Assembly lawmakers pressed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation on Tuesday after the department’s Boston Consulting Group-linked savings estimate fell from an earlier $635 million ongoing to $116 million ongoing, according to a May 18 Assembly Budget Subcommittee hearing.
The hearing summary says Assemblymember Lackey and Assemblymember Schultz repeatedly questioned the gap between the original and revised figures and asked for the BCG recommendations to be shared with the Legislature. The exchange turned the savings shortfall into a live oversight issue even though the broader May Revision budget dispute remains unresolved.
CDCR, led in the hearing by Division of Administrative Services Director Madeline McLean, presented the savings package as part of a larger corrections budget discussion. The summary says LAO analyst Kate Lennonio also criticized the administration’s BCG contract and savings projections, while other lawmakers raised broader concerns about prison spending priorities, prison population decline, and prison closures.
The subcommittee took no votes at the hearing.
The budget package also included other CDCR items, such as workers’ compensation, an honor-dorm proposal at Corcoran, incarcerated firefighter pay implementation, mental health staffing and resource teams, an electronic health record AI note-taking project, and food-purchasing compliance under AB 778, but the BCG savings cut drew the sharpest scrutiny.
The hearing summary does not identify which BCG recommendations were withheld or explain how the administration intends to justify the lower estimate. It also does not indicate whether lawmakers will formally demand the underlying review or condition budget action on more disclosure.
