Good afternoon and welcome to the Almee County Board of Supervisors Personnel Administration and Legislation Committee meeting for Monday, May the 4th, 2026.

Yeah, real cold, please.

Supervisor Fortunatabas present.

Supervisor Tam.

Present.

We have a quorum.

Thank you.

May have instructions on participation.

Thank you.

Sure thing.

For all participants, please state your name for the record prior to your presentation.

If you wish to speak on an item not on the agenda, please wait until Supervisor TAM calls for public input on non-agendized items.

Only matters, but then the committee's jurisdiction may be addressed.

To notify the clerk you wish to speak for in-person participants, please fill out a speaker card and hand it to the clerk for online participants.

Please use the raise hand function for dialed in participants.

Please dial star five to use the raise hand function.

Dialing in again allows you to lower your hand.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

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

Good afternoon.

You've got Emily Bacet Silva here and John Assini as well.

Um the House and Senate are both in recess this week, so it should be a pretty quiet week.

Um the House in particular uh voted on uh a number of big bills last week, but they will both return to Washington um next Monday.

You know, I feel like we've been talking about uh FY26 funding for the Department of Homeland Security uh for a couple months now, and finally that 75-day shutdown ended last week.

Um the House ultimately passed the same bipartisan bill the Senate had previously approved, which basically funded uh the department with the exception of um ICE and uh CBP.

Um, you know, that prolonged standoff that I know we talked about numerous times on PAL, centered on disagreements over whether to fund those two agencies through the regular appropriations process or through reconciliation with Senate leadership ultimately prevailing on moving it through reconciliation.

So the Senate has started that process, and um the expectation is that a separate three-year funding bill uh for those two agencies uh will now be taken up as a standalone reconciliation measure when the Senate returns um next week.

Uh the House also passed the budget resolution last week to begin this reconciliation process.

If you remember, the Senate passed the budget resolution uh the week prior.

Um and of course, that that is what unlocks uh the actual reconciliation bill.

In addition, the House passed its farm bill.

Um, and I know uh, you know, we had talked about that the House farm bill a good bit.

You know, it did not include any language to reverse uh the SNAP cuts enacted under the budget record reconciliation bill from last year, HR1.

Um, the bill's path uh was complicated uh through the House last week, and there was uh quite a bit of kind of fits and starts.

Weren't sure that uh House Republicans would even find the votes for passage.

Um disputes around pesticides, disputes about um E15 fuel um and just a number of amendments.

And so, you know, there is no guarantee that the Senate uh will the Senate will not take up this House pass bill.

The Senate would mark up its own bill, but um there's not even a guarantee that that will happen um, you know, in the next few months.

And then the other big bill that the House passed last week was the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Section 702 FISA.

That was reauthorized for just a 45-day extension.

Um so uh the House and Senate will need to reach some sort of agreement uh before the next uh within the next 45 days um in order to fund a or to authorize a long-term uh FISA uh bill.

Um, John, I'll turn it over to you to talk about kind of the issues that will be coming up once they return uh in May.

And you know, any any comments you want to make on the the big bills that passed last week.

Uh thanks, Emily.

I don't have any additional comments for the uh bills that were passed out of the House last week.

Um for the next couple of weeks when Congress comes back in session, uh, they will have a number of items that will have to be addressed.

Um, first and foremost will be the completion of the reconciliation 2.0.

This is the bill that will be unlocked by the budget resolution that was agreed to by the House and Senate last week.

Um, it will be the vehicle for the ICE and CVP funding, which will largely extend uh federal funding to those two agencies for the remainder of the Trump administration, essentially taking them off the table for the remaining funding fights um next year and the subsequent years.

Um additionally, there's discussion of a reconciliation 3.0 that could potentially carry um Iran supplemental funding, but that prospect has run into significant snags on both the how the Republican and the Democratic side.

Umly because if a reconciliation 3.0 bill would have to go, it would likely have to have offsets and those offsets would likely come from popular um programs, including the Medicare and the Medicaid program.

Um, and they are trying to jam other things into reconciliation 3.0 that they were unable to include in this most recent budget resolution that could include the Save America bill, but that runs into significant issues because of the Senate's bird rules and budgetary constraints around that bill.

Um and then outside of that, uh, we'll continue to see progress on the uh subcommittee markups and full committee markups, um, at least in the house on the FY26 or FY27 rather appropriations process.

Um and then finally we'll see um additional uh legislative activity on trying to get FISA reauthorized beyond the 45-day window.

Um, but there continue to be some pretty hard uh objections from uh various factions in both parties and both the House and the Senate on trying to get that over the finish line um with uh some very conservative Republicans and more liberal Democrats um essentially joining forces to come uh additionally constrict um the ability for the federal government to surveil um U.S.

citizens without a warrant.

Um but those are kind of the big ticket items that we're going to be seeing in the near future.

Um the other thing that I'll just mention before we open it up for questions is now that the House has passed its version of the farm bill, it gets kicked over to the Senate.

Uh so conversations may start on the Senate side, but in conversations that we have had with Senate um staffers, there doesn't really seem to be a whole lot of activity going on between the majority and the minority staff.

There's a rumor going around that the House bill will get picked up by the Senate and they'll use that as the base bill, but that has some pretty considerable um challenges on the Dem side who would like to see many of the changes made uh in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act um be reversed in a farm bill.

Um, and then potentially other changes that would not pass muster with the Republican-controlled House and certainly not the White House.

So we will uh continue to see them duke it out uh in the Senate.

Thank you both for that um update.

Um Supervisor Poach and not bounce questions or comments.

Um maybe just one clarification.

I think the last time we met um we asked about and uh you all answered that there isn't movement in terms of ICE or CBP reforms.

Is that still correct?

Yes, because um the Republicans went through the reconciliation route.

That's essentially a funding bill.

So none of the uh reforms that were proposed by Senate Democrats were incorporated into um the budget resolution, and they likely will not be incorporated in any budget reconciliation bill.

Now we haven't seen those bills get drafted yet, so maybe putting the cart before the horse a little bit, but uh the reason why they went through the reconciliation process in the first place was to avoid having to uh legislate through the appropriations process, any reforms that were requested by Democrats.

Thank you.

And is there is there another vehicle like um, you know, a separate bill for the immigration reforms?

Specifically for ICE or CBP.

I mean, Congress can always pass an authorization bill that would make those necessary reforms.

Um the likelihood of those moving through a Republican House and Senate are next to zero, though judiciary chairman um uh Jordan is not interested in making any changes on his side, the Homeland Security Committee uh is also not interested in moving forth any forward any democratic um proposals to make those changes.

And there's no incentive um for Republicans to make those changes without this funding um uh carrot kind of out there.

So Congress can always make those changes, sure, but the likelihood that they move that forth in a Republican control control Congress is very, very low.

Emily, I don't I don't know if you have anything to add on on that topic.

No, I mean, I agree there could be, you know, um individual bills that would uh that have been introduced, but though but the Republican majority in the House will not move them, nor would the Republican majority in the Senate.

And so that's why they moved the reconciliation route to fund CBP and ICE so they could avoid it.

Appreciate that update, such that it is.

Thank you.

Um on those lines, uh so the DHS funding goes through September of this year.

Um, but it doesn't include ICE and uh border patrol.

So that would be considered for the following fiscal year.

And then in the meantime, what happens to uh those two agencies?

So those okay.

Go ahead.

Go ahead.

You got it.

So that those two agencies would be funded through the end of the Trump administration.

And then Congress would be responsible for passing regular appropriations for the remaining fiscal years.

So uh the Secret Service, CISA, which is the cybersecurity agency, FEMA, they'll all have to go in the Coast Guard, which are agencies that are non-ICE and CBP within DHS, they'll all have to get funded through the regular appropriations process, while ICE and CBP will have their funding secured for several years into the future.

And and remember there was quite a bit of funding included in HR one last summer for ICE.

And so that's right.

So that's kind of funding them now.

And then as John said, this next reconciliation bill they're attempting to pass would be three years worth of funding.

Which would not happen without the Democrats' desire for the reforms that were discussed for the last at least 75 days.

Um actually for they're using reconciliation so that they don't have to worry about the Democrats' demands.

So those reforms that have been requested, Republicans don't even have to address in this reconciliation process.

They will simply include funding.

Okay.

Um can you um give me an idea of what you think the composition would be like given um the Supreme Court ruling on the voting rights act.

Um, and then obviously with some states like Louisiana postponing their primary election.

Uh do you expect pretty much the status quo in terms of the margin, or is it gonna shift in this midterm because of what happened with the voting rights acting?

I don't think we know just yet, quite frankly.

Um, you know, with Louisiana, uh Republicans could gain one seat, but I still think there are some others that we just don't know, John, right?

I mean, we're still not sure what's gonna happen with Virginia, Florida.

I mean, there are so many.

It's unclear um what the ultimate balance of power will be.

The immediate reaction from some of the southern states have been to immediately redraw.

Um Louisiana v.

Cala um directly impacted the state of Louisiana.

So uh as you noted, Governor Landry has indicated his intention to redraw those maps.

They could lose uh Democrats could lose both or one of their minority drafted um seats.

It's unclear which map they're going to settle on.

The state of Alabama um has also indicated their intention to redraw their maps.

Um there are currently two Democratic controlled seats under the VR that were drafted because of the VRA that could be eliminated.

Um the state of Tennessee, there's one Democratic controlled seat um that represents Memphis that may be drafted that may be drawn out.

Um essentially they cut the city into four different parts and then diffuse the vote.

Um, the Democratic vote that's there.

It's unclear if Tennessee will call a special session in order to move that map through, though Senator Blackburn, who is currently running in the state of Tennessee to be the next governor and will likely be the next governor, has called for the assembly to join a special session so that they could pass that map through.

The early estimates that I have seen so far.

New York, Colorado, Illinois, and Maryland all have the opportunity to redistrict before the 2028 presidential elections, which would allow for a rebuttal essentially to anything that our Democrat or Republicans would do in the Southern states.

Now, the thing is, of course, is the significant lack of representation for minority communities in the 11 Southern states as the congressional as the CRA or C Voting Rights Act, rather, the VRA significantly weakened after last week's ruling.

Okay.

Thank you.

That's not uh very optimistic, but that's my perspective.

Okay, appreciate that.

Are there any uh public comments on the federal legislative update?

There are no public there are no public comments on this update.

Okay, thank you both.

Um let's move to the state legislative update from Fullman strategies.

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

Uh last Friday marked the policy committee deadline for all non-fiscal bills, which now shifts our attention towards May 14th when we hit two major milestones of our session at once.

Uh the appropriation suspense files will be dispensed with, um, which is where each committee releases the bills that have been held on their respective suspense files.

And of course, we are anticipating the release of the governor's May revise budget proposal.

Um, our activity remains steady with our committee meetings uh this week, many subcommittees meeting and policy committees will kick up again next week.

Um, status of two uh bills that we have been uh monitoring, uh SB 1400, the county sponsored measure is now moving to consideration on the Senate floor.

Um, we're working with the author's office.

It may be taken up later this week.

Of course, we will provide a full update.

It is not a fiscal measure and therefore it has been referred um directly to the floor as part of the process.

Secondarily, SB 1193 was um heard last week.

This is a measure that was opposed by your board.

The Senate Local Government Committee uh unanimously moved the measure out 7.0 um as amended.

The amendments were put into print uh earlier today and are linked in your PAL report.

Uh similar to 1400, it is not a fiscal measure and therefore it's not required to go to the appropriations committee.

It will go straight to the Senate floor for consideration.

Uh, as noted, the budget process is beginning to um we have AB 108 being heard tomorrow in the Senate budget committee.

It's actually a current year budget bill, so for 25, um, and it's allocating 25 million dollars in grant funding for distressed hospitals.

So that will be heard and reported out to the floor um within the coming days.

Uh, we're also linking a new report that was released by the legislative analyst office, um, which presents a fairly clear assessment about the state's increased spending by about roughly 100 million billion dollars, excuse me, since 2019.

Um, and noting that revenues have not kept pace with the expansion of spending.

Uh, and so it's resulting in uh projected structural deficits of 20 to 30 billion annually over the next several years.

Um, they do note that much of the spending is not being driven by new discretionary programs.

Instead, it reflects the rising costs of maintaining existing services, including caseloads, um, and particularly in education driven by proposition 98.

It accounts for a large portion of that increased spending.

Um, obviously, this is important information as the governor prepares for his May revise coming out sometime next week.

And as we've talked about, there are several revenue measures that have qualified to appear on the ballot, uh, including the billionaire tax.

And then over the weekend, it was announced that the extension of proposition 3055 also qualified for appearance on the November ballot.

Um, and um, we noted that when the Senate uh released their budget plan, it did include a revenue um as part of their solution as well.

The LAO does not, you know, propose a specific revenue, but they do note that if a revenue measure were to go forward, you actually need a revenue measure that wouldn't garner just 20 to 30 in the structural budget deficit.

You'd actually need one that would be twice that to account for proposition 98.

So really you would be looking at a revenue measure that would cover 40 to 60 billion dollars.

Um and so obviously lots of big decisions ahead for policymakers as they contemplate the budget and when the May revise is released.

Um on Wednesday, May 6th, we're going to be joined by Anika Shadry, the director of Alameda County Health, um, who will join us in the Urban County Caucus members for an HR one lobby day.

During the visit, we will, of course, meet with members of our Alameda County delegation and help uh provide some local context about the impacts of HR1 and hopefully um make sure that our delegation clearly understands some of the constraints the county is facing and hopefully informs their view of what they see in the May revise.

As we know, the time between May revise and budget enactment is incredibly truncated.

So it's great that we're meeting with our policymakers prior to the release.

Um, as we have before, because a couple of things qualified will also include our uh full moon strategies ballot uh tracker so that you can see um the different measures that have qualified to appear on the ballots.

Um it is becoming quite crowded and a very robust election cycle.

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

Supervisor Fortunata Bass questions or comments.

Um thank you so much, Amy.

Um I am I did hear a little bit about the committee meeting uh regarding uh Senator, Dr.

Senator Wahab's bill.

I don't know if there's anything more to share.

I um heard about the amendments and look forward to getting uh the language over email.

But is there sort of any context to share regarding that meeting?

Um, just that I think the committee staff worked really hard as they often do with the author's office to put forward the amendments that we'll see in print.

Um I would say that the amendments um really drastically changed the definition of discretionary funding in the bill.

And that was something that the author's office worked on with committee staff.

Um generally, I would say the tone and tenor of the meeting, uh, many of the members were concerned about transparency and so seemed aligned with the stated intent of the bill.

While this might not have been our uh official position because our, you know, our our official position was opposed.

Um there were some comments as we discussed the bill regarding um such a bill uh being applied to all 58 counties in the state.

Was there any talk of expanding it beyond Alameda County to make it a statewide bill?

Uh that's a great point, Supervisor.

I would note that the chair, Senator Durazz mentioned that she had in mind while they were crafting the amendments with the author.

It was important to her to have something that could be replicated statewide.

Uh, they didn't state that intent, but the chair clearly said that was part of her thought process in developing the amendments of the bill that is in print now.

Okay.

And let's see, it's gonna go to the Senate floor and then where um how will it be taken up on the assembly side?

Thank you.

Yeah, so then it'll go to assembly rules committee and they will determine the committees that have jurisdiction and it will be assigned to the relevant committees in that house.

And because the amendments are just in print, it does have to get to third reading before it's able to be taken up on the Senate floor, but that should happen in a couple of days.

Uh, and then it's up to the author's discretion when they have a bill heard on the floor.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um we've been going through some meetings earlier last week on um obviously the backfilling of uh the cuts that are expected from HR1 using measure W funding and uh the um Alameda Health Consortium had um also sent a letter to the state, uh, particularly with some aspects of HR one that they want to make sure is protective of the federally qualified health clinics.

Do we have any early indications on you know what might or might not be likely to get backfilled with the May revise in light of you know the tax um not coming um I guess it's it's more optimistic than we had thought it would be.

Um I guess it's it's more optimistic than we had thought it would be.

Yeah, that's right, Supervisor.

I think we are seeing the trends of the revenue coming in above what was projected in the governor's budget.

I think what's difficult about that is many are probably driven by the tech sector.

And there's a question about whether or not they'll really be long-term revenues.

Um, and so I think there could be some reprieve in the budget year for certain programs.

Um, it just may not be ongoing.

Um, and of course, as we know, um, it's budget year, there are obviously impacts of HR one, but they're really much more pronounced in budget year plus one.

And so if those revenues aren't kind of keeping pace into those future years, um they're gonna have a structural deficit that they're gonna have to address in the absence of revenues, which could also happen.

Okay.

Because uh this um came to mind when you said that uh since 2019 we've seen an increase of a hundred billion dollars in request, and that our revenue hasn't kept pace, so not quite sure like how do you uh smooth out that volatility when it comes to what you you just mentioned revenues primarily coming from the tech sector or just the top few percentage paying for the income taxes that the state generates.

Um so we won't know basically until we find out next week or so.

Yeah, and I will note in the LAO report that I brought that is interesting, is one of the fastest growing areas of the budget has been and continues to be the Medi-Calgram.

Um, and so that's where we're seeing kind of this outpace where um the expenditures are you know really outgrowing the revenues.

Um, and there've been some hearings about it, and some of them are things that we would all expect, which is things like pharmaceutical costs have really increased pretty significantly in the last several years um within the Medi-Cal program, and frankly, you know, for everyone.

Right.

Okay.

I appreciate that.

Um I don't have any other questions uh with respect to the other two bills.

Do we have any public comments on our state legislative update?

There are no public comments on the state legislative update.

Okay, thank you.

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

We do not have any public comments.

Thank you.

Thank you everyone for your participation.

This meeting's adjourned.