The Brief

On an early spring evening in Glendale, a 37-year-old woman is withdrawn and weak from refusing food and water for several days. Her mother calls for help. She tells a crisis counselor her daughter has been hearing voices, and has expressed needing to “kill” those voices. She will not go to a doctor.

That’s when James Gonzalez and Katerina Cabello pull up. They’re in casual clothes – khakis and jeans, paired with sweatshirts. They sound no sirens in an unmarked white minivan.

Gonzalez and Cabello are one of 75 mobile crisis response teams Los Angeles County runs around the clock. Licensed and trained as first responders for behavioral health crises, these teams of two respond – in person, with backpacks and clipboards – to calls from 988, the crisis lifeline, or the county’s mental health helpline. Gonzalez and Cabello work for Sycamores, a nonprofit agency that contracts with the county.

Across California, demand for these teams — an alternative to badges and sirens for people in their darkest moments — is surging. But just as they’re proving their worth, federal funding that supercharged their growth is set to end. Lacking that boost, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget blueprint proposes changing the service from a required benefit to an optional one, meaning the state does not have to cover the funding gap.

Counties that choose to keep this service will have to pay for it themselves at a price tag of $150 million to $200 million a year. Where counties cannot afford it, crisis teams could decrease or disappear entirely, if the Legislature approves the governor’s budget proposal.

A boost in mobile crisis services

Convincing a person in crisis to accept help is a skill. You have minutes, sometimes less, to earn trust.

When Gonzalez walks into the living room of a client in crisis, he’ll quickly scan the room, looking for family photos, religious artifacts, trophies, anything that can help him connect. He has seen people in various stages of vulnerability: a woman who feels the world on her shoulders after leaving an abusive relationship; a teenage boy feeling so much anger he attacks his father.

Knowing when to be gentle and when to be stern is a skill, too. After more than an hour in Glendale, Gonzalez and Cabello got their client to drink some water and convinced her to go to a nearby hospital for IV fluids – once there she finally agreed to a psychiatric evaluation.

“Mental health can be kind of cruel,” Gonzalez said. “I've dealt with it as a parent. I don't want our consumers to feel that. I want them to feel like we actually did something for them.”

Two days later, he and Cabello followed up on the Glendale call. The adult daughter did not meet the criteria to be placed on a psychiatric hold, but after the team shared treatment options and resources, the mother reported that she was eating and doing better.

From left, peer support specialist Katerina Cabello and clinician James Gonzalez with Sycamores’ mobile crisis outreach team in Altadena on April 27, 2026.

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When in-person help is necessary, teams meet people where they are – homes, schools, and workplaces – and serve everyone regardless of income or insurance status. Though the program started as a Medi-Cal benefit for low-income residents, teams also respond to the uninsured and those with private insurance – counties can bill private insurers for behavioral health emergencies.

In 2023, California made mobile crisis response a statewide benefit when a federal law offered a financial incentive to do so: the federal government would temporarily cover 85% of the costs, up from the usual 50%. At the time, people with mental health and substance use disorder made up one-fifth of all emergency department visits in California – a pressure point the state said mobile behavioral health teams could help address.

Mental health advocates and counties knew the extra federal money was temporary. What caught them off guard is what came next: Rather than cover the gap when the enhanced rate fell, the state plans to make the service optional, funding it only through March 2027 before shifting the burden to counties. “It did come as a surprise to us that this program was on the chopping block given kind of unanimous support,” said Tara Gamboa-Eastman, director of Government Affairs at the Steinberg Institute.

Katerina Cabello and James Gonzalez review the details of a call from the Los Angeles County dispatch in Altadena on April 27, 2026. The pair review the information, begin paperwork and confirm whether a crisis response is needed.

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Gonzalez and Cabello drive towards the location of a crisis call in the Los Angeles area on April 27, 2026. This particular call is approximately a 30-minute drive, but the team can get sent anywhere in the Los Angeles County area.

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State officials say the timing is unavoidable. The expiration of the enhanced federal match coincides with a projected state budget shortfall of nearly $3 billion for the upcoming fiscal year, and $22 billion the following year.

“The Administration has proposed redesigning this as an optional benefit, to be offered at counties’ discretion, as the most sustainable path for the program going forward,” said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance.

State lawmakers who support preserving this service challenged the department in a recent hearing. “We've invested so much money into creating and uplifting an infrastructure to not fully continue with it,” Sen. Caroline Menjivar, a San Fernando Democrat said. “Is that a waste of our money?”

Counties weighing options

In San Joaquin County, when a young woman was in mental distress because she couldn’t afford her rent, the local crisis team visited her multiple times to stabilize her. They also helped her find affordable housing. “No other team can be as persistent as a mobile crisis team,” said Fay Vieira, San Joaquin County’s behavioral health services director.

The funding changes could force San Joaquin to revert to fewer teams available only from 8 a.m to 5 p.m. Her biggest concern is losing credibility with a community the county has spent the last two years courting.

“We made vehicle purchases and put money into advertising,” Vieira said. “You can tell from our referral numbers that people are using this.” Crisis calls in the county have increased 15% this year compared to last, she said.

In Monterey County, the story is similar. The county started limited mobile crisis services in 2015 but struggled to grow them until the federal boost. “We had been trying to look at expanding for years because we saw the value,” said Melanie Rhodes, the county’s behavioral health director. “We saw the people we were helping.” Without continued funding, she said, the county could be forced to scale back.

Rural San Benito County rolled out its mobile crisis program just last year – it took officials there months to find an outside provider who could come in and offer the service. The program there is just starting to gain steam.

“We know that we cannot afford it without the federal dollars,” said Rachel White, San Benito County’s behavioral health director.

The pressure is hitting counties that are already absorbing other rising healthcare costs. Starting in July, counties will have to direct a third of their mental health budget toward housing chronically homeless people. In the coming year, they will also have to restart health programs for people who will lose their Medi-Cal coverage under rules related to the federal spending law President Trump signed in 2025.

Even for the state’s biggest county this is a pinch. Since the state mandate took effect just over two years ago, Los Angeles County has doubled its mobile crisis teams.

Officials at the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health said they do not know yet if they’ll have to make cuts, but having to absorb the additional costs will stifle their plans to expand and better meet demand.

“It's definitely going to hurt,” said Reuben Wilson, head of alternative crisis response at Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health. “We've been trying to reduce our response time so we can get there quicker; law enforcement becomes more and more reliant on us. We're really in a growth period, and it seems really premature to be pulling the support.”

A promising alternative for help

National research has shown that behavioral health professionals responding without police – like county crisis teams – do a better job than law enforcement of keeping people out of emergency rooms and connecting them to mental health care.

“Involving clinical teams in the community can prevent expensive emergency department care and get people connected to mental healthcare after the crisis incident is resolved,” one small-scale study of crisis response teams in Michigan found. A separate California analysis found that alternative crisis response programs reduced the number of unnecessary psychiatric holds.

A bulletin board with staff photos hangs in the office of Sycamores’ mobile crisis outreach team in Altadena on April 27, 2026.

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California’s own data is incomplete. Since January 2024 the Department of Health Care Services has approved more than 73,000 claims for in-person mobile crisis encounters through Medi-Cal alone – and because of typical claims lag, actual use is likely higher. Counties collect volume and some demographics data, but no statewide analysis of outcomes exists. That won't be possible until the state begins collecting results data, something expected to start later this year.

As counties await the Governor’s final budget, the calls keep coming in.

Gonzalez and Cabello had not heard of the proposed funding change. They’re not sure what it would mean for Sycamores, or teams like theirs. What they do know is that people are hurting.

At one recent call, Gonzalez and Cabello found a dad and uncle restraining a 19-year-old man who had been experiencing outbursts of rage. Police responded first, but couldn’t resolve it. The situation called for help like Gonzalez and Cabello. They talked the young man down.

“Dad called and thanked us,” Gonzalez said. “He said no one has been able to help him like that.”

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Selling bonds. Awarding tax credits. Overseeing pension funds. Investing idle cash for maximum return.

These are the roles of California’s treasurer, a job that evokes someone with a fondness for green eyeshades and a favorite Excel function.

But in California — as in most other states — it’s a job that goes to a politician.

That may leave voters wondering: What’s the best combination of skills, experience and values for such an exceedingly wonky job?

Ask the six candidates and you’re liable to get six different answers.

California’s next money manager should be a detail-oriented former diplomat, according to Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.

For State Sen. Anna Caballero, Kounalakis’ chief Democratic rival, the better option is a wily elected official from a working class community with experience running a government bureaucracy.

The two Republicans, Jennifer Hawks and David Serpa, both believe it should be someone eager to check the fiscal impulses of California’s overwhelmingly Democratic political establishment.

Board of Equalization member Tony Vazquez thinks a long-time elected tax commissioner is a good fit. Glenn Turner, a former crystal and Tarot card seller-turned mental health activist, believes the role calls for someone with a radical political vision.

Not even turn-of-the-century Gov. Hiram Johnson, one of modern California’s political founding fathers, knew what makes a good state treasurer. The job, he complained to the Legislature in 1911, is “merely clerical” and its “qualifications naturally can not be well understood.”

The June 2 race is largely a rivalry between the top Democrats.

Kounalakis vs Caballero

There isn’t much reliable public polling, but as measured by name recognition, high-caliber endorsements and campaign cash on hand, this is Kounalakis’ race to lose.

That’s in part thanks to her current role as lieutenant governor — a job that commands statewide name ID and governing experience, even if its list of responsibilities is relatively short.

Kounalakis’ personal fortune has also surely helped her become a top candidate. The daughter of developer Angelo Tsakopolous, founder of Sacramento-based AKT Development Corporation, she has nearly nine times as much money parked in her campaign account as the other five candidates combined.

Kounalakis entered Democratic politics as a major donor, helping her secure an ambassadorship to Hungary under President Barack Obama. Those fundraising connections also have paid off this cycle: She is endorsed by former first lady Hillary Clinton, former U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

From left, state Sen. Anna Caballero and Lt. Gov. Eleni Kounalakis.

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Kounalakis wouldn’t be the first to take this path to the treasurer’s office. Phil Angeledes, who served from 1999 to 2007, is also an AKT alum whose political career was partially funded by Tsakopolous.

Though Kounalakis initially ran to replace Newsom as governor, she switched to the lower-profile treasurer’s race last summer amid flagging prospects in a crowded field. But Kounalakis, whose campaign did not respond to requests for an interview, has since argued that her experience as a developer and her self-professed technical orientation make the role of treasurer a better fit. She told the San Francisco Chronicle that she craved a technical role after so many years as a diplomat “standing in front of a podium with a visiting dignitary.”

Kounalakis’ decision was an unwelcome development for state Sen. Anna Caballero. A longtime state legislator who served as Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency secretary under former Gov. Jerry Brown, the Merced Democrat was the presumptive favorite until then. Caballero has the upper hand by at least one metric: She has raised more money than Kounalakis since the beginning of this year, even if her campaign account is dwarfed by the war chest the lieutenant governor has amassed over the years.

Both Kounalakis and Caballero are termed out of their current roles.

The competition between the two top Democratic hopefuls is fierce, even if they don’t seem to disagree about much.

Both want the state to simplify the application process for affordable housing subsidies — which is already in the works with the governor’s new housing agency. Both support recent treasurer’s initiatives to direct state funds toward renewable energy projects and to administer a retirement savings program for workers whose employers don’t offer pension or 401k accounts. Both expressed enthusiasm about a proposal to require state banks and other financial institutions to lend more in lower income neighborhoods and communities.

Where there is daylight between the two, it is more a matter of emphasis than major disagreement. Caballero, for example, avidly promotes the use of hydrogen and dairy gas as gasoline alternatives and said the treasurer could foster private-public partnerships in those industries. As a member of the State Lands Commission, Kounalakis is an avid advocate for off-shore wind power development.

Who will make the top two?

Though Kounalakis and Caballero are the two most formidable candidates, it’s far from certain that both will make it to the November ballot. One of the top two spots could easily go to a Republican under California’s system in which the top two vote-getters advance.

California’s Republican establishment has been doing everything possible to make that happen. The California Republican Party formally endorsed Jennifer Hawks, a Bay Area party activist and former private school administrator, over fellow Republican David Serpa. Reform California, the conservative fundraising and get-out-the-vote organization run by Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, also endorsed her.

“There’s a risk of splitting the vote,” DeMaio noted in a live-streamed conversation with Hawks. “We need to make sure that we have someone in the general election that we can be proud of.”

What does the treasurer do?

The day-to-day work is mostly done by professional staff and it doesn’t vary much with changes at the top. That doesn’t afford their elected boss much room for creativity or innovation. Bill Lockyer, the state’s treasurer between 2007 and 2015, said the job’s main role is to ensure that work is done with Californians in mind — that the “professional staff is managing responsibly.”

Still, there are occasional opportunities to do more with the job. Lockyer pointed to his decision to invest in international renewable energy projects through the World Bank — a first for the state — as one of his most important achievements. When Angeledes held the office, he used the treasurer’s posts on the boards of the state’s two major public employee pension funds to inveigh against investment banks and to champion the rights of shareholders. Other Democratic treasurers have acted as fiscal foils to Republican governors.

Since the days of Hiram Johnson, the post has also occasionally been derided as a sinecure for career politicians awaiting their next move.

That, said Caballero, is decidedly not why she wants to be treasurer. Pointing to her work on housing policy and rural economic development, she said everything in her legislative career “relates back to what’s in the treasurer’s office.”

Adding a not-so-subtle dig at Kounalakis: “I’m not on a stepping stone up to something else.”

Not that the treasurer’s office has been a particularly effective stepping stone: Angeledes, Kathleen Brown, and, more recently, John Chiang all attempted post-treasurer’s office runs for governor. None succeeded.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names. 

This may be a violation of the city’s own code, one expert told The LA Local.

The commission didn’t do much in the first 15 years that it did meet, multiple sources told The LA Local, after the city stripped its investigative authority in its early days. The commission hasn’t met at all since 2017, when meeting minutes recorded Lee Denmon, the commission’s chair, optimistically pitching a shift to a public safety focus.

“We didn’t have any teeth,” Denmon told The LA Local in April. “This commission was formed to fail.” 

Even with limited power, police commissions are one of only a few venues where community members can bring grievances against a local police force. An active oversight commission can serve a range of roles, from hiring police chiefs to recommending disciplinary actions against officers. It’s this type of accountability and transparency that activists and family members of Bryan Bostic, who died in Inglewood police custody, have been calling for since his death on March 10.

Every one of the Inglewood commission’s monthly meetings was canceled between late 2017 and 2022, according to city records. Since then, the city hasn’t even bothered to post a notice of cancellation. 

“It just kind of fizzled out,” Denmon said.

Inglewood Mayor James Butts told The LA Local the city no longer has a police commission and that it doesn’t have any members. 

“It was toothless. It had no subpoena power,” said Butts, the former Santa Monica police chief. “If you want to have a good police department, you have a good police chief and, if possible, you have members of the council that have police management experience. That’s the best police oversight that you can have.”

Inglewood code uses mandatory language for its police commission, expert says 

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names.

Civil rights attorney Peter Bibring said the city may be violating its own code, which calls for the Inglewood police chief to report use-of-force investigation results to an 11-member body.

“The ordinance used mandatory language,” said Bibring, who formerly led the American Civil Liberties Union of California’s work on policing, then spent two years with the Los Angeles County Office of the Inspector General. 

“The city can’t just stop following the requirements of the municipal code because they don’t think it’s important anymore,” he said.

Inglewood Police Chief Mark Fronterotta and Interim City Attorney Rick Olivarez did not respond to a series of interview requests from The LA Local. 

The city’s website still lists commissioners for each of its four council districts: Carol Willis in District 1, David P. Stewart in District 2, Adrianne Sears and Matthew Chinichian in District 3 and Councilwoman Dionne Faulk in District 4. The LA Local attempted to reach out to Chinichian, Stewart, Sears and Faulk but did not receive a response, and did not find contact information for Willis.

Councilmembers Gloria Gray, Eloy Morales and Alex Padilla did not return requests for comment. Padilla is a former police officer and police use-of-force investigator. 

Inglewood’s city code does not give its police commissioners the same tools as others, such as the city of Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners, who are responsible for setting policy and hiring top officers. 

But Bibring said even limited oversight commissions can be effective. They provide a forum for members of the public to raise concerns with police actions and for police to report the results of misconduct inquiries, he said.

“Commissions don’t necessarily need power to hire and fire to provide some measure of transparency that can be really meaningful,” Bibring said. “They provide an important window into what the department is doing.”

Police commission issues in Inglewood go back more than a decade

Inglewood’s Citizen Police Oversight Commission hasn’t met in almost nine years — its web page no longer exists, and its roster of commissioners, supposed to be 11 strong, appears only to have five names.

Inglewood officials first considered an ordinance to form a police oversight commission in 2002, according to city records. The first version of the commission had power to investigate complaints against the department with help from an independent police misconduct investigator appointed by the city. 

But two years later, after pushback from the city’s police unions surfaced legal concerns, records indicate the city killed the commission’s investigatory power.

Daniel Tabor was an Inglewood councilmember in 2008 when Inglewood police fatally shot four different people in the space of just a few months. But Tabor — today the vice president of the LA Board of Police Commissioners —  said he doesn’t recall Inglewood’s commission doing much. 

“It doesn’t have the same level of authority or responsibility or resources that we have in Los Angeles,” Tabor said. 

The U.S. Department of Justice launched a civil rights probe in the wake of those shootings and found flaws in Inglewood’s police oversight. Commissioners told the LA Times in 2009 they felt frustrated and powerless. 

Controversy continued to simmer for the next 15 years. The commission was already canceling many meetings in 2016 when police fatally shot Kisha Michael and Marquintan Sandlin. The city later fired the officers involved in that shooting.

Inglewood purged a batch of police records in 2018, days before a state transparency law took effect, and remains locked in a years-long court battle with the ACLU over the release of other police records. A judge ordered the city last winter to post police misconduct records online. 

The Inglewood Police Department has been under fresh scrutiny after Bostic’s still-unexplained death in Inglewood police custody in March. Beyond the department’s own investigation, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office is investigating the police use of force, and the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s office is still looking into Bostic’s cause of death.

Activist Najee Ali said he believes the city would have “without question” been more transparent if it had an active police oversight commission. 

But Denmon, the former commission chair, said the commission would only have made a difference if it had more power.

“The only way it works is if someone is going to make (police) cooperate with the commission,” Denmon said.

LAist and The Los Angeles Sentinel contributed to this report. 

The number of Californians without health insurance could double from 2 million today to 4 million by 2030, according to a report from the state Legislative Analyst's Office. It’s the state budget office’s preliminary attempt to quantify how federal legislation known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will reshape healthcare access statewide.

The One Big Beautiful Bill is driving nearly 90% of the projected coverage loss, according to the LAO report. It's mostly Medi-Cal enrollees who are expected to be dropped when new work requirements take effect in 2027. The remaining 10% are largely people leaving the state's health insurance marketplace, Covered California, after enhanced federal premium subsidies expired last year.

What's the impact to coverage?

L.A. County officials estimate that recent Medi-Cal changes could put coverage at risk for hundreds of thousands of residents and cost the health departments about $800 million a year. A UC Berkeley Labor Center analysis projected more than 1 million Medi-Cal enrollees could lose coverage by 2028.

The LAO report also warns that county indigent health programs for uninsured residents will soon face a surge in demand they’re not prepared to meet. Those county programs had enrolled about 850,000 people statewide before the federal government expanded Medicaid coverage in 2014. Total enrollment is currently 10,000 statewide, but the trend is going to reverse, according to the report.

What's the impact to health-care providers?

More uninsured people means hospitals and clinics provide more services without getting paid. The LAO projects that uncompensated care costs at hospitals could grow by several billion dollars statewide by 2030. Clinics face steeper losses because they run on smaller budgets and depend more heavily on Medi-Cal revenue.

The LAO also projects premiums on the individual health insurance market will rise as healthier people drop coverage.

What are proposals to help?

The LAO itself doesn’t recommend new spending and instead urges lawmakers to track what happens to hospitals, clinics and county programs before taking action. But both L.A. County and state officials are pushing tax efforts to combat federal cuts.

L.A. County voters will decide June 2 on Measure ER, a half-cent sales tax that would generate about $1 billion a year for hospitals and clinics. ANovember statewide ballot initiative would impose a one-time 5% tax on Californians worth over $1 billion and direct 90% of proceeds to Medi-Cal.