Can CA afford to boost benefits for police and firefighters?

Three bills that would boost benefits and pay for California police officers and firefighters are wending their way through the Legislature with bipartisan support. But in a limited state budget year, their potentially high price tags might make them a tough sell to Gov. Gavin Newsom, reports CalMatters’ Adam Ashton.

The Senate’s appropriations committee later this month is expected to consider bills that would lower the retirement age of public safety employees from age 57 to 55; create a new deferred retirement program for California Highway Patrol officers and Cal Fire firefighters; and raise pay for Cal Fire firefighters.

In their support of the proposals, legislators said increasing incentives to recruit and retain first responders was such a priority that they’d cut other programs to offset the additional spending. During a June Senate committee hearing for the retirement age bill, state Sen. Tony Strickland praised emergency responders for their work and bravery during the Orange County chemical leak in May.

• Strickland, a Huntington Beach Republican: “I still get goosebumps for these firefighters and their families that had to know that they’re putting their lives on (the) line to save that explosion from happening, which they actually end up doing. You can’t put a price tag on that.”

But the bills could drive up the state’s annual spending by hundreds of millions of dollars. The measure that would lower the retirement age for police and firefighters, for example, would require an additional $282 million in annual contributions to the California Public Employees’ Retirement system and increase its long-term liabilities by $4.8 billion.

If the measures reach Newsom’s desk, it remains unclear what he’d do. California Professional Firefighters and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association were two of the largest donors that helped Newsom defeat a 2021 recall campaign. But the governor last year also rejected a bill that would have increased Cal Fire pay, citing “significant cost pressures.”

Read more.

Criticisms from Kaiser Permanente nurses over the company’s use of workplace surveillance is shining a light on artificial intelligence’s potentially harmful effects on patient care, writes CalMatters’ Khari Johnson.

Kaiser nurses who answer advice and triage calls often deal with patients who have complex symptoms, are experiencing mental health episodes or have received life-altering, health-related news. But current and former nurses told CalMatters that they feel pressured to finish calls within 15 minutes, and that longer calls would routinely lead to criticism from Kaiser management or a performance evaluation meeting.

• Charlotte Capulong, who has worked at nurse call centers for 22 years: “People can get hurt. … You aren’t calling Comcast. We’re dealing with life here.”

Kaiser uses software that tries to predict whether nurses are being unproductive or failing to answer calls quickly, nurses said. They added that in 2024 the company began testing an AI tool that attempts to assess empathy and tone in nurses’ voices.

Kaiser defended its use of AI, saying it deploys the technology with human oversight and with patient safety in mind. It also denied using “average handle time” to assess performance.

Read more.

A majority of state Senators from both sides of the aisle supported a bill that would give small businesses time to rectify disability access violations. So why did the proposal die in the Assembly?

As CalMatters’ Kate Wolffe explains, Sen. Roger Niello’s bill would allow businesses 120 days to correct violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act before they could get sued. The Roseville Republican proposed the measure to address what he views as predatory law firms and their disabled clients exploiting the ADA to enrich themselves.

But after passing the Senate, the bill essentially died when Assemblymember Ash Kalra, a San Jose Democrat and chairperson of the Assembly’s judiciary committee, declined to take up the proposal for a hearing.

Kalra said the bill “completely undermines the ADA” and that he didn’t schedule it for a hearing because Niello didn’t agree to amendments suggested by his committee in conversations outside of the public process. 

Niello said he plans to reintroduce the issue if he’s reelected in November, but his bill serves as a rare example of lawmakers spiking a measure outside its house of origin from closed-door negotiations.

• Chris Micheli_, longtime lobbyist: “The Assembly will sometimes decline to hear a bill of their own house, and maybe the Senate might do the same to a (Senate bill). But it is rare that it would occur for a second house bill.”

Read more.

In a win for immigrants’ rights groups, the private immigration detention company GEO Group has agreed to pay more than $100,000 over allegations that it failed to keep detainees safe while they worked inside one of its Central Valley detention facilities. Read more from CalMatters’ Jeanne Kuang.