[{"_1":2,"_88":-5,"_89":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4,"_26":27},"root",{"_5":6,"_17":10,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":10,"_23":-5,"_24":-5,"_25":10},"user",{"_7":8,"_9":10,"_11":10,"_12":-5,"_13":-5,"_14":15,"_16":-5},"roles",[],"isAuthenticated",false,"isPremium","planName","subscriptionStatus","featureFlags",{},"insightsBudget","isDevelopmentHost","userPreferences",{},"recaptchaSiteKey","6LcvOJcUAAAAAHsB-gPGfGktcRlKpH7OTIU_dMTD","isImpersonating","impersonation","affiliateStatus","isFreedomPortal","routes/v2/article/layout",{"_28":29,"_30":31},"notFound",true,"relatedArticles",[32,76],{"_33":34,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":40,"_41":42,"_43":44,"_45":46,"_47":48,"_49":50,"_51":52,"_53":54,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":60,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":66,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_75":74},"mediaId",6569675,"mediaKeyId","3334050-b91fa37658d59ec716260a5e221885b6","parentId",3334050,"title","Senate hearing: May revise sets limited Prop 36 dollars as courts, counties warn of wider state and local costs","audioSeconds",1434,"startMs",570000,"endMs",2004000,"viewUrl","/Search/View?dp=1&key=3334050-b91fa37658d59ec716260a5e221885b6&start=570&end=2004","thumbnailUrl","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/3334050-b91fa37658d59ec716260a5e221885b6/thumbnail_570000.jpg","articleUrl","/articles/6569675/California/Senate-hearing-May-revise-sets-limited-Prop-36-dollars-as-courts-counties-warn-of-wider-state-and-local-costs","mediaUrl","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6569675-6d6bd15fc93e6a3acd40b2a37c6c5653/orig.mp4?Expires=1771135441&Signature=KW1keVi4B9SVooF4SYY80xdJEDg7p4uFHejwPrdDtHMx48i3Dt1YfQOsoVeiqKRBUd05ylsgPLYXsLXsSCr6~cP2N6N96802Oc8hGn3VYVql72XG18qBWf8ZcXxUhg2aL4Cz9v1M24fGMXusl21xUzjBvE0gS29zHfXr3s4aSRroaJYf9w3LiXMxDE26RZ1n-0bbpdd4Cu7kFecEn7Z8ax8MXtc58njOd~4dhTZ-m4vbdrXYs8RVr6f1WueD-~CM1vqB32IpeouXIyrhYKSw4NdqYuRkS1E4Y6EVYe~yU~w30OXT51MWi1VAXlFKhoEYyel4Dn9Y5OpbzGYsprfWeg__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","author","Senate","date","2025-05-15T00:00:00Z","article","Senate leaders and state fiscal officials briefed a joint informational hearing Wednesday on the fiscal picture for implementing Proposition 36, and witnesses from courts, corrections and grant administrators warned the panel that the resources in the May Revision will not cover local needs.

The Senate’s co-chairs opened the hearing by noting the scale of the state’s budget shortfall and that the May Revision does not include a specific package of ongoing funding for Prop 36 implementation. “As the governor announced yesterday, we have a $12,000,000,000 budget problem to solve,” Senator Richardson said at the start of the hearing.

Why it matters: Proposition 36 creates new treatment-mandated felony pathways and changes how some offenses are prosecuted and sentenced. That shift has budget implications across several state and local systems — state prison and parole, county courts and probation, county behavioral health, and grant-funded local programs. Witnesses told the committees those effects are already visible in early implementation data and will continue to evolve, requiring ongoing monitoring and likely additional appropriations.

Key fiscal details provided to the committees
- Department of Finance: Justin Adelman, assistant program budget manager, said the May Revision includes $88.5 million for Proposition 36 in 2025–26 split across two main components: roughly $29.3 million to cover anticipated marginal costs to the state prison population (supervision, feeding, medical and related costs) and the remainder tied to the Second Chance Fund (the Prop 47 savings stream) that flows to grants administered by the Board of State and Community Corrections (BSCC). Adelman said the Prop 47 savings for 2025–26 were estimated at about $91.1 million, of which roughly 65% (about $49.2 million) is designated for BSCC grant programs.

- CDCR projections: Kathy Jefferson, deputy director, Office of Research at the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), described the department’s spring 2025 population projections. CDCR projects a net five-year decline (3.1% from 6/30/2024 to 6/30/2029) in institution population under current assumptions but said the department is modeling the Prop 36 effect conservatively: admissions are expected to ramp from January 2025 through February 2026 and then stabilize; average length of stay was assumed at about 11 months; and the share of Prop 36 admissions released to traditional parole was reduced in the model from 20% to about 3%, with most expected to move to postrelease community supervision.

- BSCC grants: Aaron Maguire, executive director of the Board of State and Community Corrections, said the BSCC has historically administered Prop 47 grant cycles and has released a new request-for-proposals (RFP) to make $127 million available in a fifth cohort designed to allow local jurisdictions to apply for treatment funding that can be used to implement Prop 36 programs. The BSCC expects award approvals at its September 2025 board meeting and a three-year grant cycle beginning in October 2025. Maguire said applicants may seek up to $2 million (small scope) or $8 million (large scope), with a Los Angeles County set-aside allowing a single application up to $20 million.

Gaps and trajectory: multiple witnesses said the dynamic is asymmetric — as Prop 36 leads to more felony-level filings and associated prison and court activity, the pool of savings from Prop 47 that finances some local treatment grants will shrink. Adelman told the committee that under current modeling the share of Prop 47-derived funding available to BSCC grants would decline in future years (he cited a decline to roughly $17.4 million in 2027–28 under certain projections). At the same time, CDCR’s estimates of increased state prison costs because of Prop 36 may rise in out years.

What lawmakers heard from fiscal witnesses: the May Revision funds portions of state responsibilities (CDCR marginal costs and an immediate round of grant funding), but the administration did not include a statewide appropriation to backfill county-level treatment capacity or probation resources. Adelman noted the administration’s view that funding county behavioral health and related local services is primarily a local responsibility and that the Proposition 36 statutory framework itself identifies the Second Chance Fund as a grant source.

Ending: State fiscal staff said projections and assumptions will be adjusted as more data arrive. Legislators asked the witnesses for quarterly updates and additional written materials (including the BSCC’s 2024 report and more recent court caseload figures) to inform budget decisions this summer.","mediaType","Video","parentTitle","Joint Hearing Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 5 on Corrections, Public Safety, Judiciary, Labor and Transportation and Senate Public Safety Committee","oneSentenceSummary","Senate leaders and state fiscal officials briefed a joint informational hearing Wednesday on the fiscal picture for implementing Proposition 36, and witnesses from courts, corrections and grant administrators warned the panel that the resources in the May Revision will not cover local needs.","taxTitle","California State Senate, Senate, Legislative, California","taxId",77650,"location","California","headline","","shortSummary",{"_33":77,"_35":36,"_37":38,"_39":78,"_41":79,"_43":80,"_45":81,"_47":82,"_49":83,"_51":84,"_53":85,"_55":56,"_57":58,"_59":86,"_61":62,"_63":64,"_65":87,"_67":68,"_69":70,"_71":72,"_73":74,"_75":74},6569670,"Courts, probation, public defenders and behavioral health say Prop 36 needs new funding and capacity to work",5197,2597000,7794000,"/Search/View?dp=1&key=3334050-b91fa37658d59ec716260a5e221885b6&start=2597&end=7794","https://assets.pipeline.soar.com/3334050-b91fa37658d59ec716260a5e221885b6/thumbnail_2597000.jpg","/articles/6569670/California/Courts-probation-public-defenders-and-behavioral-health-say-Prop-36-needs-new-funding-and-capacity-to-work","https://secure.pipeline.soar.com/6569670-5b69e32dbff212e1c758ec98d79c3023/orig.mp4?Expires=1771135441&Signature=TL47AVG9ZiBpi9igHTDQqA2yVA0Tv4Jp-psu9B3KmkGWyw3KpokRQyQ22ewYTz0x~HOWshDeGCi-YcWS5gA00OsWfNp-HxuIwEURrzIDl1mWb-bUu4sft~UGrLPbpvaHNUB6RBREuX6Wfp-p819sgCZACxa3S3~wY15ZZJZgzGH9-hQ6mAiTqYsx56CNh9zO9fS5qRAIf8LGVJnrB~cr6uJ-cjNGUHMKvsfGy8GI6B7I3jdKXgkLpMA72oUp-w-QGU8yIjuootHu29mp0tgu4l7pCArwK2R8vWpBvGUerJFkuhovEl9oXLfXp7ZbsyNmNdot05Pdlp2EG8kJAtMeFg__&Key-Pair-Id=KUT5TJCACFTXG","County and local officials told a California Senate joint hearing that early Prop 36 implementation is producing greater demand for court time, supervision and treatment, and that the May Revision’s current approach does not fill those gaps.

What they told the Legislature: Judicial Council staff, presiding judges and county court administrators said the courts expect thousands of additional felony filings as implementation proceeds and emphasized the extra administrative and judicial workload. \"We estimate that the courts will receive about 20,000 felony filings annually that would have been filed as misdemeanors were it not for Prop 36,\" Francine Byrne of the Judicial Council told the committee, adding that after removing higher‑level felonies the council currently estimates about 15,000 filings will directly affect court workload.

Why that matters: Byrne and San Bernardino Presiding Judge Lisa Rogan described how felony case processing consumes more court time, increases continuances and often requires ongoing judicial hearings and treatment progress reviews, not just a one‑time sentencing event. \"The early on impacts that the courts are experiencing are insufficient to no treatment options,\" Judge Rogan said, describing uneven local readiness and the risk that rural and under‑resourced counties will lag behind.

Local requests and capacity figures offered in testimony
- Judicial Council: stated a conservative implementation cost estimate of roughly $25,000,000 to support courts in processing and monitoring Prop 36 treatment‑mandated cases (the council characterized the figure as conservative and subject to increase as treatment programs scale up).

- Probation chiefs: Steve Jackson, president of the Chief Probation Officers of California, said probation is the local agency most often positioned to link defendants to services and provide supervision and monitoring. He said probation is requesting $47,000,000 to scale pretrial assessment, court coordination and supervision capacity statewide.

- Behavioral health: Michelle Cabrera, executive director of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association (CBHDA), said counties will need to add roughly 200 staff to perform assessments, produce court reports and deliver or coordinate treatment; CBHDA estimated the annual cost of that capacity addition at between $95,000,000 and $213,000,000, depending on assumptions about service mix and local wage rates.

- Public defenders: Ricardo Garcia (Los Angeles County Public Defender), speaking for the California Public Defenders Association, and other public‑defense witnesses asked for $120,000,000 over three years to create or expand holistic indigent defense teams (social workers, housing specialists, mental‑health professionals) to help clients access treatment and housing and to manage the increased caseload.

- Advocates and providers: multiple public commenters and coalition groups (Steinberg Institute, CATPE, Californians for Safety and Justice and others) asked the Legislature to invest between about $105,000,000 and $120,000,000 to expand treatment capacity and to protect existing Prop 47‑funded programs that risk losing support as the Prop 47 savings pool declines.

Local operational impacts and non‑financial barriers: witnesses described operational bottlenecks beyond staff and beds — transportation in large counties, interpreter shortages, varying local enforcement priorities (thefts versus drug offenses), and the fact that some probation departments do not supervise pre‑plea individuals. Several witnesses said courts that attempt to stand up dedicated Prop 36 calendars will require judicial and clerk staffing and that some counties are taking a measured approach to avoid launching programs without treatment capacity in place.

Law enforcement and prosecution views: Police chiefs and sheriffs told the committee they support a holistic approach but said arrest and evidence collection systems, analytics and sustained funding for specialized enforcement teams have been grant‑dependent and may be at risk as federal or one‑time grants expire. Prosecutors and sheriff’s officials described programs that have reduced recidivism locally but said increased filings and reduced grant pools will create pressure on local budgets.

Ending: Committee members repeatedly asked for centralized, comparable numbers the Legislature can use when drafting budget language. Several asked fiscal staff and agencies to return with updated quarterly data and written cost breakdowns of new local obligations so the Legislature can weigh budget tradeoffs this summer.","Judges, county probation chiefs, public defenders, behavioral health directors and local law enforcement told a California Senate hearing that Proposition 36’s treatment mandate will increase felony filings and require expanded courts, supervision and treatment capacity; counties and providers offered specific dollar requests to the Legislature.","actionData","errors"]

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Senate hearing: May revise sets limited Prop 36 dollars as courts, counties warn of wider state and local costs

Courts, probation, public defenders and behavioral health say Prop 36 needs new funding and capacity to work