Welcome to the Alameda County Board of Supervisors personal administration and legislation committee for March 24th, 2025. May have a roll call please. Supervisors for to not all bass. Excuse. Supervisor Tam. I'm present. This is a clarification I was informed by County Council that since we don't have a quorum, there's you know two people on board committees but we still have these meetings because we they're typically updates and we move to the full board any agency recommendation and legislation. So is anyone on the line that can help advise me on whether we should just kind of just continue to proceed as we have or Amy Scott. Hi, I, uh, Scott Dickey, Assistant County Council. Um, you can proceed the way that you have been. Historically, the public committee has moved things to the forebord without taking formal action if there were not enough people for a quam. Quorum is two. And the presentations or the items are taken basically as informational presentations and no action is taken but you can continue to get your reports from the federal lobbyists and the state lobbyists and raised the questions about the items that are intended to go on to the board but just take no action. Okay, thank you for that clarification and opinion. Appreciate that very much. So will you will continue as we have and we'll start with the federal legislation update? Good afternoon Emily Baccate,, to silver here with CJ Lake. I think as we told you last week, both the House and Senate were out. And so it was a quiet week on the Hill. They're now both back in session this week. And this basically kicks off a three week long session for both chambers leading up to a two week Easter recess, which will begin Friday April 10th or excuse me, Friday April 11th and they'll come back on Friday April or excuse me Monday, April the 28th. A big focus now is reconciliation. With FY 25, completed earlier March with the passage of the continuing resolution, Congress is set to turn back to the reconciliation process. And as you remember, basically the House and the Senate each passed a different budget resolution, but they need to agree on the contours of a budget resolution and they both need to pass the same budget resolution in order to give instructions to committees on how to move. And so, you know, the House budget resolution included a minimum of 1.5 trillion in spending cuts and 4.5 trillion in tax cuts. And remember the Senate basically took the approach of doing a skinny budget resolution. They were thinking they would do two different ones. And so all they focused on was additional funding for defense and border security plus energy policy changes. And in general, the Senate has said, okay, House, we will, we understand that you want to do this big, beautiful bill, but we don't like everything you've included. So they are starting to work on an agreement on a compromised budget resolution with an expectation that both chambers can take it up prior to that Easter recess, which I talked about, which starts on April 11th. So they have kind of, I think kind of two weeks weeks to figure it out because in that third week, they would take it up, assuming they can stick to that plan. And again, once we see the contours of what a final kind of budget resolution looks like, that will include the instructions to committees to draft the legislative package. You know, one of the things we are tracking is the fact that the House Bill had told, or the House Budget Resolution, had directed the Energy and Commerce Committee, which authorizes the Medicaid program that they had to come up with $880 billion in cuts. And so even though it didn't specifically call out Medicaid, it has been assumed that everyone is talking about is that those cuts have to come from Medicaid because energy encounters can't find really anything else at the magnitude of those cuts. The Senate has objected to the magnitude of those cuts. So we will be following closely in terms of what kind of those final numbers look like that the committees have to find to cut. So that's what's going on with reconciliation. And now that they have wrapped up FY25 appropriations, people are starting to focus on FY26 spending. Many offices have already set deadlines for program and project spending requests. We expect the president's budget request to be sent to Congress sometime in April. The House and Senate appropriations committees will then start setting dates for their individual subcommittee markups. And I think we talked about this last Monday. But you we're already starting so late, the new fiscal year starts on October 1. And so we anticipate at least a continuing resolution to get us into the fiscal year. But they will start the markups of their bills and likely we'll start to see a focus on FY 26 after the Easter break assuming that they're able to make progress on reconciliation prior to that recess. That is our report for this week and I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you very much for that report. And obviously tracking the $880 billion cuts and the implications of Medicaid is going to have very far reaching concerns for the state and the county. So appreciate you're tracking that. Last week, the buzz around our area when representative Latif assignment came back to basically report out was the concern over the closure of the Department of Education and what that means. And so there's a number of speculation on whether or not school lunch programs where the summer will be cut whether you know what does that mean for the student loan for disabled students and other issues do you have any insights on how what that means nationally and then how it like a funnel through to the state and the county. Yeah, I mean, I think the short answer is we don't know yet. They are talking about SBA, the Small Business Administration, kind of taking over the loan portfolio. But in terms of kind of the other programs, I just, I think it's too early to to know just yet. But we'll let you know as as it becomes more clear. I do know that the administration cannot just abolish a department. And so it does have to be taken up by Congress. And I do know that in fact, I think Senator Cassidy who chairs the Health Committee has said that he will introduce that legislation. But to your specific questions, we don't know anything yet. I appreciate that clarification. Are there any questions or comments from anyone online or your no speakers? Okay, Harry Nguyen, let's go to the state legislation update. Good afternoon, Amy Costa with Fullman Strategies with your state legislative update. I'm to start with a series of budget updates. Recently, the Department of Finance released their March Bulletin. General fund revenues overall were actually up above forecast by about 2.3 billion in February and 4.6 billion above the year-to-date estimates. One of the drivers of that is higher than expected revenues from personal income tax, obviously a volatile revenue source, which was 1.1 billion or about 22% above forecast in February, and about 4% above the fiscal year-to-date forecast. I think of note for the county though, is that sales tax receipts are down. Obviously that's an important revenue source for the county and sales tax receipts are about 3.9% down against forecast in February and about 1.1% down a year to date. I think folks are worried that the federal tariffs could impact sales tax revenues even further. Additionally, Senator Wiener, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee, released a letter to Senate members that is notable because traditionally, these have been what are known as member requests where members are able to put in requests specific for their districts into the respective budget chairs for consideration. Instead, he has really narrowed that and asked members to only put in issues that are up statewide concern. Those are due actually on April 1st for consideration, both by Senate leadership and Senate committee chairs. I think the biggest news last week, though, was on the MediCal program. Assembly Budget Subcommittee number one met to hear the hear the administration's Medi-Cal projections. And this was on the heels of a pretty large loan request from the administration to the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. And reported on that, the administration had requested a $3.4 billion loan in the current fiscal year to address some caseload projections. After that, the LA Times is reporting that the administration is seeking another $2.8 billion loan to make the program solve it in the current fiscal year, bringing the total amount to $6.2 billion, significant amount. The administration noted in the subcommittee hearing that part of the projections are being driven by a couple of key factors. One is just in general the rising health care cost which people throughout the country are noting but also some policy changes specific to California as well as funding shifts as approved by voters. One of the changes is the passage of Prop 35 which was the managed care organization tax which which is locked in some of the funding around rates versus caseload growth, and there was some retroactivity based on the passage of that initiative. In addition, there are several big eligibility changes driven by policymakers, including the asset tests for senior citizens as well as immigration status. And both of those cas case loads are coming and much higher than was originally projected. The Department of Healthcare Services noted that they had very little data when they put together the governor's budget on all of these countervailing factors. And so they're hoping to have more realistic projections in anticipation for the May revise. I would note that both the governor as well as legislative leadership has said they have no interest in rolling back these new coverages and that they were going to address them through the May revise. The Senate will hear the same item on March 27th. We will of course be monitoring and provide full notes. The other interesting note is the issue of carrier of last resort is popping up. 18 T has a sponsored bill. The assembly had an informational hearing that was convened last week. Last Wednesday on the topic. Our local assembly woman, Bonta, strongly advocated for the inclusion of more public hearings in the Bay area on this matter, noting that we haven't had any in Oakland, Alameda, or Emoryville. So more and more and more in the end, and we do expect to see a lot more discussion with the telecommunications companies on that topic. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions. Thank you. That was very helpful in extremely relevant updates, especially on the medical projections. And it's very timely in terms of what we're dealing with in our county when it comes to the potential threats on immigrants and potentially their access to health care. I don't have any questions per se. Are there any comments or questions online or in the audience? No speakers. Okay. Thank you very much again for that update. So we have a request from the Almey County Health Care Agency to support AB 804 from Buffy Wakes, the Semitic Housing Support Services and a corresponding budget request as well. And also a request to support AB 128 on the criteria for registered environmental health specialists. And a opposition request for the notice and the proposed rulemaking for patient protection and Affordable Care Act. And this is among on marketplace integrity and affordability. So we will advance those agency recommendations to the full board for their consideration. Are there any comments in the public or questions? No speakers. Okay, are there any public comments on items not on the agenda? I have no speakers. Okay. Are there any public comments on items not on the agenda? I have no speakers for public comment. Will those online please identify themselves? Just a good Blake more Alameda County House. Good afternoon. This is Hana Hamilton, Alameda County Social Services Agency. Good afternoon, Supervisor Tam Joe Greaves, Alameda, Contra Costa Medical Association. Good afternoon, this is Deanna Garcia with first five Alameda County. Thank you all for your participation and the updates. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you all for your participation and the updates. This meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.