, and this has been talked about by my colleagues, but these cuts are going to impact our children and our youth in the child welfare system.

The program specifically is a family urgent response system, and I'm glad my colleague talked about that. And the Emergency childcare bridge program with these cuts, it would have significant impacts on our foster youth. We must do everything that we can to protect them. We need to make sure that we're taking care of their needs.

This is a promise that we make today to them. We talk about victimizing people over and over and over again. This is another one of our groups that we promise that we're going to take care of. We find ways to take care of them. We have to make sure that we don't victimize them again.

So my question is, how will the proposed cuts affect our foster youth, and have we evaluated how those particular cuts are going to impact space, specifically our foster youth?

Thank you, Assembly Member, for that question. And as it relates specifically to the emergency childcare bridge for foster families, one piece of information that we have shared with the Committee prior is that it has been slightly underutilized, and so the proposed reduction there is essentially looking to Fund it at levels of its utilization. The other thing I would point out.

Specific to actually, I appreciate that we're being good stewards of the money. So I appreciate that.

The other thing I would specifically say, while I know it's part of this conversation and array of proposals as well, is that we have, in fact, over the last few years, significantly changed the child care subsidy landscape.

So I completely appreciate all comments made today about the proposals here, but this, the significant increases that we have made of those 118,000 children who are receiving care that weren't receiving care before is significant. And when the emergency child care bridge for foster families was first introduced, that was not the landscape.

So we are able to, in fact, serve more families that would be prioritized for child care subsidies because they are at risk of involvement in child protective services into the broader child care subsidy array. So collectively, we have done that work together. So a little bit of a landscape change for those families.

But also this proposal is to reduce at the utilization levels.

All right, Mister Chair, just two. So on the Child Holistic Immigration Representation Project, CHIRP. It's a program designed to assist unaccompanied minors in our state. This program is being eliminated despite the fact that it was a pilot proposed by the state. My question is, has the need for this program also gone away?

Is there any alternative in place to meet the needs that still exist?

Thank you for the question, Assembly Member. Again, I will specifically say that, yes, we certainly still do have unaccompanied undocumented minors that we are supporting in California. As California's residents. We do again have additional investments here that have somewhat changed the landscape.

So one of those would be our Cal new, our new, I'm going to forget the acronym newcomers program, and that's specifically aimed at unaccompanied minors in our school districts to ensure that the school districts not only have capacity to better serve this youth population, but also their families.

So that is a new, again, expanded service that didn't exist prior. That will continue, but not in the same exact way that the particular pilot that you referenced has.

Okay, and then the last area, Mister Chair. The CalWORKS cuts include zeroing out the family stabilization program. I checked 44,000 families affected. What are the estimated consequences for the thousands of families who receive family stabilization who will lose crisis prevention services?

Appreciate the question. Assembly Member Ann noted that the family stabilization, as we have identified, is actually over-utilized. In other words, other funds are being added to meet the needs of those families. So here I would note a few things. Part of the main use of those funds today is in support of housing support.

And I will indicate that there is no proposed change to the CalWORKS housing support program in these proposals. So that is a continued support that will be available.

But as it relates to additional kind of case management, really supporting families in crisis, the landscape change I would point out here is actually not on the social service side, but on the healthcare services side, in terms of the tremendous work that's been done to build additional mental health and additional services.

So again, I'm not suggesting they are one to one in terms of the exact service that will be provided, but there will be additional supports available to families in crisis that didn't exist previously from the healthcare services side.

All right. Well, I thank you for the answers. I think like my colleague, there are still so many questions. But do know that what is being proposed really will decimate many of our programs. And it's hard to come back from when your benefits are cut and you have to let people go.

It is so difficult to try to reestablish that. And these are hardworking people who have worked with so little for so long. And now to lose that job, even after all their sacrifices, I would prefer that we work on a budget that assists and that stabilizes, that we find ways to take care of the whole person.

And I know this is the Committee that's going to push for that. And I hope that you will always look to this Committee and to our Chair, to our prior Chair, and of course to our amazing consultants at work here. Thank you so much. And thank you, Mister Chair.

Thank you very much Miss Reyes. Miss Pellerin, and then Mister Ting, Thank you.

Thank you, Chair, for your leadership in this space. And thank you to the Members who've been serving on this Committee. Committee. It's very disheartening and devastating being here and listening to everything here today. The fact that we're cutting these essential programs, these lifelines for people, cowworks, IHSS, meals on wheels, childcare people. This is not who we are.

This is not who the State of California is. We need to prioritize those who cannot help themselves, that need the most help, that need, that are the most vulnerable. And I believe that cutting this dollar today is going to end up costing us a lot more and monetarily down the road.

But it's also going to cost people's health, their mental health, their physical health, their well being. It's going to cost our communities. It's going to send families and individuals further into crisis. We cannot do that to people.

As a representative of my district, I along with, and I want to thank all my colleagues for the comments they made today because you've really just hit the nail on the head of the severity of these actions if they're maintained.

And we just cannot go back to our districts and say that we're cutting your programs, we're making life unbearable for you. And so I just want to thank everyone for being here today and doing this essential work. I had a couple questions around the childcare piece.

Those being so, according to the California Budget Policy Center, and we've heard this earlier, more than 2 million children are eligible for early childcare and education space. But the state currently only serves 230,000 children. And so, given the significant need, is the Administration willing to adopt an implementation timeline for the ECE spaces? Are we doing that?

Gabby Santora, Department of Finance the May revision does not reflect a specific timeline to resume slot expansion. However, we are happy to engage with the Legislature to consider alternative options.

Okay, but then also, Miss Pellerin, I know we are working with LAO because it's our goal to also adopt trigger language so that just like in other cases with the corporate tax credits, how there's a trigger in that, signaling a priority, we're also going to be asking for a trigger for childcare as well.

Very good. Okay, that's helpful. Thank you. And as part of the proposal to end the child care slot expansion, does the Administration plan to rescind the child care slot award letters that were recently issued in the spring of this year?

And where does the Administration derive the authority to rescind slots appropriated by the Legislature in the 2023 Budget act?

Thank you for the question. Jennifer Troia for the Department of Social Services we did issue tentative award letters in the end of April this year to our General childcare or CCTR providers. So the centers with whom we contract directly, we notified them at the, at the time.

We notified them, as we always do, that the finalization of those awards is subject to appropriation. So we will be notifying them of the May revision proposal for the pause. And ultimately, our final actions will be dependent on what is included in the final budget.

Well, again, this is extremely disheartening, and we're just going to have to work harder and more diligently to make sure that we're not sending our families and individuals, our children, our seniors, our most vulnerable here in the State of California, further into crisis. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mister Ting.

Thank you, Mister Chair. Just had a couple questions. Appreciate the Department for coming. Just focusing on CalWORKS. A second. Based on the various proposals that you outlined, what do you anticipate is the impact on the typical CalWORKS family?

Thank you Assembly Member for that question. Really. I think what I would say there is, what we're likely to see is a smaller offering of services. So that's from subsidized employment, mental health and substance use family stabilization.

So in home visiting, home visiting, I will just mention is also similarly situated to the emergency child care bridge where we're looking to reduce funding to utilization. There is a slight chance because the uptake has increased more recently that there could be an impact of disenrolling there.

But in some of the other places, again, just want, just want to specify that all proposed reductions aren't exactly situated similarly in terms of how they're proposed. So a reduced access to their array of services as it relates to some of the earlier conversation.

In case management, while we are, our employment component of the single allocation is proposed to also be to utilization because the funds are fungible between the single allocation of employment eligibility and Cal-learn there's likely to see some reduced case management. So that would be what we would likely see in terms of impact.

Got it. Just to focus for a second on home visiting. I know Doctor Arambula was a big champion. We've seen such. Well again, let me just step back for a second. I mean let me just state the obvious. I think there's no one in the room, including yourselves, that is out here saying these are great cuts.

I mean there's no one advocating and saying these are wonderful. Right. So let's just, you know, let's. I think we're all trying to be on the same side here and I think from our point of view we're just trying to understand a little bit better why these versus other things. Right. At least that's where I'm coming from.

I know with home visiting in particular, started as a pilot is, you know, my understanding should correct me if I'm wrong, that, you know, we've, we've seen good, good results from home visiting.

So I think this is in particular a fairly painful, so just trying to understand the mindset of sort of rolling this back versus say something else. Just because I know that when you touch the families and it's not easy to get into homes, but when you do that, you do see good results, so just.

Completely agree with you. Assembly Member, we are seeing positive impact from those participating in voluntary home visiting in the CalWORKS program. And again I would say that again this particular proposal is closer to aligning to utilization versus a complete elimination being proposed here.

Again, because we have seen that greater uptake, there's a potential that we would either have to not enroll new families sooner than would otherwise have occurred or potentially reduce service. But again it's closer to utilization in this particular Proposition.

Got it. So trying to at least maintain the same number of families who are in the program, they may have less servicing, less touching, less fewer interactions. But again, trying to at least keep the same number of families in there and perhaps the newer families, there will be fewer newer families.

Correct.

Okay, understood. Just going to CalFresh for a second, same kind of question. Just understanding what you feel like the impacts would be in terms of, if I'm a CalFresh family, what would that mean to me?

For CalFresh, for those who are currently enrolled, we're actually not proposing reductions. The two areas are related to food and nutrition. We have the proposed delay of the California food assistance program.

So that would be, would have been newly enrolled CalFresh individuals who won't otherwise, that'll be delayed by two years, who wouldn't otherwise receive the benefit. But for existing CalFresh, there's not a proposed impact here. The nutrition benefit pilot, I should say, is the other proposal we're proposing not to essentially launch. It hasn't already launched to date.

Yeah. And going back to the trigger question Sorry, I was out of the room for a few minutes knowing that at least the last four or five budgets, we've been, frankly, way off in terms of revenues, we've been off in a good way for a number of budgets. Is there a reason why there weren't more triggers employed?

Save with CalWORKS, save with some of these? You know, again, when you're talking about food assistance, really want to understand why there weren't triggers since again, we were $20 billion off this year's budget, the one year we're currently in, we were off on the previous year's budget.

Just trying to understand, given these critical program areas, why not more triggers?

Yeah, I appreciate the question, Assembly Member Ting, but like the Governor's Budget, the mayor revision is a proposal. So the Administration is happy to hearing any alternatives or options that the Legislature does have.

Okay, so there's, I didn't hear a lot of opposition to triggers then, Mister Chair. That's what I heard.

I would just offer to you, Assembly Member, that it is the actual, for example, in CalWORKS, the sub account that is allowing us to be able to continue with the CalWORKS grant increase proposed in October of next year.

So I would note that we, because of that structure, we're able to continue offering that grant increase to families participating in CalWORKS.

Got it. So maintaining that sub account, one thing I was concerned about is we're using the entire $900 million Reserve and just trying to ensure that we can, we save that Reserve to really maintain service level provision across the board, not just in this area, but also in Medi-Cal. And are we able to do that?

I see someone else coming to perhaps answer that question.

Yeah, finance. But this time we're proposing to withdraw the full Reserve, and that's due to increased caseload in both Medi Cal and the CalWORKS programs.

And then, well, how do we keep serving that caseload? I guess because the whole point of the Reserve was to be able to try to maintain as best we could that caseload rather than have people on off.

Right. So by withdrawing the safety net Reserve, we're addressing that budget shortfall. So then further cuts in both the Medi-Cal and the CalWORKS programs are not necessary for that increased caseload.

And do we anticipate in year two, year three that we won't, based on our projections today. So based on you're taking that Reserve, based on the projections for next year and the year after, does that mean we can, it hopes to hold folks harmless.

Right. So with the May revision proposals, we do present a balanced budget in current year budget and the out years currently.

So the goal is take that Reserve and keep providing that level of service for poor folks. One area that I was in particular concerned was the cut in the supervised independent living placement program for foster children. My understanding is there's another sort of place. There's another place where there's, where you're trying to address that issue.

I don't know if you had, there's another foster youth rate increase to address that issue. So I don't know if you can talk to that.

Sure. A couple of years ago, as you certainly recall, we adopted a supervised independent living program rate supplement with the intention of better addressing the costs of living in some of the higher cost places within the state that has not yet taken effect on the natural and implementation.

In the meantime, in the January budget proposal, the Governor has proposed a permanent rate reform for the rate structure, which was statutorily mandated to be updated under the continuum of care reform. That rate reform is at this point proposed to take effect around a similar time. To win, the supervised independent living program supplement would have taken effect.

And that rate reform includes very significant new investments, including in the rate for the supervised independent living program.

In the May revision, we clarified in the trailer Bill Language for that proposal the structure of how the additional resources would flow, and in particular clarified that the additional resources for strengths building would flow directly to the youth or the non minor dependent who is living in a supervised independent living setting.

As a result, in about 96% of cases, those youth would receive higher rates under the governor's proposal than they would have under the silk supplement.

Great. Thank you. Just going back to CalFresh for 1 second. So there's the work incentive nutrition supplement program where you're proposing to, to reduce the $10 supplement for about 124,000 families, which obviously would have that impact. Could you just kind of. Thank you. Thank you.

I apologize for not acknowledging that in the CalFresh earlier. Yes, that's correct. This is, we have provided this additional $10 per household to essentially those that are, families participating in CalFresh have received that $10. Therefore, we were able to count them in our work participation rate at the Federal Government.

And that was the only metric, and it still is, that they only have the pilots giving us an opportunity to look at more metrics more holistically. But yes, what has also happened is that the Federal Relief Act at the federal level has changed how they count the rates.

So essentially we don't necessarily need the wins program to meet this WPR target. We're at a place where that's not a penalty address, but that doesn't mean that there's not impact to those who were otherwise receiving that $10 benefit.

So are you saying that in your mind that because the rate increase is going up that they're going to. That the families won't see a difference or they will see a difference?

No, they will see a difference. Those that have been receiving wins will see that $10 reduction. Under this proposal, our state fiscal penalty is no longer a threat based on the federal changes at the federal level.

And do you have any sense of what, you know, what this would mean for those families? I guess $10 sounds like a small amount of money for us, but for families who certainly.

No, certainly. I just completely appreciate the point that in terms of our work to again, address hunger, that every dollar counts. So appreciate that point very much.

And we'll just also note in that same Federal Relief Act, the other provision that was included there was that if somebody such a benefit were to be included by a state, it needed to be a minimum of $35. So actually the federal. So we had two choices here.

One, to say that we don't provide the benefit, which again, we don't need it to count towards work participation rate, therefore reducing our risks for a fiscal penalty. But if we were to provide it, we'd need to actually increase, to be able to count for the federal purposes.

But in terms of dollars for the individual households impacted, certainly that can have an impact on them, potentially food banks and other resources, which I would also acknowledge are have seen quite a bit of uptake as well. So. But that would be an opportunity or their resource to them. Anything you'd add.

Doctor Arambula.

Okay, thank you. Thank you Mister Chair.

Thank you. We've heard about many of the choices that I've made, and I believe you've heard about the concern that the Members have had about those choices. And I do want to highlight that there is an opportunity for us to make different ones.

And I'm hoping through this conversation we're able to make it the easy choice to look towards other ways in which we can address this. I will highlight specifically that there are opportunities to draw down more of the Reserve that we are currently not utilizing. I'd point out the difference in the Governor's proposal between Jim.

January and May, and the space that still is available for us to make sure that we are protecting the programs that we find valuable and important.

And I would also ask us to look towards revenue and through the chair would point out that we as a state are not taxing many of our services, which the Governor has again now started making public comments, like many states as Texas and Florida do, and would ask us to get some information back again through the chair about what it would mean for political consultants, accountants and lawyers to now be considered potentials for revenues for us to make sure we are addressing our most vulnerable populations.

That's not even addressing the capital needs or capital opportunities that we have. And I will leave that for my colleague here to my left to make sure that we address. But those opportunities for both revenue and for reserves, are other ways in which we can choose to make sure that we're protecting these programs.

And so I'll uplift the comments from our colleagues regarding the cutting of senior nutrition, the IHSS for our undocumented, the home visiting program we fought so hard for, the FURS, the family urgent response system. But I'll bring back some institutional knowledge that it was in 2016, we began a rate study.

We began to identify a real issue in our direct service professionals, those who are serving our disability community. And we've made a promise to them here in our state with the Lanterman act that we are not following through with today. When we don't have the ability to make sure that they are reimbursed appropriately.

We're not then able to get services that our disability community relies upon.

And so I'm deeply troubled that we're considering to continue to push back a rate study that concluded in 2019, prior to a pandemic, that we now have direct service professionals who are getting recruited to other jobs instead of serving our most vulnerable, is a real failure on our part and would highlight the importance that these investments, and why so many of us valued them here on this dais. I would also uplift the employment first for our disability community as we as a state are struggling to reach the employment numbers for a disability population, as other states do.

These employment first dollars were a great way for us to make sure that we were employing our disability community and giving them an opportunity for self determination. I'd highlight all of our housing supports that have been threatened. We heard about the family stabilization program. I would highlight the income level that's required to qualify for this program.

A family of three has to earn less than $13,000 a year. I know, these are numbers that you know, but there are 44,000 families out there who are struggling to keep a roof over their head and food on their table at that amount of dollars.

And these family stabilizations are the only way in which we're able to give these young families, these women of color, a fighting chance and believe that it's, again, why we invested these dollars. But I'd highlight for the Child Welfare Services Program, the Bringing Family Homes, that we have evidence that this helps to increase family reunification.

Thus, if we're talking about cutting them, we're also talking about decreasing family reunification. Overall, I'd highlight for the disability community, the Housing and Disability Advocacy Program, and for the AP's the Home Safe program.

Within that, we have seen that we've doubled the number of people who have, nearly doubled, the number of people served within the first year when we decreased the age from 65 to 60. That is another cut that we are talking about right now in increasing that age.

By not allowing us to get upstream, by not allowing our bureaucracies to engage and identify the abuse and neglect early on, we're increasing the opportunities for our elders to become homeless. We should look at the data and recognize that they are the largest portion of those who are becoming homeless, which is why this program was so imperative.

And I have deep concerns about what this means for us as a state and our ability to address homelessness when we're cutting the vital housing support services that our vulnerable populations need. I'd also point out, if I can, the resource family caregiver approval process.

I'd like to highlight that we currently, right now, are not meeting our statutory guidelines. We're supposed to have those approvals within 90 days. We're at 136 days today. I can't imagine with us removing money from that, that we're actually going to improve upon that and then meet our statutory guidelines.

And so believe that it's important for us to have a more holistic view when dealing with a budget than simply trying to deal with the math problem that we have.

But I have to make sure that we're addressing CalWORKS, and I know that you're hearing about it from the family stabilization, but we also have home visiting, the subsidized employment, and the intensive case management.

Many times we have to address the multiple barriers that they have, whether or not it's domestic violence or substance abuse or just trauma from abject poverty. So many of these families need intensive case management, and those hours are imperative for us to make sure we're providing those needed resources from the social workers that currently will be diminished.

And I have concerns about what that means for the families who are being served on those programs. I'd also like to, at the end, highlight that we're in the midst of a federal election and that there's a potential for the next administration to look much harder at immigrant services and the threats that can occur from that.

I have concerns about the cuts that are being proposed to our immigration services, to the rapid response and to the temporary protected status, and, I believe, to the opportunities for youth, which was the program that you mentioned earlier, a program that helps our unaccompanied undocumented minors find peer supports.

We have one of those in Fresno, and I've seen those cohorts and those groups of young teenagers who have no one else here in this country, but are able to lean upon our bureaucracy and our programs to find supports. And these are helping people in our states to be more successful long term.

And I feel in a large part that what we're doing is but not seeing the big picture. And I'd ask us to make sure that we're making choices that are focused on the people and not simply solving a math problem. The concerns are heard by many of us here on this dais.

We look forward to continuing the conversations with the Administration. But what was presented to us in May was a false choice. That's not something many of us are really looking at or considering in totality, because these programmatic cuts would be too harmful. They would hurt our communities. And many of us cannot stand for that.

Thank you, Mister Chair.

Thank you, Doctor Arambula, Miss Reyes.

Thank you, Mister chair. I know I had my chance to talk earlier, but there was one area I will tell you. Every year we have a senior advocacy week where we visit senior centers, senior housing, everything related to our seniors. And when I talked to my mother about this, she says, "miha, remember, you too are a senior."

So let me ask a question that I am concerned. Concerned about the proposed cuts to the Department of Aging. This includes the elimination of funding for senior nutrition and the elimination of the Older Adult Behavioral Health Program. Have we evaluated the impact these cuts will have on older adults?

And as my colleague commented earlier, many older adults are falling into homelessness in our state. It's unacceptable. And the truth is, we can't allow this to happen. So have we evaluated the impact of these cuts on older adults?

Yes, we have. Mark Beckley. Sorry, catching my breath here for a second. California Department of Aging, Chief Deputy Director. Yes. So there is a proposed reduction of $111 million for one time funding, that is to continue meals for Covid era programs.

Specifically, what they're, what the, what we're looking or what C4A was looking to do is to continue ARPA funding and home and community services based funding. So when you look at the $111 million and what that breaks out to be is approximately $37 million a year.

$36 million of that is really comprised, or it's a total problem of 36, by our calculation, of that, about 25.6 is related to annualized ARPA funding and then 10.4 is related to home and community based services funding. So that creates your overall problem that is seeking to be solved with this funding of $36 million.

In the current year, we received an unexpected but very welcome increase to baseline Old Americans Act funding from the Federal Government of $15 million. So if you look at that, it really reduces your problem down to a net of $21 million.

There are a couple of mitigating funding pots that we think would help continue to provide funding to older adults, at least for the next few years. First is in the current year, we received an allocation of $15 million for the first installment of older California exact modernization nutrition funding.

And then second, we have $53 million for Older Californians act modernization supportive services funding. That second pot of money was really intended for legal services, transportation, and to restore some older Californians act modernization programs that were limited in the 2010 recession.

What the Department is proposing to do is to allow the AAAs, on a priority basis, to use that money for nutrition. That funding would be available, like I say, to them, for the next two years. So if you look at the $53 million on an annualized basis, for instance, that's around $25 to $26 million a year.

That would close the $21 million gap that we've identified. So that would be one way of mitigating the problem. We had also proposed to redirect individuals, and I know that there's been cuts to a lot of different nutrition programs, but, you know, programs like CalWAY, medically tailored meals, CalFresh food banks.

So we would work collaboratively with the Triple As to identify mitigation strategies. But that's kind of our proposal in terms of specific impacts. The only thing I'll add is the ARPA funds and the HCBS funds are available to the Triple As through the course of the next year.

We really won't know the spend rates on those programs, programs until late next year. But again, we think that with these other one time pots of money, you could bridge the nutrition gap for at least another two years.

I think part of the concern is that if the area agencies use this money that's flexible for meals, then they're going to have to go without in other areas. And that's part of the problem. So just keeping that in mind, as we know, our area agencies are going to do everything in a very responsible way.

But if they have to take care of the meals because they're given this flexibility, there may be problems in other areas.

Understood. And just another thing I just wanted to highlight is the baseline funding for senior nutrition is protected. So that's at about $166 million. That baseline has increased since 2018-2019 about 68% or $67,000,067.5 million. So we're serving more Californians than ever in the state.

About 100,000 more individuals are served through senior nutrition and about $3 million additional clients. So again, we just really want to give a lot of, you know, sort of like thanks and appreciation to our AAAs for expanding meals and serving more seniors during the COVID pandemic. But we overall that the baseline is being protected.

Thank you. Thank you, Mister chair, for allowing me to add that question.

Absolutely. Very important question. We're going to wrap it up with Mister Lee and then we will go into public comment and we're going to hold public comment. 1 minute each. We have to report to the floor pretty soon, so let's try to do our best.

I'll take that as my cue to be brief, Mister chair. I will say that, Mister chair, it is nice to have a lot of good company on the dais now. And it's just not you and me. So just to warn our presenters, I have a couple questions on IHSS, IDD and the FURS, Family Urgent Response System.

I know there's going to be some cycling. I'll start with IHSS in a second. But I just want to comment that to add on to all the excellent comments from our colleagues today, is that our state budget is more than a numbers game. It must be balancing our social responsibility to do so.

And I share a lot of my colleagues concern in that we aren't assessing the impact to our mission. Our core mission, just as any Fortune 500 company in my district in Silicon Valley, they assess what is their power to do the actual societal outcomes or whatever they want to do, right?

So as you hear the comments, I hope the Administration will understand is that we are concerned that more than just balancing the budget, we are concerned that how will this impact families? How will this hurt our mission to uplift people in poverty? That's what we're looking for in this second year, tertiary examples.

That's gonna be some of my questions about it, some of the questions later on. And so that's why we're really concerned about it. And I think you're hearing that from a lot of our colleagues that it's quite unacceptable to try to balance the budget off of those who are in poverty.

So first I want to ask a question about IHSS. So it is proposed to my understanding that IHSS is going to, services for, based on, based on immigration status is going to be eliminated. The Administration is asking for statutory elimination as well. Is that correct of the program?

Idalys Perez, Department of Finance yes, there will be trailer Bill language accompanying this proposal.

So my question is, why does it not suffice to eliminate it budgetarily, but also to close the door on it legally? Because that would make it harder to reopen it one day should we ever do anything like that. And we've talked about triggers today, so why is the Administration proposing to repeal it altogether?

Hi, Department of Finance statutory changes are necessary to implement the solution. And so the solution, the TBL, which will be forthcoming soon, does include those changes. I don't think we can implement the solution without statutory changes.

So you're saying a statutory change, is this for the total elimination of a program?

It's not for the elimination of the IHSS program, but to,

for undocumented families to

Implement? Yeah, for the undocumented.

So you're saying set your language is necessary to do that, to eliminate it?

Yes. Because statutory changes were added when we implemented the expansion.

Right. Rather than sometimes we look at some programs or freezing or delaying them too budgetarily, we don't have to go and delete them from statute altogether. So why not say, well, we're just not going to do it this year. It's have the same effect outcome, fiscal and real world outcome. Why close the door on it basically forever? I was just trying to say,

I'll, just say if it was a program that may have been subject to appropriation.

I'm sorry, I can't hear.

Sorry. Is this better? Yeah, I would just say that if it was a program that was subject to appropriation or something to that effect, that we could do what you've suggested, but that's not the case in this instance.

Okay, well, that's one of my big concerns about that. And targeting, limiting IHSS for very real people, very real families based on their immigration status, I think is quite problematic to the values of this body. I'll move on to a question about the Family Urgent Response System, which was a cut proposed, actually the January proposal as well.

Is that so? Right now, the proposal's cut $30 million for the 24/7 hotline for foster youth and former foster youth and their caregivers in times of crisis. This was only implemented fully in July of 2021. This is a relatively new program that's still existing.

So I wanted to ask why this program was targeted since it's only just up and running with some success. And what would the alternative be if this program were to be eliminated? The hotline.

Glad to start with this response member. A couple of things here. This is. I will just note that this particular program, but to your point, has been more recently implemented, wasn't fully expended at existing rates. It was underexpended. Would also note that while it is not, again, you've heard me say this, not one for one.

I'm not suggesting it's the same, but we have new supports in the mental health and behavioral health side from the healthcare services that didn't exist prior to the establishment of this program.

Again, not specifically designed for this population, but is it access, is it accessible to the population and getting some resources that wouldn't have otherwise existed prior to the investments that we've made.

Since you're saying it's underexpended, can the same level of service enjoyed today be maintained with less funding than a total elimination.

Yes.

How much would that mean?

I can give you just for example, total expenditures. You'll help me here to make sure I'm. Total expenditures in 22-23 were $11.5 million.

11.5. Okay.

So current year is obviously still in process. We could give you those updated figures as they're available. But that's at the highest rate of expenditure from the inception of the program.

So the Administration be more amenable to adjusting to a current rate of service than a total elimination together of the program to adjust as you see the program being expended, we are open to.

Having discussions with the Legislature on how to close the budget shortfall.

Thank you. And then moving on, I'm going to have a question about the implementation or the delay in implementation of the right study for IDD community. And Doctor Arambula already provided a really great context for why that's so important. And you know, this is when I was legislative staff.

I still remember trying to pursue just the right study pill in the first place to do so. And now that the study's complete and we're trying to catch up to pre pandemic 2019 levels. I do remain very concerned because there are many families who are lacking access to services.

So to the Department of Developmental Services, can you please tell us how delaying the rate reform will impact providers and consumers who are already facing significant delays in getting services that they are entitled to?

Thank you. Carla Castaneda, Department of Developmental Services while we do understand that any of the changes to the planned increases or changes to rates could have impacts on providers, we were looking at solutions that had at least not been implemented.

So things that are still in the budget to support with the workforce would include, like the DSP workforce and training. That would provide a tiered wage to support the direct support staff for families.

We still maintain the health and safety waiver options and that a Regional Center would provide that on behalf of the individual from the provider's perspective.

And something I'm really, if I might add. Chris Odneal, Department of Finance you know, I think it's important to note that this proposal isn't being put forward in a vacuum. We're hearing the same concerns from the community and engaging with those same individuals that you are when looking at.

And I think just as Chief Deputy Castaneda indicated, there's still progress being made on other key, key investments for the future like the DSP training and those other projects.

And, you know, when we look at the DDS budget, General Fund support for the DDS budget is going to increase $2 billion year over year between current year and budget year and maintains about $1.0 billion to support rate reform.

So while that adjustment won't be coming July 1 as proposed by the Administration, we really did try, we looked at this as trying to maintain funding levels and resources where they are and, you know, with eyes open on and, you know, hearing those concerns, too.

But those are some of the considerations that, you know, we were looking at and just some of the things that we would like to help put into context as you're considering the totality of the budget in this program especially.

Yeah, I understand that. But the reality is delaying it further has very real world consequences. Right. Even if we're talking about a couple months. And I don't blame a lot of communities saying that, oh, we're going to delay to the next year. There's no guarantee. Of course, we come back and we say delayed again.

I mean, the Administration has kind of come back again on some of the deals that we thought were concrete and have come back on it.

And so I really worry about how already at the status quo is, many IDD families are not getting the services they need and having more delays, even if we say on accounting wise there's more money, all that stuff out there.

But honestly, I want to say a lot of that is just the way you look at the accounting and the real world effect is that people are not getting compensated enough to do the really stressful work they're doing. So I know we're short on time, so I'm going to wrap up my comments a little bit.

So allow the chair and for us to go on to public comment. And I just want to remark that, you know, the totality of cuts we're looking at in the human services space is about $2.6 billion, correct? $2.6 billion, if I'm wrong. Right.

Okay, well, $2.6 billion or so in 2020 on our current budget Year 23-24 how large was our human services budget? So the current year we're living in right now.

Roughly some really. Chris Odneal, Department of Finance. I don't have that figure across HHS, but I think we could work on trying to get that figure.

Thank you. That'd be helpful. But as similar, Santiago talked about rounded up, our budget's are $300 billion right now. And historically, the human services budget has only had, like, 12% of the entire state budget. Even though a third of Californians live in poverty. A third of Californians live in poverty. So the 2.52.6.

Sorry, $2.6 billion in cuts right now from the January proposals to the May proposals, does possess a significant amount of setback in our mission to uplift people out of poverty, to help the poorest of the poor and the people who have the most need the most vulnerable.

And I think that's why you're hearing so much concern from the colleagues up here. Just to quickly say, as chair of the Human Services Committee here, I helped lead a effort or a letter where we signed with, like, 20 plus members on many of the items you heard today.

I won't go through all the lists, but many of the items here today. And we find it unacceptable for those things to be eliminated or drastically reduced because it's our mission to help stabilize families. So I'll just end with saying that there's a lot of work to be done.

You're hearing a lot of, hopefully, constructive feedback over on our side that we really value this area. And I heard a lot of feedback about wanting different solutions. And of course, different solutions are found in other budget areas with our progressive caucus said that we should have prison consolidation. That's a billion right there.

$2.6 billion problem and we have 1 billion identified. So I'll turn it over back to you, Mister chair, and thank you so much.

Thank you so much. I want to thank all the members who have joined us today for this robust discussion. I know they have to now head to the floor when it's appropriate. We will now begin with public comment.

As a reminder, we welcome public comment on any issue on the agenda, and we have a substantial number of people who would like to provide public comment.

Therefore, we want to urge everyone to keep your comments brief to a minute or less, please, so that we can hear from everyone and so that we don't have to to recess when the floor goes back into session. So with that, we will take our first fund. Name and affiliation, please.

Eileen Kubanski with the County Welfare Directors Association. I'll keep my comments brief because I appreciate you all have made my points for me, but human services programs that my Members administer are taking $1.3 billion worth of cuts between the January and May revision.

Almost $800 million of that is in CalWORKS, $200 million in Child Welfare Services, another 40 in APs, which sounds small, relatively speaking, but these are critical life saving services, and we urge your rejection of the proposals. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Martha Guerrero, representing the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, also echo the concerns that CWDA raised opposed the cuts to single allocation and it affects hundreds of thousands of families. Also, the reference to the LA public health nursing program being slow to start since it was funded in 2019.

Just a quick update, it wasn't funded until 2023-2024. So we were starting and then it got pulled back. And we also opposed the cuts to FURS, SILP, the CSU, immigration legal services, family stabilization, expanded subsidized employment services, intensive case management. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Yeah Mister Chairman. Carl London, on behalf of the Alliance Supporting People with IDD, and I want to thank Doctor Arambula for being a walking advertisement for why we should get rid of term limits and being the institutional memory on Developmental Services.

Also, you and Mister Lee for grabbing the torch that he's going to leave behind eventually when he does leave here. I want to start by just pointing out that in the Developmental Services space, a quick reminder to everybody.

This community has already given, we've given for 20 years, from 1998 to 2018, and even this last year, the year we're in right now, we are going to revert back over a billion dollars to the State of California for unused services.

The main reason that we're not using those dollars is because the rates are so Low we can't find the staff to serve people.

So when you look at this system and want to pull another billion dollars off the table, we've already given, find a way to account for that money and move it forward from the current year to next year and save us that pain. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Name, affiliation, please.

Childcare is essential for thriving families and justice in Communities. Good afternoon, my name is Mariam, Staff Attorney with the Child Care Law Center. Families need affordable child care now.

We urge the Budget Committee to reject the cuts and pause at the 81,000 childcare spaces and cuts to spaces in the emergency child care bridge program for children. Families of color should not have to carry the burden of these cuts, especially when there are rainy day funds and other available sources of revenue.

We urge the Legislature to implement and fund the alternative methodology as soon as possible. Paying providers based on on the full cost of enriching care is a critical step to righting historical wrongs as well. We also urge Legislator to reject any cuts to the CalWORKS program. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Hello Chair and members. My name is Andrew Avila with Early Edge California. Here to align ourselves with the ECE Budget Coalition's asks. We really would love to see the commitment to the 200 spaces, 200,000 spaces that was promised to us in the 21-22 budget.

We'd love for there to be a commitment from the Legislature and the Administration on the adoption of the alternative methodology. We'd also urge consideration of the reversion account and to award the 27,000 CCTR spaces that providers have been awarded in December and are accounting for. So thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Christine Stoner-Mertz California Alliance of Child and Family Services, representing 165 nonprofit, community based organizations serving youth and their families. Really heartened by the comments of the Committee and others, you can tell where your hearts are.

Our most vulnerable children, youth and families, many of them people of color, foster youth, etcetera, will be hurt by this budget without your help. We ask that you reject cuts to CalWORKS, particularly home visiting, the emergency childcare bridge funding, and to FURS, as well as other critical child welfare cuts.

We also urge you to support Assemblymember Chavez's request for bridge funding for foster family agencies. These are essential programs that will have to cut social work staff without your help. Thanks.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Thank you Mister Chair and members. Courtney Jensen on behalf of the the Low Income Investment Fund, which supports providers throughout the state with their facilities funding needs. We are members of the ECE coalition and align our support with the coalition's priorities.

We also want to reemphasize, Mister Chair, your comments and those made by Assemblymember Bauer-Kahan and Assemblymember Alvarez about the facilities grants being taxed. Unfortunately, we are hearing from more and more providers who have who are receiving huge tax bills as a result of their grants.

The infrastructure grant program is oversubscribed and has had a huge amount of interest from providers throughout the state and we are really concerned. If we do not fix this tax issue, projects for repair and renovation and also major construction to expand the ability to serve more children will stop.

We thank you, Mister Chair, for your comment about asking for Trailer Bill Language and strongly support the Legislature and Administration adopting Trailer Bill Language to fix this issue moving forward so grants are not taxed. Thank you.

Hi, Justin Garrett with the California State Association of Counties. I'm here to reiterate our strong opposition to the proposed human services cuts.

I really want to thank the chair and the Subcommitee for your deep understanding of the impacts that these cuts would have for your leadership on this issue and working to preserve this funding and for understanding the negative impacts it would have to county workers, to county's ability to enroll individuals and services into the level of service provided to families. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Kim Rothschild, California Association of Public Authorities for IHSS. We're here to ask to maintain a portion of the funding for the backup provider system as we believe this is a cost savings program. Thank you. I see you're nodding. Yes.

And with that, we're working with staff as well as CDSs and LAO to come back with an appropriate cost estimate to align with utilization. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Name and affiliation, please.

Rebecca Gonzalez, Western center on Law and Poverty. We continue to be very concerned about the cuts to Cal Works. Individually, they're awful. Taken collectively, it's devastating. That includes family stabilization programs, subsidized employment, mental health and substance use services program, home visiting, draining of the safety net.

But we do look forward to working with the Administration to reimagine CalWORKS and make it less punitive and more family centered. Also, the IHSS cuts for undocumented Californians. We agree with some of the comments here, how short sighted those cuts are and how they will really, they're not only heartless, but they're going to result in more costs.

Also concerned with the cut to fers and family and nutrition programs. Thank you.

Christine Smith, Health Access California we urge the Legislature to push back on proposed cuts that unfairly target immigrant communities, including the proposal to cut in home supportive for people who are undocumented. The proposal specifically undermines the health for all program by specifically rolling back existing services for this population.

Removal of this funding could result in further impoverishment and increased state spending on expensive nursing home care. And also furthermore, using medi Cal for nursing home care as opposed to ihss or home care exposes people who aren't documented to public charge. Thank you.

Before you start, I just want to emphasize to everyone, particularly if you have scripts, I suggest you ditch them because we are getting the wrap up signal, which means we will have to recess, vote on another couple of hundred of bills and then come back. Okay, now y'all know I'm down, but are you down?

Okay, so again, please, if you have a script. Get rid of it. Just tell us what the program is and we know you don't want us to cut it. Okay, got it.

Deal. Josh Garger. On behalf of the urban counties of California and the Rural County Representatives of California opposed to the CalWORKS cuts 750 plus $1.0 million. They're going to get the program. Also, on behalf of the California Community Living Network, opposed to the Developmental Services rate delays, expanding wait lists and delaying much needed pay increases.

Lastly, on behalf of the California Association of Diaper Banks, just highlighting the end of the diaper bank network in the current fiscal year. Need to find a solution to extend this program as championed by several Members of the Assembly. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Next, chair Members Kathy Mossberg. On behalf of the area agencies on aging as well as males on whales, opposed to the senior nutrition cut. Happy to talk more about what the Department said at another time. On behalf of First five Association of, California, opposed to. Want to align ourselves with our ECE colleagues in all their comments.

Opposed to the CalWORKS home visiting cut. And finally, on behalf of nourish, opposed to the delay in the CFAF expansion as well as the pilot program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hello. Harrison Linder here. On behalf of Leading Age California, we're here opposed to cuts to the senior new patrician program, as well as home safe and the housing and disability advocacy program, which are two of the state's only homelessness programs that particularly target older adults. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next.

Okay, I'm just gonna make quick. My name is Lachey. I'm from Parent Voices. This is Matthew. He's from Parent Voices also. And I just want to say, get used to seeing this face if we don't free up some of those childcare spaces.

And my sister Brianna, who's not with us today, actually used the family stabilization program, and because of it, she's not homeless. So thank you.

Thank you so much. Really appreciate it. Next up.

Hello, my name is Angela. I'm from Contra Costa County. I am a parent. We don't want you to cut the Cal Works program, and we need. What? Childcare.

You got it, girl.

Hi, I'm Valerie Moore from Parent Voices, and I just want to reject the budget cuts for childcare.

Thank you so much.

Hi, my name is Lenadria, and we just need childcare and cow works for us parents, and we just need it.

Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you.

I'm just gonna put this one over here, but my name is Amarento Silva. I'm a community organizer with Pride Voices California. We are also Members of the Easy Coalition.

I'm here to urge you to demand to fight for a final budget that includes funding for the 20,000 child care slots and to keep the promise for the 80,000 total pending for our families. Also to commit to the embarrassment for the actual cost of care for providers to reject the cult to CalWORKS.

We know the Governor proposal proposed to leave the 19 billion for the rainy day Fund, but guess what? For France, it is raining already, so we need to take that money out of that Fund and then help our parents. Also, I'm bringing letters from our parents in support to protect childcare. Thank you.

Thank you. Next.

Good afternoon, Mister chair, Doctor Ranvila. Barry Giardini with the California Disability Services Association, opposed to the provider of rate delays in the Developmental Services system. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Heidi Kaiser, representing child action. We'd like to align our comments with the ECE coalition and please reject any cut, proposed cuts to the Foster Care Bridge Program. Thank you.

Thank you. Next.

Hello, chair and Members, my name is Justina Erpelding. I'm here on behalf of every child California ECE voices and we're Members of the ECE coalition. We align our comments also with the ECE coalition with strong opposition to the cuts in childcare. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next.

Hello, Nina Boothy, Executive Director of Everchild California, a Member of the ECE coalition, and so want to strongly align our comments with that. We oppose all of the child care cuts, and I will say especially the CCTR spaces, we absolutely oppose those programs. Have already started spending money.

I got an email this morning that in Santa Barbara county, they will no longer be able to serve 495 infants and toddlers because of this cut. They were ready to start opening this program as soon as tomorrow. So there are real, real, real consequences to delaying those funds. So please do not do so. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Next up.

Emerald Evans here with Grace End Child Poverty California. We urge you to reject the devastating cuts to CalWORKS, foster youth, childcare, calfresh, and across the entire safety net that will cause irreversible harm to a generation of children. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up, good afternoon, chair Jackson. Doctor Arambula, good to see you again. Saw you last weekend. Tony Anderson from the Association of Regional Center Agencies. Where did you see him? At Bakersfield. He was very inspiring. Tony Anderson, Association of Regional Center Agencies and we are, of course, in strong opposition to the delay for our community providers.

We want our families and people with disabilities to get their lives back.

Please. Thank you very much. Next up, thank you.

Vanessa Cajina, on behalf of vision e compromiso, in opposition to the IHSS cuts, particularly far undocumented Californians and the CFAP delay, on behalf of the Nurse family Partnership, one of the CalWORKS home visiting programs.

Programs in opposition to the CalWORKS cuts, especially the home visiting program cut on behalf of Calpace, the Medi Calpace plans in opposition to the Department of Aging Senior nutrition cut. More information has been given to staff. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up, thank you, Mister chair, Doctor Arambula. Kathy Sunderley Mcdonald for Alameda County in opposition to the CalWORKS child welfare, aging and adult services, adult protection, childcare, housing, as well as the delay on the developmental disability rates.

All of those cuts would be devastating locally and we stand ready to help explain those impacts and help you look for alternatives. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next up, good afternoon, Nina Wyla Harwell with AARP California and our 3.2 million Members. We ask the Committee to reject these following cuts, the cuts to adult protective services home safe and senior nutrition programs. These cuts take us away from the stated goal of a California for all. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up, thank you, Mister chair Members Dawn Kapke on behalf of the Child Abuse Prevention center and California Family Resource Association with opposition related to the SILP cuts as well as the FeRs cuts, and then most importantly, CalWORKS home visiting Sacramento based family research center, in particular serving across the county over 300 children and families with tremendous results of keeping those families out of child welfare.

So we think it's a good program and return on investment is tremendous. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up, good afternoon. My name is Yoshi Ramendez and I'm here to support the CSU Legal services program. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, good afternoon.

Genaro Cruz, I'm a senior legal assistant with immigrants legal defense. I'm here to oppose the CSU Legal Services budget cut. This program has been essential for a lot of students throughout the State of California.

Before I used to be a college advisor and I definitely have seen how much this has benefited not only the students but their families. So I definitely urge you to support this program. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Maeva Marc. I'm the VP of advocacy and policy for Kidango and we are a childcare and preschool provider in the Bay Area serving 5000 plus families. And we were going to add another thousand due to the childcare expansion grant that we were awarded.

But yesterday we received the letter stating that this award may be rescinded. And so we are here to oppose these cuts. And we are also in alignment with the ECE Budget Coalition ask and as well as black Californians for ECe and encouraging that we have investments for black children, black families, and black providers. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, good afternoon.

My name is Maria Collin. I'm the Executive Director of the California Collaborative for long term services and supports. Just want to start off with some appreciation.

I think the conversation today was really meaningful and it's clear that we have strong partners in the Legislature when it comes to protecting against cuts for older adults, people with disabilities and all other vulnerable populations. Just want to say that we oppose the litany of cuts that impact older adults and people with disabilities.

From IHss to AP's to housing. We believe that any erosion of the current long term services and support system will have an economic impact in the future. And those cuts are very short sighted.

Thank you very much. Folks, folks, we gotta go quicker. I'm about to go to recess. I'm telling you now. Okay.

Good afternoon, Dan Oakenfuss with the California foundation for independent living centers. And we'll just echo everyone else's comments on this cutscene, those vital programs for people with disabilities. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mister chair Malik Bynum with UDW AFSCME Local 3930 and child care providers United, representing home care providers and child care providers across 45 counties in California, uplifting ECE Coalition's comments, especially as it pertains to the child care slots and as it pertains to home care.

Want to reject the IHSS cuts as it's going to be equally detrimental to consumers and workers. Thank you.

Tiffany Whiten with SEIU California. Reject all the cuts to the safety net programs as well as IHSS and the delays to the IEDD community and just lift up that with all the cuts made, those are workers jobs that will be lost as well. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Next up, Julia Terry, on behalf of the Childcare Resource center, the Child Care alliance of Los Angeles and Children Now, and we are a part of the coalition, align ourselves fully with every partner that has gone before us, rejecting the cuts to childcare slots, their emergency foster care bridge program, and as well encouraging the trailer Bill Language to properly implement rate reform. Thank you.

Hi, Keisha Nzewi, Black Californians United for Early Care and education in full alignment with the ECE coalition here to lift up our youngest black children, black families and the black child care workforce and the disproportionate impact that all of these would have on black Californians.

Thank you very much.

Next up, hi, Monica Kirkland, state policy Director for Senior Services Coalition of Alameda County. We thank you for your sentiments and we do see that we have partners in this.

We disreject all the cuts for home safe HDAP, IHSS and the older American act of modernization that you guys will continue to urge that with your colleagues as well. Thank you so much.

Random on behalf of Aviana Healthcare, we're always already having challenges providing services to people with developmental disabilities. It's going to get worse next year with 30,000 new clients expected to enter the system. Please oppose the delay in the DDS rate. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up.

Thank you very much. Next up, good afternoon.

Kim Lewis representing Children Now urge you to reject the nearly 240 million in cuts to child welfare, especially Fers and the emergency child care bridge, and also urge you to reject the cut for the home visiting program and the trigger on the permanent foster care rates proposal.

And Espiritnet would echo all of that and say that they also would support the foster care bridge funding. Thank you.

Thank you. Dylan Elliott on behalf of the counties of Humboldt, Kern, Tulare, Sonoma and Solano and Marin, opposed to the CalWORKS cut, specifically family stabilization, urge your rejection. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Next up, Clifton Wilson on behalf of the counties of Fresno, Humboldt, Sin Noma, Mercedes, Stanislaws, Kern and Tulare, all in strong support of providing bridge funding for the IHSS program. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Mister chair and Member Rosanna Carvacho Elliott here on behalf of the Early Care and Education consortium in opposition to the child care cuts and align my comments with the others from the coalition. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up.

Next up, hi, it's Urgu Tiris with the California Association of Food Banks and we asked respectfully to reject cuts to Cal freshman nutrition pilot CalWORKS wins no delays to the California Food Assistance program for all Californians and support investments for summer EBT implementation. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Ronald Coleman Baeza here on behalf of the California Pan Ethnic Health Network CPEN urging the Legislature to reject the proposal to eliminate IHSS for the undocumented and also the discriminatory puzzle to delay services in CFAP to the expansion to undocumented seniors.

We're also very disappointed in urge to legislate, to reject any elimination or cuts to the immigrant inequity programs and legal services. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next up.

I align my comments with my colleague before me, Elaine Wolf from immigrant legal Defense. I urge you to reject the cuts to CSU legal services. This has served over 20,000 of the most hard to reach Californians to date.

Thank you very much. Next up.

Hi, I'm Barbara Pinto, on behalf of the CSU Immigration Legal Services project, and I am in support of restoring the full funding for the program. Cutting the CSU funding to align with the CSU with the UC funding is not justifiable at all in any way.

And given the population of both systems, the services provided, the regions served, and just the pure number of individuals we've been able to serve is vastly different. This cut would create a severe inequity, and the funding needs to be increased to correct that. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next up.

Julie Mitchell, legal Director at CARECEN, representing Los Angeles and San Bernardino, here to support the CSU immigration legal services project. If the cut stands, it's less than 78,000 per campus. That's not even one staff, and there is no other funding source that we can use. Everything 's capped out.

Thank you very much. Next up.

Jean Yamasaki, immigrant legal defense. I just urge you to notice, bounce the budget on the backs of undocumented CSU students. California has invested so much money in the CSU system and in those students, and these students want to participate in California economy, in their communities. So please allow them to do that when they graduate.

Thank you very much. Next up.

Hi, Lauren Flores. I am a supervising attorney. Work with the CSU legal project. Work with Cal State Fullerton, Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Dominguez Hills. Just want to urge you to reject the budget cuts to the CSU Immigration Legal services project. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up.

Hello, my name is Yadira, and I'm a Staff Attorney at Garrison. I'm part of the CSU Legal services team, and me, along with two other folks, service, primarily CSU LA, we routinely have a two month wait for our services because the need is so high.

And I just wanted to emphasize that our services help protect Members of the community from fraud. As the Committee is already, like, well aware, the immigrant community is often targeted. And just last week, I met with a student that has already spent nearly $10,000 on a case that should have been straightforward.

So we urge the Committee Fully Fund the CSU legal immigration services program.

Thank you very much. Folks, I am going to recess in four minutes.

Good afternoon. My name is Ana Ragosa. I'm a Staff Attorney for the CSU immigration service program. I urge this Committee to fully Fund the CSU immigration service. We serve campuses from CSU Channel island to CSU San Bernardino. The San Bernardino is a campus with high demand and no service provider.

Through this project, community Members in San Bernardino and the Inland and the Inland Empire have been able to get access to trusted services. So I urge you once more, thank you so much.

Okay.

Good afternoon. My name is Jennifer Lara Moreno. As a CSU LA alumni, I'm disarmed by the Committee's consideration not prioritizing the decision to fully Fund the CSU legal immigration services.

Now that I work for the caress and college legal services servicing the CSU students, I do see the need of students and their parents to get these type of services to not become victims of the notary. And I also urge the community to fully Fund the CSU legal immigration services.

Thank you very much. Again, folks, ditch your scripts. Just tell me the program, and we know you don't want it to be cut.

Marisa Garcia Perez with the Jewish Family Service of San Diego supporting the San Diego region. We reject the cuts to the CSU legal saris provider. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up.

Carol Stevenson, Jewish Family Service, San Diego, part of the CSU Legal services team and urge you to fully Fund the immigration legal services.

Thank you.

Jackie Gonzalez, immigrant defense advocates here for TPS chirp, CSU. It's $33 million. The state needs to find the money.

Christopher Sanchez, echoing the comments of my colleagues representing the Immigrant and Legal Service Immigrant Resource Legal Service center, the Lael Immigrant Justice Resource center in Garrison, and to prioritize this in the budget.

Next up, Emelyn Mathis, Center for Caregiver Advancement, here to support the IHSS career Pathways program. It's the only training that some IHSS caregivers get receiving, including CPR. So this is really life saving program. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Next up.

Good afternoon. Cynthia Gomez, on behalf of the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights, chudler in particular in opposition to the cuts to the IHSS program and the CSU legal services program. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up.

Sarah vouchers with Children Now opposing the CalWORKS home visiting cuts. Thank you.

Jamie Zamore with first off, LA. Align our commons with EC coalition and oppose any cuts to the CalWORKS programs as well as Cal Works on visiting. Thank you.

Raquel Morales on behalf of HS west, opposing cuts to childcare. Thank you.

Thank you. Next up, I want to thank everyone. I want to thank the Administration, the Department of Finance, LAO, my dear colleague, Doctor Arambula. Good to see you in the house also, Mister Ting. We are adjourned. And I want to thank staff and the sergeants and Republican staff and my mama.