Other recommendations on the table ranged from the creation of a new agency to provide services to descendants of enslaved people to calculations on what the state owes them in compensation.
The task force approved a public apology acknowledging the state’s responsibility for past wrongs and promising the state will not repeat them. It would be issued in the presence of people whose ancestors were enslaved.
California has previously apologized for placing Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II and for violence against and mistreatment of Native Americans.
The panel also approved a section of the draft report saying reparations should include “cash or its equivalent” for eligible residents.
The proposals are far from implementation, however.
“There’s no way in the world that many of these recommendations are going to get through because of the inflationary impact,” said Roy L. Brooks, a professor and reparations scholar at the University of San Diego School of Law.
Some estimates from economists have projected that the state could owe upwards of $800 billion, or more than 2.5 times its annual budget, in reparations to Black people.