Citizen Portal
Sign In

Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!

State hospitals report IST waitlist declines, propose budget adjustments amid rising outside‑hospital costs

California State Senate Subcommittee on Health · April 30, 2026
AI-Generated Content: All content on this page was generated by AI to highlight key points from the meeting. For complete details and context, we recommend watching the full video. so we can fix them.

Summary

Department of State Hospitals staff told the subcommittee the department met court‑ordered IST benchmarks and projects a modest increase in census tied to community restoration; the department proposed a $3.2 billion budget with targeted staff additions and flagged rising outside hospitalization and pharmaceutical costs.

The Department of State Hospitals told a state Senate subcommittee it has sharply reduced the backlog of people found incompetent to stand trial and is projecting modest census growth as counties expand community‑based restoration and diversion.

"During the pandemic in January 2022, we had reached an all‑time high of 1,953 IST individuals on the pending placement list," Director Stephanie Clendenin said. "At the April, we had only 250 individuals on that pending placement list," she added, using those figures to illustrate progress toward court‑ordered deadlines.

Why it matters: the department said…

Already have an account? Log in

Subscribe to keep reading

Unlock the rest of this article — and every article on Citizen Portal.

  • Unlimited articles
  • AI-powered breakdowns of topics, speakers, decisions, and budgets
  • Instant alerts when your location has a new meeting
  • Follow topics and more locations
  • 1,000 AI Insights / month, plus AI Chat
30-day money-back on paid plans