Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education

Senate Budget Subcommittee one on education will come to order. The Senate continues to welcome the public in person and via the teleconference service for individuals wishing to provide public comment. Today's participant number is 877-226-8216. You can see it on the screen and the access code is 621-7161. Today is our 10th and final, hopefully, subcommittee hearing on education issues in 2023. Our goal today is to not have public discussion on individual items, but we'll take up the vote only calendars on Part A and Part and pre-k through twelve and Part B in education. I should correct myself because what we're really going to do is have public comment on what's in front of us, then bring it back to the committee if there's any comments in general to have committee members make them and then do vote only. And so, since March, we've had lengthy, thoughtful and thorough discussions on all issues across pre k through twelve and higher education. We presented the Senate Democrats plan to protect our progress, and the subcommittee recently considered the May revision that reflected more dire revenue projections than in January. The actions we'll be taking today protects against harmful cuts, protects the progress we've made in the past, and will continue to make in the future. And over the ten hearings, we in the process of vetting the issues, sent signals of what we were interested in and issues that we felt needed to be addressed. And many of them, if not most of them, are dressed in the recommendations. So today is a result of those lengthy hearings. I look forward to continuing conversations with the administration and the assembly in a collaborative and thoughtful manner as we move toward a final budget agreement in the next few weeks. The order for today's hearing will first take public comment for both Parts A and B, take any final comments from the subcommittee second, and then conclude with votes for Part A and Part B. Those will be votes only, and we will segregate them by group in case there's a 40 or three one. We want to have them separate so that in blocks we can do that. So with that, ask the consultant to please call the role.

Senators Laird. Here. Laird here. Senators Min. Min. Here. Ochoa Bogh. Here. Ochoa Bogh. Here. Smallwood-Cuevas Here.

Thank you very much. We have complete committee attendance. Now we're going to move on to public comment on both pre k through twelve and higher education issues. And I was going to ask if there's anybody in the committee room that wishes to offer public comment. Seeing no one, then moderator will move to the teleconference line. Welcome to the committee, and would you please tell me how many people might be in queue?

If you have public comment at this moment, please press one, then zero on your telephone keypad. We do have somebody that queued up. One moment, one moment. We'll gather their line number here. Let me go to line number seven. Please go ahead. May have muted themselves. One moment. Hello?

We can hear you. Please state your name and give your opinion to the committee.

Yes, thank you so much. I'm line number seven. My name is Dr. Monty Perez. I am Board of Education member with LA County Board of Education and serve on the statewide County Board of Education. We are very thankful and hopeful that we urge you to support the governor's $80 million in Prop 98 for the juvenile court and community school funding really extremely important. Our students are highly challenged when they come to us, and we have to be fully staffed to get them ready to go back to the school district workforce and colleges to be successful. And we appreciate the inclusion of that funding in the May revise. And we urge your support. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Moderator are there any other callers?

We have one more. We'll go to line number eleven. Please go ahead.

Good morning. This is Jennifer Baker representing the California Association for Bilingual Education. We urge your support of the $20 million that the governor included in the May revision for the Bilingual Teacher Professional Development Grant Program to help assist with the bilingual teachers shortage. And I also wanted to note that we did send in a letter on Friday communicating the multiple concerns that we had regarding the governor's reading screening trailer bill language. We appreciate the direction the governor wants to go, but nevertheless, we wanted to ensure that English learners would not be harmed in that very expansive process. And we look forward to having conversations with you and your staff as we move forward. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Moderator anyone else?

We have no further comments.

Okay, thank you very much. We appreciate your work today. I'm going to bring the matter back before the committee for any statements before we move to votes. Senator Ochoa Bogh.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Is your mic on?

Yes, sir.

Then you probably need to be closer.

Is this better? First, I want to thank the committee members as well as the Republican staff for the quick analysis on these bills. That was really, really fast, and the work that you folks did. We truly appreciate that I'll be supporting the majority of all of these budget items today, but I do have concerns in going over the bills yesterday that there were some budget items that were coming forward with very minimal detail on that front. And so that's a lot of money that we're going to be voting on today. And I will be supporting many of them in goodwill on that end. But I do want to talk about moving forward that we would like to see a little more detailed about how these programs are going to be, how this money is going to be spent in that area. So there were some that did not have any detailed, just minimal descriptions. So on that note, and also wanted to note that there were some large policy changes that were being made in these bills, especially in the K-12 space that should have gone through a more robust policy committee hearings in my personal humble opinion. So other than that, I just wanted to state that for the moment. But thank you very much to all of you for the work that was done. Thank you to everyone for accommodating many of the concerns that were expressed in this committee and I as the only Republican on this committee, I'm very, very grateful to our Chair and to the Department of Finance, the LAO, for the work that they've done. And so just wanted to say that thank you.

Thank you very much for your comments. We appreciate them. Senator Smallwood. Cuevas.

Thank you. I want to echo what's been said already and thank the staff for really the swift and comprehensive work done to get us to this point. We're in a deficit year. We're trying to protect our progress and I think there's been a tremendous amount of effort made to ensure that. Most importantly, we are protecting the folks who have done the work, particularly during one of the most difficult times in our state's history. With the pandemic and given inflation and given what it is costing the average Californian to live, particularly in a district like mine in La County, I'm happy to see that we are protecting that cost of living. And we are investing in our campuses, particularly those that are hardest hit. And I appreciate your words, Mr. Chair, about continuing to negotiate with the administration on this to make sure that we continue to maintain these very important elements of our education system, particularly for those most vulnerable in this process. We've got a tough road ahead, it will be tougher in coming years and I think it starts here with how we start to prioritize those hardest hit communities. So I'm excited to move through this batch of bills and policies today in hopes that we continue to do the work to protect the people who need and deserve it in our communities.

Thank you very much. Senator Men. No comments? Then let me just join my colleagues in sort of a brief overview of what we're about to do because we will in the architecture for this use the Legislative Analyst Property Tax Projections together with the Department of Finances revenues, this makes available $515,000,000 in 2022 23 and 1.1 billion in 20 23 24. That's for K through twelve programs only. But it accounts also for the increased deposits in the Education Rainy Day Reserve. And so this budget is balanced. It sticks with the 8.22% increase to the Local Control Funding formula. It reduces the use of one time funds for ongoing Local Control Funding formula Lcsff from 2.8 billion down to 1.7 billion, which reduces cost pressures and severity of potential deficits in the out years. It fully restores the arts, music and instructional materials Discretionary block Grant. It partially restores the learning recovery block. Grant It funds 18 million for the Diverse Education Leaders Pipeline Initiative, it funds 20 million for the Ethnic Studies block Grant, it funds 15 million for commercial dishwasher grants outside of the 600 million kitchen infrastructure and training grants. And it uses existing savings for the childcare rate package for state preschool and family fee waivers which conforms to the childcare package that will be in sub three. And we do other things with regard to the county office funding and the charter facility grants programs. But at Higher Education, we stick with the 5% increase for both UCCSU. We also do the 8.33% increase for community colleges that mirrors the K through twelve increase and host host of actions there as well. So I think that if you look at what we heard in our testimony, we significantly attempted to address these. And as Senator Smallwood cueva said, now we have to go on. There's a few, I'm sure, differences with the assembly, although we're mostly there. And now we go on to the Governor to try to make sure that we can hold all these things. And so I think given the challenges, this is a good outcome. And so we're going to move to vote only. And we'll take Part A first and we have them grouped in three blocks where I think the vote will be 40 a second block, it'll be three one and a second block, where it'll be three. And so I'm actually going to list by block the items and then take a motion and then we'll call the roll. So in K through twelve, part A, the first block is items one through three, five through 810 through 1315 through 1820 through 25, 27 through 36, 38 through 77, 80 through 89, 91 through 112, 115 through 119 and 121 through 124. And I would take a motion on those a motion by Ochoa Bogh. Would you please call the role.?

Senator Laird aye? Laird. Aye Senator Min aye. Min aye. Ochoa Bugh aye Ochoa Bogh, aye Smallwood-Cuevas aye

That block of actions passes 4-0. The second block is items 426 and 113 and 114. Could I have a motion on those items? So move motion by Smallwood Cuevas. Would you please call the role

Senators Laird aye.Laird Aye Min Min Aye Ochoa Bogh No Ochoa Bogh No Smallwood- Cuevas aye.

Those items pass 3-1. And then the last block in K-12 is items 914, 1937, 7879 and 120. Do I have a motion on those items? Motion by Smallwood-Cuevas. Would you please call the role.

Senators Laird aye. Laird Aye Min aye Min aye Ochoa Bogh not voting Ochoa Bogh not voting Smallwood-Cuevas Aye

Those items pass three to zero and then we'll move to higher education. And I want to just note that an item 66, we're splitting it in two, we have what we refer to is 66 a, which is the funds, and 66 b, which is the trailer bill. So the first group would be items one through four, seven through 21, 24, 26 through 65, 66 a, the funds in 66 and 67 through 69. Could I have a motion? Motion by Ochoa Bogh. Would you please call the roll?

Senators Laird aye. Laird aye. Min aye. Min aye. Ochoa Bogh aye, Ochoa Bogh aye Smallwood-Cuevas aye.

Those items pass four to zero. Then we're going to move to the second block, which is items five, six, and 22. Do I have a motion? A motion by Smallwood-Cuevas.Would you please call the role?

Senators Laird aye. Laird. aye Min aye. Min aye. Ochoa Bogh no Ochoa Bogh no Smallwood-Cuevas Aye.

Those items pass three to one, and then we're going to move to the last block, which is items 23, 25, and 66 b, which is the trailer bill part of item 66. Do I have a motion? Motion by Smallwood-Cuevas. Would you please call the role ?

Senators Laird aye. Laird. aye Min aye. Min aye. Ochoa Bogh not voting. Ochoa bogh not voting. Smallwood-Cuevas aye.

Have those items pass three to zero. And that completes our business today. Let me thank everyone for all their work all the way to here and for their efficiency today. And we do not contemplate an additional meeting, but that could be in the who knows category. So just thanks, everybody, for their work. And the staff has been amazing in this, and I know that they've been amazing, but they're going to have to be amazing the next week or two too. So we really appreciate all that work. So, as always, if it turns out that there was something that people wanted to contribute and they didn't have a chance to testify, we will always take things in writing to the budget committee. And that might be important, because as we go to negotiations, it it's good to still hear from you. But with that, I thank everyone for one of the more efficient meetings we've had. And budget subcommittee one on education stands adjourned.