California Conservation Corps: Education and Employment Reentry Program.

Existing law establishes the California Conservation Corps and requires that young people participating in the corps program generally be engaged in projects that, among other things, preserve, maintain, and enhance environmentally important lands and waters. Existing law requires the director of the corps to establish a forestry corps program to accomplish certain objectives, including developing and implementing forest health projects, as provided, and establishing forestry corps crews. Existing law establishes the California Conservation Camp program to provide for the training and use of inmates and wards assigned to conservation camps to perform public conservation projects, including, but not limited to, forest fire prevention and control, forest and watershed management, recreation, fish and game management, soil conservation, and forest and watershed revegetation. This bill would authorize the director of the corps to establish the Education and Employment Reentry Program within the corps and to enroll in the program formerly incarcerated individuals who successfully served on a California Conservation Camp program crew and were recommended for participation as a program member by the Director of Forestry and Fire Protection and the Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The bill would prescribe program enrollment terms, and would require the director of the corps, in conjunction with the Employment Development Department, to prioritize developing and executing plans to assist program members in obtaining continued employment following participation in the program. The bill would also establish program activities and objectives, including, among others, assisting with the forestry corps program objectives. The bill would authorize the corps, subject to the discretion and approval of the director of the corps, to enter into a planning agreement with certain entities to develop reentry and job training opportunities for the formerly incarcerated individuals described above who do not otherwise qualify for corps enrollment under corps policies. The bill would make implementation of the program contingent upon an appropriation being made in the annual Budget Act or another statute for its purposes.