Good afternoon and welcome to the Alamade County Board of Supervisors Personnel Administration and Legislation Committee meeting for Monday, April the 6th, 2026.

May I have a roll call, please?

Supervisor Fortunato Boss.

Present.

Supervisor Town.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

Can you go through instructions on participation online and in person?

Sure thing.

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Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Let's start with the federal legislative update from CJ Lake.

Thank you, Supervisors.

You have John Asini here from CJ Lake.

Starting off with the schedule, the House and the Senate are both out for the Easter recess this week and will return to Washington the week of April 13th.

So next Monday.

Last week, uh President Donald Trump announced that he was firing Attorney General Pam Bondi and replaced her with the Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is a former uh Trump attorney in the private sector.

It was reported that President Trump grew frustrated with Ms.

Bondi over her slow handling of the Justice Department cases targeting her political rivals.

Her departure also comes amid bipartisan criticism related to her management of files connected to the Jeffrey Epstein case.

The House Oversight Committee had subpoenaed Ms.

Bondi to testify on those files, but her exit uh could complicate that effort.

Chair James Comer, who is uh the chair of the Oversight Committee in the House, said that the committee will consult the Department of Justice officials before deciding uh what their next steps are going to be.

Some Republican senators uh have planned to or have planned to urge Mr.

Trump to nominate Senator Mike Lee, a Republican from Utah, to serve as the attorney general.

And there's been uh some internal scuttle, but that the uh administrator of the EPA, Lee Zeldon, is also on the short list uh to potentially serve as the next attorney general.

Um Bondi is of course the second cabinet official dismissed this year, and yet more may follow.

Many believe that uh the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard is also uh potentially next in line to be fired for her position.

Uh the FBI director, Cash Patel is also uh rumored to be removed, as is uh Department of Labor Secretary uh Lori Shaves to Reimer could also be replaced because she has been in hot water over a number of different scandals over the past year.

Though these are all all unconfirmed reports, so um, like many things in the Trump administration, it could uh happen not at all and then all at once at the same time.

Um, outside of the personnel issues that are facing the Trump administration, the Department of Employment Security remains shut down uh for the 51st day.

This is now the longest agency shutdown in U.S.

history.

Additional pressure on Republicans eased slightly after President Trump issued an executive order extending paying to all DHS employees following earlier emergency pay for TSA staff.

So this includes funding uh for FEMA employees, SISA employees, uh, and the Coast Guard.

House Republican leaders plan to wait until next week when they are back in session to act on a Senate pass bill that funds all of DHS except for ICE and CBP.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and Speaker Mike Johnson are pursuing a complex party-like reconciliation strategy, possibly using several bills to fully reopen the department.

The first reconciliation package, which is being talked about as reconciliation 2.0, would provide multi-year funding for ICE to CBP with Trump demanding passage by June 1st.

The Senate hopes to pass a budget resolution by the end of April with reconciliation instructions for Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, though Chair Rand Paul could pose challenges.

This is very similar to the issue that we had last year when they had to go around Mr.

Paul and had to put uh the Homeland Security provisions through the budget committee, which is chaired by Lindsay Graham.

Um Senator John Thune said today that he plans on bringing a budget resolution to the floor by the end of April, which would initiate the reconciliation process to fund ICBP and other uh immigration-related agencies in order to meet that deadline.

Uh I will say though, that there are a number of obstacles that will uh likely face um before they get to final passage, namely in the House, where Speaker Johnson faces several angry conservatives and a very razor-thin majority.

Many House Republicans refuse to support the Senate bill until they see details from the Republican reconciliation plan, and they oppose separating ICE and CBP from the rest of DHS through the regular appropriations process and want to go through that instead of go through reconciliation.

Leadership intends to argue that the funding doesn't require offsets since it qualifies as standard appropriations, which will uh hopefully for their purposes ease passage of the bill without potential offsets from other parts of the government.

Democrats, of course, largely have been sidelined during this fighting um and have uh otherwise supported the Senate passed measure by opposing Republican efforts to uh fund ICE and CPP through the reconciliation process.

Um, and many uh progressive lawmakers in those competitive districts may vote against both the Senate bill and the reconciliation package, citing the lack of reforms to immigration enforcement agencies.

Uh in addition to the uh action going on at CVP last Friday, uh President Donald Trump released the FY27 budget proposal, which calls for a $2.2 trillion in discretionary spending.

Uh 1.5 of that would be for the defense request alone.

Uh and the budget request also calls for a 10% reduction to domestic programs.

Um this includes 1.1 trillion dollars in base Pentagon funding through the regular appropriations process, and then $350 billion in new mandatory defense spending.

They're also uh eyeing a potential $200 billion supplemental to the war in Iran, and this is separate and distinct from the $1.5 trillion uh defense ask.

The push on the defense side is the single largest increase since World War II for defense spending and features funding for um about 85 new F-35 jets, 65.8 billion dollars for new ships, and a 7% troop pay increase for enlisted soldiers.

Um, through to advance this plan through Congress, the budget shifts a significant portion of defense dollars into mandatory spending outside of the discretionary process, which would allow Republicans to potentially bypass a Senate filibuster and go through the reconciliation process, which is a partisan um procedure.

On the domestic front, um the FY27 Trump budget proposes reductions to most domestic agencies, including 13% cuts to interior, housing and urban development, and to health and human services, along with a 2.9% reduction to Department of Education.

Um, and also proposes a path to elimination of the agency altogether.

Environmental and clean energy programs would lose about $15 billion, while immigration enforcement would see a $28.5 billion increase, and the Department of Justice would receive a $4.7 billion increase.

Um overall Democrats, of course, blasted the budget as a politically toxic and unrealistic, accusing Trump of getting essential domestic programs to fund the war effort and defense expansion.

Um Trump insists that new anti-fraud measures led by President Vance would eventually balance the budget through improper payments in 2025, only totaled about 186 billion dollars, which is of course a fraction of the 1.8 trillion dollar deficit that the plan could projectly increase.

Um there are a number of programs that the county relies on that have been uh completely eliminated.

These, of course, uh focus on anti-poverty and community assistance programs.

So the budget does uh call for the elimination of LIHEAP, the CSVG program, the CDBG program, the home investment program, and the CDFI fund.

Um, though, because this is just a budget request, most of these things, if not all of them, will be returned through the regular appropriations process and will not see a significant cut.

Um, in addition to many of the programs within HHS and um HUD, uh, there are also cuts to infrastructure spending as well, including a $2.5 billion reduction to the clean and drinking water state revolving funds, the elimination of the billed transportation program, and then deep cuts to the essential air service.

Um there have been similar proposals uh in the past, and they've always been returned by Congress.

But I'll stop there and happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Thank you.

Supervisor Fortunato Bounce.

Questions, comments.

Thank you, John.

I don't think I have any questions.

I don't really know what to say about this proposed presidential budget.

Thank goodness we at least have some form of checks and balances, such that it is with the uh with Congress.

Thank you.

Yeah, we're both shaking our heads.

Um as you said, some of these have happened in other administrations, especially like CBDG funding, but it does get returned.

But obviously, the shift in priorities of moving away from safety net programs and funding in order to fund a war effort that is highly controversial is still something we're we're not comfortable reconciling.

Ounty, frankly, of our country.

But um, having said that, um I I'm not quite sure what to make of the fact that um we have this stalemate with DHS.

So, what will happen with uh the TSA funding?

Because I think uh the president's executive order was to provide for back pay, right?

But prospectively, does it still rely on uh passage of the funding for DHS after the shutdown period to move forward with additional funding?

So this does pay for back pay.

There isn't a current plan in place for additional funding to be moved around within the DHS like pocket uh bucket of money prospectively.

So Congress still needs to act to pass some sort of DHS uh funding bill so that TSA and other non-ICBP agencies within the Department of Climate Security could get paid prospectively.

Otherwise, the Trump administration would have to issue a subsequent executive order to again cover the costs of the salaries of those affected by the ongoing partial government shutdown.

Okay.

I I mean, uh if he could just do an executive order, why didn't he do that earlier when before all these TSA workers were having to go into food lines?

I would say uh that's a political question rather than a question of will.

I think that you know, if I'm going to speculate, that they wanted to increase the pressure on Democrats to break, and they were using TSA agents and other federal employees as leverage.

Okay.

The political gains we played with people's lives here.

But thank you for that update.

Uh, are there any public comments on our federal legislative update?

There are no public comments on the federal legislative update.

Okay, we have a request from our social services agency to some more support and submit a letter requesting programmatic funding for the workforce innovation and opportunity act, and this will help with uh providing compliance through the navigation that's going to be required with the new HR1 requirements on workforce and having this navigation service through our workforce board is important.

Do we have concurrence on that request?

Yes, absolutely.

I do have one question.

Um, and perhaps uh Johnny might be able to answer this.

What is um what is the potential likelihood of achieving this budget requests and increasing funding for this program?

For yeah, so we're still pretty early in the appropriations phase.

And I think truthfully, the ultimate fate of WIOA and other domestic programs are going to largely be dependent on the midterm elections.

Um in order for this bill to pass or any sort of appropriations bill to pass, they'll have to first do a continuing resolution to get past the September 30th deadline.

Um, then that will likely bring us to some time in either November or December, so November and after the midterm elections, and then likely into December.

And then depending on what the balance of power is going to be, then we'll see what the FY27 appropriations process is really going to look like.

Um, if Republicans take both chambers, they'll have kind of the status quo, what it looks like now.

But if they lose a chamber, then those appropriations bills are going to be redrafted.

So to say what the impact will be in this immediate fiscal cycle is a little tough.

And then additionally, um any package that comes out of the House is going to be pretty different than what comes out of the Senate because of the bipartisan nature of the Senate.

So I think that it's critically important for us to weigh in on the appropriations process and what our delegation at any phase of the process, um, regardless of what the ultimate outcome will be.

Thank you for that.

And yes, this is the right thing to do.

So I will make a motion to advance this request to the full board.

Second the motion.

Supervisor Fardanata pass.

Aye.

Supervisor Down.

Aye.

Motion passed.

Thank you.

Uh on the state legislation update.

Uh, before we go with that update, I am um going to continue SB 1193.

Uh, so that we have some more time to do some due diligence.

I'll continue it for one week to the next uh PAL meeting.

Okay.

Um so we'll start with the legislative update from full month strategies.

Good afternoon, supervisors.

Jael Dent is here with Fulham Strategists to provide an update on your state legislature.

Uh quite a slow week uh last week, you know, and uh uh the legislature reconvened today from the spring recess.

The legislative activities has already started to ramp up with a quickly uh with all the deadlines approaching already.

So this week we see uh some of the policy committee and uh also subcommittee hearings are resuming.

Uh we anticipate that uh this month will be quite busy due all these policy committees uh giving so give so much of the bills that were introduced closer to the deadline and uh many uh uh which were spot bills onto last week.

The assembly and Senate, they have now three weeks to consider about 920 measures uh by the end of the month.

Uh we see right now 256 in the Senate and the 600 and the 64 on the assembly house.

Uh good news among all these bills is that uh Delamida County is sponsored bill as B 1400 by Senator Aragin is scheduled to be heard on the Senate local government committee on April 15th.

We anticipate another hearing the health committee later this month as well.

In the Senate, we have the Senator Aragin as our our author and the senators Grayson and Mick Nerney as co-authors of uh of the measure.

Uh we remembered that uh a huge interest on the ballot measures and uh you know uh honestly right now we have a 38 uh initiatives uh on the 2026 pipeline out of the uh out of all this 38 measures.

We have the three measures already on the ballot, another five measures that have been submitted to uh uh signal a signature gathering, and about 27 uh that are in the process to signature gathering.

We added we added to our report a full tracker of all the initiatives in circulation right now, and uh also uh some key deadlines for the ballot initiative uh process for this year.

Uh for this week, we wanted to highlight a few very important uh subcommittee hearings.

Uh, you know, we're going to have sub three on human services that we'll uh cover today, some portions of gender affirming care, and uh also the state responses to HR 1.

Uh and the later this week we got to do some uh deep dives into the Calfresh program and uh some other health and human services programs uh of a high interest of the county.

Uh by the end of this week as well, we are going to share full notes from this hearings with the county.

Uh, with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you for that update.

Supervisor Porchano advanced questions or comments.

Um, thank you.

No, that's uh a great update on the bills that are moving forward as well as the potential ballot measures.

Um I trust that you're in touch with our staff as well if it makes sense for us to have a presence in Sacramento for any of these hearings.

Correct.

We are in full coordination with the the county staff right now, supervisor.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um you know when we'll have uh a preview of the May revise.

Well, it'll be we have a budget work group meeting scheduled, I think in a couple weeks, right?

I would assume that early May, the Senate and Assembly, they might release the first reading and release their first priorities uh to start the negotiations, but if that wouldn't come early May, uh it's still pretty early to have a response from both houses.

What are they going to be treating as a priority?

But it will ensure it is documents as soon as they become public.

Thank you.

And may revive go ahead.

Oh, sorry, and that they may revise a schedule for May 14th.

So more to come on that.

Um we should have a better idea how the state may be with um the HR1 impacts and cuts.

So this is actually oh, sorry, Supervisor, go ahead.

No, you were freezing.

That's the reason on our screen.

No, so sorry for that.

I don't know if that's on our end.

So uh this is exactly why it's important.

This hearing that we will have today on the state responses on HR1.

I do believe that by now we might have some projections on you know the state responses.

Uh, until last week was unknown, you know, like how much they they state would be able to backfill.

And uh we are working with some uh of the county associations, for example, the urban counties to express you know the priorities for Alameda County uh and the other counties as well.

Uh at this point, uh we worked with the county staff as well to submit some letters to our delegation uh highlighting all the programs for the Alameda County Thank you very much.

Um do we have any public comments on our state legislative update?

There are no public comments on the state legislative update.

Thank you.

So we have a request, a number of legislative um positions and activities.

The first is a uh request from social services agency for a budget allocation of 8.3 million to provide one-time general funds for the CNA workforce initiative.

Um the second is a opposed position requested by our county child support service department for AB 195 to maintain the enforcement tool for child supports.

The third is a request to support AB 1643 to amend the sections of the family code relating to child support um and also the fourth is a request to support SB 1264.

It's a notice of death would be for child support obligation from our child support services department.

Do we have concurrence on these requested positions?

Yes.

Do we have any public comments?

There are no public comments on these legislative positions.

Thank you.

Okay, I'll make a motion to forward uh the following items one, two, three, and four to the full board.

I will second the motion.

Supervisor Fortunato Boss.

Aye.

Supervisor Tab.

Aye.

Motions passed.

Thank you.

Do we have any public comment on items that are not on today's agenda?

There are no public comments on um non-agendized items.

Okay, thank you.

Hearing none, this meeting is adjourned.