City Council
[email protected]
September 9, 2025
The Honorable Buff Wicks
Chair, Assembly Committee on Appropriations
1021 O Street, Suite 8140
Sacramento, CA 95814
RE: Local agency officials: training.
Notice of OPPOSITION
Dear Chair Wicks,
The City of San Marcos regretfully must oppose SB 827, which increase the mandated number of trainings that a city is required to provide to officials, and staff.
As proposed, the measure would expand the number of training courses that a local jurisdiction is required to provide for officials and staff. This mandate will increase costs for cities, as they will be required to partner with training providers to ensure that appropriate training courses are available to local officials. The newly required training courses may not be applicable to every role and will increase the number of local jurisdiction staff that are required to complete these training courses.
While we appreciate the author’s attempt to improve training requirements, we are worried that the approach disincentivizes local flexibility related to staff training, and how they are provided. Existing law already requires cities to provide a wide variety of trainings to staff and allows for cities to creatively implement training courses.
SB 827 would remove that discretion and impose a one-size-fits-all mandate that would negatively impact California’s diverse communities.
For these reasons, the City of San Marcos regretfully must oppose SB 827.
Sincerely,
Rebecca D. Jones
Mayor