Juveniles: secure youth treatment facilities: less restrictive programs.

The requirement for the Judicial Council to develop and adopt guidelines by July 1, 2028 to assist courts in determining appropriate placement of wards is entirely eliminated. The bill no longer defers to future guidelines but instead directly mandates what courts must consider.

A new subdivision (d) states that nothing in the section limits the court's discretion pursuant to Section 875, serving as a savings clause to protect existing judicial authority over placement decisions.

The fiscal note changes the state-mandated local program designation from 'no' to 'yes,' acknowledging that the bill imposes costs on local agencies that may be subject to state reimbursement under the Government Code.

The bill is restructured from two separate sections (one for Judicial Council guidelines, one for direct court requirements) into a single consolidated Section 877 that directly applies to courts, removing the intermediate guideline-development step.

The bill text was reformatted from a traditional legislative document layout with line numbers to a web-based HTML-style presentation that includes website navigation menus, quick search fields, bill metadata (version history, publication date), and a digest key section. No policy language was altered.

The deadline for the Judicial Council to develop and adopt guidelines on appropriate less restrictive program placements was extended from January 1, 2028 to July 1, 2028, giving six additional months.

Proposed amendments to Sections 875 and 1756 of the Welfare and Institutions Code were dropped from this version. The bill now only adds Section 877, which requires the Judicial Council to develop guidelines for courts considering transfers of wards to less restrictive programs.

The fiscal committee designation changed from 'no' to 'yes,' indicating a state fiscal committee review is now required for this bill.

Section 877 was rewritten from a set of mandatory program requirements (the court 'shall not order' a transfer unless the program satisfied specific criteria like insurance, staff training, background checks, case plan adherence, risk needs assessment, notice to city/county, and zoning compliance) into a requirement for the Judicial Council to develop guidelines by January 1, 2028 that direct courts to consider those same topics when determining whether a less restrictive program is an appropriate placement.

The prior exemptions in Section 877(b) - which carved out programs operated by juvenile facilities under BSCC oversight, programs subject to state licensure, and the home of a parent or supportive relative from the mandatory requirements - were eliminated along with the rest of the old Section 877.

The fiscal committee designation changed from 'no' to 'yes,' indicating the bill now carries fiscal implications requiring fiscal committee review, likely due to the new Judicial Council guideline development mandate.

The bill title and digest shifted focus from 'secure youth treatment facilities' to 'less restrictive programs: less restrictive programs,' reflecting that the primary substantive change in this amendment version concerns the framework for evaluating less restrictive program placements rather than the secure facility provisions themselves.

New Section 877 requires courts to verify that a less restrictive program meets six specific criteria before ordering a ward's transfer there: current insurance, staff training and criminal background checks, evidence of adherence to case plans and accountability measures, addressing risk needs of transferred wards, proof of notice to the city and county, and compliance with state and local zoning and land use requirements.

Section 875(f)(1) is restructured to add a new subpart (B) that prohibits courts from ordering a ward into a less restrictive program that does not satisfy Section 877 requirements, making the new program standards a mandatory gate before transfer.

Section 877(b) creates three exemptions from the program requirements: programs operated by juvenile facilities subject to Board of State and Community Corrections oversight under Title 15, programs subject to licensure by another state licensing agency, and programs in the home of the ward's parent or a supportive relative recognized by county probation and agreed to by the court.

Section 1756 is amended to update the mental health and developmental disability treatment transfer provision from the old Division of Juvenile Justice framework to the current local custody framework, replacing references to the Chief Deputy Secretary for DJJ with the county probation department in consultation with the facility's behavioral health director, and replacing 'state correctional school' with 'secure youth treatment facility.'

Minor typo fix removing a duplicate article in subdivision (i) ('any a juvenile facility' changed to 'any juvenile facility') and small wording adjustments throughout.