Good afternoon and welcome to the Almy County Board of Supervisors Personnel Administration and Legislation Committee meeting for Monday, March the 9th, 2026.

May you have a roll call, please.

Supervisor Portonona Bath.

Supervisor Cam.

Present.

Thank you, Mark Oran.

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Thank you.

Thank you very much.

We'll start with the federal legislation update from CJ Lake.

Thank you, Supervisor.

You have John Asini from CJ Lake, and I believe Emily is also on the line listening in.

To start off us on the schedule, the Senate's in session this week and the House is out of session.

Both chambers will return to DC next week.

Republicans are out at Durrale this week for their policy retreat.

They are gathering at Trump National Durrale in Miami for their three-day retreat to plan the midterm election strategy.

And essentially hoping to mirror Donald Trump's 2024 success.

But of course, the context has shifted dramatically as the U.S.

is currently embroidered in a war with Iran.

The Department of Home and Security remains unfunded amid a third government shutdown and former DHS Secretary Christy Gnome was recently ousted after some uh major controversies last week.

Despite the turmoil, House leadership is outwardly projecting confidence to its members about retaining their slim majority and discussions will center largely on refining their campaign messaging and exploring a second reconciliation bill that will be focused on housing and health care, but with only a two eighteen to two fourteen majority.

Speaker Johnson faces a very steep challenge in passing partisan legislation.

And there isn't really any uh direction from the White House on what they would want to see on a reconciliation bill, nor is there really any policy push coming directly from House committees on what could be included in another partisan package.

This has only been further complicated by the shortening legislative calendar uh over the course of the year uh and the lack of support in the Senate.

Um, the White House is expected to request tens of billions of dollars in supplemental Pentagon funding, um, which will likely dominate the retreat agenda.

And many Republicans want to expand that package to include other items, including additional farm aid and disaster relief funding, which could spark tension with fiscal conservatives that would like to see that attained to just defense spending.

The retreat also serves as a chance for the party to confront internal divisions and balance election year strategy, legislative ambition, and competing spending priorities.

And we do anticipate um some sort of clarity coming out of the retreat, but sometimes they don't often uh are able to reach some sort of consensus.

Uh on the Senate side, um, the Senate is continuing to feel pressure from President Trump uh over the Save America Act.

In a truth social post on Sunday, Trump declared that he would not sign any legislation until the Save America Act was passed by the Senate.

Um, this bill was passed by the House several months ago.

Um, Trump also demanded that several addition provisions additional provisions be added to the measure beyond requiring photo ID and proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections, including uh significant curbs on mail-in ballots and a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Um, of course, the Senate would have to change the filibuster rules in order to pass the House measure.

And so far, Senator Thune and uh a good number of his members have been unwilling to do that.

Uh, there currently is not support within the Senate Republican conference to change filibuster rules, and they don't see this as really the opportunity to make such a rule change, especially considering the slid majority in the House and the real lack of legislative agreement in the Senate.

And generally goes against the general ethos of the Republican Party when it comes down to states' abilities to carry on their own elections.

Outside of the Save America Act, the Senate will likely be taking moves to confirm Senator Mark Wayne Mullen to serve as the Homeland Security Secretary.

Though that is not being happening this week, it will happen sometime in the near future.

But they do anticipate a quick confirmation for the Senator as he has been able to get the uh support of many of his Republican colleagues and at least one Democrat John Fetterman who have already voiced support for him.

Of course, last week, um Department of Homeland Security Secretary Christy Gnome was fired from her job alongside uh Corey Lewendowski for uh a series of controversies over the past couple of months as her tenure and a lackluster performance before um the Senate uh and the House committees on judiciary and Homeland Security, respectively.

Um we do anticipate uh that the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs will hold a uh hearing for Mr.

Mr.

Mullin in the near future, and then he'll be confirmed um by the Senate in short order.

Um in addition to uh the uh ongoing controversies around the C DHS and the Save America Act.

This is having an impact downstream uh with other uh bills that are currently being considered by the House and the Senate.

Um this week, the Senate will continue its work on a sweeping housing package, um, the Road to Housing Act.

Um senators are using the House Passed Housing Bill as a vehicle for their own version of the legislation.

Um this is being drafted by Tim Scott, who is the chair of the Mencking Committee, and Elizabeth Warren, the ranking member.

The bill, which has seen overwhelming bipartisan support on the floor uh in procedural votes, and they will continue those uh motions this week.

Scott and Warren released a substitute amendment titled the 21st century Road to Housing Act.

So it's combining both bills together on March 2nd.

Um and the Senate voted last week 84 to 6 to limit debate on the motion to proceed on the underlying House bill, and then 90 to 8 on uh to advance the measure to the floor.

Uh, though all is not uh well, of course, because things in Congress often do get complicated.

Um housing uh the financial services chair rather on the House side, uh French Hill on Friday warned that the Senate uh warned the Senate that the House is not ready to back the 21st Century Road to Housing Act, growing interchamber tension over housing policy, and suggested that the two chambers may need to go to a conference committee to reconcile the differences on the bill rather than the House simply accepting what the Senate has passed.

This marks the first time that Mr.

Hill, as chair of the Financial Services Committee, raised the prospect of a conference fight since um since this tenure.

And then finally, I'll just leave you uh with additional action on the farm bill.

Um last week, the House Agriculture Committee passed the 2026 Farm Bill by a bipartisan vote of 37, 34 to 17 after a 20-hour markup, considering over 100 amendments.

Several adopted amendments carried implications for county governments and residents, including some changes to the SNAP program.

But uh, despite the progress, the Farm Bill faces significant path to enactment with hurdles including a narrow partisan margin in both chambers, disputes over previously addressed in the 2025 reconciliation bill, and of course, the election year politics that I uh described earlier in this report.

Um, so we do not anticipate any additional action and certainly not any action from the Senate at this time on the farm bill, but we may see additional action on the farm supplemental, but that will likely fall outside of the STAT program like other programs that they can't be relies on.

Umily, I'll just hold it, hand it over to you in case there's anything that I may have missed or any initial detail that you'd like to provide.

Otherwise, I'm happy to answer any questions.

I think you got it, John.

Thank you.

Cool are we waiting for Emily?

Okay.

She said that she didn't have any additional items to cover.

Thank you.

But having said that, appreciate that update.

Any comments or questions from Supervisor Fortunates.

Thank you for the very thorough update, John.

I was wondering if you could just sort of play out what it might look like in terms of DHS funding, given where things are right now.

You know, what are some scenarios for what it might look like going forward?

Is it just going to be votes on specific funding for parts of DHS going forward?

If you know, if a continuing resolution on DHS or some type of resolution isn't put forward, that's viable.

So at this point, uh there really isn't a clear path forward on DHS funding, unfortunately.

And Senator Britt, who is the chair of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Appropriations is also in conversations.

But as it stands now, there hasn't been any significant breakthroughs.

One of the items that I will mention though is that T D TSA has had a number of sick outs, uh, which has caused some significant um wait time increases for people trying to get through security at airports.

Um and we do anticipate that that will only increase as time goes on because they will be continuing to miss additional paychecks.

Um we are now reaching week three of the DHS shutdown.

And of course, TSA is one of the agencies that is significantly affected by that in ways that ICE and CVP are not.

Um but as it stands now, there have not been any significant breakthroughs between Senate Democrats uh and the White House on a potential off-ramp on DHS funding.

Um with the firing of Christy Gnome, um, you know, many believe that that would be sort of uh an off-ramp opportunity now that they'll go to bring in some other people, including Mr.

Homan, um, to essentially dictate terms.

But now that Mr.

Mullen is being nominated to serve as uh DHS secretary, it's going to provide an opportunity for senators to question him on how he'll be different than Mr.

than um Secretary Gnome on um executing the president's priorities related to immigration and other items.

Um so as it stands right now, uh the Senate does not have an off-ramp on trying to fund DHS.

Um, and of course, the you know the House has already passed their bill, so it's really just between the White House um and and set of Democrats.

Emily, I don't know if you've heard anything differently, but I think we're just in a holding pattern until we're not at this point.

Yeah, that's right.

And you know, some folks were asking me earlier about it, you know, we're at least going another week since the House is in recess.

Um, but to your point, I just don't see um right now kind of the path out.

And do you know when the confirmation hearings will be for the new or the proposed DHS secretary?

So that we can also start hearing what his plans are.

I don't think those have been scheduled yet.

Okay.

And then um in regards to what's hot what's happening in Iran, so the war powers act in both houses uh did not pass.

Um I read that at least in the Senate, they're going to potentially continuing scheduling resolutions and to force hearings on uh the war.

Is that also what you're hearing?

And how might that um kind of affect what's what's in play in Washington DC as it relates to all of these different priorities?

So uh terms of the war powers resolution act, they both failed in the House and the Senate.

So we likely will see we might see some additional votes there, but in terms of uh authorized use of military force, the AM AUMF.

Um the that vote has not yet been scheduled, and it's currently unclear whether Democrats and Republicans will kind of come together in the same way that they came together during um the Iraq war.

Um the big vote that will be coming though will be on the disaster supplement, or not the disaster, the Iran supplemental.

So outside of the authorization side of the ledger, it's really going to be at the funding question.

And that's going to be the next big vote.

The White House is requesting 50 billion dollars in exact and additional aid to the Defense Department to help the war effort against Iran and purchase additional munitions.

And it currently is unclear how much support that will get in the in the Senate or how much support it will get in the House.

But I do anticipate that that will be a significant point of contention for Congress to deal with over the next couple of weeks as OMB and DOD pull that supplemental together.

Emily, I don't know if you've heard of additional authorization votes or AMF votes that they plan on taking up, but I've heard more about the supplemental question anything else.

Okay, if Emily's saying anything, you can't hear her, but if you can hear her, John, let us know.

Okay.

Thank you for those responses, John.

Okay.

Um I just had one question.

You had mentioned the passage of the farm bill and that there were amendments to SNAP.

Are there any of those amendments impactful other than already has happened with HR1?

Uh not immediately, mostly because they won't be going anywhere.

Um essentially, the farm bill will likely not see additional action, um, certainly not out of the house.

They may try to bring it up for a floor vote.

Um, I can send you a list of amendments that were adopted uh and incorporated into the committee.

Um, but as it stands now, action on the farm bill just seems like a pretty distant possibility.

The Senate is barely talking to each other when it comes to a reauthorization of the farm bill, so we don't anticipate additional action there.

But if it's helpful, I can send uh kind of an overview of what changes were made in the STEP program.

Thank you.

I guess sometimes government stalemate does work some in our favor.

Um are there any public comments on our federal legislative update?

No public comments.

Okay, uh, let's move to the state legislative update from full moon strategies.

Good afternoon, Amy Costa with Full Moon Strategies with your state legislative update today.

Uh last week marked the beginning of uh the policy committee process for bills that were introduced for this year.

Some bills have begun to met the 30-day in-print requirement and are therefore being scheduled for their policy committee hearings.

Uh, this is a crucial time for departments and agencies to review our weekly uh bill report and let us know um about any impacts some of this legislation may have to the county or of course county residents.

Um, we have another lawsuit report.

Attorney General Rob Bonta uh has joined a multi-state coalition to defend contraceptive access against Trump administration regulations.

As we've reported before, our state's attorney general Rob Bonta has entered several lawsuits on behalf of the state, as well as joining some multi-state coalitions.

Uh, this past week, he joined a coalition of 22 attorney generals in filing an amicus brief in support of Pennsylvania and New Jersey lawsuits against the Trump administration's 2017 and 2018 regulations.

These regulations, which expanded religious and moral exemptions, um allow some employers to limit or deny employees access to no-cost contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

The coalition argues that the regulations place a financial burden on individuals, especially women of color and those with low incomes, while also deepening health disparities in the country.

The brief stresses the harm these regulations have already caused and reducing access to birth control, which could be further exacerbated if the regulations are upheld.

Attorney General Bonta remains committed to ensuring that reproductive health care decisions are made by women and their doctors, non-employers, and is urging the third circuit to affirm the lower court's decision to strike down these rules.

We're also beginning to see some of the reports issued by the legislative analyst office be released that take a deeper look at the governor's proposed budget.

One report of particular interest.

Last week, the legislative analyst released a report analyzing the county administration impacts of HR1.

We will link to the report in our PAL report.

And specifically they focus on the impacts of two large programs, Medical and CalFresh.

The LAO report highlights changes to the eligibility processes under HR1, particularly the introduction of community engagement or work requirements, which are obviously expected to lower program enrollment.

And they point out that counties are responsible for ground level administration of both Medi-Cal and CalFRESH, largely accounting responsibilities focus on eligibility determination and redetermination of eligibility in these programs.

The LAO emphasizes the critical role of counties in managing things such as the error rates in CalFRESH and mitigating potential financial penalties associated with the pair the payment error rates.

They also recommend that the legislature direct counties to report on the drivers of some of these errors and provide strategies for management.

The LAO also points out that counties are essential to preventing disenrollment in the Medi-Cal program.

The report suggests omating certain processes to reduce disenrollment due to administrative burdens and proposes that any additional funding to address this burden be temporary until the full impact of HR1 is better understood and fully known.

Lastly, the LAO calls for a revision to the Medi-Cal budgeting process to link funding more directly to county workload as the current method lacks the clarity needed to assess funding adequacy for our local administrative costs.

Also, last week, the legislative analyst office released their Medi-Cal analysis.

And this is where the analyst takes a deeper look at the governor's proposed Medi-Cal budget, focusing a lot on trends and program spending.

Medi-Cal serves roughly 14.5 million Californians.

Growth in managed care capitated rates, pharmacy costs, and Medicare-related payments, as well as shifts towards higher cost populations, including seniors and those with disabilities.

The report highlights these per case amounts as the main driver of cost and general fund growth in the budget, a point counties need to examine closely, given that some of these caseloads will be shifted down locally.

Again, we won't include the full report for your review in the PAL report.

Lastly, a couple of political updates.

He cited timing, financial consideration, and family priorities as a key factor in his decision.

Calderon said approaching the filing deadline, which was March 6th, required him to be honest about staying in the race.

His announcement comes on the heels of Rusty Hicks, chair of the California Democratic Party, urging some candidates to consider consolidating the field, warning that a crowded Democratic primary could split the vote in an elections data model by elections expert Paul Mitchell.

He estimates right now there's about a 25% chance that the two Republican candidates could advance onto the general election.

Lastly, Full Moon Strategies has put together a 2026 ballot initiative tracker, which we will link.

As you know, it's very crowded.

Lots happening in the initiative world with many in circulation and some already qualified.

For the 2026 election cycle initiative proponents must submit the required number of verified signatures by June 25th in order to qualify measures for the November statewide ballot.

And as you know, campaigns begin to collect the signatures and are approved, we'll update this link and encourage you to look at some of the initiatives that will have impacts on county policy and fiscal impacts.

And then of course, in the initiative process, as sometimes happens in June, policymakers sometimes reach agreement with initiative proponents and actually do it through the legislative process versus the initiative process.

So we will keep you updated on those updates as they become available.

With that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

That's a very informative report.

Supervisor Porto Now to Bass questions and comments.

Yes, thank you for the report, Amy.

Thanks for sharing the ballot initiative tracker.

So signatures you said are due by June 25th.

When would the Secretary of State certify those ballot measures?

That's a great question, Supervisor.

Let me get back to you because there is, as you will recall, a process for them to actually certify the number of signatures and often campaigns will go above and beyond to make sure that signatures are valid.

It's all laid out in the law, so we can get that too, and we will report out after the meeting on when that deadline is.

Thank you.

Appreciate that.

And then as you know, we are very concerned about revenue for a number of our safety net services and in particular our public hospitals.

Are you hearing much about advocacy for state relief for our public hospitals in particular?

A request that I understand the California Association of Public Hospitals to be bringing forward.

Yeah, two updates here, Supervisor.

One, um, the uh uh CSAC, the uh California State Association of Counties, along with other county affiliates, is meeting and they're going to be putting forward a proposal within the next two weeks for the full breadth of HR1 impacts, which will of course include our public hospitals.

Secondarily, um, as we've talked about, um, there are uh a number of interested parties within each of the democratic legislative caucuses on the issue of revenue.

Um, the two that have been gaining the most traction include one, which is a tax on employers that have a high number of their employees in safety net services, sometimes referred to as the Walmart tax.

Secondarily is one that's known as Water's Edge, and that's a corporate tax that models the a federal and it has to do with you know where uh your taxes are generated at the water's edge or within state.

Um, and then lastly, our understanding is that uh on Wednesday, as CIU and a couple labor partners will be launching a coalition specifically around revenue measures.

Um, that'll be on Wednesday.

So we'll have a little bit more detail on maybe what particular policy measures they're pursuing once that is announced on Wednesday.

Thank you so much.

Please keep us posted.

The Walmart tax that's being carried by Assemblymember Mia Bonta.

Is that correct?

I know that she is a proponent of it.

Um, and I'll look and see if she's introduced that though.

Thank you.

And I'm also interested in hearing more about the water's edge proposal when you have more information.

Appreciate it.

Sure, thank you.

Um can you uh help me just clarify the report you had about the LAO's office uh recognizing that there's an administrative burden from implementing HR one, especially on like the CalFresh program.

Are you saying that they are recommending that there would be um funding support for the administrative burden that is going to be imposed, at least for the upcoming year, or is that something that they just identified as a whole host of issues to consider.

Thank you for the question, Supervisor.

They did identify the key role counties play in administering these programs.

And as we've talked about before, under HR1, there are um provisions if states have a high error rate.

Um, currently California, it has one of the higher error rates, and so it would actually impact the amount of funding received for CalFresh.

The LAO notes that since we are the entity uh as a county responsible for determining eligibility and errors, we really have a key uh role in helping bring down that error rate.

Um, secondarily, um they note um that right now, although the administration has said they're working with counties to understand the administrative cost, the governor's budget does not include any additional funding for some of this um administrative burden.

Um, and I think importantly, they point out in MediCal that um the current way administrative costs are determined within Medi-Cal is probably insufficient given this added workload required for counties under HR1.

Thank you.

Appreciate that clarification.

Um let me move to uh any public comments on our legislative update at the state level.

There are no public comments.

Yes, and I will move to recommend this request from AC Health to the full board of supervisors.

Meetings adjourned.