Board of Supervisors - Regular Meeting

Alright. Good morning everyone. We are officially coming to order here and we want to welcome you to the special meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Today is Tuesday, 02/17/2026, and I would also like to wish everyone a happy Lunar New Year, to all those that are listening and the year of the horse. So welcome to everyone.

We take note that a quorum of the board is present. Acting chief executive officer, county council executive officer, and the sergeant at arms are all here to assist. Today, we will be hearing the departmental budget presentations. Before we begin, the executive officer will make an announcement. And I just want to be clear for the board that we really do have a tight schedule so we want to try to stick to it as we have and just remember questions that you may ask, let's be balanced and try to get through them because it is a long, I mean these are a long series of presentations.

Let's not go on more than we need to. Let's hear what they have to say. I think that kind of provokes our questioning as well. But I'm not trying to start off on a bad note. We're all in a good I'm with you. Okay, thank you so much. Okay, so let's begin. We'll have the executive officer make any announcement that's appropriate. Thank you.

Members of the public, we value your input and a public survey is now available for you to share your feedback on today's presentations. For those attending in person or remotely, please scan the QR code displayed on the monitors to access the survey. Your participation is greatly appreciated and will help us improve our process. Thank you for taking the time to contribute.

Thank you. At this time, let us start with the county's land acknowledgment.

The county of Los Angeles recognizes that we occupy land originally and still inhabited and cared for by the Tongva, Tataviam, Serrano, Quiche, and Chumash peoples. We honor and pay respect to their elders and descendants, past, present, and emerging, as they continue their stewardship of these lands and waters. We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, genocide, and multigenerational trauma. This acknowledgment demonstrates our responsibility and commitment to truth, healing, and reconciliation, and to elevating the stories, culture, and community of the original inhabitants of Los Angeles County. We are grateful to have the opportunity to live and work on these ancestral lands.

We are dedicated to growing and sustaining relationships with native peoples and local tribal governments, including in no particular order. Fernandeno Tataviam, band of Mission Indians. Gabriolino Tongva, Indians of California tribal council. Gabrioleno Tongva, San Gabriel, band of Mission Indians. Gabrioleno Band of Mission Indians, Quiche Nation, Yahavyatam of San Manuel Nation, San Fernando Band of Mission Indians, Coastal Band of Chumash Nation, Gabrielino Tongva Nation, Gabrielino Tongva tribe.

To learn more about the First Peoples of Los Angeles County, please visit the Los Angeles City County Native American Indian Commission website at lanaic.lacounty.gov.

Thank you. Executive officer, please play the code of conduct.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I please have your attention? The meeting of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is about to commence. A code of conduct will now be read and we request that you comply with it to ensure the efficient administration of the meeting. Members of the public, it is your right to participate in today's board hearing, and the board encourages such participation. However, the right of the public to address the board must be balanced with the need to ensure that public comment does not interfere with the orderly course of the board's business.

All are reminded to abide by the following rules. Speakers must cease speaking immediately when their time has ended. Public comment on agenda items must relate to the subject matter of that item. General public comment is limited to subjects within the jurisdiction of the board. Public comment does not include the right to engage in a dialogue with board members or staff.

Please remain respectful of the forum and refrain from uttering, writing, or displaying profane, personal, threatening, derogatory, demeaning, or other abusive statements toward the board, any member thereof, staff, or any other person.

Members of the audience should be respectful of the views expressed by speakers, staff,

and board members and may not clap, cheer, whistle, or otherwise disrupt the orderly conduct of the meeting. Any person engaging in conduct that disrupts the meeting is subject to being removed from the board meeting. And finally, if you witness conduct or behavior by other members of the public that disrupts your ability to remain engaged or participate in this meeting, please notify the sergeant at arms or other county staff. Thank you for your cooperation.

Executive officer, please call the agenda.

On page three, notice of closed session. On CS one, the acting chief executive officer requests that this item be continued one week to 02/24/2026. The request to continue this item is before you. That completes the reading of the JEDI, madam chair.

Thank you. I will move the item seconded by Supervisor Barger to approve the item. That will be the order. Next, today's meeting order will be the departmental budget presentations followed by public comment on the departmental budget presentations. Executive officer, please read the call in information and explain the speaking roles for the public.

Good morning, members of the public. Please note, public comment will be taken up after all the departmental budget presentations have concluded. If you wish to participate in public comment, you may do so in person or remotely. To participate remotely, please visit our website at www.bos.lacounty.gov to register and join the meeting, or you may call (213) 306-3065 and use access code 25380453825. Use a meeting password of 200000672026.

Members of the public participating remotely and in the boardroom, you will have one minute to address the budget matter. Please state your name and once your time has expired, we will immediately move to the next speaker. When it is your turn to speak, if registered on a computer or device, you will hear a beep and your name will be called, or if joining by telephone, you will hear your line is unmuted, your area code and the first three digits of your phone number will be called. To ensure we hear from both in person speakers, we will alternate between the two speaking queues. Members of the public who are in attendance, when you hear or see your name displayed on the screen, please come down to the front of the boardroom and staff will assist you.

Please do not approach the podium until directed to do so. We will now move on to item one, fiscal year twenty twenty six-twenty seven departmental budget presentations. Robert Luna, Sheriff Nathan J. Hockman, District Attorney Ricardo D. Garcia, Public Defender and Erica Answategui, Alternate Public Defender will make their presentations. For the departmental speakers, please state your name and title for the record when you address the board.

Thank

you. We'll now start with the first presentation given by our sheriff Robert Luna. He will have approximately seven minutes for presentation. Thank you.

Good morning. Robert Luna, sheriff of Los Angeles County Chair Solis and members of the board. I want to thank you for your strong partnership with the sheriff's department and for being willing to collaborate strengthen public safety. I also want to thank acting CEO Joe Nikita and county counsel Don Harrison for their continued support of our department. The sheriff's department is sensitive to the fiscal challenges impacting our county, including reductions in federal funding.

Therefore, I directed my staff to pursue only the most essential budgetary augmentation, and wherever possible, I proposed strategic, multi year, phased in approach. The men and women of the sheriff's department are devoted public servants who keep our community safe, often placing themselves in harm's way to serve, care, and protect everyone in Los Angeles County. They need the board's support to fund critical needs personnel, equipment, technology, emergency response vehicle, and capital projects. Next slide, please. As you can see here, inflation in utilities, goods, and services are causing added strain to our budget.

Next slide, please. As you can see, over half of our funding goes to public safety and emergency response. Next slide, please. Like many large law enforcement agencies across our county, we are experiencing a high number retirements and impairments as a result of the age of our department. We have an unavailability rate of twenty three percent for sworn personnel.

However, we are making progress. Over the last month, we have received over 400 applications per week. Therefore, I've requested continued funding for four additional academies for a total of eight academies annually and funding for an additional 44 deputy sheriff trainees. Additionally, I cannot emphasize enough the critical importance of launching the STARTS program to retain sworn personnel, especially as we prepare for the twenty twenty six FIFA World Cup, the twenty twenty seven Super Bowl, and the twenty twenty eight Olympics and Paralympics. We have many challenges in technology.

Thank you for funding the first phase of our new computer aided dispatch system. We procured the software, but now there's more to do. The existing CAD system is nearly forty years old, and over the past month alone, it has gone down four times. Therefore, your approval for new positions will enable a bridge as we transition from old CAD and train staff for the new system. For the next phase, we will return to the board for approval of a capital project to house new centralized CAD.

For cost savings, the sheriff's department is open locating with other departments. I have requested funding to replace aged and depleted emergency response vehicle buses and helicopters. Separately, I've requested funding for additional body worn cameras and taser TENS. This will yield many benefits, including increased transparency, reduction in liability, valuable evidence during criminal investigations, and training. And just as a reminder, in 2025, we were down 42% in deputy involved shootings.

The vehicle fleet has decreased from 7,500 to 5,758. Today, over 2,500 vehicles are, have over a 110,000 miles, and over 3,800 vehicles are over eight years old, and this is critical when they're being replaced. Additionally, we replaced 26 buses, plus 17 are on order, but there is much more work to be done. Of 82 buses, at times, to 46 are unavailable due to maintenance. 26 buses have mileages between three and four hundred thousand.

Regarding our helicopters for patrol and rescue missions, safety is a major concern. The average age of the newest comparable fleet is nine years, and the best practice is replacement at ten years. LA County's helicopter range between fifteen 20 five years old. They discontinued models, we struggle to find mechanics and parts. Analysis refilled high maintenance cost and decreased flight hours.

Therefore, I've requested funding for a multiyear phased in equipment replacement plan for patrol cars, inmate transport buses, and patrol rescue helicopters. Once implemented, we will decrease maintenance expenditures, continue to reduce court missouts, decrease liability exposure, and increase patrol. We have major deferred maintenance needs. One example is the failing hillside at Pitch's detention center, jeopardizing a 2,000,000 gallon water tank near at the nearby structure. We completed engineering and have requested 3,500,000.0 to stabilize the hillside.

We are also working with the CEO to fund upgrades to meet the new state water quality compliance standard by 2029. Next slide, please. Finally, we need the support for essential capital the correctional care center. Men's Central Jail is outdated, deteriorating, and unfit in the event of a major earthquake. Men's Central Jail needs to be replaced with a facility with the appropriate housing, treatment, and swing space for the medically fragile and the mentally ill remanded into our custody.

Today, fifty one percent of our inmate population requires specialty mental health housing and services. The correctional care center would allow us to meet our legal obligations to house inmates while providing more humane housing and effective rehabilitative programs. Therefore, I've requested 1,200,000.0 for engineering and architectural experts to conduct a preliminary program assessment and initial schematics, a perishable skills weapons training site. As mandated by Post, we must have adequate training facilities. The shooting range at Biscaloos is structurally, foundationally damaged, and is unusable.

For two years, we have borrowed facilities departments, but we truly need our own facility to be replaced. Finally, I've requested funding for an employee wellness center, expanded evidence storage, and initial planning for a real time crime center. In conclusion, there are many critical funding needs at the sheriff's department. I've requested only the most critically needed funding, and I've proposed spreading many projects over several years to ease any fiscal strain on the county. I thank you in advance for your consideration, and I would be happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you.

Thank you very much, sheriff Luna. Now we'll hear from our district attorney, Nathan Hoffman. Thank you.

Thank you very much, chair and and supervisors. Thank you very much, chair Siles and supervisors, and happy lunar new new lunar new year. This is the year of the fire horse, a year marked by action and transformation, and that's what the district attorney office intends to deliver to the people of this great county. Public safety is a bedrock obligation of this board, to its residents, to everyone here, and I view this board no different than I were speaking to a corporate board, and you are making decisions on investments, expenses and investments, to just not yourself, but to your shareholders. They are out in the audience.

They are out of the 10,000,000 people in this county. So what I'd like to do with my time is talk about why investing in the district attorney's office significantly will actually get you a return on that investment of enhanced public safety. So to understand what the district attorney's office actually does, we can talk numbers. We can talk about the fact that the DA's office was funded for 950 prosecutor positions as recently as 2020. We are down to just over 800.

We suffered a $24,000,000 reduction in the curtailment exercise of last year. So we are basically doing more with less. Because since 2020, the numbers of cases have grown significantly, but I don't have additional prosecutors to actually prosecute them. So what am I asking those prosecutors to do? I am often often asking a head deputy or an assistant head deputy at a management level position to literally go into the court.

Because if someone's on sick leave or they're on vacation leave, we cannot leave a courtroom dark. The judge expects us there, but more importantly, everyone there, the victims, expect us there. The defendant expects us there. The defense attorneys expect us there. And our management level people will show up in those courts to make that happen.

So we are down literally from 950 prosecutors down to just over 800 in the last four years. And by the way, as a as a marker, in the early two thousands, the DA's office was over 1,100 prosecutors with a fraction of the cases. So what are the types of cases that we do? We do everything from the most sophisticated gang homicide cases, cold case prosecutions, sex crimes. And I invite anyone of the you supervisors or your staff, if you wanna see what goes on in a sex crime prosecution, tag along with our prosecutors.

Go into the court. See how they deal with the victims in these incredibly emotionally charged situations, and you will get an idea of the dedication of this incredibly talented and experienced staff. Domestic violence, human trafficking, that's both sex trafficking and labor trafficking, hate crimes, cybercrimes, fentanyl poisoning that's going to kill more 18 40 year olds than anything in our society. We go after the fentanyl poisoners as well as educate middle and high school students about the perils of engaging in drug use now that fentanyl has laced the drug supply. When it comes to organized retail theft, I want to give you an example of something we've done recently.

Not only have we implemented Proposition 36 and brought over 2,000 proposition 36 theft related felony charges against people with two or more convictions for theft, but we decided to go ahead and go low tech supervisors. So what we did is we came up with a window sticker, and I'll show it to you right here. This is a small version of a window sticker that we came up, and this is what the large version actually looks like. We gave out 14,000 of these window stickers to small and big businesses that basically send a deterrent message, because that's our goal. Our goal is not to fill the sheriff's prisons to the breaking point.

Our goal is to deter criminal conduct from ever happening, save saving a lot of victims in the process. So this is a warning sign in front of fourteen zero businesses that basically said this is a protected business and retail theft will be prosecuted. That notion of accountability is crucial because we now have gotten rid of blanket policies. Whether they're my predecessor's decarceration policies on one end of the spectrum or mass incarceration policies on the other end of the spectrum. We look at each case individually, the individual defendant, crime committed, and the impact on the victim to determine who the true threats are to our public safety and need to be behind bars and, as importantly, the ones that aren't.

The first time nonviolent offender, for instance, that is a person where the punishment can be community service. The punishment can be a diversion program if they have a serious drug addiction. But we'll go ahead and tailor the punishment for the crime and make sure that that is what the DA's office delivers for public safety.

You much

for the presentation. Let's move on now. We'll hear from the public defender, Ricardo Garcia.

Good morning, Chair Solis, Supervisor, CEO, County Counsel, and members of the public. My name is Ricardo Garcia. I am proud to be your Los Angeles County public defender. The public defender's office is the first and finest public defender office in the nation. Our mission is to reduce incarceration and the collateral consequences of conduct with criminal legal system.

The county of Los Angeles has a constitutional obligation to provide a lawyer for people prosecuted by the government. It is my office's, my department's responsibility to provide your constituents, both adult and youth, with representation if they cannot afford a lawyer. It is our duty to defend the presumption of innocence and to seek alternatives to incarceration for the people we serve. We are at the forefront of your care first, jail last vision for Los Angeles County. 85% of our budget is funded through net county cost.

We do not receive as much federal, state, or grant funding as a district attorney or the sheriff's department. The county

our defense of does not bill

people who they prosecute, which makes up 48% of our misdemeanor workload. Our services remain the most cost effective way to meet the county's constitutional obligation while maintaining the highest quality of representation. Next slide. Nearly 95% of our funding is allocated to legal advocacy. One of our mandates is to seek diversion.

However, only 1% of our allocated budget is dedicated to diversion support programs. That 1% is not from net county cost, it is one time funding. The district attorney has consistently opposed diversion programs that work. The lack of stable funding leaves access to diversion support programs vulnerable in Los Angeles County. When care first jails last is opposed by prosecutors, public defenders remain the only voice advocating for alternatives to incarceration in our courts.

Next slide. Thankfully, our advocacy and your board's commitment to care first, jails last, has actually grown diversion in Los Angeles. To put this in context, diversion has expanded from nine seventy nine cases in 2020 to more than 10,452 in 2025. Those numbers represent real people who are in community supportive services, not cages. Linkage support is essential to diversion, especially for our unhoused neighbors where the nexus between homelessness and contact with the criminal legal system is not less than 70%.

We strengthen diversion outcomes through partnerships with advocates like Partners for Justice whose attorney client privilege linkage support is critical. PFJ advocates saved our clients over 1,000 carceral years in 2020 alone. Prosecutorial charging decisions paired with new legislation like Prop 36 targeting people charged with nonviolent offenses is steadily increasing our jail population by almost 1,000 people in a single year. This strains both our resources and the jails. That is not what your constituents want.

We know this because we engage communities. We meet residents where they are, including at community meetings, and gather feedback on programs and budgeting priorities. We're listening, and that's reflected in this budget ask and our advocacy every day. Next slide. We must maintain our law clerk to attorney pipeline and expand other staffing pathways, which create a seamless transition, maintaining critical positions filled.

These pipelines ensure continuity of service and support and equitable inclusion of people within our to ensure that we represent the people that you serve. We must increase our JFJ advocates to ensure that there are services for people that are attorney client privilege and getting them into the programs they need to expand their lives in the appropriate direction. Next slide. At this critical point in history, when many of our communities are under assault by government abuses of power, the county's mandate to provide indigent defense has never been more critical. My ask for this year is simple. Provide us the resources we need to allow us to keep representing people pulled into the criminal legal system.

Thank you very much for your presentation. We'll now hear from our alternative public defender, Erica Anzuartigi. Thank

you. Good morning, supervisors. My name is Erica Anzuartigi, alternate public defender of Los Angeles County. Thank you for the opportunity to present APD's budget request. Our mission is simple but vital, to represent and zealously defend the county's indigent residents when the public defender has a legal conflict of interest.

We exist as a separate office to avoid any issues of impropriety, to protect against divided loyalties, and to ensure that every individual receives conflict free representation. Next slide. As shown on the slide, 94% of APD's funding comes from board approved sources including NCC, AB109, and CFCI funds, with just 6% from sources such as grants. Next slide. 93% of our budget goes directly to front line adult and juvenile defense, including trials, diversion, and holistic representation.

Next slide. Our priorities are many, but let me highlight some. We defend our clients with excellence through every stage of a predominantly adversarial process. We fight for decarceration, again through trial, or equity focused diversion in partnership with community and county departments. We minimize the county's reliance on more costly private attorneys that comprise the independent defense counsel office.

We outreach the community and recruit the next generation of attorneys and staff that will be best suited to represent the county's indigent population. With regards to our metrics, in 2025 alone, APD handled approximately eight fifty five juvenile cases, 11,000 misdemeanor cases, and 9,000 felony cases. That represents approximately 30% of the county's total criminal intake across 22 courthouses, and behind each number is a person entitled to effective assistance of counsel. Last year, felony filings rose 14%, misdemeanor filings rose 23%. These are substantial increases that are trending to continue into 2026.

The metrics I have provided to you reflect the scale of our responsibility and the volume we handle. Our clients who are predominantly from black and brown communities, I believe are better served by an institutional provider like the APD which offers supervised team based representation with a holistic support. It also allows the county to control costs while ensuring quality and accountability. When the board sets priorities like care first, gels last, language access, diversity in the workplace, and more, those priorities can be implemented, measured, and reported unlike private offices. Next slide.

Keeping this in mind, my request is a budget savings proposal of sorts. I am requesting 15 attorneys to meet the rising caseload to prevent from going unavailable, to have effective representation. This requires time preparation, investigation, and meaningful advocacy. Being properly staffed helps with all of this and with case distribution. Number two, superior court operations have changed, and West Covina is considered a fully operational courthouse, which now requires a supervisor, an attorney, and a legal secretary to augment the existing staff to meet the rising caseloads demands.

The cases have doubled there. Three, I am also requesting two psychiatric social workers for a San Fernando court pilot program to help clients obtain supervised OR releases by connecting them to community services at arraignment, an idea stemming from jail closure conversations. Next slide. My challenges are that starting last year, we were asked to do more with less. We are already doing as much as we can and cannot be stretched further without risking claims of ineffective assistance of counsel.

Every attorney in my office, including supervisors, is carrying a caseload over the National Work Study. My mitigation was limiting my unavailability to just murder cases, which had reached a record high at the APD. But by limiting unavailability to murder cases, I was able to pick up the high volume of felony cases. As mentioned, we provide great representation while bringing fiscal predictability to the county's overall budget. This model works. Thank you very much for being supportive of APD throughout the years and for always safeguarding constitutional rights. I welcome questions. Thank you.

Thank you to all of you, the panel's presentations. And I wanna go ahead and start first because I think last time I deferred everyone but just on this one, I wanna thank everyone for coming, all the panelists. I wanna start with the sheriff. Thank you Sheriff Luna for being here. I wanted to just go over, I know that currently the jail population is approximately 13,000, is that correct?

Yes ma'am, that's accurate. It fluctuates between two and three hundred, just below 13,000, just over 13,000, depending on the day of the week.

And you mentioned that forty one percent of the inmates there need behavioral mental health substance abuse services?

One percent the folks coming in, unfortunately, to our facility, I think a lot of that has to do with we are much better with our partners at Correctional Health identifying challenges upfront.

The other question I had was a while back, about a year ago, a year and a half ago, we at the board looked at and heard from individuals that were currently in the mental health assessment program, supporting individuals in the FIP step down unit at Twin Towers, if you recall.

I'm Our sure you're forensic inpatient program, which is a nationally recognized mental health program that we have in our custody facilities.

I wanted to ask you, have we formally adopted a department policy with written curriculum, training protocols, supervision, or the structure of the program?

I'm gonna have to get back to you specifically on what exactly has been documented. Our recent class, we had well over 100 individuals graduate. It was the most successful class that we've had, and we have some people that are doing a really good job with it. I will get back to you with that specifically.

That's great, I want to see what measured improvements you have and how the program is proceeding. So I would appreciate that. The other question I have is given the scale of the 60,000 annual bookings, what percentage of those individuals receive educational or vocational while in custody, and are we tracking that?

We are tracking it. I don't have that number in front of me. That's something else that we can get back to you on, but considering the fact that we have about 13 people in our custody and care, this is why I talk about this correctional care center. We don't have the facilities that we would like to have to have the rehabilitative services that we should have for the size of our facility. So I will get you that number, but whatever it is, it's not where I would like it to be, or any of us would like it to be, because there's opportunities there that we're missing because of the facility challenges that we have.

Is that also the case for Twin Towers and the other jails?

That's what I'm gonna have to get back to you on and get the percentages for you for each of our seven custody facilities.

Okay, and you mentioned doing a study and asking for money. What was that amount, 2? 1,000,000 point that you're asking for this care facility mental health study?

Yeah, I requested 1,200,000.0 for an engineering and architect expert to conduct a preliminary program assessment and schematics for it.

Right, so based on previous years, and I know we've heard from different people even on the panel about how much money has been spent on study, study, study, is there anything that you could glean from what was previously done, or are these reports outdated?

That's what this process is going to do. I believe that there is a lot of information that we can gather from what we've done in the past. I don't think that'll all go to waste, but it needs to be updated, and remember that every five, ten years it goes on, there's new technology, there are so many new things available, and what we want to do is present the best project possible so that all of you can assess it, and hopefully it meets the need of what our folks in custody today are experiencing, and as you see these numbers, they continue to go up in the mental health and addiction portion.

My question also is, given that you want to continue down this path, have you selected a location for Men's Central Jail, its replacement?

We have not. This assessment will be something we work on with public works and other community stakeholders to identify that location.

I would hope that that would certainly I may not be here at that time, but I would certainly hope that the outreach continues and that community members particularly that have been overburdened with many of these carceral buildings for decades have an opportunity to weigh in. And we look at what that really means and looking at other properties that we have but also other facilities. And I'm sure we're gonna hear from other departments that'll talk about how depopulation can happen. In some cases in the community or other facilities, we have set up on the general hospital campus. Recuperative beds, about 300 that are gonna be online. Did you wanna say something, I

Supervisor. So we've been working with the Sheriff's Department to understand this concept. And I think two things, I think one is what the Sheriff is looking at now is a little bit different than the prior studies, although they're all related, which is facility design which is something we haven't necessarily looked at in the way that the sheriff is looking at it. I think there is an opportunity here for as the sheriff looks at the concept for the departments participate in a fulsome way, you know we have the sheriff just mentioned the mental health population so having the mental health department step in and really if there's going to be a design that the board is going to consider at some point, something that the mental health department helps influence and inform is critical. DHS is going to be critical and other departments as well.

We have a convening later this month to talk through some of the roles that departments might play in exploring a design. Again this is just something that would have to be put to the board for discussion once it's complete. That community outreach piece I think is something that we should continue to discuss that isn't, hasn't been done in any sort of coordinated way with the facility design. So your point is well taken. I think we'll work with the sheriff on that particular part as well.

And I guess lastly, just the cost that it would take to not just do the study but then the actual building, what that means, how many years, and since we are already in fiscal conundrum, what does that mean for the county moving forward?

Right, right, that's a major consideration. I think we're continuing to work with the sheriff on the cost of the study. What we're really looking for at the end of the study is something that could be implementable if that's where the board wants to go, not another study that just is the tee up for the next study. So I think that's the concern that I'm hearing from the board. Know that's not the sheriff's intent.

I think it would be helpful too to get what the range is of all the studies that have been done in those costs so we understand what was already on record. And then I would just say that I think a big portion of this has to go for training of the deputies and people that will be versed in mental health and behavioral health. So I think that's going to be a necessity that we need to realistically look at and how do we get, if at all, reimbursement through the state or federal government for that. Because moving on, problem I think is gonna continue. But I think we really have to be earnest in how we make those drawdowns and really be constructive.

And if it takes lobbying in Sacramento as well as the federal level, I think that's something that we need to look at. So thank you, Sheriff. Did you wanna add anything else?

No, we absolutely will get community input. We're working with the CEO's office, obviously the cost of it is important, but also weighing the cost of not doing it I think probably outweighs the cost of doing it, so we just have to consider all phases.

Thank you. Next I'd like to go to the district attorney really quick. What victim services in the department that you're seeking to expand, can you outline those and what's the projected cost of that expansion?

Certainly. So with respect victim services, we have a Bureau of Victim Services. They at one point had over 75 different victim service representatives. It dropped in the prior administration to under 50. They are in the process of hiring per positions that they actually had, and we would certainly seek to expand that.

That actually is one of the lower budget funded types items within our budget. We're talking funding in that respect would be about 20 or so positions, roughly plus or minus somewhere between a half $1,750,000. Our budget request is over 100,000,000. We're trying to get back the positions for both prosecutors, support staff, and investigators to go after some of the major challenges. And I know this board has been very has already recognized the efforts that we wanna take in going after the fraudulent a b two eighteen claims.

They estimate that of the 11,800 claims that came in, there are thousands of claims that we are now looking at for fraudulent submissions. There's an additional 5,000 claims that were not part of the initial $4,000,000,000 settlement or the $894,000,000 settlement that filed that. We estimate that a huge number of those additional 5,000 claims may also be fraudulent. Therefore, the savings, if we actually, hopefully, can do our job and determine this, we estimate to be in the hundreds of millions, if not the billions of dollars going forward based on our efforts in a b two eighteen types of of prosecutions. Not only that, it will send a deterrent message to any claimants in any law firms that if they wanna take advantage of this board's of this board's generosity and and recognition of its obligation to sex abuse survivors, which this board has done in authorizing these settlements.

They wanna take advantage of that. We're gonna go after them and put them in prison. And hopefully then, we can use the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of savings to then build this community correction center, which I couldn't emphasize enough is absolutely crucial because we are dealing with a men's central jail that was built in 1963. It had a thirty or forty year shelf life, which means it should have been razed to the ground in in in the year of 2003. We're dealing with a situation.

I invite any member of the board, a supervisor, their staff, or the public take a tour. You go down certain hallways, and if you're feeling like you're in a nineteen thirties Deep South Southern prison or a Turkish prison, the conditions for the inmates are horrible. The conditions for the deputy sheriffs that have to supervise these inmates are horrible. The conditions for the families they have to visit are horrible. We need to fix that, and I would love to spend hundreds of millions or billions of dollars on schools, rec centers, you know, new, hall of justice, hall of administration, or stuff like that.

But we have gotten to the point where we have to spend that on a state of the art facility, a rehabilitation and treatment facility that can deliver these type of humane services to all the parties involved.

Thank you. I wanna move on now to the public defender. Given that approximately 85% of the department's budget is net county cost, NCC, What steps are you taking to identify to secure alternative funding sources?

Thank you, Supervisor. We have done that since my administration began. When I arrived in Los Angeles County, that percentage was well over 90% of dependence on net county costs. So since then, we've sought out different forms of support the county, from the state, as well as other funders who are willing to implement pilot programs such as the Public Defender Pilot Project, which was a reentry program that allotted $50,000,000 across all public defender's offices in California, giving us approximately 12 to 15,000,000 each year. That program unfortunately sunsets in July, so the funding for that program will no longer be available.

We have successfully used that money over the last four years to reduce the number of people who are in state prisons and ensure that their reentry into Los Angeles County comes with supportive services and the capacity to find employment and other needs. We look for those programs, those are examples of them, but unfortunately they are piloted programs that have a limited shelf life and we do run out.

So I'm assuming that you are gonna be helping the county in terms of educating the legislature in Sacramento about these needs? Okay,

thank you. Absolutely, supervisor. That is something we consistently do, and we work quite well with the CEO in developing communications.

Thank you. And then lastly, to the alternative public defender, for the West Covina office, what does the transition from a satellite office to a branch office entail? And what are the classifications for the three requested positions?

Thank you for the question, supervisor. West Covina used to be a satellite courthouse which basically just did the arraignment, maybe the prelim, and then sent those cases to Pomona, but now they're staying there. They're handling misdemeanors and felonies all in the West Covina courthouse. So now I have staffed it with more people, but they need a supervisor. So one is a supervisor, one then an extra felony attorney, and then a secretary to help with all of the management of the caseload and distributing the cases, and gives me an opportunity to send maybe trainee misdemeanors with having an on-site supervisor, then that person can then train them, guide them, grow them to then felonies.

Thank you. I know the caseloads have been increasing in that particular area, in the San Gabriel Valley. Yes. And it is a far jump from here to Pomona. Yes. So it is, I think, a necessity that could be encouraged. Thank you. Those are my questions. I'll move on now to my colleagues. I have Supervisor Mitchell in the queue.

Good morning and thank you very much, Madam Chair. I'm gonna be mindful of your earlier statements so I'm just gonna ask a couple of questions based on presentations heard. I first want to just note an observation. I've been keeping tally through our budget hearings thus far. Prior to today, we've heard from 23 departments with a total request of new appropriations of just under $2,000,000,000 and new NCC at about 1.5.

Those 23 departments really kind of reflect our safety net services from health to our entitlement programs to park and rec to arts, departments that kind of pour into our residents. I'm struck by those numbers compared to hearing from four departments today who are looking at almost just under half of what 23 departments were looking at. Total appropriation, just in doing quick math of the presentations today, about $7.00 8,000,000 in total appropriation and $7.00 7,000,000 in NCC. That just struck me as we have to think about the tough fiscal times that we're facing and I would argue that those 23 departments probably experienced a disproportionate hit from HR1 and all the other reasons in which we find ourselves in this position today. To the sheriff, I was tracking your budget request sheet and I didn't see here the ask around tell me the new name, I thought it was kind of our wellness.

It's a correctional care center.

Okay, I'm just gonna say care center. Yes ma'am. You will know what we're talking about. The care center. If not here, your form. Am I missing it? I saw the CAD staffing, the weapons qualification, emergency vehicle and fleet components, and the wellness center. This wellness center is for staff. This isn't the care center.

No, it's not. It's separate for staff and their families.

Okay. And then the aircraft.

Yes ma'am. You're correct that it's not on there. It didn't make the latest version. There's an updated version that has that on there or should have that on there. We'll make sure we get that to you.

This was the last one and is it on there?

It's on the back of this last sheet, think.

Under challenges and mitigation?

Yeah, and it's the last bullet for need correctional care centers.

Got it, okay.

But it doesn't have any figure.

Dollar amount.

Right. So give me the dollar amount again. I'm just gonna add it to the budget request piece.

We don't have the total amount. What I'm asking for, oh, 1,200,000.0

for

the engineering experts to conduct the preliminary program study Got or

okay. I will just say what I've said to you previously. I heard you mention public works in terms of the mechanics. Thank you to the CEO for referencing referencing the other county departments that have got to be involved if this is indeed gonna be a care center. We've had the conversation about who should lead this and I think who leads it and designs it will be a direct reflection of what it becomes.

Becomes. So if it continues to only show up, because I don't believe we heard it referenced, because we have heard from mental health already in one of the first 23 departments and we've heard from Department of Health Services. And so I continue to be concerned that if they aren't with you in the driver's seat, it will not truly be a care center. They have got to lock arms and play an integral role if it is indeed going to be the kind of facility, as you quoted today, the fifty one percent who suffer from mental illness. It's the Department of Mental Health who needs to, I believe, lead in that design.

And if it's not on their budget request, it suggests to me that it is not front and center as a priority and that's a problem. Because as you say, we have got to figure out the how we have the will to close Men's Central Jail. The issue is the how. I appreciate the 1,200,000.0 on the study. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't missing it in terms of the actual budget request.

But again, I hope those other departments are gonna show up in a meaningful way if we're ever gonna get there and if it's ever gonna be a care center versus just another carceral setting. Let me move on to the district attorney. You didn't get to your final two slides which is the budget request and the challenges and mitigations. Let me say I really appreciate on your challenges and mitigations that you acknowledge the top bullet on the right, strength in risk management and corrective actions to minimize liability exposure. I would hope that several of the other departments that have high liability exposure to the county would put that as a mitigation strategy on their priorities as well.

So I thank you for that. My question for you is under your budget request, mandatory and unavoidable costs and that dollar amount, 85,100,000.0, both one time and ongoing, is like 10 times higher than any other you've asked for. Could you give us a general idea of what falls into that lump

sum category? Certainly. Different types of mandatory costs, and we discussed this the last time I was here, involve for instance racially blind charging. Racially blind charging was something that was passed in penal code section seven forty one several

years What's

the budget implication of racially blind charging?

Racially blind charging, I don't have the exact breakdown, the 85,100,000.0, but a significant amount, both in additional positions and time in each position that has to be dedicated. To give you an idea of the numbers, of the 127,640 total cases that had to go through a racially blind charging analysis, of those total cases, seventy five thousand six hundred and ninety one went through that analysis in 2025, and we started it in March 2025. So before racially blind charging existed, we didn't have to do that additional significant analysis in every one of the cases. That would be just one of the examples of the mandatory and unavoidable costs. Other examples of mandatory costs also deal with what are called, and I'll just focus on this area, racial justice act analysis.

What that involves is that since over the last five years, the state legislature authorized defense attorneys to bring RJA or racial justice Act type of motions. They then say that there's not only explicit, but implicit racial motivation in the charging of a particular defendant with a particular charge, or the overall prosecution, or even the investigation. That then requires us to go ahead and do that data analysis, which has been an additional expense, and I don't have that broken down here, but additional expense, time and effort, and we've even brought in data scientists to help us do that in order to then provide the defense attorney and the court with this additional information so that we can make a determination on whether or not there's any explicit or implicit racial bias in the bringing of a particular charge against a particular defendant. Those are just two examples. I can get you the full breakdown.

I

think not only for me, for the public. I think the point of this exercise and these hearings is for the public also to be clear and I think a category mandatory and unavoidable cost is just kind of broad, particularly when the two examples you've just given us sound staff heavy and then under positions, there are none. So I just think it would be helpful for my perspective as well as the general public who these sessions were really designed for to be able to understand because again, the 85.1 is 10 times higher than any of the other line items which are very clear and specific. So thank you for those examples, I would like some clarity. And if it actually includes staff positions and based on these two policies that you're implementing, one from the state, the Racial Justice Act and your own racial blind charging priority, those sound like permanent ongoing positions.

So if that's the case, I think we as a board need to understand that.

Absolutely, thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay, very good. Moving on now to Supervisor Hahn.

Thank you Madam Chair. And I will also start with our sheriff. One of the things that I know you've mentioned a lot is the hard time that your department has in recruiting a lot because law enforcement has become, as you said, kind of an unpopular career path lately. So in this budget crisis, have you worked with our Department of Human Resources or just even within your own department for creative non fiscal recruitment strategies to hire more deputies?

We have worked with human resources, but what we did about three years ago, maybe two and a half years ago, we hired a marketing firm. This marketing firm came forward and specifically was using analytics to figure out what was working for us in the past and what more importantly would work for us in the future. Since we've brought this marketing firm on, our recruiting has gone up about 35%, so each of our classes are incrementally getting larger. But when we talk about recruitment, you can't talk about it without retention. That's why it's important for us, and I ask for the funding for thewhat we've been doing for the last several years is to keep pumping new deputy sheriffs into the academy, but we look at it from different phases because we're actually hiring folks as soon as they're eligible to be hired.

We hold onto them. They're working at different stations until they're ready to go into the What we're finding is that we're able to hold onto them longer, attrition in the academy has gone or I'm sorry, gone down. It's getting a lot better, so our numbers are increasing, getting better, but on the retention end, that's why I'm talking about the criticality of the STAR program because this pilot program would retain employees as we're gonna need more of them for all the very large events that are coming to our front door.

Right, because we had talked in the past sometimes our process for hiring was slow and we were losing some folks to other agencies in other municipalities.

Pay is a concern, obviously we're dealing with that at the negotiating table, but as we look at our competitors, we are looking at LAPD, CHP, the large organizations, what are they doing that we're not doing, we're comparing notes, and continuously assessing and reassessing what we're doing to make sure that we are very competitive.

Right,

so just a little bit following up what Supervisor Mitchell commented on a little bit in terms of the amount of requests versus some of our other departments and you're requesting a pretty large amount of NCC and again especially in relation to some of the other departments who have faced curtailments. But since this budget presentation is for the public and I think we have talked about the bad budget scenario that we're in and trying to balance everybody's requests and needs and our board priorities. If the public were listening, what is the number one thing, Sheriff, that you're prioritizing for your department in these budget requests for the public? And I don't know if that's your aided dispatch system or something else that they would be

able to

see how your budget and what you're requesting directly impacts the public safety.

Yes ma'am, and I do hope that the community is listening, but CAD would be up there at the top because that impacts folks when they dial 911, or it impacts our operations when we're dealing with large scale crises like the fires or floods that we've been dealing with, they just make us more efficient. That obviously is at the very top, but a very close second are those DST positions because we have

to

continuously backfill the spots that we're losing. As you're aware, because we worked on this together, our contract cities are asking for more and more deputies. They want more deputies, they love our deputies, but I have a moratorium right now because we're trying to fill the vacancies that we have to try and reduce the mandatory overtime that our employees and their families are having to deal with on a continuous basis. Between that technology of CAD and then the staffing that's right there next to it, those are the other two. And believe it or not, we have dozens and dozens of requests.

My staff did a really good job of really prioritizing what we absolutely need to keep our communities safe as we move forward Thank for this

you. And I won't lean into the $1,200,000 study because I think we've talked about that, but I will just echo the CareFirst JLS vision that this board has and hoping that it's not just an engineer and architect study on the actual building, but really feel like the conversations with you really need to focus with our mental health department, our Department of Health Services, our community safety information team because again, it's gonna be what we envision this correctional care facility to be and so I feel like somehow I just feel like those conversations haven't happened yet, but you don't have to answer because I think supervisor Mitchell really leaned into that. One other thing, let me just ask about the training facilities for the weapons qualification and perishable skills. Have you identified a location for that?

We have some alternatives. There is one at Downey, but we're keeping our options open just to make sure that we're working with the county CEO partners to make sure it fits with current existing county property so we can reduce the price that it would cost.

Right, so I'm a little, CEO, I'm a little concerned because one of the maps that I saw where this potential facility could be is the same property that I did a motion last year directing you to enter into a negotiated agreement with the city of Downey to build affordable housing there, so just hoping that you can identify another location for this weapons training center.

Right, those would not be compatible uses side by side. I think that we have to work with the sheriff's department to do a scan of available properties. I think one of the places that for them would have been ideal was the Downey campus, but there wasn't Because I

wouldn't think that would be available right now.

Right, there was that motion that brought us in a different direction, so we have to go back with the sheriff and figure out what an alternative site would look like, and that's something we're doing right now. There's no set location, think they were just offering some alternatives to look at and we'll continue to look through them.

Yeah, great, thank you because I have my eyes on that piece of property for affordable housing. Thank you Sheriff, and I hope maybe in future budget presentations you can also talk a little bit about what it's gonna mean to your department to have the off ramp from the Metro contract and what that means in terms of your budget, but also what that means in terms of you getting back deputies that are badly needed on our contract city streets. So you don't have to answer that now but I would love to see an off ramp plan when that happens because it will happen as you know.

If they give me a couple more minutes, absolutely.

You have a couple of minutes. Go ahead. Respond?

Yeah. Now, when we're talking about the staffing or the police officers that are gonna be working Metro in the future, they're slated to hire approximately 600 sworn. I've been in discussions with their chief, as I testified to and

further Are they trying to poach our deputies?

Metro board, not that I'm aware of, but it's going to take them several years. Just like we're all struggling in large departments, they're struggling to recruit and hire as well. So we are gonna try and work that through them, but four or five years I can show you that next year next year's Okay, budget yeah,

I'll be interested to see how that's all gonna play out. Thank you. I'm gonna move to the DA. One of the departmental priorities that you outlined was to address police misconduct corruption. And there was a recent LA Times article that highlighted several cases where your office actually downgraded or dismissed charges in some of the high profile law enforcement cases that our former DA filed.

For example, there was a probation officer who was charged with excessive force, who received no jail time under the terms of a plea that your office offered. Making sure that our law enforcement, and I have a particular interest in our probation officers are held accountable for their misconduct is as you know crucial for that trust with our community. So how has your office tackled this priority and does this budget reflect the need to carry out that particular priority going forward?

So the short answer is yes on the budget and I'll explain how we've tackled that priority. We take the cases involving police officers' potential, illegal use of force, extremely seriously. I personally have a background in prosecuting, elite deputy sheriffs back in the nineteen nineties who were stealing drugs, guns, and money from drug dealers. I was part of the trial teams that actually convicted them. I also absolutely recognize that the overwhelming number of officers throughout our entire county are doing a very difficult and dangerous job very well every day.

So we're focused on this group of officers that effectively are acting like criminals. Now we have some of the most experienced prosecutors in our JCID operation, Justice Systems Integrity Division. And what they do is they look it through painstakingly every single case. Often, roll out. If there's off officer involved shooting, they roll out actually at the time of the initial shooting, and they'll roll out to the scene.

Then they wait to get the reports from the police, whichever police department is producing the report, and then they analyze those reports under the, the burden of proof, the beyond a reasonable doubt burden of proof that we have to meet in every case with the considerations that the law gives in a basically, police officers, the discretion to make split second decisions that we then can't go back years later and use twentytwenty hindsight to revisit. So we use that standard in every single case. And I am happy to go case by case by case, because where we decline cases, this is one of the few units where we issue a public declination. A declination that often goes on for page after page after page. It references body worn camera, surveillance video, witness interviews, any forensic type of analysis applies the law and then reaches a conclusion.

If you or anyone on your staff or any member of the Board of Supervisors or any member of the public has issues with our factual and legal analysis, I personally want to hear that. Because where we have the evidence to convict a police officer of crossing the line, I will be the first one to go ahead and authorize that prosecution. And I'll make sure that we have the most experienced people who are able to do it. So I'm happy, and again, I we that article referenced a whole bunch of cases. I'll go fact by fact by fact in each one of those cases to explain to you how we got to our decision. What I will not do is I won't do the I called it the spaghetti against the wall type of prosecution

Right.

Where we're just gonna throw the spaghetti against the wall, hope something sticks Right. And let the jury figure it out. Right. Anybody who's ever been subject to a criminal prosecution doesn't want me to just let the jury figure it out. The victim families or the the families of the defendants don't want me to let the jury just figure it out. They want me and my office to spend the collective thousands of years of prosecutorial experience we bring to the job to figure it out in the first place. Mister Garcia, in our, in our alternate public defender here as well, would absolutely want me to apply that discretion that if I cannot bring a case because we do not meet our burden of proof, I don't just let the jury figure it

out Well thank you, thank you for that. Know, I'm spending a lot of time at Los Padrinos as you know, you've been out there and met met with some of these young men, and many of these who are incarcerated are facing potential transfer to the adult system after your office files transfer motions. And when you talked earlier in your opening comments about what it means to invest in public safety, part of my belief which sometimes I think differs from yours is that I believe that when they get released eventually back into their community, I want them to have had the best possible opportunity to get rehabilitated and get that second and third chance, which is why I argue to keep them in juvenile to finish their sentence as opposed to being sent to adult prison. You've asked for 35 more positions for public safety and prosecution, staffing in your budget. Can you just tell me briefly what the breakdown of that staffing is and how many of these will be assigned to these juvenile transfer cases?

Actually, interestingly enough, very few would be assigned to the juvenile transfer cases, but let me tell you why. Juvenile transfer motions that we even bring after it goes through an analysis by a committee have drastically reduced as law has changed the the what you consider to file a transfer motion. And for people who don't understand what we're talking about, let me just briefly describe it. When a juvenile commits a seven zero seven b type of case, that is the serious. We're talking murder, mayhem, torture, and rape.

Those are the cases that end up with the DA's office. So that means if you are not committing that level of case, that case actually often never sees the DA's office. It gets diverted by the probation department or the local law enforcement. So call it over 80% of juvenile crime never sees the DA's office. So we're dealing with the most serious crimes committed by people under the age of 18.

Now when we get to there, we determine whether or not we can meet all five elements of the transfer hearing legal process to then see if that juvenile will go from the juvenile system into the adult system. Why that important? Let's take a juvenile who's been charged with killing 10 people. If they are kept in the juvenile system, the longest they will serve is until the age of 25. So if you committed this crime when you are 17, you just killed in cold blood 10 people, you will be out after at the age of 25 if you're kept in the juvenile system.

However, if we do seek a transfer motion, it can meet all five elements, which is very difficult, the state legislators made it more difficult to do that, then you will be in the adult system. Now you will be treated under the adult system where you might get out in your 40s, 50s or 60s, but not by the age 25. And often, as as supervisor Han is aware, you don't even spend till the age of 25. The way we've created our juvenile system is that the juvenile courts are letting out these serial murders by generally the age of 21, 22, or 23. Backby and since the science shows that your brain is not formed until the age of 25, we're literally letting out juveniles who've committed rape, murder, mayhem, and torture often by the age of 21, 22, or 23, back into their communities without the rehabilitation that they otherwise should have received in these facilities I mean, I I hear you.

I appreciate that. I I I don't know any of them in Los Padrinos right now that killed 10 people.

Well, I'm sure you know that they've killed several people. If you'd like the cases, I'm happy to give you the cases.

My point is, unfortunately in the adult prison system, there is, in my opinion, zero chance of rehabilitation. It's just not gonna happen. In fact, we know for a fact there was one young man who because the law changed, he went to prison for a while, came out much worse and he came back to Los Padrinos. Thankfully we had an opportunity to give him the needed program that he needed. He is now in kind of a halfway house.

So I don't have any faith that sending them to adult prison and they will get out eventually will ever make our communities safer. So I've been in some of the courtrooms where your prosecutors, it seems like sometimes the young person has one public defender or one attorney and sometimes you have two or three prosecutors really trying to make the case to send them to prison. So I just, when I look at your budget, just wanna make sure that you're not sort of over stacking the prosecutors that are trying to keep these kids from being rehabilitated?

I just looked at the numbers again, Supervisor Hahn. None of the requests are we asking for a prosecutor to go to juvenile court to deal with transfer cases. There is not one request being made for that.

Good. The kids have a fighting chance. Okay. Thank you.

And by the

way, I couldn't agree with you more that we need to create state of the art rehabilitative facilities in this county to actually do what the juvenile system's supposed to do, which is actually give these kids that chance to rehabilitate. Sadly, I don't have them in our was

gonna talk about have your views on diversion changed, but I'm gonna let somebody else discuss that.

My views on diversion are the exact opposite of those portrayed by the public defender to my right. He used the words that I consistently oppose diversion programs.

Okay. Thank you. Move on to our our esteemed public defender and say thank you to you and our alternate public defender for explaining to us how critical the services are that both your departments offer. I just wanted to highlight that when you look at the total budget amount that our public defender's office receives compared to the district attorney's office, it kind of doesn't seem fair. There's a difference of almost $200,000,000 difference and if we're not resourcing our public defenders who have high case loads and are often extremely overworked at the same level that we do our district attorneys, then I think that's a problem and I hope we can move closer to fully right sizing that.

That's just budget issues that we're all gonna have to figure out. What I was gonna ask you, Ricardo, is that can you elaborate on the pipeline program and how this budget could either support that or how it would impact your hiring and case loads if that program didn't exist?

Absolutely, thank you for that question, Supervisor. I'll start by simply saying this to start. Without our pipeline, we would not be able to handle approximately 25% of our misdemeanor practice. I'm going to repeat that, 25% of our misdemeanor practice, which would mean that those cases would go to the conflict panel, contract attorneys, at a cost of over $30,000,000 for the county. The county would be obligated to pay the contract lawyers.

Our budget asks us for $14,000,000 to do the same work at a significantly reduced cost because that is the work we do. Our pipeline maintains the reduced cost of indigent defense at the misdemeanor level, ensuring that the people in Los Angeles receive a high level of representation, and the county doesn't have to then pay contract attorneys an extra amount of money to do the same

This is the one that allows law students to become paid Yes, law

the way we do it is it's an important recruitment tool because it allows us to bring in students who have passed the bar who come from diverse communities, allowing us to ensure that communities that are normally underserved, that go to law school, have an access to the public defender's office and employment to the office. Their post bar clerks, once they pass the bar, we can immediately hire them on as attorneys, move them over the next day. We have reduced the time from six months from the point of passing the bar to the point of having them working to approximately thirty to forty five days. That is an incredible reduction. We have used this board's emergency hiring order to expedite that process to ensure that we are hiring individuals at a quicker rate.

We are frequently the top three or fourth department, just below the health departments, in using that emergency room to ensure we're bringing in those students to do the work. That allows us again to maintain the misdemeanor program moving and represent those individuals. A key part of that, which I mentioned in my talking points, is that 48% of our workload in misdemeanors comes from city attorney offices, which your board does not receive any remuneration from. When we talk about comparing the district attorney's budget to the public defender's budget, we're not including the fact that this board does not get, this county does not get resources that accommodate those misdemeanors, so we need keep the pipeline going to ensure we can represent individuals charged.

Yeah, and sometimes when your cases have to go to this IDCO, this Independent Defense Counsel office, if we have the money, sometimes they don't have capacity to do this extra work.

That's absolutely true. Even if we had to go unavailable and those cases had to move over to IDCO, which the county again would have to pay for, they don't have the capacity. The courts have been, and this board has heard from the courts, the chaos that would cause in the criminal legal process here in Los Angeles County. They would run out of attorneys in IDCO, forcing either cases to go without attorneys or be dismissed by the courts and have circumstances similar to what we see in Washington or Oregon, which is absolute chaos in their criminal legal process.

We rely on you and our alternate public defenders to provide legal counsel, but we rely on your support staff and you do to refer clients to essential services in the community and to diversion opportunities. Can you just briefly elaborate on your holistic defense and how that aligns with this board's care first vision and what cuts to these programs would mean in our relation to our goal to close Men's Central Jail?

Absolutely. As you heard me mention, our Partners for Justice program, which is an attorney client based with the privileged advocates that assist individuals who have brought into the criminal legal system with addressing the underlying impact of being brought into the system, with helping them connect with diversion programs and ensuring that they complete those programs, not by handing them a slip of paper or giving them a phone number and telling them who to call or where to show up, but by actually working with them individually and with the lawyers to do so. We've seen an incredible success rate across the county. They're deployed in courthouses today, and by maintaining that and adding resources to we'd be able to deploy them across the county. They've been incredibly successful in ensuring that our diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration and housing issues are directly addressed with our community members.

They've reduced the unhoused population within the criminal legal system significantly, and it is much less expensive, for example, the human attorneys doing

that. Thank you for that, and my last question is for Erica. You talked about being unavailable, going unavailable particularly on murder cases. Why is it important for your department to become available again and what would it take to do so? And in this budget climate, what would happen if you don't get the positions that you're requesting?

Thank you for the question, Supervisor. My budget request took into account that with those 15 positions, I do believe that I would be able to stop going unavailable on right now. Like I said, it was the murder cases. Had an all time high at the time. My attorneys had up to four to five murder cases along with their felony cases, and that was much too high. So it pained me to go unavailable, but I did come before the board and explain that that was too much, that we were getting to the point assistance of counsel. With the 15 positions I'm requesting, I would balance out the caseloads, put one in each of the 13 courthouses, and then therefore be able to pick

up cases again.

Okay, very good. Supervisor Hunt, I Supervisor Hancock.

Can I make a quick comment on this since these are

Quick comment?

Quick comment since these are for the public. I think one thing I want to point out which is important on the budgets overall because your board has made intentional choices on this and I want it to be clear. In terms of local dollars, what we put in our local funding, we put in more money in the PD and APD than we put in the DA's office. We put in 381,200,000.0 across the two defense departments and $280,000,000 in the DA's So there's quite a big swing. I think the difference harkens back to something Supervisor Sully said at the beginning, which is the DA's office benefits from a lot of external funding and support. And that's a big difference and something we can work on in Sacramento with the Feds, but that is definitely a reality of our budgets.

Very good. Supervisor Barger.

Thank you. I'm gonna start actually with the public defender because I just have one for both of you actually. I know actually when you probably about the time, Ricardo, you came on board, one of the issues was that the public defender was coordinating with the departments in terms of diversion and you have clients, some that are in the system and need supportive services. How is that going? Are you better coordinating with our county departments to make sure that your clients are getting the services that they deserve?

I think we are, Supervisor. I think one of the things we've seen, for example, with the Partners for Justice program is that they are engaging with existing programs within Los Angeles County, whether funded by the county itself or nonprofits. So they look for whatever's available. Unfortunately, if I'm being absolutely candid, with with COVID and with other incidents, some of our county partners have pulled themselves out of the criminal legal sphere, are no longer available in courts, are no longer available in the jails.

Do you a running tally over the percentage? I mean, I would like to see how many referrals are made. I mean, I was really baffled at the fact that there wasn't coordination between the APD and public defender with agencies that could help ensure, we talk about diversion and recidivism, part of that is ensuring that services are provided so they don't end up back in our system. And I was disappointed there wasn't better coordination. That was years ago. I just want to track to see if it's better now.

Just so you're aware, we work consistently with ODR for example. That is a program that has been essential to the success of so many of our clients within community. Correctional health services is another program we've learned to work with much better than when I first arrived. Department of Mental Health, Public Health, the SAPSI program. We're their primary referral source within the criminal legal system, so that has been a relationship that has changed. It could grow if there were more resources available, but again I would say also the rapid diversion program and the programs we work through are contracted through our health agencies, so the coordination is coming together better and better each time, significantly different than when I first arrived, but there's always room for improvement.

Good, Erica. And supervisor, I do believe, I was gonna say, whenever we get together as a group and we bring in our health partners, we bring in JCOD, DYD, we bring in people from the jail closure at our CCJCC meetings or whatever. We do coordinate and we try to use our health departments, whatever they can provide for us, our public health departments, Doctor. Galley's office, but they also have limitations in creating beds. But we do, when we create programs, and that's one of the things I love, we use them as much as we can. As I did mention before, it is an adversarial system so we may try to ask for it, sometimes we are met with limitations.

And I appreciate that, and I think that therein lies a concern that I have, it should not be adversarial, it shouldn't be, okay, it shouldn't be. I don't view it that way, I would hope that if you have clients that you're representing, that you would want to give them every tool so they stay out of the system.

We do, I do. And more and more it's becoming, that's part of the reason I was asking for more people because it's taking a much longer time to advocate for that sort of service. We have to do reports, we have to we have had 7,000 more appearances in court on misdemeanors and about 3,000 more on felonies just trying to advocate and bring down cases that should be sent to mental health diversion, but we really have to convince people court and sometimes the prosecution, both.

Okay, do you track recidivism within your caseloads in terms of clients that didn't get the services they need that end up back in the system?

What the

cost think would we have be do that

a better job

of tracking who didn't get it since we are constantly asking in every single case.

No, but I mean if the goal is to represent and help individuals, I would hope that we would track so that if you justify your ask.

For example, in our ODR courthouse, yes, can track that. In our RDP, we can track it. But I am saying in 22 courthouses every single day, not just those programs, we are asking for diversion. We're asking to try to do something other than send someone to prison or jail.

And I would say the same to the DA as well. Diversion is something that this board collectively supports and has invested in. I mean there is a reason why you have the care first model. And that is to front load the services or the ability to get those services. And I'm drilling down on the public defender because early on that was not the case.

The public defenders quite frankly because of their caseload are just trying to get through the day to make sure that they are there to represent their client. And the service side I felt kind of went to the side. And it would be the same for the DA. I mean in terms of diversion, our goal is, as supervisor Hahn said with our youth is to give them the tools so they don't end up back in our system. That we actually provide them with the resources to straighten out their lives. And that's kind of what I'm drilling down to. So I see what was just said by the APD as mirroring what the DA I would hope would have as an outcome or a goal.

Absolutely, supervisor. You know, bring to this job not just eleven years of prosecutorial experience, but twenty five years of defense experience. The most defense experience ever shared by a DA in the history of the office. In fact, I have more defense experience than anyone in my office. So I understand having represented people going through the system, that if we can find an alternative to jail, alternative to prison, if they do have a mental health issue, and we can get them the appropriate treatment, and break these the sort of spiral that goes in and out of the criminal justice system, that is a net positive for society.

But when I talk about care first, jails last, I don't use the word care and just limit it to the defendant. I also think about the victim. I absolutely think about in fact, I'm the only person in the courtroom, other than the judge, that's thinking about the victim because the public defender and the alternate public defender don't have to think about the victim. They have to think about their client. I have to also think about the victim.

And so in the cases, and and the alternate public defender is right, we participate in rapid diversionary program. We participate in mental health diversion, drug diversion diversion, veteran diversion. We are an active member, but there are certain cases that we believe are not appropriate for it. Cases where the individual has exhibited violence in their history. They've not been suitable for mental health

treatment before.

Yet the public defender, in doing their job, is asking the court for mental health diversion. We had one of those cases recently, where an individual was basically convicted in 2014 of beating up his wife. He got probation. He's convicted in 2017 of beating up his wife again. He got a year of state prison. In February 2025, he's charged with beating up his wife now for the third time. For the first time though ever, his lawyer said, give him mental health diversion in an outpatient facility that's not locked. And we said, no, we cannot do that. This person is a threat to his wife.

I that, appreciate that, Dee Hockman, and I know that ultimately, because we had this discussion at CCJCC, the decision is ultimately up to the judge based on recommendations by both sides as to whether an individual is released to diversion or not. And I don't think anyone would dispute the fact that we've had studies done that have looked at what our needs are for the future on the replacement of men's central jail using a company that is an expert in diversion showing that in fact not everyone is going to be suitable to be into a diversion program. But that doesn't mean we don't continue to really drill down to make sure that to what the APD was saying, the beds are available. So that when, not if, when an individual is eligible for diversion we have a place to place them. And I think there is a balance.

And so I hear you and I remember you brought that case up before in terms of the difficulty that not everyone is suitable for diversion. So I hear you. I want to acknowledge the work that you've done on the price gouging and on as it relates to the fires as well as the individuals up in Althena that are trying to take advantage predatorily or be predators of individuals that are not licensed contractors. And I look forward to working with you on that. I know we're gonna be getting a report on price gouging to see how we are doing in terms of, because I know I've referred a few over to you that I, not to you, but to our DCBA where I felt there was price gouging going on.

So I'm gonna be following those to see how and if we are in fact on our side providing you with the information necessary to prosecute individuals that are taking advantage of the survivors of the fires, both Alpena but also across county.

Thank you very much, Supervisor Barger. When it comes to all the wildfire related crimes, where it was looting, arson, now it's unlicensed contractors, financial scams, and price gouging, we have a open for business sign on the DA's office. You bring us a case, we can build that case beyond a reasonable doubt, we will bring that case. Let me, though, share with you on price gouging some of the hurdles that we've encountered. Turns out that the state legislature made price gouging just misdemeanor, not a felony misdemeanor wobbler or a felony, just a misdemeanor.

That means if the price gouging occurs in LA City, the LA City attorney has primary jurisdiction over it, and those cases get brought directly to the LA City, not the DA's office. If there are two or more people involved and I can prove a conspiracy, that can be a felony, but I need two or more people involved. But here's the good news. I think because we came out early and often and said to the world that if you are engaged in price gouging, we are going to arrest you, prosecute you, and punish you. And what we ended up hap happening is the following.

Zillow is tracking a lot of price gouging that's going on. There was a recent LA Times and other newspaper reports about how there were 18,000 or so identified price gougers. Turns out though that because of of the information we put out there, when they finally went ahead and entered into a lease, they were very well at the 10% or lower amount. Also, they took advantage of a loophole in price gouging. That if the the lease agreement was more than a year, and we're talking a year and a day or more, it didn't fall in the price gouging statute.

So very often when we went to investigate and look at it, turns out the lease was actually more than a year, or the lease occurred in Los Angeles City, and now is a misdemeanor and I don't have jurisdiction. And with the cases that are outside of that, there's another loophole in the law that basically said that if you've improved the house, so before the listing was for two rooms in the house, now the listing's for the entire house, You can increase it more than the 10%. So, we have gone and we've looked at, literally at this point, scores and scores of cases. If anyone in the public has any case involving price gouging, ideally with two or more people with a contract of a year or less, in LA City or for that matter anywhere in the county, please bring it directly to the DA's office. We will absolutely give it a look at, and if prosecutable, we will bring that prosecution and give the public defender an ultimate public defender more business.

Thank you. And again, thank you for the work that you do, and to the DCBA who's also taking the complaints. And then Sheriff Luna, know, first of all, you for highlighting the health and welfare of our sworn that are currently really going above and beyond as it relates to staffing. And I know that that's been a challenge. I know in the North County, in Lancaster, Palmdale, you've got people working overtime and overtime and overtime and not seeing their families.

So the health and welfare of our sworn on the front line is important. But it's also important because I wanna make sure that they're not compromised in terms of the job that they do when they go out there and they're tired. And we've talked about that and you've advocated for that. And that's why I know that you're pushing for the eight classes. Are those funded right now or are you advocating for additional classes?

They will not be funded for this coming year. That's why I'm asking for them and it's crucial.

Okay. So and it sounds to me that the recruitment you're doing is working so that you feel confident that you could fill those classes, those academies?

Yes, I'm very confident that we could fill them because our recruitment has been getting a lot better in the last several years.

So on that note, attrition, do you feel that the star will help at least maintain individuals that would consider to retire?

Yes, I think I identify it as absolutely critical that as we move forward and we have to staff a whole lot of not only what we have in vacancies, but for all the large events that we have, LA twenty eight, the Paralympics, the World Cup, the Super Bowl, it is absolutely critical that we have something in place that's at least a pilot program to get us through the twenty twenty eight Olympics.

So Joe, what is and I don't know if you know the answer to this or maybe you do, Sheriff Luna. What is the peak time when people go to LaSera and begin to pull their papers for retirement? March. March? Yes. So what is your game plan in terms of STAR? Is to get it in place before March?

It is. I've got to give all the credit in the world to the acting CEO and his team. We've been working very hard at the table and all the conversations. We understand that that timeline is upon us, so we're trying to do whatever we can to make sure our employees know that we'll be able to join this program to hold on because we need you. We need you to serve at least to get us through the next several years.

Yeah. Just to clarify, and the sheriff is right. I think the key is before March, people become aware that this program will be offered. It will take some time to get it implemented, but it will be at least something that they can look to and say, alright, then I'm not gonna retire this March, I'm gonna wait, I'm in STARS.

So how are you getting the word out? We

do have a joint table with labor where we're starting to

Why March? She said it or it's usually because of the COLA that kicks in. Is that what it is? Is why they drop in March usually?

Yeah. I think that's correct.

Cost of living adjustment.

Right on. And that's for all county employees, just for the sheriff.

No. Know. Yeah. But because I mean, I couldn't remember the month, but I know there's this month where you see a lot of people file for retirement and it's because of the COLA. Baseline, STAR gets put into play and what would be the minimal amount of classes just to stop the hemorrhaging and to at least allow you to cut back on overtime, which is very expensive by the way, but you have no choice. What would the minimum number of classes be?

Minimum is eight. The goal would be 10, would be better, but again we have to attack it from two areas. We have to attack it from recruiting and then I have to attack from the retention side.

How many in each class?

The goal is always 100, but as I've been there, incrementally those classes have been getting larger. The last two or three classes graduated up in the area of the high 50s. When I first got here, it was in the mid-30s.

How many other agencies use our academy? I apologize if I should know this. Do we bill against those?

Just started to just recently, and we have just about every agency in Los Angeles County comes in as a participating agency with the exception of the Los Angeles Police Department that have their own academy, the Long Beach Police Department that have their own academy and other smaller departments to send their folks to Rio Hondo.

Alright, well again, sheriff, I know that we're in negotiations and that's something that you are carefully monitoring. But I think it's important for us to acknowledge that you are working in a department that needs the classes in order to quite frankly prepare us for what's coming up in 2028 because you are the lead agency as it relates to working with the Olympics, correct?

We're working partnership with the Los Angeles Police Department and the California Highway Patrol along with several federal agencies, and that planning is well on its way. Trains left the station. We're doing a whole lot of things, but I do just want to quickly comment that apart from just recruiting and the retention efforts we've already spoken about, and I said it earlier, there's a moratorium on contract cities picking up more deputies. We've also frozen positions throughout the department and prioritized either patrol, custody, or training, because other than that, people aren't really moving around right now, and that is to reduce the amount of mandatory overtime. Because I recognize and respect our employees, they're working their butts off.

A lot of them work in my opinion too much and we're addressing that and it is impacting their families at home and that fatigue does impact them eventually out on the street community. And I

hope, I'm glad to hear that because I remind everybody that unincorporated is equally as important as a contract city. And so for every one sheriff that gets hired by a contract city, it's taken away from the unincorporated. And I am very much aware of that as it relates to my unincorporated territories with the exception of Altadena, which has its own station. You've got Chapman Woods and all in that area that depend upon Temple. And you've got the Monrovia Arcadia Duarte area, that's an island and they've got one deputy.

So I'm glad to know that we are saying no to contract cities because quite frankly they are well, I am because I love Mine Incorporated and that's really as supervisors, that's our, they pay for what they're getting and they're getting a pretty good deal. So I hope you do hold the line because as I've always said charity begins at home and unincorporated again. If I look at Temple, one sheriff that is doing an area that is very large and they are not a contract city. They don't have the luxury of saying we will purchase another deputy.

Just for the record, I love them all. Unincorporated contract, they're all my children, I love them all equally.

I'll leave it at that. Thank you.

Right, thank you. Supervisor Horvath, take your time.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to start by saying I think it's clear we have excellent advocates in our justice system on both sides represented by today's conversation. Our conversation today is really about making sure we're appropriately resourcing the work that's being done. And so to that end, I want to start with our CEO because I just heard from the sheriff something that I've been asking about as we've been talking about hiring freezes and what that actually means for the county. From our last conversation, I understood it to mean that hiring freeze doesn't mean total freeze in the county.

It means an additional process to go through. But I just heard our sheriff say that there's a moratorium on hiring in our contract cities for law enforcement. So now I need some clarification on that.

It's a good question and happy to clarify. So you're right, the hiring freeze does not prevent departments from hiring, it puts them through a process to hire. We've been working with the sheriff on a process, a hiring freeze process for about five, six years because it's been in place in the sheriff's department for longer than the freeze that went into effect.

So does that mean they haven't been hiring in the department for five to six years?

No, we've been hiring in the department. We funded the academy classes every year, so he's hiring. I think what I'm hearing is actually an operational moratorium on where to put deputies in the department, not a hiring moratorium, and maybe the sheriff could clarify that.

Yeah, that's exactly right. What I've done is internal moratorium to give more bodies to each area that's asking for them or each city that's asking for them. As we're getting healthier, our recruiting's getting better, I'm hoping some of these programs fall into place, and once we get healthier, then we can start redistributing bodies throughout the county to the different stations. But for now, it's my decision moratorium internally to pause until we get healthier.

And I know something that surfaced in our conversations last year was on the academies that we're undertaking that this board has been investing in increasingly over the years, other departments were using those academies for themselves and not paying us for the deputies that or the personnel that they then hired. So are they paying for that now?

You'd have supported and you did bring it to my attention and yes, they are now paying.

So I think that's important to note that these kinds of budget conversations can help to surface things like that and opportunities like that. So I know we've touched on a lot already, I know Madam Chair will want us to be quick. But I do know that as we've been balancing our budget and addressing the shortfalls that have come our way from a variety of sources, there are a number of things we need to keep people safe. As Supervisor Mitchell noted, the services and support that people count on from the county is a component. We also need to make sure that we have all of our services in place.

And so I know that certain departments have come forward through this process sharing the percentage curtailments that they've taken in their respective departments. Sheriff, what is the percentage that your department has taken on and can you tell us about some of the efforts that the Sheriff's Department has taken on to address critical needs as opposed to the unmet needs that you've identified in your budget?

Well, for the reason it's 3% for us. We've been very fortunate and supported by all of you because we are so short handed, and if you consider over the last five years how many reductions we've taken, Supervisor Barger was talking about it earlier, we're at 23% of our unavailability rate, which means our employees are working double, triple, and quadruple shifts. It is a challenge for us, so we're doing everything we can there. Every reduction that we can possibly take, we do take. But for example, in our custody operations, being under whether it's a combination of consent decrees or settlement agreements, there are certain mandates that we have to follow through, and that impacts our operations as well.

And if you see in a lot of the ask that I made today, I don't think there's one ask that is above and beyond anything that we've been hurting on already that we've been trying to save on the other end, whether it's the computer aided dispatch system. Forty years, we haven't replaced it, and it's time because it's breaking down continuously. The vehicles I'm asking for haven't been replaced in the way they should, whether they are buses or vehicles, and where we're really hurting is when I start talking about helicopters that should have been replaced ten years ago and haven't been. So from that aspect, we've been saving, saving, not spending I should say, and that's

where we're at.

And I hear you in terms of deferred maintenance, and I think we have to as we're budgeting going forward make sure that we're looking at your budget with ongoing operations and maintenance as part of the price tag so we don't have forty years deferred maintenance on infrastructure and systems that are so desperately needed like the CAD replacement CAD system that you're talking about. And this year's budget request is nearly $400,000,000 more than last year's budget request, and there's a critical needs request for $83,000,000 in projected judgments and damages shortfall. So why should the Sheriff's Department have that come as an additional request when that largely comes as a result of ongoing operations from the department?

If we're talking about the risk associated with it and the lawsuits, if you look at, and I would probably need county counsel's assistance here, but if you look at the last five years, the lawsuits are dropping. The payouts that we're paying out now are things that happened four, five, six years ago, so it's almost like they're playing catch up. But if you look at my list of department accomplishments, we've increased training, we've updated policies, we've increased our levels of accountability. If you look at our top rated risk that we have, which is usually traffic collisions because we drive so many miles and we drive to emergencies, we've implemented new systems in place to make sure that our deputies are safe, our communities safe, but we're reducing the incidence of collisions, then reducing risk. One other item, I talk about CAD in the next phase.

If you look at the lawsuits that we've incurred as a department, number two has to do with nine one one or putting dispatches out. In my proposal, I tend to or I want to change that so in the future, I have more subject matter experts doing telephone intake, radio outtake, and reduce the risk there, which would reduce the lawsuits as well.

I think as we're looking at hundreds of millions of dollars of shortfall in other departments, just sitting in this seat, I know you have to look at and advocate for everything that you need for your department and I understand that. And we also have to be mindful that there are departments that are seeking additional NCC in the hundreds of millions because of the shortfall that we're experiencing from state and federal. So that's why we have to ask these questions around for a department that is getting the biggest slice of our budget pie just to start out to increase hundreds of millions of dollars at a time when we're asking all of our departments to tighten their belts, it's hard to understand and so I appreciate your answers. For our district attorney, I know that our office has in particular worked very closely with you on hate crimes work and we thank you for your work in the REACH program and know that you've taken that issue very seriously and we appreciate your efforts in that regard. On your requested budget, it looks from our vantage point at a 20% increase over last year.

So has your department taken any curtailments to date? If so, what is the percentage and why would we then reverse and go to a 20% increase when the county is facing the financial challenges that we are?

So you're right, it is a 20% increase over the budget last year, but if you factor in the 14.5% curtailment, it becomes a much lower percentage increase.

Your department took a 14.5% curtailment last year?

No, 8.5% curtailment for the DA. The sheriff's department had a 0% curtailment, just to be clear. And the two departments there, PD and APD, also took an 8.5% curtailment.

Okay.

I'll translate that into money. We took a $24,000,000 hit last year. It eliminated most of the positions that I had intended to fill to get back to the twenty twenty level, both as prosecutors, investigators, and support staff. And so we have reanalyzed that, figured out what we need, not just to get back to the nine fifty prosecutors for instance, but to get to a level dealing with the different priority areas that we think will not create crisis situations in courts that will allow us to do the additional investigations that we hope will actually resolve in hundreds of millions of dollars savings to this count county going forward, by basically going after fraudulent claims against this county as well as preventing and deterring fraudulent claims in the future. You know, part of our efforts, for instance, were going after, ironically, county employees.

We've actually charged 27 county employees throughout the different departments in the county who were collecting EDD benefits by claiming they were unemployed during that time period in the pandemic, while they were also collecting their county checks at the same exact time, if you can imagine that. By the way, as a footnote, hundreds of cases existed of this that weren't prosecuted by my predecessor. By the time I came into office, we were working against a four year statute of limitations. We worked quickly. We brought 27 cases to date. Unfortunately, didn't bring hundreds of cases to date. It would have resulted in, again, hundreds of thousands of additional dollars of savings to the county that it unfortunately had to pay out.

And one new aspect that you're facing is Prop 36. Did your department get any additional funding from the state which passed prop 36? Do you have any additional funding from the state to enforce?

No. We didn't get any additional even though we were asked now to prosecute the cases that law enforcement is bringing us, and I identified over 2,000 proposition 36 felony cases. And just so you understand how that came about, for years, individuals were stealing from stores, generally in amounts of less than $950, it was a misdemeanor. You could not aggregate the amounts. You could not you you could literally steal every single day just under $950.

And the DA's office had a had a policy in place that it wasn't going to prosecute any juveniles for these type of misdemeanors and generally didn't prosecute most of the adults either. So now if you have two or more convictions, prior convictions for the theft, proposition 36 allowed the police to go ahead and charge these cases in our office as well with felonies. That has resulted often in people not just being arrested in the morning and released in the afternoon, but they have to go to a magistrate judge to set bail, and has resulted in some cases, not all those cases, in people ending up in the jail

And what I'm hearing from you is you don't have the resources fully to be able to deal with all of the cases that are coming to you now from Prop 36 or other issues that you've identified which I think is a concern especially as we get asked, your department gets asked and the county gets asked to do more things without additional budget. I think that makes it incredibly difficult. I would turn to our public defender, an alternate public defender to ask the same thing. What is your percentage curtailment and did Prop 36 afford either of your departments any additional resources?

Thank you, Supervisor. We took an 8.5% curtailment as is indicated by the CEO. No, the state did not provide any resourcing to represent the individuals who are now being charged as felons who previously were not being charged as felons under prop 36. So we have seen a significant increase in those cases without the state funding.

And to our alternate public defender?

The same 8.5. I can tell you that yes, the voters maybe voted for Prop 36, maybe they wanted people to go to programming, we haven't seen that. What we have seen is more incarceration, and sometimes we are seeing cases like a bag of chips and soda now because it's over the threshold and a prior could be charged as a felony. So this is taking, they can do it, they can charge it, but it's taking a lot more time to defend it. No, none of us got any money, but sometimes our work is there because of the decisions the district attorney is making.

Well, one of the things that the sheriff brought up however is some of the consent decrees and some of the legal issues that we have been addressing. And one of those directives is around depopulation of our facilities, specifically Men's Central. So what what will your budget help us do in terms of reducing the length of stay for people not who are serving out a sentence, especially those who are sort of staying in Men's Central Jail longer than anticipated and they're not supposed to be in our jail system, how are we, how is what you are asking for in your budget helping us to address what the sheriff brought up, which is some of our legal requirements?

Well, with the increase in filings, both misdemeanor and felonies, now if I get the positions, I can have people ready to defend those cases as early as arraignment and in trying trying to get people out by showing mitigating factors, by keeping the court to Humphreys which is keeping it limited to only what they mean, it takes a lot of work a lot of work to do that, but also by challenging some of the charges that are made by going to trial. We have a very big success rate by taking things to trial, sometimes they're dismissed, and that gets people out of custody.

I would add just that appropriate staffing is the strongest driver to address length of stay. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. No one gets out of jail, for my office purpose, without a public defender. People don't just walk out on their own. The district attorney doesn't release them.

The sheriff doesn't release them unless they have bail. None of the programs we create get them out of jail. The only people that get them out of jail are lawyers. So if we have appropriate staffing, we can address that directly and get more people into programs if those programs are available. As I said, we are really the only in court advocates for alternatives to incarceration, to get people from a cage to something that will improve their life, that will get them back into community in a way that is constructive and not bring them back over and over again.

I do want to address something that was mentioned by both of my colleagues here, which is this question of Prop 36. I think it's important for the community to understand is that what it allows prosecutors to do at their discretion is to take someone who's a non violent offender and put them in prison by overcharging misdemeanor offenses, by taking thefts, as my colleague said, making it a felony for a nonviolent offense. I understand the comment about violent offenses, but these are nonviolent offenders, and what it does is it adds additional work. If we have the resource, we're able to address that and bring people back into community. And the key part is that if we're not doing the work, the board has to pay for it anyway at a higher cost, and we really want to avoid that, especially in these challenging economic times.

May I address that just briefly? So again, what we're dealing with with proposition 36 is an individual who's committed theft, been convicted for it, and didn't stop committing theft. Did it again, got convicted for it, and now it's back for a third time. And they estimate about 10% of the people are committing over 50% of the crimes. These are often your chronic and repeat offenders.

So, yes, we're the the we tried messages early on with two different convictions, often most of which resulted in probation if it even resulted in that. And that didn't dissuade these particular individuals from going back over and over and over again. The frustration was felt by the voters, 70 of whom approved proposition 36 to go after these chronic and repeat offenders. So if we're able to put chronic and repeat offenders in stronger message that apparently they they need because the earlier messages didn't work, that hopefully we can seriously reduce theft in our system, which then hopefully sends an additional deterrent message that if you actually want to lower the population in the jails, supervisor Mitchell, I would bring this to your attention specifically, another way of getting there is deterring the criminals from committing the crimes in the first place. I wanna do that as well as diverting the people who've already committed the crimes, get them into hopefully a rehabilitative cycle.

But I also want to send a very strong message of deterrence. Don't commit the crime in the first place. And if we couple the rehabilitative message with the deterrent message, that's how you have the only chance, I believe, to truly reduce our jail population.

Well, again, I believe it's very clear we have strong advocates and you're all taking your budget requests seriously. Think my overarching takeaway is that as this county continues to invest in our justice system, all parts of it are asking for more resources in order to do their jobs. And so as we're thinking about increased requests from other levels of government on what it takes to keep communities safe and our justice system whole, we need resources to do that. So I thank you all for your presentations today.

Thank you so much. I see Holly, Supervisor Mitchell has her hand up. I'm gonna give you a minute because

appreciate that. And I'm not quite sure why that last point was directed to me specifically. I too support diversion and prevention. So thank you for sharing, I I appreciated your question about was there resources in that? And as I recall, it was the Retailers Association who put Prop 30 on the ballot and I don't think they factored in what it would cost local government to bring those protections they were seeking. I think that's unfortunate that they didn't. The DA's association might have been supportive of Prop 36 as well. Perhaps the DA's association should have realized the impact it was gonna have on your budget too.

Did. My question for $100,000,000 in the state and the state unfortunately

Pardon didn't part me, sir. My question to the sheriff was you've mentioned the helicopters a couple times and I recall when the state going back to what the state pays for or what other level of governments pay for when they change policy, I recall when the state law around civil asset forfeiture passed, your predecessor maybe two or three ago very publicly acknowledging that LA County used inappropriately civil asset forfeiture dollars to buy elaborate helicopters. That law passed a number of years ago. So at any point prior to now, have you or the CEO baked back into your budget kind of core resources to be able to buy the supplies you need. The civil asset forfeiture law passed because there were studies that showed that so many law enforcement entities across the state were really using those dollars inappropriately.

And so the law passed, it changed. Was it baked back into core of your budget to be able to replace helicopters?

I can only speak to when I got here three years ago and I was disappointed to see and hear that there was no technology, vehicle, equipment, really a replacement plan looking forward to plan it better, so that's why I suggested this, that as we move forward we absolutely should be looking at this so we can be more responsible. I can't speak to what happened three years ago, the asset forfeiture and what happened there, but I do know that we're being impacted with less asset forfeiture these days, the lack of federal funding because California seems to be in the bullseye of our federal government, so those are things that we have to look out for. The only other thing I'll add to that, as we're getting ready to welcome the world for the largest Olympics ever in the history of the world, we as a county need to be prepared. I get that we're struggling every department, and my brothers and sisters right next to me and all other county departments, but the equipment I'm talking about is something that's absolutely needed for the Olympics.

I appreciate that, and I would just say that I had another moment today sitting here that while we have an absolute responsibility to plan for those events, I have an absolute responsibility to make sure that budget allocations are going to protect Angelenos every day. Today, pre, during, and post Olympics. So I hear you, we also have a responsibility just to plan for our residents, 10,000,000 of them every day. Thank you very much, I appreciate the response. Thank you, Madam Thank

you, thank you to my colleagues for your questions and to panel. We're gonna take a three minute break and we'll transition. Thank you. Members, we are coming back to our panel discussions and I want to set the table again for our members at the dais, our board members, so we can catch up. We lost minutes, which is fine.

Good questions, heavy issues that we have to contend with. But let's try to keep our questions to no more than ten minutes and that means both ways. So if a department goes on, feel free to tell them, answer the question. Okay, very good. With that, Executive Officer, I will turn it over to you.

Madam Chair, we will now hear from Sheila Williams, Chief Deputy Probation Judge Songhai Armstead, retired, Director of Justice Care and Opportunities and David J. Carroll, Director of Youth Development. For the departmental speakers, please state your name and title for the record when you address the board.

We'll now hear from chief deputy of probation, Sheila Williams.

Thank you. Sheila Williams, chief deputy of administration for the probation department. You have the department mission, which is to promote enhance public safety, ensure victim rights, and facilitate what we hope to be positive change and enhance the well-being of adults and our juvenile clients. Next slide, please. Our current budget is approximately $1,100,000,000 where 74% represents our salary and employee benefits.

The bulk of our funding comes from Nat County costs, with the second coming from state assistance. Next slide. The bulk of our funding, unfortunately, goes to housing, which is a very relatively small number of youth in our care and custody, 40%. The next is to our juvenile adult investigation and supervision of 36%. Next Our key departmental priorities continues to be implementation of the Depopulation Plan that was ordered by Judge Espinosa back in May 2025 compliance with our regulatory agencies such as BSCC and the WIC code outlined in state statute as well as compliance with our Department of Justice settlement agreement.

In order to do that, we continue to struggle staffing, so recruitment and retention is our priority. We currently have about 25,000 active supervision cases in our adult and juvenile caseload, primarily on the adult side. Our goal is to rehabilitate the most high risk offenders, of which two seventy are in our juvenile hall, 171 in our residential camp program, and 143 in our secure youth treatment facility. Our outcomes are listed on the side where we have supervision of approximately 9,000 clients that we refer to public health, mental health, and social services. Once again, rehabilitation is our primary goal, where we list some of the outcomes for our juvenile population, with eight having earned a transferable associate degree in the last twelve months.

Twenty one have completed or enrolled or pending acceptance into our College and Career Pathway program. A 141 youth have completed the Credible Messenger program, and twenty have participated in our Wolf Connection, which is a unique program focused on nature, conservation, and personal growth in the last year. And of course, we continue to partner with our nonprofits and community based organizations to accomplish these things. Next slide. Our budget request this year is very minimal.

We're just asking to maintain what we have, and that is by offsetting costs associated with workers' comp and long term disability. If this isn't funded, we would then have to curtail positions in order to absorb this cost. Our internal affairs manager, once again, we're trying to increase accountability within the department by strengthening our IA bureau, and so we're asking for 0.2 funding, but we're seeking to do that by self funding. We're asking for funding to backfill state funding that will be lost due to the curtailment of fines and fees. It will result in about $8,000,000 And then unfunded, our critical unmet needs is that of services and supplies cost increases that are passed on by other county departments.

Once again, our challenges are, I think as most law enforcement agencies, our increased overtime costs due to a significant number of vacancies within the department, trying to address employee wellness and workers' comp claims as a result of work assigned in our juvenile detention facility, and once again, county services and costs. We continue to have to absorb these costs that are passed on by other county departments. Believe that completes my presentation. Thank you.

Very good. You had time to spare. Thank you. Next, we'll hear from the Director of Justice Care and Opportunities, Judge Songhai Armstead.

Thank you. First slide, Thank you. I'm retired Judge Song Hai Armstead, Director of Justice Care and Opportunities Department or JCOD. Thank you for the opportunity to present on JCOD's recommended budget request for the twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven year mandatory duties and responsibilities. We're focused on safer communities which is done by healthy individuals and healthy communities.

We're also focused on advancing the care first vision through oversight of community capacity building program and the CFCI administration, the support of successful reintegration of justice involved individuals, system impacted transition to aged youth and veterans into the community, streamline and centralize and expand access to pretrial and reentry services countywide as well as monitoring and oversight of those programs, enhancing a stabilized housing workforce and site based programming for the target populations mentioned previously and implement system and infrastructure improvements, decentralized data collection, enhanced outcomes and analysis. Next slide please. Our budget this year is $123,000,000 which includes 133 positions and the rest of the funds about 75% is for services and supplies. This budget does not reflect everything that we do within JCOT. It also does not reflect that we have a good portion of our budget comes from CFCI With that additional $84,000,000 that comes from CFCI, our total budget will be $2.00 $7,000,000 and we also administer about $215,000,000 for CFCI care grants totaling more than $422,000,000 Next slide please.

Amongst our programs, almost 80% of our budget is invested into community based programs to serve the vulnerable and those who are in need. As mentioned previously, most folks return home and we want to make sure that they return home into a good position so we can have safe communities. Is a breakdown of our different programs from category one is our prevention and capacity building, two is navigation and diversion, three is our community based, and four of course administration communication and outreach. Priorities, metrics, and outcomes. I mentioned previously there was a question related to referral by PD and APD.

We've served more than 15,000 people who have been referred from those areas in the court, and the data here is all from last calendar year, not fiscal year because they bring us more up to date. I think things that should be noted that we've served about 70,000 people in total, 40,000 through navigation and diversion, 28,000 through transportation, over 1,100 were diverted, 7,000 in care management, we've housed over 2,000 people and then the data goes on from there. We'll go to the next slide because I'm running out of time. We are asking for 31,200,000 and this is the breakdown. One of our biggest needs that we've asked for repeatedly is really around sort of the auditing compliance and contract monitoring.

We want to make sure that we're able to do that around CFCI and all of our programs to make sure we're getting the best delivery of services. Our next biggest ask is around independent pretrial services agency in our call center. We were using a lot

of

contracted positions in that position. The last slide please. A number of challenges including the curtailments, rising demand but reduced budget flexibility, then structural funding and gap funding. One of our funding sources has been from the courts and that's from the state and that has been cut significantly. It was over 1,000,000 last year, it's going to be another 2,500,000.0 this coming fiscal year, and we also need to expand in that space.

We're also working on generating revenue so thank you for your support supervisors on us becoming an ECM provider, and we have executed a contract. We have signed three contracts with providers so that we're now able to start pulling down funding there, and I can talk about that later if there's a question around that. We're also increasing collaboration. Protecting our investment and strengthening our oversight, and that's also why we're asking for some more help in that area, and then leveraging community capacity. Thank you for the opportunity to present.

Thank you very much. Next we'll move on to youth development, and we'll hear from David Carroll.

Good morning, my name is David Carroll, Director of the Department of Youth Development. Thank you for this opportunity. DYD was created by your board in 2020 to address gaps in equitable access to youth development services for young people across LA County. In a nutshell, we exist to keep young people out of systems and to reduce harm for those young people who are already in systems. Investment in DYD is key to the county's ability to achieve care first, jails last priorities for youth and avoid replicating the very problems we were created to solve.

The board has asked DYD to take the lead in programming in youth justice facilities and to help address the state of emergency there. Even though we are in a tough difficult budget environment, now is the time to shift priorities to care first support for young people. Next slide. The duties listed on this slide reflect DYD's charge as outlined in the county charter. I think you skipped a slide.

I'm sorry, this was the same slide, I apologize. They also demonstrate our growth to a mature department that manages a robust continuum of services for the county's young people, bridging the gap between early prevention and high touch reentry supports for systems involved youth. Same slide, I actually jumped ahead. The purpose of this slide is really to show Go back one slide, I'm sorry. The purpose of this slide is to really show the total budget.

This is $93,100,000 which is significantly more than what you see in a request. For the public, just so you know, these are the dollars that we don't have to ask for permission to spend. And just so you'll know that 77% of the resources that we receive actually go directly to services or contracted providers that serve DYD and the young people in the community. And then there's a breakdown of where our funds come from. Next slide please.

This slide shows the proportional allocation of DYD's resources across our service areas. Our model is designed to be a comprehensive and integrated approach including prevention, diversion, and youth justice supports for systems involved youth. To support this, a strong administrative operational infrastructure is crucial. Next slide please. On this slide we link DYD's investments to measurable priorities and outcomes.

We collect and share data regularly to track progress, identify opportunities for improvement, and measure success towards improving youth and family well-being. Next slide. So here's DYD's proposed budget request for fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven. Just so you'll know, it's really bifurcated between a large investment in facilities, support within the probation facilities and then support to sustain our existing programming. The first row incorporates the programming that supports the facility's plan of representing services, care, coordination.

And These positions are dedicated to strengthening equitable access to programming, care coordination, and youth engagement for young people in secure facilities to help improve outcomes for justice involved youth. This is a request for the first phase of the effort. The next line, we're requesting to use existing funds to support youth development networks over three years and the Our Spot teen centers over two years from our obligated fund balance. We're also requesting to expand our support for transition age youth and facilitate community engagement. That's in the third line.

Finally, we're asking for 15 positions from our base budget with funding that we already have, but I wanted indicate that that funding was already there. This request is not focused on net county cost. Instead it seeks to make a more impactful evidence informed use of unspent and underspent revenue sources in order to reduce the strain risk and cost that failing to meet the needs of justice involved youth puts on all county resources. Next slide, or yeah, next slide. Sorry, previous slide, go back, sorry.

We're requesting $34,800,000 total, which is a combination of revenue and NCC. Of the NCC, 15,800,000.0 is existing funding that we already have in our obligated fund balance. And the remaining 18,800,000.0, we plan to partner with CEO and other relevant departments to identify funding, which to the extent available would offset this NCC impact. Okay, next slide now. This is to share our plan to solve current challenges and improve sustainability.

We're working on formalizing partnerships and administrative processes while building a more structural solution for the long term. DYD is using one time funds more strategically while actively working to identify more diversified revenue sources to improve sustainability. Thank you.

Very good, okay. We're gonna go directly to, I'll go to you Catherine.

Yep,

I'll make this brief. First of all, you. I appreciate you being here on behalf of Guillermo. But I think we're gonna have to have Guillermo come back and answer some questions. I think it's important recognizing what is going on with probation because I've been out and talking to individuals about the department who work within the department.

And we've been so focused on moving staff into our camps and into our halls that our adult services side is suffering. And coming on the heels of the discussion we just had with the alternate public defender and public defender about ensuring that we're providing resources so that people don't end up back in our system. I'm seriously concerned about that and it's gone unchecked. So you know anything about what we're doing or how we're monitoring the adult services side of the obligation your department has to serve the residents of LA County?

Yeah, so supervisor, what I can say is that in dealing with the curtailments that we've had, the 8.5% and the potential upcoming, one of the things that we did is that we looked strategically at all of our operations to figure out how best to do both. So we asked the operations side of the house on the field services, both adult and juvenile, to go in, take a look, see where we could streamline services, be more efficient, make sure that we have the appropriate infrastructure to do what's necessary, but at the same time, we recognize the need in order to meet our mandated responsibility on the juvenile side. And so once again, because of the challenges that we're dealing with in terms of staffing on that side, we continue to have to redirect resources to that area. But at the same time, he is trying to do the best in terms of balancing what we have on the adult supervision side as well as juvenile.

So what percentage would you say of the overall caseload do you have? Are you in compliance with ensuring that the individuals are checking in and being monitored?

In terms of compliance with checking in, I think that most of the individuals were being seen either via kiosk and or by coming into the offices. And one of the things the Chief wanted to strengthen was our ability to do home visits, which was not something that was occurring prior to his arrival. And so that's what he's trying to do and we're looking at shifting some of our SEO officers as well as others to ensure that that is occurring.

And then to you, and thank you for that. David, when we talk about probation, probation and I know Supervisor Han is probably going to bring this up but I'm going beat her to the draw and that is the programming at our camps and our halls. Are you coordinating with probation on that side of it to make sure that when we go to visit, they're not sitting in their rooms with nothing to do?

Yes ma'am, thank you for the question supervisor. And I apologize for how fast I was trying to stay in those five minutes. Yeah, we've been discussing with Ms. Williams, with Guillermo, and with Mr. Arcos about what role DYD can take in taking the lead in the programming.

So we have been coordinating, it is our intention to create kind of a three pillared approach with the facilities work. One is to have folks that are in the facility that work for DYD that are helping to coordinate as CBOs come in and out of the building. Of course, part of that is to make sure people are where they're supposed to be when they're supposed to be there at the time, but also to help them avoid sometimes some of the delays that happen that cause them to miss their programming slot because they're in the waiting area waiting for someone to open a door or to find a clearance form, etc. The second component obviously is to increase the raw amount of programming that's across all facilities including the camps and halls. And then the last component is a new component, which would be care coordination, people that would be assigned to working with young people from the day that they get into a facility, identifying what their wants and needs are, and then having that care plan to follow them as they matriculate through facilities and into community, and having that connect to the in community providers, typically through our Reentry Action for Youth program, which is the RAY program.

But there could also be other programs involved. So we really want to look a comprehensive approach to programming And

I appreciate it, have you been well received by the probation staff at the camps and the halls?

So that's a great question. So it is at different levels.

Well just a yes or no at this point, because I just wanna Can hear I say yes

by leadership and then less so by on the ground staff in the camps and halls, if that's a fair

No, and that's what I've heard. So how are we addressing that?

I can answer part and then Ms. Williams. So we have our on the ground staff, so we've got some folks that are already placed in the facility. They're working directly with the on the ground probation staff. And those relationships are improving, although it is sometimes lukewarm at best. So that's an ongoing effort that DYD is willing to put in that work to try to build the relationships so that the programs thrive. I'll stop there and let Ms. Williams answer.

So supervisor, as David Carroll mentioned, we have been working extremely well at the executive level and we have communicated not only at the executive level, but as well as to our lower staff that we are to be supportive of DYD, the charge that you have given them, and to welcome them in terms of doing the program. Like they mentioned, we plan on meeting and having an all day summit, if you will, later part of this month to begin the transition of the programming services. The chief has supported that effort and has made it clear not only to the executive staff, but we also want to make it clear to our lower level staff that that is the way we are going.

And this is more of a statement, no need to respond, but the youth consents when there's a lack of cooperation. And I would ask our probation team that's working in our camps and our halls to recognize that the only reason we're pushing DYD to go in there is because there's been nothing. And I hope they will recognize the value added by providing these youth with the services that we've been told they're going to get that thus far have not come to fruition. And so I think it's important for us to push on the programming side and for you to advocate as though they're your own kids to make sure the service are provided. And then last but not least, more of a thank you to you, Judge Armstead, for the AV Courthouse and the opening of the AV doors.

It's made a huge difference up in the Antelope Valley. I know I've talked to families who are very grateful to have that service up there. They've always felt like the AV is forgotten and you put that as a priority. Beautiful site, I know it's being used well. And I just wanted to acknowledge that work that you've done up there.

Thank you, Supervisor.

Wonderful, thank you. Supervisor Hahn.

Thank you Madam Chair. To probation, back in December I authored a motion to make sure that all of the youth at Los Padrinos including almost most importantly the youth in the compound have access to the campus amenities like the library and the pool. And I understand that the superintendent at Los Padrinos is going to be requesting approval for funding to pay for lifeguards from Parks and Rec and to fix the broken pool heater. Is that reflected in this budget or not?

No, I don't believe we asked for funding for that. I believe that report back was due this past Monday and we're working to get the signatures and outline the costs associated with moving that effort forward.

Okay, because I think it's really important. I know Supervisor Mitchell may have a creative idea about funding lifeguards because I think for both of us, it's just another aspect of their life there and to kinda walk by this pool daily and see it not being used just adds I think a little bit of that feeling that not worth it, that we would spend the money or the time getting the pool heated and of course having life guards. And swimming lessons because we know a lot of those young people probably grew up not learning how to swim. Do you know the status of that at all? Like when do you think they'll be able to use the pool?

So we had estimated that sometime by the summer, we would have a report back to I think by May 29, we hope to have the operational costs associated not only for our staff, but also parks and recs in terms of what they would need in order to make that effort move forward. They would also need to bring in lifeguards, but then we also are recommending use of our swarm personnel who may also be certified as guards to reduce that cost,

and so

that's something that we're looking at.

I like that creative thinking, although Norma did relate to us that unfortunately because of budget limitations, she's having to reduce extended swim months, so she felt like there would be an availability of lifeguards. And it's always disappointing to me when I hear that particularly those young people in the compound don't get to the library. I think now they're once a month, and I know there's mobile book opportunities, but there is nothing like going into that library and Doctor. Skye Patrick curated that library specifically for the young people at Los Padrinos. Any pathway forward that they could visit more frequently than once a month?

I believe in the report back that should be coming out soon. They do outline the services that they currently provide. I can't recall if it's just once a month, or if they do it more often, but they I've do outline

heard once a month.

And then they said on a rotating basis, every other Saturday, I believe they also provide some services to the youth. But in that report back, it outlines the number of times the youth are available to go and visit the library and what we can do to increase it.

Yeah, well, again, the experience of going and visiting the library is different than obviously just having the books delivered to you. There's something about seeing and feeling and touching and smelling books that really insights some curiosity and some learning opportunities, so anything we can do. And I know sometimes it's staffing, like being able to walk them to and from, sometimes I know there's a coordination with the schools that is happening that they don't wanna somehow mix the lines, those going to the school and those going to the library, it seems like something you could really figure out how to make that work. And my last question to you would be what is in this budget specifically that ensures BSCC compliance?

We're not asking for any additional resources, we're asking to maintain our current budget, and I by having the vacancies that we currently have without moving forward with additional curtailments would allow us to do that. The ability to recruit, hire, and retain the staff that we have our best way of gaining compliance with the SEC.

Because I feel like a lot of the mess we're in is because of being found out of compliance. That just kind of started a snowball effect of shuffling kids around and spending a lot of our time effort answering questions and trying to get in compliance. I just wanna make sure because right now, Barry Jay is not in compliance and we've got young people there. So I just feel like that's part of our mess is being out of compliance and so I hope that's a priority for your department.

Alright. And supervisor, in response to your question on library, what we indicated is since April 2025, library staff have conducted weekly Tuesday outreach visits directly to units RNS, resulting in 134 visits, five zero five youth interactions, and four sixty six items checked out.

Yeah, they take the books to R1 and R2.

Yeah, in December they launched a monthly Saturday visit, so that's the monthly visit that wanted to mention, and to the on-site Los Padrinos library with one R or S unit scheduled each week at nine a. M. This ensures that all four units can visit the library at least once per month. And so you want to see it increase above the once a month.

I do. I do. Again, there's something about going to a library. And again, it's a county library and Doctor. Sky Patrick worked really hard and we found the funding for it. It's a really nice space. I think anything to get those young people out of the compound is necessary in my opinion. So I hope we can work with you to increase that. Thank you. Judge, first of all, you for all you do.

Your department is amazing as I continue to find out. Thank you. It's amazing what you learn in the hallway. And I apologize, and I think that's probably true though for a lot of the public, my colleagues know you do, but the dots that you connect for us in our justice system, in our rehabilitation system, in our reentry system, you connect a lot of those dots. Just was talking about visiting a facility in Long Beach where one of our young men from Los Padrinos is now living and I was so impressed with reminded me that that was a program that JCOD funds.

I was talking about the executive director there and how wonderful he was and you're like, well that's because we mentored him programs and he's one of ours. And I'm wondering, again, thank you for that and I hope this budget reflects your continual work in all those dots that really are doing the work that we want to do for our young people as they attempt to rehabilitate and reenter their communities.

Thank you for those kind words, supervisor. That is actually our goal. Our goal is to give people the equipment that they need so that they can be successful in community. Incubation Academy is one of those and the young man that you mentioned actually started off as a contractor in our office when he came to us and he didn't have a position, didn't know where he was going to go and so we contracted him because we didn't have to hire him on and he worked through that and went through incubation academy and now is doing really really well in community. But he's just one of close to 300 organizations that have gone through incubation academy and that are doing really good work and I'm so glad that you were able to see that.

Yes, I mean when I was there, and David knows because he's been there, of course we need so many more of those. The capacity that we need to build up. We ever are gonna be successful in reentry programs and rehabilitation and closing the jail, this is the piece that we need to build up and I know we're so far from building the capacity that we need. And a lot of it is how do you cite those? Sometimes we don't have welcoming communities but I must say thank you to Long Beach who's been very accepting and you have a lot of programs going on in Long Beach as well.

One of the things I was looking, one of those slides there was, I forget what percentage was for communication. And again, not everybody needs to know what you do. But there is, this is for the public, these presentations. Wondering if, I don't know if that slide was about this kind of communication, outward communication on what you do, or is it inward? You do a better job of making sure people know all the dots that you're connecting?

That's a fun question, we're trying to prioritize where money goes we're like can we get the position, do we do more communication? Agree. But to that question in our newsletter we do have 34,500, more than 34,500 subscribers, We've done over 20 community events and we moved them throughout the county, and we have second chances month coming out so we'll be in all of At the districts doing events that our annual summit where we talk about our work, each year, the last two years we've had over 2,000 people who are there, they're and from all walks of life, and we're continuing to build it. We're building up our YouTube channel, our other social media stuff. We hired a contractor to help with videos to highlight all the different programs, and so I will make sure that all of your deputies have the links if they haven't shared them with you all already so you can hear the testimonies from folks in your own districts and the work it's that they're really,

your department is quite the success. The last thing I would say is I know think supervisor Barger asked a little bit to probation about field services. Is there a role for JCOD to help probation with field services?

That is a great question. We've been meeting about that sort of consistently. One of the sweet spots for JCOD really is about care management and now with ECM, now that with your support we've been able to add three contracts for providers and we're in conversation with two other health plans. Molina is one coming up and LA Care is one coming up, we've already one that's already signed, so that will be a way to draw down revenue, but in addition to that, our care management, our workforce development and some of those rehabilitation programs, we see that when people go through our programs, there's been studies showing that their recidivism rate is reduced in the 90s, significant. So when we give people purpose and opportunity and some sort of structure and support, they become successful and we don't see that cycle that I left the bench to try to help prevent.

Like we don't see that anymore, and so we are talking about ways that we can help. We do share space right now, what they call the Rock, which is the Vermont Center from USC. There are empty probation buildings right now that we could put some of our providers that were already funding in community, walk them through, do an intake, walk them through, connect them with the care manager, and have the stuff right there. We've already seen the report that there's providers that are not being monitored right now. I'm asking for monitoring, but if we're putting them in a facility that we're managing where the providers that we can have the classes there, the DV classes, other training parenting classes where people can get a one stop shop, workforce development, housing reunification in one place.

In each of your supervisorial district, there will be a way to address that problem to make sure that there's How both make accountability and do that happen? Give me the word and let us go at it and try to get some money from probation. I

second that motion. Thank you. David, you're requesting 17 positions for facility and reentry programming. Can you elaborate a little bit more about what kind of positions those are? Will they be located within juvenile facilities And why is that a priority? Why do you think that's necessary to provide programming to our young people?

So right now we only have five people that are in facilities, and they're splitting their time between multiple facilities, so oftentimes visiting one part of the day, visiting the other another part of the day. So of those 17 positions, there would be another seven that would be assigned directly to facilities spread across the camps and the halls. Additionally, in the base budget, there are another three positions that are part of that 15 that we already have the money for. So we really wanna build up our in facility presence with the staff that we have. And one of the things we recognize to Supervisor Barger's question is that oftentimes the staff aren't comfortable being by themselves in a facility.

So it's nice to have more than one person as they go from place to place, especially situations where they may for a period of time be stuck in a specific place waiting for someone to come and open the door, etcetera. So this provides more coverage, the ability to again help to coordinate some of the CBOs as they come and go, and a little bit of duplication, even for things like grabbing something to eat or going to lunch, etcetera. So of those, like I said, seven are in the facilities, the other 10 would be our supportive positions that would not necessarily be based in the facility but would support the work that And happens in the

then 59 positions for this care coordination. Is this looking forward to maybe having DYD take the job of programming in our funeral facilities.

Absolutely, and we think that that care coordination piece is extremely important if we want to see the outcomes that we talk about. If we want to see at the end of the day, fewer young people going back system or going into the adult system. That care coordination, really working with them from day one all the way through when they go home, and then supporting them when they're in community to make sure they have the tools that they need. So we think that coordinated approach is something that we really need.

Right, well that's a big priority for me is programming, and I really would like to see us make that transition ultimately. And thank you David because I see you all the time when I go out there and you're there when I'm not there. And you've even sat through court to show the young people that you are there supporting them and we'll do everything you can within your department to support them as they're remaining in our juvenile system. So thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you so much. Supervisor Horvath.

Thank you Madam Chair. Thank you all for the presentations you've provided. I'm gonna start where Supervisor Han left off because I do believe that it is our board's vision that DYD increasingly take on the role of programming for our young people. And so I guess I'd like to understand a little bit more specifically how your budget will help you do that. And if you don't get the funding for all three of the categories of service in the plan that you've presented, for example, if you're only funded for programming contracts but not for care coordination, how does that impact your ability to do the work we're expecting you to do?

Thank you very much for the question and of course for your continued support. The truth is we can't keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. Especially with all of the two eighteen cases and other challenges that we've heard of. So it's our opinion that we need to proactively invest in what works to meet the needs of the young people that are in the facilities. While we could introduce programming and just throw programming into the facilities, without that care coordination piece, we're not going to see the outcome, we don't believe, that we want to see.

Which again, is keeping kids from going either into the adult system or coming back to the juvenile system. So we believe that that care coordination piece is really crucial to the outcomes. Not necessarily to the day to day provision of something for the young people to do, but again to prepare them for life after incarceration. So without that piece, we don't believe we'll see the outcomes that we hope to see. In terms of the budget really understanding more, there's a certain component that we believe is available that probation is already contracting with different CBOs.

Of course we want to increase that and add to it the dollars that DYD already uses for credible messenger and some of the other programming that's offered. Other components of the budget would include the care coordination piece, as well as the additional in facility logistical coordination. So I think, does that help to answer the And

I think a lot of what you described you are planning to do by contract. I know your department is a new and growing department. Do you expect ever that those services are something we provide in house, or why from a budget perspective are you choosing contracts for a budgetary reason, or why are you choosing that method?

No, with regards to the program provision itself, we believe that folks from the community are closest to the challenges and therefore closer to the problems. I'm sorry, closer to the problem and therefore closer to the solution. They are already trusted by the young people that are in the facilities. And many times they come from the same community and have the same lived experience of the young people. So we believe that empowering the community to provide those services is much more effective than a DYD downtown LA staff person coming in to provide those services.

In terms of the coordination and the oversight, those are planned to be county employees, DYD staff folks. That piece we think should be DYD, as well as the care coordination by folks with a social work background. But when it comes to the programming, we think that the community is certainly the best place to pull those resources.

Turning to JCOD, I appreciate your team's approach to our board's CareFirst commitment and your willingness to dive in and try to find ways to use your resources to the best of your ability and I know that you are building out a system, so can you talk a little bit about how you understand prioritizing the funding requests and your critical needs to emphasize maximizing direct services. I know one of the things that we've talked about and we've heard a lot about is a desire for increased diversion opportunities. And I know that requires resources but if we don't have diversion opportunities, then we kind of miss the opportunity to keep people out of some of our facilities. And also how will those priorities help you scale?

Thank you, Supervisor. So we're asking first to maintain what we have so we don't lose it, we're also asking for more funds for SNS because the money for stuff like pretrial is being cut back. We've been using those state funds and we've been told by the court it's going be cut by another $2,500,000

By the state, the state's going to

cut Yes, our

cutting the funding to the courts, we have MOU with the courts to give that funding to us, we're asking to sort of backfill some of that. It's SB 129, so we're not going to be able to hold steady. We will be asking for more funds through CFCI and then we're also trying to bring in more revenue through ECM. We finally have the contract signed. We're actually combing through all of our cases to see which ones will qualify so we can send them to the providers that we have contracts with who will be able to pull down the funds through ECM.

We're looking for as many ways to create revenue. And then in addition to that, we also are asking for compliance and oversight so that we can see if there's anything we're missing to make sure we're getting the best bang for our buck and then pulling down the data. So we're gonna have to prioritize who's giving us the best outcomes and being able to circle people that way. The reality is if our budget is cut, we're not going to be able to increase or maintain the services that we're even doing with the impact that we've been having. We've been building up and trying to maintain but we've also been taking cuts, 8.5% that you've heard, we've taken cuts and then the other money that was set aside also was swept.

I do know there's at least one other bill that the state is contemplating as it relates to diversion opportunities and who will have authority to divert and yet if there isn't a program to divert to and especially if the state is cutting our resources while they're asking us to increase our opportunities for diversion, I think we just always need to be mindful as advocates that we're asking for the money to come with authority. I agree. I know that one issue that I think this board has tried to address with your department is asking for the pretrial services staff to transition to JCOD from probation, but it's my understanding that the funding hasn't moved so of course the staff hasn't moved if you don't have the funding. So where are we at in bringing that to life between JCOD and probation? How do we make that happen?

We were told that that movement can't happen at this time so I don't know if you're able to answer more.

It's my understanding, Supervisor, that we did a walk through in terms of what services that are currently outlined by law that probation is still responsible for doing versus those that we can begin to shift over to JCOT. From my understanding, you don't have access to certain systems to do some of the work? I'm not familiar with what's the reason why it can't transition.

The physicians are vacant and I understand they're using the cost savings to fill other gaps is what I've been told. The physicians are vacant? Yeah, all the pre trial physicians are vacant. Ones that are vacant, those dollars haven't

moved over. That's not my answer. Can repeat that?

Can you say all of that again because I think we're trying to

Yeah I don't think we have the same understanding as to why it hasn't transitioned. So we probably have to go back and have further discussions. There seems to be a different opinion. I thought it was due to pending legislation that prevented them from having access to certain systems. She's indicating that it's because we have vacant positions and we

just haven't shifted it. So the positions that are vacant were not post positions, they were just general positions. So those positions that are vacant, the cost savings I understand have been used fill other gaps within probation. The positions that you're talking about was the bill that we tried to push forward that died in appropriations and assembly. A clean sweep through Senate and then it died on appropriation and that was only five positions that were running data on rap sheets that the court has backfilled to be able to do that themselves now. The rest of the positions were non sworn positions.

So I'd love clarification on that because this happens where the board has an expectation that something is happening and then somewhere it gets stuck and if it doesn't surface back up to us, we don't know why, we expect it's getting done. So that's one example. I think another for probation, the requested budget makes a reference to a self funded position for emergency management. But it's my understanding that self funding means you're taking money associated potentially for another position to provide this staffing. So are there other vacancies? It sounds like it's JCOD's understanding that might be the case here. How many vacancies does probation currently have and are you using the funding for those positions for other costs?

So yes, historically the probation department has always been required to self fund their position as, so they use existing vacancies in other areas in order to cover that cost, and so that's what we're doing with the emergency management position. And like I said, I I have I have a different understanding of what's going on with pretrial, and so we're not using any of the investigator items to fund the emergency management position. And so in terms of the Internal Affairs Bureau position, we are using existing vacancies to fund those positions and that's what we've traditionally been doing as opposed to coming to the board and asking for net county costs.

I think helping when you do that, maybe a memo to the board just around how you're making those adjustments so we understand.

All that information is provided to the CEO during the budget process.

And I think an understanding around, thank you that and I'll make sure that we're getting that from the CEO. But I also think that clearly your colleague in another department isn't clear about what some of the Agree. So there's lack of clarity somewhere and I wanna make sure that we're learning from that so can systematize how that information is flowing and we all know that the changes that we're expecting are happening. So moving to probation, how does your budget specifically reduce the need for some of the outside services? Your budget highlights cost increases at other departments that they're charging probation for.

I know one of those is obviously County Council. So what are you doing to reduce the need for services like that in the first place, and where in the budget are you accounting for adjustments you've made in your department in light of recent state and legal issues?

So I don't think, like I mentioned, the other cost for services are not necessarily that we're increasing the need. It's simply because for example, if a position has a cost of living adjustment associated with it, that cost for that same position is the same. It's not that we're asking for more services either from DHR, from county council, from ISD, it's just that their cost is more, even if we reduce or even if we maintain. And there are certain things that we cannot do. We cannot do county council services, we cannot do certain DHR services, they are required in terms of being that centralized agencies, and there are certain things that we can't do without ISD help.

So it's not necessarily a reduction in services, or where we can see where we can reduce our reliance on them. They are the identified entity that must provide that service.

It I hope that makes does. I hear you saying that it's the cost for the service itself.

It's just increasing because of cost

So you're not increasing your use of county council, ISD, any other services? No. So how does this budget account for changes that the department is making as a result of things that have come from the state or like AB two eighteen? How does this budget account for fundamental changes that are coming to the department to make sure we don't have those issues going forward?

So like I mentioned in terms of the next round of curtailment, if the CEO does pursue, the chief sat down and he worked with all the operational staff to look at how we can do things operationally different. We're looking at restructuring since we've been doing that. He's been doing that since his arrival in terms of restructuring how we recruit, restructuring some of our bureaus, how they handle the academy classes and training. We've been doing that since his arrival in terms of making sure that the department is in a better place than when we found it, in order that it's sustainable and that you don't have same type of problems that you're experiencing now in terms of BSCC compliance. But that is all contingent on our ability to self fund, because as I mentioned before, the department historically has not asked for net county costs in order to make those types of changes.

We've been doing that internally by taking whatever existing vacancies that we had available to shift to the other areas because the cost is either greater or the position is a different type of position that we don't set the salary for that's done by CEO and DHR. And so in order to do that, we achieve it through using existing vacancies and positions.

Well I'll end then with the CEO because I do think that the oversight that needs to happen in the department as a result of being out of compliance or AB two eighteen issues does require more oversight. And I know this board has directed that your office take a look at right sizing probation's budget to evaluate where they are spending their resources. So where does that effort stand? Has that been incorporated into this budget? And specifically as it relates to state allocated funds that have been unspent. How are we making sure that funding is getting spent appropriately, quickly and that we're making the adjustments that we need to have a different kind of outcome?

Thanks for the question and thank you to Ms. Williams over at probation because she has helped us a lot with aligning the funding priorities within probation primarily around state funding and the trust funds that probation has access to. So the exchange over there that they had recently, just like a couple moments ago about the reason why staffing hasn't transferred from probation to JCOD, one of the things that Judge Armstead said was that her understanding was that the vacant positions are cost savings used by the department to make up deficits in other areas. And to a large extent that's true. So probation has a misaligned budget.

We've been working with them on aligning it so we can understand better where they're spending the money and where the money should be budgeted. So they have a lot of vacancies, we know that. But the NCC funding that pays for those vacancies is also being spent on services and supplies which has a structural deficit. And so we talked a couple of weeks or two or three weeks ago about the fifth month budget status report on probation signaling an $8,000,000 deficit at year end. That's because of that structural issue.

So I think what we're trying to do right now is unwind a little bit where the money is budgeted, figure out how they're spending their money, and then from there figure out the best way to address any structural problems. If there's I

have

been asked lots of times why can't we cut vacancies and probation if we have money to provide a DYD or to provide a JCOD. We have to do that, those fundamental untanglings before we can really determine whether or not defunding positions and moving the money is going cause some compliance issues with either BSCC or the DOJ. So it's an ongoing effort, we're working on it. I just had a revised updated analysis done where we're being much more granular about how positions are funded because a lot of them are braided which makes it really hard to say this much NCC is attached to this position. But we're getting closer and it's something that I know the board is interested in and the departments are talking about so we're definitely engaged in that process.

So you think your first phase will incorporate what this board has asked in terms of that right sizing?

I think during the budget process we'll get there, we'll get closer and then the board can have a better view into the department's operations to figure out what the next step would be in terms of adopting changes to how either probation operates, what funding that should go to DYD or to go to JCOD. So I think we're getting there and hopefully by the end of this budget phase, supplemental will have a better understanding.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Supervisor Mitchell.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Couple questions, let me start with the Department of Youth Development. I see on your priorities, metrics and outcomes slide the build pathways that reduce harm and avoid the priority and the metrics and outcomes is are fewer youth in juvenile hall, etcetera. I've asked and you have stepped up to the plate to continue to do the analysis community so we can see true depopulation. So help me understand what the connection to the pathways to reduce harm and what are the barriers, what that connection is, if there is one, to the work you're doing to help stand up community based places.

Absolutely, and thank you for your question and continued support. For pre dispo youth, as well as young people returning home, community based housing can serve as an alternative to detention for those young people whose housing instability is a barrier to release. So we have continued to visit dozens of different community based placements the ones that we have the most faith in, that would provide the type of wraparound services that would prevent young people from falling back into the justice system, as well as provide a home like environment.

So we believe that that

is absolutely a pathway. We're excited about the investments that we've made, and those don't show up in this budget, and it's good for the community to know that DYD is investing in home based solutions through several non profit organizations. We're remodeling a house right now with a new way of life. We have some work that's taking place behind the scenes where DYD would actually purchase a couple of buildings and then lease those at a very affordable rate to community based providers, as well as investing in some providers that are housing young people right now that would otherwise be in facilities. So we think if we can reduce that flow of young people in the facility, that helps to free up resources for probation and for other folks all the way down the process.

So certainly working with the bench to have them aware of and supportive of those different locations is key. And we've been working very, very closely with Judge Espinosa in the juvenile court. In fact, we're co located working there to identify resources. If I can, just really quickly, the Reentry Action for Youth Program, which is a community based reentry program, has resulted in over a dozen young people being placed in community at their own homes instead of going into Los Padrinos. And that program, again, doesn't show up in the budget.

We're at capacity, we started with 200 placements, we took that all the way up to 400, and we're at capacity. We're only taking in young people right now who would otherwise be incarcerated without this program. So in our budget, there are additional placements that will be showing up. They just don't show up in the request phase.

Because they're already fully funded.

Yes ma'am.

So the work you just shared is already fully funded. Correct. Thank you very much for that, appreciate it. Let me move on to just one question, Madam Chair, maybe to probation. Thank you.

When I look at key priorities, I am clear that compliance is necessary. I'm also clear that compliance is the floor. When I then look under how we enhance public safety and you talk about rehabilitation and then the services concerned that those things weren't listed as a priority? You follow me?

No, I agree. Compliance is the floor, is the minimum that we should be providing. There are constitutional mandates that we should be doing, but we haven't been doing it. And we are continuing to struggle in that area. And so until we can at least build the infrastructure because we we do it where we gain compliance, but then we're not able to maintain it. So we're in this constant cycle of what is the reason why we're unable to gain compliance. And then like you mentioned, that's the minimum. And then we can start focusing, unfortunately, on the areas that we should be, which is rehabilitation, which is our primary mission.

Ann, I hear you and I appreciate that direct answer. I guess my heartburn is recognizing it's a little like childcare and I always said when the feds and state cut resources to childcare, was like kids don't get do overs if we cut childcare slots. That two year old isn't gonna stay two until we figure it out and then we can give them a childcare slot. So the young people that are there today, through no fault of their own that we are struggling with compliance, don't get to wait until we get it together to be able to provide them with the services that they ask for, that we know that they deserve in order to give them a shot. So I hear you and I struggle with that.

I'll just say that out loud. Under the services and outcomes, I initially got excited when I saw the eight youth earned a transferable associate's degree, then I realized I don't really know the denominator. So what's the total eligible population who should and hopefully will be in the program?

So hopefully I believe that that represents our SYTF population because they are the ones that are with us for long enough in order to achieve that type of outcome. So initially, think we had about 60 and then it grew to 90. And then right now with the pre dispo, I think it's up to 150.

Okay, so is it a resource issue to grow that number? Is it a timing issue once they?

It may also be an interest issue. So I have to go back and find out the number of youth that would like to participate in that type of program and whether or not they have an available slot

to do so.

Got it. You'd circle back and let us know because if it's a resource issue and there aren't enough slots available, I would like to know that.

Will do.

Thank you all. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I will be brief too. I have a question for probation. Overtime and staffing shortages have been identified as ongoing challenges and we've heard that time again. What's the current vacancy rate and what are the projected salary savings anticipated by the end of this fiscal year?

I want to say our vacancy rate hovers around 13 to Well no, it's probably higher than that. I don't have the number in front of me, but I think what we struggle with the most is not necessarily the vacancy rate, it's the number of staff that we currently have on our books, but are unavailable to work. And that hovers, unfortunately, around 42%. A lot of our staff are out on leave, and continue to fill a spot that we cannot hire against to allow us to do the work that then would reduce the number of overtime costs that you see reflected there.

Can you give us those accurate numbers though? If you can't do it right now, maybe give it to our Yes. And then your presentation reported 9,056 referrals to public health, mental health and DPSS. Does probation track whether those referrals result with the services and outcomes?

I'm not sure, Supervisor. I have to get back to you on that. But we should obviously track the outcome of referrals and services in order to determine how well we are performing.

Okay, think that's really critical. I guess maybe that goes to data collection and how it's entered and if staff are trained to even do that on both sides. Because I'm worried that we're doing a lot with our departments, asking them, DHS and all others to do things. But if we're just going in circles and we're not tracking it, that doesn't give us a sense of what achievement we've made and if we've met our metrics. I think that's really critical.

Even if there aren't a lot of referrals or if there are, again, what's the result of all that and the time and money spent on that? And that also goes I guess for the other two departments here because I'm very concerned and wanna hear more about that. But you can get back to me on that. What is the projected timeline for further reductions in the juvenile hall population and how are cost savings being reinvested in community based alternatives?

The timeline for the reduction. I think there's often a misunderstanding. Depopulation. The depopulation plan is not an alternative to incarceration plan. The depopulation plan was to reduce the number of youth held in Los Padrinos and shift it to other parts of the facilities, to other facilities in order to better serve them by grouping them by their needs and so forth.

I think maybe that's where we have a miscommunication too with the board because I think, I'm not speaking for everybody, but I know for myself, the whole effort was try to depopulate overall because all these issues and challenges came forward and we found that we needed to have partners out in the community as well as in the institution. So get it, you have to start somewhere, but I think the overall goal is depopulation and what that means, all those mechanisms.

Yeah, the primary responsibility of probation is always to look for the least restrictive placement for all the youth in our care and custody. But the Los Padrinos De population plan was always to move the youth out of LP, bring down the number of youth housed there so we could do a better job of staffing.

But it was also about getting them into services.

Especially the pregnant. Population was not just shuffling them around, it was about really drilling down on how many of them could be safely released.

And they continue to be released. Determine who can be released as opposed to stay in our care and custody.

I think that's the analysis that's missing here as we move forward. I I know we have a deficit, but again, if we're really trying to meet, what our goals are toward getting the state, the AG's office and BSCC to understand what we're doing. Think there has to be another, point here where we need to emphasize that maybe. And getting back to us on that I think could be helpful. When the probation chief comes back, he can tell us what that plan is.

I wanna move on to JCOD. I know you all have been doing a lot. I've had opportunity to see a lot of what you've done on the ground and I appreciate that, Judge. I know that of the 125 direct and four seventy indirect contacts currently overseen, what kind of performance metrics are you using to determine contract renewal or any corrective action?

The answer is it depends. If it's CFCI funding, there's a process that there's some concern. They're notified, they a period of time to correct. If they do not correct then eventually the money is pulled and it goes back into a pool and it's divided amongst their cohort so then other people in that group would get a little bit more money modified in their contract. If it's for within our department, it's a similar process so they're monitored to the best of our ability.

Obviously we need more support in that place and it would depend if it's a fiscal concern or if it's a programmatic concern. If it's a programmatic concern, then our program staff, they work with the organization to try to correct if they're able to correct it. If they're not able to correct it over a period of time, we give them a period of time to correct or modify, then that contract is pulled and then those individuals, we did have to shut down I'll just give you an example. We had to shut down one of our houses for women, and so we divided those women into other facilities, and then we expanded other contracts to be able to provide the same number of housing that's for women and children. So I guess it really just depends on sort of the program. If it's case management, then we would move from that case management. So it depends on the program and how it's funded, it's through a grant or through a direct contract.

So I guess looking at a compliance mechanism so that you catch that or any red flags that come up are gonna be really critical as we move forward because funding is so limited.

100%. I I think data and compliance is just key to making sure that we're successful because all we need is one bad outcome. People will say it doesn't work and we don't want that so we try to catch stuff as early as possible. It becomes more and more difficult if we don't have the support that we need.

Right, and in your presentation you stated that JCOD saved over 60,000 individuals last year.

Served, yes. How do

you track that and long term outcomes, particularly recidivism? It depends. When we talk about stuff like pretrial, we are using data. We finally have the MOU with the CEIO now so we're grateful about that Our staff is hand counting really, so they're looking at the cases, seeing if the person has new arrest, if they have any failures to appear, for instance for pretrial we see that it's something like ninety seven percent they don't have failures to appear and it's something in the 80s where they don't have any new arrests which has been really, really great. If you're looking at something like our case management program, it's been around a lot longer.

On that program, we have outside reviewing organizations that are required for the state because we use Prop 47 funding for that in addition to general funds as well, and so on that we've seen that there's been a 96% reduction in recidivism through the case management programs, so it just depends on which program, we have different, and then something like RDP was also monitored by an outside agency as well and they were able to see that the reduction in recidivism was quite, it's about 96% did not have new cases after three years.

That sounds great and all I would say is the board would certainly want to see the data on that because I know I've heard that from recipients that you've served and it's kind of wow, people don't fully understand or grasp that. So I think having a story around that is really critical.

I'll do is I'll have the team put together a report that just shows you the data that we have. We do it in individual reports, but we'll try to compile it in a single document for you guys. It'll be easier to digest.

Right, thank you. So with youth development, these will be my last questions. Given the identified challenge of heavy reliance on one time and limited funding and partner funding, which is limited, what plans do you have to stabilize the core youth justice diversion programming?

Thank you very much for the question. Supervisor Saleesen, again, thank you for your board support. There are a few new funding sources certainly that DYD is exploring, not necessarily related to diversion. Currently our diversion program is pretty healthily funded through the JJCPA funding that we receive, specifically just for diversion. A lot of our in facilities work to this point, not including this massive expansion, has been pretty well funded through the JJRVG funding, which is the funding that the county received when the DJJ, when the statewide facilities closed.

So that's pretty well funded. For some of the other operations, certainly there is a concern. CFCI is another pretty healthy funding. So we are looking at the Cal AIM program for an additional funding source. We are in very strong contact with our partners at the state, with OYCR.

They have identified some funding streams that are statewide that they believe can help to facilitate some of the wraparound services that DYD provides, either through Department of Rehabilitation or some of the other state funding that's available for young people that are coming out of facilities. So we are actively looking for new funding. It started about a year ago, to be 100% honest with you. We saw the writing on the wall where we were starting to reach capacity for the amount of funding that we have. So we are very hopeful that those additional funding streams will help make up the gap and create additional opportunities.

We're also really looking at leveraging partnerships with other county departments to where we can pool our resources together. Namely, we're working on some pilots with DCFS. We mentioned the Parks and Rec conversation earlier. I'm looking forward to having conversations with libraries. So different departments where maybe we can share resources to reach a common goal and a county's goal, quite frankly.

Right. I'm really interested in seeing more happening with the transition age youth and housing using Cal AIM perhaps and other resources because that's where we are failing. And I know that that is an area that is hard, but it's one that is so needed. And if we don't somehow address that in a meaningful way, we're gonna continue to see the recidivism continue

And in the to budget, there's one line item. Specifically to address TAE youth, it was on the budget spreadsheet, was roughly $2,800,000 as we look to strengthen that transition age youth that we do. And that is a concern because those young people are 18 by definition, and unless they're involved in the justice system, we don't necessarily have the resources that we can use for that population.

And you're interlocking with DCFS on that?

That's exactly what we're in conversation with.

I'd love to see what that plan looks like, just more elements of what's there. And then just lastly, I continue to want to see how we're tracking our youth when we either look at diversion programming within the last twelve months. Where are they going? Are they going to a job or are they going to a workforce investment program? Are they getting a GED? Are we able to track what this success shows or doesn't show?

I'm sorry.

Go

ahead. That's at various different levels and I apologize for interrupting. The diversion work, we certainly have a more sophisticated system where we're tracking the progress of those young people. I think I've presented on some of the evaluation and we do a dashboard that comes out. With some of the newer programs, the reentry program for example, and some of the work in facilities, we are building an evaluation system that will help to provide that type of feedback. We have lots of anecdotal feedback at this point, but we're looking forward to telling the story with data and with stories.

Right, and I think that's just gonna help all of you moving forward, especially JCOD as well so that we can get more philanthropic and other types of funding that we haven't even been able to establish ourselves with because we need a record of success. So thank you very much for the presentation.

Supervisor, in response to your question regarding our vacancy rate, we're currently at about 28%. And then those on leave and restrictions at about 35%. And therefore, what we have in terms of available people at about 47%.

Are we making any progress? Because I know we hear this quarterly. Unfortunately. We'll have more conversations And about

then, Supervisor Barger, with respect to caseload, our adult core average caseload is $2.98 to one with 177 DPOs assigned. Our AB109 average caseload is 96 to one with 142 DPOs assigned. Very high load.

Okay, thank you very much, panelists. And then we'll transition now, thank you, to our next panel. And that leaves us with the executive officer. We'll call up our next speakers.

Madam Chair, we will now hear from Anthony C. Marrone, fire chief, and Doctor. Ode C. Ukpo, the chief medical examiner. For the departmental speakers, please state your name and the title for the record when you address the board.

Thank you very much for joining us. We'll hear now from our fire chief, Anthony Maroney. Welcome, fire chief. You're on. You have seven minutes.

So good afternoon, madam chair and honorable board I appreciate the opportunity to present the overview of the fire department's twenty six-twenty seven proposed budget. Our mission is to proudly protect lives, the environment, and property by providing prompt, skillful, and cost effective fire protection and life safety services. Our mandatory and major duties surround fire protection, emergency medical services, and lifeguard services. The department's current fiscal year twenty five-twenty six final adopted budget is $1,800,000,000 and includes $1,500,000,000 for salaries and employee benefits, $2.00 2,000,000 for services and supplies, and $118,000,000 for capital assets, equipment, other charges. As a dependent special district funded independently from the county's general fund, our two main sources of funding are special district taxes and department fees and charges for services.

Next slide please. This slide presents our budget breakdown by program areas. The majority of our budget, 75%, is for public safety and and emergency response. 19% of our budget is for administration, facilities, infrastructure, and asset management. The remaining 6% is for permitting, licensing, and regulatory compliance.

Next slide, please. The department continues to focus on three key priorities: implementing the important changes recommended by McChrystal after action review, enhancing public safety and EMS services, and vehicle replacement. The McChrystal AAR implementation includes enhancing our common operating platform and making communications system enhancements, continuing with our computer aided dispatch replacement project, and implementing new automatic vehicle location hardware and software, increasing training and coordination with key public safety departments, and deconflicting policies and procedures. For enhancing public safety services, we are adding 45 new firefighterparamedic post positions by converting 15 engines from three person to four person staffing but not in our contract cities, creating a permanent training cadre of six fire captains and adding 11 new firefighter paramedics for our advanced practitioner response units, purchasing three new helicopters to replace our aging aircraft, and expanding the prehospital blood transfusion program from 11 paramedic squads to 23 paramedic squads. To date, forty seven patients have been transfused during the last ten months, and the pilot program has saved lives.

We also remain committed to our ongoing vehicle replacement plan for all emergency vehicles exceeding 20 years of age. Currently, 22% of our engines and trucks need immediate replacement. Next slide, please. For fiscal year twenty six-twenty seven, the district is requesting a budget increase of $10,200,000 including six additional positions to support our key priorities. Two additional fire captains and two additional firefighter specialists for Catalina Island, one nursing instructor to support the prehospital blood transfusion program, one staff assistant to support air operations, 800,000.0 for departmental operations, including funding to implement the advanced automatic vehicle location system that will provide more accurate vehicle tracking and reporting during emergency incidents.

The district continues to face multiple budget challenges and pressures, including revenue uncertainties. Property tax revenue, represents 68% of the fire district's budget. It is impacted by many external factors outside of the district's control, and this may limit our ability to absorb inflationary pressures on the cost of goods and services and to fund other critical needs. The department is also facing increasing workload and operational costs driven by an increased demand for services. Climate change continues to create longer and more destructive fire seasons, and Zone zero AB 3,074 will also greatly increase our inspection workload once implemented by the state.

In addition, our workers' compensation liability continues to strain the fire district's budget. Approximately 86% of our budget is salary and employee benefits, including two forty three million dollars in workers' compensation liability. We currently have three thirty nine employees out on injury, which represents 7% of our workforce. However, this is a 10% reduction from last year when we had three ninety three personnel off on injury. We will continue to work with the CEO and your board on our cost reduction and revenue generating strategies to ensure the district can cover all long term financial obligations and be prepared for future disasters.

Our current cost reduction and revenue generating strategies also include fee increases to cover increasing costs, and Measure E funding will help address some of these challenges. Measure E is estimated to generate $152,000,000 per year, and we are preparing the second year Measure E expenditure plan for your Board's approval by 06/30/2026. Thank you and I'm now available to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you. Now we'll hear from our esteemed medical examiner, Doctor.

Ode Okpo. Thank you Madam Chair. Doctor. Ode Okpo, Chief Medical Examiner. The mission of the medical examiner's office is to champion timely community awareness to causes of premature, sudden and unexpected deaths in order to inform targeted preventions.

This is our true purpose. Our core duties include cause and manner of death determination, preservation of property of the identification of the decedent, and notification of the next of kin. Next slide. Our total appropriation for fiscal year twenty five-twenty six was $69,300,000 You can see that the net counting cost accounts for 92% of that. We have very limited revenue generating opportunities, which include gunshot residue analysis and also services fees from mortuary services that we provide to assist families.

And so very limited funding, no state or federal funding other than one time costs to buy equipment and things like that. Next slide. If you think of our work in a program sort of concept, we have four that I would like to describe. The first is death investigation and family services. These are investigators who go out to the scene and investigate the death.

They also are responsible for identifying the decedent and also notifying the next of kin. Forensic medicine and photo support services are what people think about when they think about our work of examining bodies in order to determine the cause and manner of death. These include our physicians and the technicians who assist them. Forensic science and evidence service programs include our criminalists who do the testing for toxicology and also process evidence at scenes. Lastly, departmental operations and support services programs.

This essentially is our admin services. And the support services would be our team, for example, in IT. Next slide. So these are our priorities. One is to surpass the accreditation standards as delineated by the National Association of Medical Examiners. It's the strategy to surpass the goals rather than to just meet them and pass. We were fortunate to, after almost ten years of not having full accreditation, to gain that back. So we want to make sure that we sustain that. We want to empower communities to affect, and I would also like to add effects. Both effect and effects change that save lives.

An example of this is the reduction in fentanyl deaths that we've seen over the past couple of years. We will also look to reduce response times. This anything from if a family calls our office and there's a long time it takes for them to get ahold of somebody, getting a report from us, notifying the next of kin. So this covers a lot of areas that involve staffing and leveraging IT to help us do better in the services that we provide to the community. Next slide.

These are the budget requests for twenty six-twenty seven. We're requesting $20,600,000 in NCC. The first priority is forensic medicine. This includes our doctors, but also pathologist assistants, which is a new position that we're trying to bring to our department. And to give you a sense, there's about 20 to 30 doctors graduating per year in the country.

We want to make sure that we have a vacancy available to hire them whenever they come across. Compliance officer this is for quality assurance to make sure that we are following all protocols and also giving the best delivery to families and to have someone as a lead compliance officer to say, We can do better here and this is how we haven't been. Disaster preparedness. This would be the senior disaster specialist. This individual will be our liaison in the event of a disaster.

Personal property support for a supervisor to set up processes to make sure that we get all the property from Adecine back to the next. Next slide. Challenges, facility capacity. Our office is the busiest in the country. New York has about nine thousand deaths per year, and they have a staff of eight sixty. We have approximately twelve thousand deaths per year of a staff of two seventy three. We are going to do our best with what we have. We're not going to surrender to that. We're going to reinvent our work spaces to create workflows that obviate space needs and permanent crypt expansion that we need. Disaster preparedness, we have an expert.

We don't have the disaster specialist, but we were going to make a mass fatality plan and have continuity of operations plan, concentrate and enhance on core functions, do SMART goals, make sure that we're doing things that make sense, and have the courage to leave when they're not. Madam Chair, I yield.