Legislature interrogates vacancy sweep that would cut hundreds of environmental positions

The subcommittee devoted a sustained panel to the administration's earlier proposal to eliminate vacant positions across state departments. The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) summarized the history: an initial administration request to eliminate roughly 6,000 vacancies (May revise) was narrowed to about 1,000 positions for legislative review; the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) did not concur with eliminating roughly 650 of those positions and asked for more information.

LAO analyst Sonia Pedic told the committee that many of the contested positions are special‑funded and were established to deliver statutory reforms, improve permit timelines and support enforcement and cleanup work. "We recommend the legislature maintain the special funded positions," she said, noting eliminating special‑funded vacancies generally does not materially fix the general‑fund structural deficit and could undermine programs funded by fees.

Department of Finance said eliminating vacant positions reduces long‑term cost pressure and can prevent fee increases, but also acknowledged that many positions are partially funded by multiple revenue sources and that preserving posts would require a funding puzzle to reconcile general and special fund shares. Department leaders (State Water Board, DTSC, DPR) described practical impacts: reductions spread across drought response, permitting and core regulatory programs, enforcement, cleanup oversight and statutory implementation tied to recent reforms (including DPR's 2024 mill‑fee changes and DTSC's 2022 work).

Department officials stressed that some positions are reimbursable or generate regulatory revenue and that certain reforms were designed with an expectation that the positions would be filled to meet statutory deadlines and workload demands. The LAO noted that preserving the positions the JLBC wants to keep would reduce about $21 million in administration savings but that the special‑funded nature of many positions means only about $3 million is general‑fund‑related; retaining all contested positions would require roughly $19 million in additional general‑fund authority to match the budget baseline.

Legislators asked how to ensure authorized positions are actually filled and how to track outcomes; LAO recommended legislative oversight and agencies offered to provide program‑level detail on services lost if positions remain empty. The subcommittee deferred final decisions pending further follow‑up from departments on the programmatic tradeoffs.