Courts, probation, public defenders and behavioral health say Prop 36 needs new funding and capacity to work

County and local officials told a California Senate joint hearing that early Prop 36 implementation is producing greater demand for court time, supervision and treatment, and that the May Revision’s current approach does not fill those gaps.

What they told the Legislature: Judicial Council staff, presiding judges and county court administrators said the courts expect thousands of additional felony filings as implementation proceeds and emphasized the extra administrative and judicial workload. "We estimate that the courts will receive about 20,000 felony filings annually that would have been filed as misdemeanors were it not for Prop 36," Francine Byrne of the Judicial Council told the committee, adding that after removing higher‑level felonies the council currently estimates about 15,000 filings will directly affect court workload.

Why that matters: Byrne and San Bernardino Presiding Judge Lisa Rogan described how felony case processing consumes more court time, increases continuances and often requires ongoing judicial hearings and treatment progress reviews, not just a one‑time sentencing event. "The early on impacts that the courts are experiencing are insufficient to no treatment options," Judge Rogan said, describing uneven local readiness and the risk that rural and under‑resourced counties will lag behind.

Local requests and capacity figures offered in testimony - Judicial Council: stated a conservative implementation cost estimate of roughly $25,000,000 to support courts in processing and monitoring Prop 36 treatment‑mandated cases (the council characterized the figure as conservative and subject to increase as treatment programs scale up).

- Probation chiefs: Steve Jackson, president of the Chief Probation Officers of California, said probation is the local agency most often positioned to link defendants to services and provide supervision and monitoring. He said probation is requesting $47,000,000 to scale pretrial assessment, court coordination and supervision capacity statewide.

- Behavioral health: Michelle Cabrera, executive director of the County Behavioral Health Directors Association (CBHDA), said counties will need to add roughly 200 staff to perform assessments, produce court reports and deliver or coordinate treatment; CBHDA estimated the annual cost of that capacity addition at between $95,000,000 and $213,000,000, depending on assumptions about service mix and local wage rates.

- Public defenders: Ricardo Garcia (Los Angeles County Public Defender), speaking for the California Public Defenders Association, and other public‑defense witnesses asked for $120,000,000 over three years to create or expand holistic indigent defense teams (social workers, housing specialists, mental‑health professionals) to help clients access treatment and housing and to manage the increased caseload.

- Advocates and providers: multiple public commenters and coalition groups (Steinberg Institute, CATPE, Californians for Safety and Justice and others) asked the Legislature to invest between about $105,000,000 and $120,000,000 to expand treatment capacity and to protect existing Prop 47‑funded programs that risk losing support as the Prop 47 savings pool declines.

Local operational impacts and non‑financial barriers: witnesses described operational bottlenecks beyond staff and beds — transportation in large counties, interpreter shortages, varying local enforcement priorities (thefts versus drug offenses), and the fact that some probation departments do not supervise pre‑plea individuals. Several witnesses said courts that attempt to stand up dedicated Prop 36 calendars will require judicial and clerk staffing and that some counties are taking a measured approach to avoid launching programs without treatment capacity in place.

Law enforcement and prosecution views: Police chiefs and sheriffs told the committee they support a holistic approach but said arrest and evidence collection systems, analytics and sustained funding for specialized enforcement teams have been grant‑dependent and may be at risk as federal or one‑time grants expire. Prosecutors and sheriff’s officials described programs that have reduced recidivism locally but said increased filings and reduced grant pools will create pressure on local budgets.

Ending: Committee members repeatedly asked for centralized, comparable numbers the Legislature can use when drafting budget language. Several asked fiscal staff and agencies to return with updated quarterly data and written cost breakdowns of new local obligations so the Legislature can weigh budget tradeoffs this summer.