Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance

Good morning everybody. Welcome to the Assembly Budget Subcommitee on Education Finance Chair David Alvarez and welcome to today's Committee hearing. I'm looking at this hearing as a follow up from our CTE conversation. Our oversight hearing that we had roughly about over a year ago with the master plan for career education was first kicking off.

Some of you might recall. With the adoption of the Local Control Funding Formula and dissolving of CTE, the state undertook a decades long experiment in less coordination for career education funding and interagency intersector leadership.

The part of the master plan that stands out to me most clearly is that the experiment in local control for statewide and system focus needs to end and to address the robust career education that's happening across the state. I look forward to hearing more about this vision today from the Administration.

As the LAO's handout enumerates, we have over a billion in annual federal and state investments ongoing in CTE. These core post LCFF investments need to be a foundation for building a stronger system. How can they better articulate? How can our approach be evaluated holistically?

In recent years we have added another billion plus in one time career and college readiness initiatives including dual enrollment and career pathways. What lessons did we learn from these one time investments and how do we want to move forward? The Assembly has been championing reinvestment in high quality articulated career education for over two decades.

But we are not just interested in spending alone to say we've thrown money at this problem of underprepared students. We need to focus on the results as we always like to hone in on here at this Committee. So hopefully this discussion can stay focused on those results and coherence with our existing core investments.

I also want to note that issue number 34 and 5 were heard already in Subcommitee number five. And I appreciate Assembly Member Quirk Silva's partnership as we shape our final budget position on these issues that cross over between that Committee and our Committee.

So with that we I'll give an opportunity, as we have in the past, for anyone who wants to make brief remarks on anything on the agenda today. You can do so in an abbreviated version of 30 seconds here at the beginning. Beginning Help us.

Last week I want to recall some folks helped us make some more pointing questions and comments during our exchange with the panelists. So if you want to do that, this is your opportunity. I see no one coming up. Then we'll wait and do public comment at the end of today's agenda.

So with that let's begin with issue number one. If I can please ask the panel for the Governor's Master Plan for Career Education to please come forward. So for this state, for this issue, we'll set the stage for the January budget proposal on career education with a presentation from our Labor Secretary.

Welcome very much on the new Career Education Master Plan. Secretary Knox, welcome to this Committee. We appreciate you being here. And we also will hear from the Department of Finance. Secretary, Please proceed.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate it. We're usually not in sub 3, as you know, so appreciate your time. Thank you. Good to see the Members as well. Well, thank you, Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to have a conversation around the Master Plan and career education. It's exciting moment.

We did get the release out, as you saw last week with the Governor in Modesto. Chair, Members of the Assembly, thank you for the opportunity to talk about the Career Education Master plan released last week.

This plan has potential to change the lives of millions of Californians and put them on the path to good jobs, which is the goal of our organizations. Through my 20 years at the local level, as some of you know, I worked for four workforce development boards and seven years in the community college system.

Recognize you as well for the systems I ran education and employment programs using multiple funding streams with different accountabilities which were confusing to program leaders, but more importantly to the people we are serving. At 1.0 I think I mentioned I've had 17 different Fund sources when I ran these programs locally.

And so just the complexity of the data systems and the complexity of just running multiple funding streams is very important to understand. From our perspective, the participants and communities must always come first. People know where to go, need to know where to go and to get services and training.

This is what the Master Plan strives to reduce is the fragmentation we've experienced at the local level and to keep learners and workers at the center of everything that we do. This principle drove the development of the plan.

We've held eight sessions within the State of California with close to a thousand students, employers, educators and union leaders sharing their challenges and offering their solutions. Since then, we have continued the conversations with all of the regions within the state. Between the K16 collaborators, jobs first convenors and workforce boards, adult educations, K12 and the employers at large.

The message that has remained constant is constant is we need to build a stronger statewide leadership and regional capacity to do this right. Data collection systems in multiple areas within the State of California need to talk to each other.

We learned from the north state while we were up there in Assemblymember Hadwick's district how those 11 counties are actually working together and have solutions that the state can learn from.

Employers need to know where to go to shape training and to meet hiring demands and students need to better understand where the jobs will be and which training programs or education pathways will be best for them.

We at the state need to coordinate better with the regions toward a common goal of streamlining services, aligned funding, closer coordination, all supporting better employment and outcomes for our communities that we serve. This is what this plan is driving towards.

By connecting credit for prior learning, competency based education, the E Transcript and the Career Passport, employers will be more easily able to hire skilled workers within their regions and their areas and students will be more effectively able to build their skills that they need for good jobs in the future in this ever changing economy.

Governor Newsom talks about the three legged stool. Sometimes he talks about a four legged stool, but I'll talk about the three legged stool today to create a California for all the jobs. First blueprint addresses the demand side of the economic development.

The K16 collaboratives build to the supply side and now the master plan on career education blends these together by linking supply to demand. The Cradle to Career system gives us a great start in understanding these connections through ensuring that data sent into one single system as a data I call it a data lake.

They probably call it something totally different, but I call it a data lake which can be accessed by multiple entities. Currently we have multiple systems, none of them talk to each other and we have already started to dump some of these data points into that system.

As we currently have addressed this issue we have under the labor agency. I probably should have started with that. The Employment Training, Employment Training Panel, California Workforce Development Board, the Workforce Services Branch which oversees Workforce Innovation Opportunity act and Division of Apprenticeship Standards. All four of those systems actually have four different data systems as well.

Just to give some complexity and knowledge to that. So we look forward to working with Cradle to Careers. We've already begun to do. The master plan identifies six major priorities. 1. Create a robust statewide coordination to better serve students and workers and employers and bring employers to the table and have those conversations with that group. 2.

Increase regional coordination, a need loudly expressed by the regional work groups this last year. As I always say, this is where the work actually happens is within the regions and the local communities. We need to learn from them what's happening.

What we can better develop is that support skills based on hiring through a career passport building on industry recognized certifications and credentials, working with our employer groups, Competency based education and work based learning Credit for prior learning by veterans and adult workers.

E Transcript for better coordination with the CSUs and the UC systems and clearer paths for students as they develop their journey through their career.

Develop career pathways for high schools, high school students and college students through earn and learn models already working which we have a bunch of those under us through the apprenticeship and pre apprenticeship training programs and expanding the Cal Volunteers model as we know it today to to be able to enable those students to move through a community college up to UC or state University if they desire.

5. Strengthen workforce training for young people and adults, especially those facing challenges to employment and as we know also I think we mentioned quite often is that there's at least 500,000 students, well soon to be students let's hope that are either not connected to any kind of education system nor are they in employment from the records that we hold.

So that is a 500 plus thousand group of folks that are just not in the workforce or in an education component through sector pathways based on employer demand that these can lead to marketable skills and industry recognized credentials.

We need to create the no wrong door approach that enables students and workers to find the programs that will best serve their needs with supports to ensure their success and number six increase access and affordability of education and training in coordination with the state and county partners.

Increasing use of public benefits including CalFresh and CalWORK systems to bring those support services for the students and create stronger supports for housing, food, childcare, transportation, healthcare and other basic needs.

I think you may have saw the Health and Human Services Secretary, Kim Johnson was with me last week as we announced the plan and that's part of that initiative under the governors that we all work together and we ensure that these students have wraparound services.

These are the priorities the plan set forth to strengthen the California's economy and to equip all students and workers, regardless of background or circumstances, with the tools necessary to thrive in a rapidly changing economy.

As you hear the budget request today and specific components of the master plan, I hope you keep in mind this bigger picture and the vision that which we envision with you is the potential to transform our state's education system plus our career systems which we oversee at the labor agency. Thank you and look forward to any questions.

Thank you. Does the Department have anything to add?

Good morning. My name is Jessica Holmes. I'm the Program Budget Manager over the Education Systems unit for the Department of Finance. I'm here to answer any questions you might have. Our office oversees the budgets for both higher education and Tk12. So happy to provide any information on the education side of the master plan as well.

Thank you. I'll turn to my colleagues for questions. Mr. Fong, go first.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And thank you Secretary Knox for that presentation and overview. In our discussions as well, we know we've really tried to champion a career technical education workforce development initiatives in our various roles.

And when I served as a community college trustee and formerly when I was at the City of LA, a Community Development Department, workforce development and trying to get folks back into the job pipeline is so critical in creating these career pathways. So really appreciate your attention to this and the governor's attention on this issue.

Also in terms of the particularly interested in the proposed Interagency Coordinating Council had a Bill in this space last year that would have created a variation of the California Post Secondary Education Commission. I know this is issue number four, so look forward to discussing when we get to it.

But a quick question that I had is on the career master plan when I was looking at it is how do we determine success in terms of the career master plan? I know when we look at we owe we look at different success and metric rates. What will determine success is coming out of the education plan.

Thank you. Yeah, it's a great question and good to see you. Assembly Member. I was down in your district I think a couple weeks ago. I think there's so many ways we can see success. One is we need to attract more students.

I think that's one key component is we are seeing as I mentioned, the 500,000 plus people that are not within an education component nor are they in the workforce programs, nor are they in the workforce that we can tell.

They may be doing Uber, they may be doing Lyft, they may be doing jobs that we are not seeing from our side of the house. So I think that's one is to be able to attract students and open that no wrong door opportunity that's going to take collectively all of our systems working together to figure that out.

We always say our system is somewhat the system, which is hate to say it this way, but it's kind of the last resort system under the Workforce Innovation Opportunity act where this is folks that have unlike the dislocated workers, which is people that have lost their jobs no fault of their own, but it is the system for where people code last.

We need to coordinate our activities with our education system much like we did and I'm old enough to remember this the old JTPA days where we start working within school districts early. We need to Start working with those districts. As these students are graduating high school, we need to start working with them when they're juniors.

So that's one piece. I think the second part to this is having employers engage with the system to be able to understand from our perspective of what those skills needs are.

When we talk to employers, which we do this quite often is most of the time employers will say we just need a person to show up on time. They need more than that. They need a skilled person to be able to do the job.

And so we're happy to help and work with them to do that work and move those folks into those employment opportunities. And I think third to that is we need to see people with skills development lifelong.

So lifelong learning has got to be the way that we do this work in the future, because if we don't, then this is going to be a problem for us all them in the future as well. I think one of the key components. I always say this about myself. I've had seven major career changes and I'm old.

This younger generation is going to have double probably those number of career changes in their lifetime. So lifelong learning has to be a component of the work that we do. And we have to understand from our employers exactly what that work is going to. To look like for the future.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes. Good morning and thank you for being here. One specific question based on what you said, I'm just thinking about those nearly 500,000 people that are neither in college or in the workforce. Do we have statistics around their demographics?

When I say demographics, I mean are some of these individuals with disabilities who the workforce is not able to accommodate them and what are we doing for those people?

Yeah, it's a great question as well. We work with Department of Rehab. In terms of that question around the disabilities, there's probably a good number. I don't know if I have stats off the top of my head in terms of the number with disabilities. There's a number of disabilities.

I think there's a number that are just disenfranchised with the system. They lost track of where they were to go after high school. They maybe didn't even finish high school. But then they just have gotten into a system for which there's couch surfing. We hear about this quite often.

They may be living with relatives, they're doing odd jobs, they're being paid under the table. And so that number is pretty. That's large. If that's. I probably think that number is even bigger than 500,000. But that's the number that we see. The age range is anywhere anybody talks about from 16 to 24.

We also talked about 18 to 28 year olds. The Workforce Innovation Opportunity act talks about serving 16 to 24 year olds. We actually have Opportunity Youth program under our labor agency and we're saying 18 to 28. That age range is growing of these disenfranchised youth.

And so we've actually expanded that to age 28 in the State of California. No offense to our federal friends, but that I think is a core component of what we need to do. And so like la, Trade Tech is a great example of attracting students at a much older age.

I think our community college system is really moving in that direction. And so with our system as a partner in that, I believe that's a play that we can start to make is to get them into a workplace learning opportunity, including education.

And are we tracking, once we get these individuals into a program, are we tracking enrollment versus outcome or graduation and then into job placement to look at our success rate, for example?

Yeah, this gets to the complication a little bit about Cradle to Career a little bit. So as I mentioned, we have four different systems that track under just our four different disparate entities. So those all of that information depending on which program that they're enrolled in.

We do track what we're working towards with Cradle to Career and with the state systems is to be able to upload that information with them and then back it into the base wage file. What we also hold at EDD to be able to see what those outcomes really look like.

So many times we see the outcomes as people are earning $7,000 a quarter. Well, that's less than minimum wage. So there's definitely an issue that they're either working part time and going to college, which is fine, but we don't know that right now. In the future we'll start to see that to be able to tell what they're doing.

Sorry to really get into it. Do we track whether they're in some kind of for profit University system out of state? Does that get included in our tracking system?

To my knowledge, no, it is not. But I would have to ask some of our folks probably that to answer that question, but happy to do that offline.

Final question, I have a thousand, but I will stop after this one. When we're looking at our youth who are couch serving or feeling dissipated and disengaged, disenfranchised, are those individuals accessing like CalFresh Medical et cetera or are they completely disconnected with services and supports?

Yeah, mostly I would say they're completely disassociated with any services from the state. But one of the key components of this is what we do want to start to track is if we can get them entered into one program, then we can start to track where they are providing some services or add services to those wraparound services.

The one thing that we started under in 2019 when I came on board and Abby, you'll hear from later is we started to really talk about support services to students. I think this is so key to actually having completion rates go up. And so since 2019 we've added a lot of dollars.

It used to be I'm from the old federal guidelines of you couldn't spend more than $6,000 per student and 3,000 on a younger youth and blah blah, blah. We kind of threw that out the window and said that may be for the training component and we'd like to work with our partners to make that happen better.

But the support services, the wraparound services, we said let's up that dollar amount to up to over $10,000 potentially per entity, per person. Those outcomes are starting to increase based on that because we know that those support services to students are so important for them to complete. And when they do complete, they complete with a much higher level of pay..

Thank you.

Thank you,

Ms. Hadwick.

I just want to thank you guys for your work on this. It's very exciting for my district especially because we have five community colleges and we're all of them are about 80 miles away from a four year University or public University. So this is really a huge focus for our district and we have huge staffing gaps.

So I just want to thank you for the work and really the collaboration for this in the North State has been really impressive and just excited to see it come into fruition.

I just have to make a comment really quick because I'm from up there, as you know. So I just have to make a comment is that we were so impressed with the engagement that we had when we were in the north state with the K16 collaborators and just the Jobs first initiative. The work that the North State is doing is just paramount to what I think the rest of the state we can look at as well.

They're doing great. Part of it is out of survival for us, but we really do have those partnerships built. So it's nice to see it come to work and come to life. So thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Muratsuchi.

Thank you. Secretary Knox, good to see you again. I also want to thank the Governor and you for elevating the importance of career education and career technical education in our changing economy, making sure that our education programs are relevant to what students need to learn real world job skills.

I know that we're going to be drilling more down, more into the specific proposals like the Education Interagency council and the K16 collaboratives, but I just wanted to flag, you know, what I'm going to be looking for. I was here in 20 when Governor Jerry Brown championed the regional collaboratives driven by our community colleges.

And I haven't seen a lot of success stories coming out of those regional efforts. And so the question at the top of my mind is how is this different from what we we did under Governor Brown in terms of promoting more collaborations among the different public education segments?

Sure. And I'll let them answer mostly that question probably. But I will just make a quick comment. I was here in 2014 also with Governor Brown. I ran the employment training panel and worked with then Administration around that effort.

I will say we've already had on on Friday of last week, we met with the chancellor, Sonia Christian, and her team, with our team as well. And so I think that is top of mind for us as well. I should express they have eight regions.

We have 15 what we call regional planning units under the 45 local boards. There's in addition to that, the 13 now with K16, 13 with the jobs first. We're having conversations of making everything 13. And so we're not there yet.

But if we can get to that point of saying there's 13 regions and then we will collectively figure out how to best Fund those regions. I think, as I keep saying, the regions is where the work happens. The local community is where the work happens at the state. We need to coordinate that better.

We need to figure out how that that work is being done. And that's what the goal is today.

Zero, sorry. I would also add that I think we talk a lot about the disparate nature of our current system of career technical education. But I did want to point out that this conversation should not just be about the problems that we have in this area, but also the work that we've done.

And I know you know firsthand, Mr. Muratsuchi, how far we've come in that time, because when you look at programs like K12 strong workforce and the community college's Strong Workforce program that have that direct link between the systems and the fact that they have their eight regions that we're then talking about combining with the Jobs first regions. All of these pieces are there.

There's alignment in terms of metrics and data that's collected across these programs with things like Perkins, there's coordination with wioa. So there are pieces there that we already have in place that once we connect all those pieces together, you know, we're going to be really ready, I think, to hit some, some, some synergy.

So I did want to point that out. There is a lot that's been done over the last 10 or so years to bring us to this point.

Thank you. I just wanted to. It seems like my questions in terms of potential funding reform may be more appropriate given that you have the statewide perspective and that we're going to be drilling down into the individual components of the master plan.

So I remember in 2014, as the staff report discusses, I mean, we used to allocate $400 million to Regional Occupational centers and programs. I mean, those were truly regional efforts where the funding incentivized those regional collaborations.

Whereas, you know, after the Local Control Funding Formula was passed and those that $400 million funding to incentivize regional collaborations were all broken up, you know, and added to the added grants to, especially to our K12 districts. Maybe this is more of a concern for the K12 and how this fits into the master plan.

My concern is that we always welcome bringing the silos together and getting people to talk to each other and hopefully to try to coordinate with each other. But my concern is that the funding is always going to drive the segments and what they pursue.

Sure enough, with the loss of the regional occupational center and program funding, all the separate school districts started adopting their own career technical education programs. And it just like, you know, balkanized and broke up. And so I'm hoping that as we go forward, we're not just talking about creating these.

These bodies to get people to talk to each other, but that we have the funding to incentivize the regional collaborations and any thoughts on that?

Sure. Sure enough. Jessica could probably answer more from the fiscal standpoint. I think what's core for us is. I think your point's right on. When we look at the regions and even the local districts, we see great work happening throughout the State of California. Amazing work is happening through the State of California.

What I think the component for us is to figure out is one, in spite of, and I'll say this in spite of the state's capacity issues at our level to manage it, some people are figuring it out with that one. What Are the lessons learning from that? Two, what can we scale?

And I think that's the piece that I keep thinking through. It's like, when I go to these districts, when I go to these regions, and I hear the amazing work they're doing is with current resources generally, how can we scale this throughout the State of California?

And so I'll just use some quick examples from what I know, and it may not totally answer your question. Jessica probably could better answer the question.

But when we talk about dual enrollment, for example, and I go to the Inland Empire, and they say, yeah, we got this down, and they're at 20, they have a goal of 25%. They're gonna hit 35% of all the students.

But if I go to the North State and I talk about dual enrollment, they say, we don't know what you're really. They know what we're talking about, but they don't have the connecting points to their community college system to make that happen. And so there's, like, where the state could be helpful in these.

These conversations to say we can build that relationship. We could build a template and say, this is how this is going to be done in the future. In terms of the CTE components, I think this is the conversations we have with the chancellor's office. Quite often we do huge investments on our side of the house.

They do huge investments on their side of the house. We are now coordinating that. Better to actually have better outcomes for our students. And that's what the master plan goal is to do.

I appreciate scale, which is why we want to promote the regional efforts to achieve, you know, all the expenses, equipment needs for career technical education. I just want to leave with this one last example to not just focus on scale, but to try to avoid the redundancies that I've seen.

I mean, I know in my district in Torrance, you know, El Camino College has an aerospace manufacturing, you know, program training sheet metal workers and welders. Great program. Work with Northrop Grumman to train them to their specs, you know, so that they can have a direct pipeline from the community college to our aerospace manufacturers.

At the same time, I saw Torrance High School, they have an aerospace manufacturing program, you know, so it's like the funding, because they. They got the CTIG money to. To have their own aerospace manufacturing program. And so that's my concern, is that, you know, people are going to follow the funding more than these regional, regional discussions.

And so I'm hoping that we will address the issue of how the funding can incentivize more regional collaborations. Thank you.

Thank you. Great points by all my colleagues. I would just say that having just received the Career Master Plan or the Master Plan for Career Education last week, I'm starting to go through it, but I do see some. Some things in here that call attention.

We'll get into the specifics on the Career Education Interagency Council, but as the report states on page 15, you know, the lack of clear goals for higher education, CPEC struggled to broker agreements. It was just the body which had no real enforcements or incentives built around it.

And it sounds like what we'll discuss in number four is very similar to that. And so unless there's some authority there, you know, we're basically in this case anyway, maybe just repackaging something that we know doesn't work to the same point that Mr. Mirsucci was making on these regional efforts.

How are we actually going to see something be different than what's been done before? And I think overall, the vision and the goals in the Master Plan are phenomenal. But to the first question that we started out with, Mr. Fong, how are we going to measure.

And I don't see any KPIs, key performance indicators, any sort of measurements associated with what we hope we will achieve with each one of these initiatives as part of the Master Plan? And I think we'll get into asking those questions to each of the individual components of it. But I think to Mr.

Murituchi's point, we're putting more money up. People do respond to that, and so how do we invest so that people respond in the right way to do the things the way that you've laid out today, which I think is the right way and not the segmented way, which has been historically what we often do. And I think that's a lesson that we cannot repeat.

Or a mistake, perhaps, that you could point to that we shouldn't repeat. So with that, I also. We also wanted to ask specifically about childcare and what role that plays into all of this, because we know that a lot of individuals with children have difficulty getting back into, whether it's, you know, education or into the workforce. Really. Can you talk about what was discussed around that topic?

Yeah, I can start with that, and then I'll probably turn it to. To finance a little bit on that. We obviously know childcare is a huge component of what the work needs to happen. Our community college system, I think, is prepared to ramp up some work around that.

Our system, which is mostly federally funded out of the workforce system, we have paid for childcare support services in the. Past for many of our areas. It is very costly, and so we do know that we have to leverage resources to do that. But that is a component that we're looking at, and we're working with finance.

To really think about how child care. Components can work into this and where the offsets of payment can happen. I think collectively as a system, with those wraparound services that we can provide. Between multiple systems, we will get there.

I would just note that childcare is particularly tricky because every situation is difficult and every family has different needs. So, for example, before I came to this hearing this morning, I dropped off my two kids at two different places, 15 minutes away from each other and 10 minutes away from our house.

So it was a long commute this morning because they're both on spring break. But I think what you'll see in. Or I think what you've probably seen, even though this is, I know, a very difficult conversation, this Administration has tried to expand access to care in multiple places and in multiple ways.

So, for example, we've expanded access to transitional kindergarten, as we've discussed, we've expanded access to expanded learning opportunities programs. But there are also other avenues that families can receive subsidies. So, for example, community colleges participate in CalWORKS and helping families get access to care through those programs. So there are multiple doors that families can come into.

Is it enough? Probably not. I think we recognize that. I think it's also really important to notice, to recognize that, you know, the childcare system had a hard time during COVID and is still coming out of that period.

And, you know, as part of the overall conversations around the funding of child care, which certainly no longer in my purview. So I don't want to speak too deeply to. But I think we understand that there is need.

I think trying to figure out how to maximize the number of resources for families with limited state resources is always the tension and always the difficulty.

Let me ask you to end on the issue of the data. You mentioned the data lag and data. We've heard about a lot of different data systems in this Committee alone. I'm sure there's more out there.

Certainly Cradle to Career is one that has been mentioned as the one tool that would give us access to the data that seems to fit what you're seeking. Are you talking about a different data system or are you talking about the Cradle to Care career system or another one of the systems that we have no cradle?

Cradle to Career is what I'm talking about. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Thank you for being secretary. Appreciate you. And with that we will get onto the some of the specifics with the issues that are before us today.

I also just want to take a moment to let colleagues know that we will be taking a vote on item number seven today. So I appreciate you all being around.

I will try to do that as most of us are here so that we can get through and we do have to take roll in order to be able to take a vote today. So we will take roll now.

[Roll Call]

Okay, so we have a quorum and again we will get to a vote on item number seven. We might move that up a little bit depending on needs of Committee Members today. So with that, let's start with issue two, Career Technical Education oversight.

For this issue we have the Legislative Analyst Office, the California Department of Education, California Community College Chancellor's Office and the Department of Finance. The panel will provide an update on key career technical education investments in both K12 schools and community colleges, in addition to the regional CTE pathways and partnerships that exist in the state.

So with that, I think we're going to begin with the Legislative Analyst Office to kick us off.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Members of the Committee, Michael Alferes with the Legislative Analyst Office. Our office recently published overview of the K12 CTE programs that the state has.

This includes the ongoing programs, the recent one time funding that was provided for different CTE programs and dual enrollment as well as data that the state collects annually on courses and data for the state's school accountability system. I believe this.

Our understanding is that this publication was provided to you with your agendas for folks that are watching remotely. The report is also available on our website at lao.ca.gov with that kind of concludes our comments. Ready to answer Any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Department of Education.

Good morning. Mary Nicely, Deputy Superintendent of Information Technology, Department of Education, speaking on behalf of Assembly Member Thurman Erin. I'm going to ask you, is this where I give some update? Okay. Thank you. Thank you all. So just to give you some updates on what we are doing. I'm just grateful for the funding we do get.

We do know that CTE students that participate do have higher graduation rates, do have higher achievement scores, tend to come to school more often. So we know that it is a major program that does support our students and has measurable outcomes that we are happy to share. Whenever you'd like some updates on some of our major programs.

CTIG our incentive grants rounds 10A and 10B have gone out with over 400 grantees. And we have worked to streamline the applications so that We for round 11, which will be going out in 25 and 26, we have consolidated three different applications into one.

So this is a major step forward for the Department as we work to streamline applications and processes to make it easier for our LEAs to be able to update their to be able to apply for grants.

And that system that we are using, we have a grants management system that we are using now for the incentive grants that is already in use for our Perkins grantees and our California partnership academies, our Perkins 2526. We anticipate over 350 continuing districts and received intents to apply from 15 new grantees.

So we know that the need is still there for our Perkins grants and folks are still wanting to apply for that because we know that it the outcomes are happening. Our ag incentive grant continues to be something very important for us in the State of California with our agricultural economy.

We have over 300 LEAs who participate in that from grades 7 to 12. And they continue to receive funds from local programs and are reviewed by industry advisory committees. And we're really proud to say this past week In Sacramento, over 7,000 students, we're at the Golden 1 Center for our FAA.

If you've never been to one of those, it is amazing. It is like a rock concert. I recommend everyone go to that conference. The kids put that on. Our staff helps them put it on.

But it is really run by our kids and it is run with a number of different leadership at workshops and and throughout the convention center. So it really is something quite a spectacle to see and amazing to see that we are able to support our kids in Ag Ed, which continue to grow.

Regarding our Golden State Pathways Program, we know that those dollars are out. The Golden State Pathways program, you know, was delayed for a while due to a number of issues.

But we at the Department of Education have used that as a way for us to really look at how we are running our programs, how they are being distributed, how the applications are being processed, as well as how we are working with our own leadership within the Department to streamline processes and ensure that these kinds of delays do not happen again.

So just wanted to let you know that we are working on consolidation of a lot of our reporting. And when it comes to our Q and A, we're happy to be able to discuss some other things in regards to the master plan. We think this is the right time.

It's an important time for us to be aligning the work that we are doing with our partners in the community colleges as well as with the state. Because I think something that we have always been concerned about is our kids. There are a lot, I think, to Assemblymember Marisucci's point, aerospace programs going on.

We are recreating the wheel across the state. We should not have to be doing that. We should be looking at what other folks are doing. Being able to uplift those stories and be able to scale successes. I think those are critically important.

But also, I think, what happens after those kids come out of high school and they've had this fantastic experience? What happens? Does it just stop? Do they have the requirements they need to go and become engineers? If that's what they're interested in, what is their next step? And I think that is something that is missing in all of this.

And I'm hoping the master plan can help us get some of that, some of that technical assistance, some of that counseling, some of that support through to our kids so they continue to be successful in the programs they started while they were in middle school and college and can actually achieve those careers and those dreams that they worked for and got excited about. But then it may just stop in its tracks if we can't get that.

But I think we also have some other things that I think we're very excited about with the master plan regarding the work that we did with dual enrollment and possibly the career passport to help our kids be able to use the internship and apprenticeship experience they got in high school to move them forward and be able to actually qualify for some of these positions that may be really hard for them to get.

So for now, I am available with some of my staff to be able to answer any questions you have. Thank you.

Thank you. Go on to Our next panelist Community College Chancellor's Office

Chair Alvarez Members of the Committee Chris Ferguson, Executive Vice Chancellor for the California Community Colleges I'm here to share information primarily around three specific programs, the Community College Strong Workforce Program, the Community College Perkins program and the K12 Strong Workforce Program which are all operated in this sphere within our office.

The Community College Strong Workforce Program has provided well over $1.0 billion in funding to our colleges to support the creation and expansion of high quality career technical education programs that lead to living wage jobs.

Currently, the program receives roughly 290 million ongoing with around 60 with 60 million being carved out specifically for the Rebuilding Nursing Infrastructure Grant Program. This funding supports the goals of Vision 2030 so we have our aspirational goals.

It supports the goals of the ROADMAP for California Community Colleges as well, which aim to improve student success, reduce achievement and equity gaps and develop a skilled workforce in California.

Our colleges, our districts and consortia are strongly invested in the Strong Workforce Program because it supports their ability to engage with a wide industry or a wide range of industry sectors and local partners.

Typical investments include upgrading their current programs, establishing new programs leading to well paying jobs in high demand occupations, creating pathways to and into and from other educational and training systems, and strengthening connections with employers.

Just in terms of data in 21-22 near the 80,000 strong workforce program participants obtained a credential in terms of the K12 Strong Workforce Program. The K12 Strong Workforce Program has fostered an extensive network of local educational agencies and community colleges working together to strengthen career pathways and workforce alignment.

The program provides approximately 163.5 million in total funding to support grants to program participants and to support technical assistance providers throughout 2023. We would note that 315 lead local educational agency part agencies participated in 6891 grants and that's from roughly 2020 through 2023 impacting approximately 5790 schools across California.

Throughout that time, 59% of our lead local educational agencies have secured multiple grants highlighting sustained engagement and career technical education expansion and workforce prep across our program participants.

And we would note that the program has strengthened LEA partnerships with our California community colleges with 15 with some colleges participating in up to 15 specific grants reflecting deep collaboration and workforce aligned pathways. Lastly, I just highlight the Perkins Program.

Most recently Perkins V was re upped I believe in 2018 and what it's focused on is to better ensure career and technical education programs are able to meet the demands of the 21st century economy. The program receives for our portion roughly 65 million ongoing in federal funding.

We have not received any indication that that funding is at risk. But clearly with federal uncertainty, our colleges are a bit nervous that any funding stream, federal funding streams, could be impacted.

What we would note here is Perkins V does represent an important opportunity to expand opportunities for every student to explore, choose and follow career and vocational education programs of study and career pathways to earn credentials of value.

With that, I also have my colleague, Vice Chancellor Tony Cordova, available should there be questions about any of the three programs I just mentioned. We remain strong supporters of apprenticeship programs. Our board did have a supplemental ask of 60 million ongoing to continue expanding apprenticeship programs in the state. Thank you, Department of Finance.

Good morning. Chair Alvarez and Members. Liz Meyer with the Department of Finance. Nothing further to add, but happy to take any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Appreciate you all being here. Thank you all for your presentation. Let me start off with a couple questions just to sort of set the stage.

One, I guess a comment more than anything, if nothing else, I think the report today and this item makes it pretty clear that this is one space where the state has been able to make substantial investments and is because of Proposition 98 able to continue to make substantial investments.

But just because it's able to doesn't mean it should be done as we've done in the past.

To continue the theme of the previous conversation, as just to point out in the report in the background, when LCFF came to be and funding the categorical funding for ROC Regional Occupation Centers or ROP, some people knew them as it was at about $400 million.

And so this is in the first paragraph of a report, I think it's pretty easy to understand and equivalent to that, my understanding was 2.6% of the LCFF to sort of make people whole, if you will. Here we are now well over 10 years after that.

And I'm trying to comprehend how much we have now focused around career education. And the table that's presented with the K12 Career Technical Education categorical programs, which are ongoing Prop 98 funding, puts us at $347 million.

Now I understand that perhaps there was a component in the LA report that identified another 150 million from K12 strong workforce, which I'm trying to understand how that's serving K12 students, given that that's a community college, I thought program. But can you.

Can the LAO help me understand sort of where we are today in total funding on career technical education versus where we were just to sort of set the stage?

Yes, happy to take that question, Mr. Chair. So as you mentioned, can you get.

A little closer to the microphone, please?

So when LCFF was enacted, there was, you know, previously 80 or so categorical programs that were largely consolidated, including the largest CTE program, the ROCP program that was about 400 million.

But some of the programs that are on this table are categorical programs that were carried over from previous to Lcff, including the Partnership Academies, the Agricultural CTE Incentive Grant and specialized Secondary programs.

Ctig, initially after LCFF was enacted, was provided on a temporary basis to try to help phase out state funding and kind of increasing local matches so that more CTE was supported by LCFF rather than categorical programs.

However, in 2018-19, the state decided to make CTE the CTIC program, kind of an ongoing program at 150 million and increased that in 21-22 to 300 million.

Let me just briefly interrupt you. Is that because the evidence in 1819 and the years following we didn't see local districts actually creating programs. And so this was a way to have some funding source to have some CTE career education type of programs. Was that the reason?

I believe the intention was to kind of keep a certain amount of funding at the state level to be able to incentivize more CTE programs as the programs can be generally very costly and so to kind of help provide some funding to cover some of the more expensive costs.

As our understanding, what we've heard anecdotally is that cost for instructors and things of that nature is covered through lcff. And the ongoing programs are generally used for more one time purposes such as purchasing equipment and materials, professional development and upgrading facilities and things of that nature. I do want to address for the.

So let me also just clarify though you stated there are 80 categoricals prior to LCFF, only 400 million was related to ROP or ROC. Then there were 79 others that had some other funding. So we're talking about more funding existed in specifically CTE pre LCFF than the 400 I've I've identified.

Sorry, just to clarify, the 80 was just total categorical programs that existed. Okay. And RLCP was one of the few that was focused on cte.

And so the ones that I highlighted that are on this table, three of them, the Specialized Secondary program, CTE Incentive grant, I'm sorry the Agricultural CTE Grant and the California Partnership Academies were some of the smaller programs that were maintained and still are being funded. Okay.

And I think you were talked about K12, strong workforce. Yes.

So in 2018-19 the same year when CT was made permanent. Ongoing program or at least there's ongoing funding that provides one time funding to school districts.

There was established the K12 component of the strong workforce program that was at the community college that already served community college school districts or community college districts rather through eight regional consortia that have existed for quite a. Quite a few decades that provided more of the kind of Perkins funding.

And this was funding that was provided for to community colleges to administer to the regional consortia based on a formula that takes into account the number of students that are in the regions kind of regional workforce needs. And the funding ultimately does go to K12 school districts, charter schools and offices.

To do what kind of work at The K12?

largely to kind of partner with the community college to kind of create pathways for students that are attending the high schools or in these leas that would ultimately kind of feed into the community college potentially or. And then kind of beyond and could be kind of seen as a feeder into the community college kids college.

So that to me that sounds a lot like the specialized secondary programs, although those are competitive grants. But the intent was to do pilot programs to prepare students for college and careers in specialized fields. Is there some. Would you care to comment whether there's some potential duplication of efforts among some of these programs?

Do you have an opinion about that? You don't have to, but if you do

Edgar Cabral with LAO, I think would say there's duplication with essentially all of these programs. I think that that's part of a certain thing to consider. Right. Part of the reason why I think the.

So I think as my colleague mentioned, the reason why we have K12 strong workforce and CTEC program is essentially because the Governor and the Legislature at the time could not agree on what the. What the. What program we were going to restore to bring back.

There was a decision at some point that we didn't want to completely eliminate an ongoing CTE program like that. I think that was the initial intent when we shifted to LCFF when the 2.6% add on was added to the high school grant.

The idea was local school districts can decide we don't need to put the funding in an ROCP program. Then there was a decision to continue that to create an ongoing program. The Governor proposed the Strong Workforce program so that those programs would be better aligned with regional workforce needs community college programs.

Then there was concern that the K12 programs, concern that there was not enough flexibility on the K12 side. So then we created both and that's why we have both There are some specific rules on the Strong Workforce program that are different than ctic, but there is a lot of overlap.

And when we talk to districts, they're using both of those Fund sources to operate their programs. There are probably some programs that they use CTIC funding that they could use Strong Workforce. They had applied for it. So there they are. There's a lot of. When you look at these funds, they could be used for similar activities.

Yeah. In fact, there's a table, and I don't know who produced this cde, produced the table for us on all the different. I'll make sure our colleagues have this. All the different programs that get different types of funding, all the districts. zero, all the. All the school districts in the state.

And just visually, you know, three columns being the three different programs and there's a lot of crossover effect. To the point of the lao. I'm curious and I could be wrong. So please tell me if I'm wrong.

And anybody who wants to chime in and say I'm wrong, is it fair to say that local LEAs, because they weren't no longer required to do CTE or any kind of career education when the augmentation happened for the LCFF base of the 2.6% at the high school level, that they started to only rely on the different CTE categorical programs in order to offer categorical programs at their schools? Are they actually using LCFF money to do so? And does anybody have any evidence?

I think again, this is just working my memory from 10 years ago, but I don't think we got to the point where districts had got to make that decision because I believe there was a maintenance of effort requirement when we transitioned. So during that transition period, school districts could not have phased out or reduced their CTE spending.

So the expectation was we have this add on, we're going to phase. As we phase in LCFF and additional funding comes along, that maintenance of effort is going to go away and then districts can make local decisions. But before that even phased out, we created these ongoing programs.

Who tracked whether that indeed is what happened? Was that something figment would have tracked? Is that something the finance would have tracked? Who tracked whether that actually occurred?

You mean whether they met the maintenance of... I think that probably would have been part of their annual audit process.

Okay. Yeah. So anybody who. Yeah, just from my past history. Yes, that would have been part of the annual audit process that those checks for MOEs was done. Okay, so then go ahead, please.

Amber Alexander with finance. I was just going to Add too. To your question about whether or not. LCFF funds are being used to support CTE programs. For both the larger categorical programs that exist, CTIG and the K12 strong workforce. There is a local match requirement. They. They cannot match within CTE specific funding sources.

So I think there is an expectation. That the majority of that match is. Coming from some of their local discretionary resources. And that's something that the Department should be checking prior to awarding grants in the next cycle. And to the extent that that match. Is not being met, there's language that does require the Department to reduce the following year's grant award.

Okay. Does the Department want to comment on that process?

Yeah. And so yeah, we do have an audit and confirm the match. But yeah, you're correct. The LCFF is being used in a match. And these are some of the bullets that we had matched up for questions. But yeah, so we. Part of our audit process is to ensure that the lcff.

Are you auditing all the grants or you're auditing on an annual basis the funding source or stream?

We're aud. We're auditing the LEAs to ensure that they're. You receive the grant, that they are using the match appropriately.

So can you tell me what the match is roughly about? The match should, percentage wise of the total program?

I think it's 50%. .

It's $2 in the local match for every dollar that they receive in funding for CTIG and for strong workforce. And the smaller programs have, I think maybe some. Okay, thanks.

Thank you. I wanted to sort of get some history on this, so maybe helps ask some questions. Ms. Patel, please.

Thank you for this presentation. Career technical education is a passion area of mine. As a school board trustee in Powwow Unified, we definitely expanded opportunities, including dual enrollment. I have a couple questions for you regarding dual enrollment specifically. As we know, students are in a very highly charged, escalated competitive school environment. Issues with that on its own.

And different school districts are using different strategies to help our career technical education pathway students participate in some of the shiny or the gold star you get that students in AP courses are trying to get. So some districts offer credits at community colleges for completion of pathways. Some do offer weighted GPAs.

I've heard for those career technical education pathways. And I'm hearing that there are other things that school districts do. Is there guidance around what is most effective best practices on encouraging students to participate in career technical education pathways so that they feel that they are as accomplished as some of their more academic maybe peers? Has there been.

Is There any gathering of local data to show what's most effective?

Yeah, I do believe there should be that data available. You know, as I previously noted in my comments, we know that for example, on the K12 strong workforce side, we've got those 80,000 students that have ultimately received a credential through our program as it relates to dual enrollment.

We know that right now There's a roughly 55,000 full time equivalent students that are receiving that are considered special admit and effectively being provided with opportunities to take college courses.

Our focus has been transfer courses so that students are receiving credit for the courses that they're taking that would ultimately also help them more expediently complete their degree programs or their educational outcomes, whether that's transfer, credential, a certificate once they get to our campuses. We're strong supporters of dual enrollment.

We think that every high school student should take at least one dual enrollment course. I actually think our goal is 12. We do goal set around that. It's in our Vision 2030 goals. We're a firm believer that this is just an absolute benefit to students, especially those that may think that college is not for them.

The data shows very clearly that if we can get them to take a course, they can see that it is for them that they can be successful. So very strong supporters of dual enrollment. Certainly we want aligned career technical education programs as well.

So within the K12 strong workforce program and community college Strong workforce program, to the extent we're growing in the same direction between our program participants at the local level, that's a benefit to students because their programming at their school is aligned with the programming that they would receive at the college.

So we remain strong supporters of both programs. For that reason. We think there's a lot of success. We also believe that apprenticeship opportunities or earn and learn opportunities are also extremely critical for our students, especially as they transition into a community college or a four year institution. So certainly we're taking it from that student focus.

I believe if I recall statute correctly, the types of courses that are not intended to be offered through dual enrollment are developmental education courses for which students do not receive credit as well as there's a prohibition around physical education courses for a similar reason.

Although the history of that is it's because there was an abuse in that particular area in the early 2000s with colleges offering extensive PE programs and generating extensive apportionment revenue as a result.

Thank you for that. Yes.

Yeah. And I'd like to. I'd love to get you some data on that. Don't have that off the top of our head now we just know that the grants, the applications were highly competitive for our dual enrollment programs. But would love to be able to get you that information.

Thank you. My kids have participated in dual enrollment and were able to realize the benefits of those programs. So I'm definitely curious to hear whether that is equitable across school districts. And you know, the recognition that students get for participating in these programs is equally valued by the K12 system.

Another question I have is, can you talk to me a little bit? And I don't know which panelists may have the insight when we talk about dual enrollment with our community colleges. That's all Prop 98 money.

Can you describe or share provide insight around who gets the Prop$98 for those students and whether there's any opportunity for efficiency there?

Sure. So dual enrollment, full time equivalent students are included and incorporated within the student centered funding formula. It's one of the categories that is funded on a per FTEs basis. It's computed into the allocations that each district receive, but it is based upon the number of students that are being served on that FTES basis.

And certainly just to your earlier comment, from our perspective, if we're able to reach all high school students, that's the ultimate equity gap closure because every student will have had that opportunity. Every student would have been enrolled and from our perspective, every student would be enrolled in courses that are leading, that are units that lead to transfer.

Should that be your ultimate pathway? So we receive the funding through the scff. It goes to the colleges. The colleges are then often entering. There's two types of concurrent enrollment, two General types. One is where a student opts to take dual enrollment.

And then there is one where there's an agreement between the community college and the local high school. So there are those two core, but the funding is is supported from the community colleges.

It was developed so that both K 12 education and community colleges would be funded for the Ada and the FTEs for that student when they were in the course. So that no one would lose revenues to support those students as a result of the student enrolling in dual enrollment.

Okay, thank you. And to my colleague's point about the courses where there's a similar pathway at a high school level in a community college, I made the assumption and maybe it's false.

I would love some insight that there would be different levels of rigor in a high school career technical education pathway that may have the same title as a community college course. Or is it identical?

The intent is that the rigor be identical because the underlying content should be identical if we're issuing credit for the same course.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Yes. Thank you so much, Mr. Alvarez. And thank you everyone, for the presentations, as you heard from colleagues. And when we look at page 12, there's so many different categorical programs. When we look at the grantees, there's hundreds of grantees for all these different types of programs. So in terms of.

This is a similar question asked earlier. In terms of tracking success in these types of programs. How do we measure success in these programs? Anybody?

I think this is an area where I think we would say that most of the focus has been on how the funding is being on the funding sources. And we've been very inputs focused as a state. You know, do we have a categorical program for this and what are the rules and requirements?

There's not as been as much focus on what the outcomes are at the state level in terms of like what's on the. We collect a lot of data that's available through calpads. Not a lot of it is publicly reported. Publicly available districts have access to it themselves.

In terms of what's on our school dashboard, which is you could think of as that's what we. That's what we're monitoring because that's what. What's how we're kind of measuring success in schools. We use the College and Career Indicator, which has. Is partially CTE related.

One of the ways that a student can be deemed prepared for a college and career is that is if they meet other measures and have completed a pathway, a CTE pathway. So that is one way that we measure. It's incorporated into that College and Career Indicator. But that's really the only place that we do.

There's lots of other information about how many students complete pathways that we don't necessarily use as a state to evaluate the success of the, of the program, of our program. And so that's something that I think for the Legislature to consider.

Is there other ways that rather than being so focused on exactly what the funding source is, to provide some framework of what are the outcomes that we're tracking so that then as a state we can measure whether progress is being made. Great. Thank you.

Yeah. From the California Community college perspective, we do goal set. Our Vision 2030 plan has specific goals around student access, student completion, students achieving living wage jobs. So we do have a set of goals.

The broad goals that we focus on, we're currently looking at those goals to see if coming out of the pandemic, we need to further increase our our stretch goals or make potential modifications. We're referring to that as the 2025 update of the Vision 2030 plan. But we definitely have those goals in place.

That is what we're measuring against in terms of overall outcome for students. And we do include that information in our annual State of the System report that we provide to the Legislature, to the public. It's on our website, so that we can see progress as a system against those goals.

Where we're at, where we're where we may be not making progress and need to invest additional time or resource to improve in that particular category as a system. So rest assured on career technical education as well as General education courses or General programming, we do have those goals. We do measure against those goals.

And of late this year, we've been pushing colleges to also goal set around those goals as well, because we do want to achieve the outcomes. We want to get to those stretch goals. We want to see every high school student get 12 units dual enrollments. We are out there pushing against those goals. Great.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Oh, Mr. Mertucci.

Yes, thank you. I wanted to ask the LAO's opinion on how we have the Strong Workforce program that supports community college CT programs and then the Community College Chancellor's Office administers the High School Strong Workforce Program, which supports high school CTE programs for the lao. I mean, you know. Why is the Community College Chancellor's Office administering the High. School Strong Workforce Program?

I believe some of the intent behind the establishment of the K12 portion of the Community College Strong Workforce program was to kind of create some alignment between local high schools and the local community college school districts. The funding is awarded to these or not awarded.

The funding is allocated from the community college chancellor's office to the eight regional consortia that have a. For each region, there's kind of a regional workforce plan.

I don't know if that's the official name, but the kind of activities that school districts would apply for grants would be to directly to the regional consortia and would have to be aligned with the regional workforce plan and kind of be able to partner with the community college.

That's a requirement that the school district would require is required to work with the community college. Whereas for a program like ctig, that partnership could look a lot different than kind of implementing specific programs using the CTIG funds.

Okay, so for Mr. Ferguson, in administering the high School Strong Workforce program, how much weight does your office give to the coordination between the K12 and the community college?

I would say significant weight. There are 72 technical assistance providers, or taps, that are working with our community college districts and our K12 partners. They're primarily focused on our K12 partners, but the goal is alignment not only between our programs and K12 programs, but with industry need as well. So there's that General focus.

We've been focused on it as a system for a while. So there's a lot of collaboration that occurs between our K12 partners and our community college partners toward the focus. So from our perspective, we administer it consistent with statute. So it's not that we are making a decision as to support in a particular way.

We're doing it as outlined in the statute. As the grant weights are required in the statute, as the distribution is required out to local educational agencies, to the collaboratives. So it's not a decision of our office to say we're weighting it in a particular way so much as we're operating within the confines of statute.

Okay, so going back to my earlier example of how, you know, Al Community College and Torrance is offering, you know, an aerospace manufacturing coursework. Well, I mean, to be fair, I mean, they were focused on training sheet metal workers and welders. Whereas the Torrance High School program, I.

I believe it was trying to help high school students envision a pathway to perhaps aerospace engineering type careers. But who would be evaluating whether there is any redundancy? Would it be the community college? Would it be the Department of Education and administering the CETA grants or any other.

I don't know, I forget how the high school program was exactly funded. But is there any, you know, effort or do you talk to each other to try to avoid redundancies?

So at the, at the regional consortium level, that is certainly occurring because the intent is not to have duplication, but alignment. So in the example that you provided, let's say a student is able to get 12 units using dual enrollment and that aviation pathway, they're able to get 12 units through that combined approach.

When they show up, let's say that student then decides to attend a community college. When they show up at that community college, they start with 12 units in that pathway, which enables them to more expeditiously complete their educational goal once they're on our campus because it's aligned. So we do try to make sure they're aligned.

We know our local regional consortium, our technical assistance providers are focused on that alignment. And from our perspective, it really is a student focus. It's how do we best serve that student in the most efficient way possible and do so in a way that is focused on industry need.

Because ultimately, from our perspective, we also want our students to get a good job, whether that's leaving high school, whether that's leaving a community college or a four year institution. You know, that is a primary focus.

And I know we, I know our CTE team meets regularly with community colleges, but one of the things that we really are looking at is more alignment and who's in charge. I think we're hearing that a lot from our LEAs and just from their perspective, having to come to two different entities is very difficult.

And trying to figure out just does, does CDE take CTIG? Do you know, does the community colleges take the strong workforce? Do we share Perkins. But trying to figure out how to just make it easier a lot, a lot easier for our LEAs.

That is something that we're working on very, very a lot in the Department right now. Right now we're aligning the report of reports. I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with that. That was some legislation that came out last year.

But the number of reports that our LEAs have to submit that are all very similar, we look at all of these different programs, we have different indicators, we have different metrics, we have different reporting throughout the year.

So I think, you know, this issue of us sharing this is something that we talk about, but it also is a real difficulty for our LEAs and for us to somehow, you know, we hate to say, hey, community you need to go talk to the community college. You know, we do this part, you do that part.

This is something that we're hoping to master plan, can help us be able to create some of these alignments. But I think to the question Mr. Fong had regarding outcomes also, you know, and I know it was addressed mainly to the community college.

But for, you know, we're trying to tackle that as well and to see, like, what now, what once our kids go. And we're hoping that that is something, the cradle to career can help us what's the next stage for our kids.

But I think in these situations where we're sharing this funding and we have very similar goals, even with the regional assistance centers, like, we have a lot of those and they're not coordinating. And so I think this is something that we really need to come together on.

And this regional coordinating, I think that's coming out of the master plan could support that kind of work as well.

Because coming from an LEA perspective, I'm just really worried about just the amount of reporting they have to do, the number of applications they have to fill out, and then who they're getting support from and whether that's coordinated across the state. So I just wanted to add that.

Thank you all for your questions. Appreciate it. Go ahead, Ms. Patel.

So quickly, as I'm listening to all of this conversation and seeing all of these programs develop in different contexts in different times over the years, if we could from scratch create a better, more efficient career technical education program for our LEAs to coordinate with our community colleges, I'm guessing it would look really different than what we have now.

Has there been conversation around that? Is there room in the master plan for that kind of conversation? I'm not asking for the answer. I mean for what it would look like. But is there conversation happening?

I would say that the next item is about having that conversation. So it's a great transition and be prepared to get asked more specifics about that. I would also just want to say, I mean, at minimum there should be some sort of statewide repository of what people are doing.

I hope that is out there to avoid the duplication efforts. And I think, why not? Why would a high school student not be able to accomplish a sheet metal certification one year out of high school or as they graduate, that, you know, we may need to start looking at this very differently going forward because that's.

The world is changing. And, you know, I don't like the word, the phrase K16 anymore because it doesn't have to be K16, I think we need to reimagine what that looks like. And we should be able to get students out of high school prepared to enter the workforce in highly technical jobs that make good wages.

That should not be something that we have to wait until they go to a technical school after high school. And so I'm interested in all, and I'm so glad to hear all of your questions about that.

Mr Fong keeps asking and I think when I used to, I only did grants a couple of times many years ago, but we always had to measure who we were serving and what the outcomes were.

And I'm, the LAO pointed out that we've been focusing on the input and maybe that's where we had to be, but that's not where we are anymore. We need to talk about what the output is. And so for all of these programs, who is being served and in which way are they being served and where are they?

What is it that they are accomplishing at the end of this funding? And all of the applications to this funding for CDE should not only be auditing whether the money got spent, but whether the money got spent and to deliver the results. And so we have, I think we have a lot of work to do.

And tied to the comment that was just made by Ms. Patel, you know, the number of applications and reporting is tied to the number of programs that there are and there are a lot of programs. And so in the next issue, thank you all for being here.

I think you're going to, some of you are going to continue. We are talking about the Career Technical Education Consolidated Application and how we can perhaps consolidate some of this reporting and some of this application and make it more simple.

The other thing I'll point out, and you don't have the color coded version of this, but something that really, really stood out is that only one LEA receives all four funding streams that are identified. CTIG K12, strong workforce Perkins and case K16 collaboratives.

And you would not be surprised to find out that that district is Los Angeles district. And so there are all the other districts in State of California do not have access to the four funding sources.

And so that creates a conversation in my mind about is this an equitable program or programs so that everybody throughout the state can have access to funding in order to accomplish the goals of the master plan. So with that, let's talk about that with this issue.

We have the Department of Finance, the LAO and again the Department of Education on this. And Chris, if you'd like to Stay there to add you're welcome to the community colleges perspective.

I assume there will be questions your way anyway, so we'll kick it off with the Department of Finance to share the governor's proposal on this consolidated application proposal for several of the CTE programs. Welcome and please proceed.

Good morning, Chair and Members. Alaina Powell, Department of Finance the Governor's Budget directs the Department of Education to examine the feasibility of streamlining grant processes for specified historic TK12 career technical education or CTE programs into a single consolidated application process rather than through separate application processes.

The intent of this proposal is to provide information to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature, the Executive Director of the State Board of Education and Finance that can be used to inform future policy conversations around the streamlining of CTE program application and reporting processes to the extent that the Department determines it may be feasible.

The proposal requires the Department to provide two reports. The first would provide key pieces of information on select historical career technical education grants, including their purpose and funding history for each program, and the second would provide information on which program processes can be consolidated and possible implementation plans for the streamlining.

The specific programs called out in trailer Bill Language are the specialized secondary programs, the Career Technical Education Initiative and the California Partnership Academies. These programs were selected because they are programs that have remained largely unchanged programmatically and that Finance has not heard concerns from the field around in several years.

I'll be happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you.

The Legislative Analyst Office, please. Thank you, Mr. Chair. We don't have any specific concerns with this proposal. To the extent that a consolidated application for the three identified categorical programs would alleviate some administrative burden. There could be some benefits there, though.

We do want to highlight that what we have heard most anecdotally from districts about administrative burden is around CTIC and Strong Workforce, which are the two largest CTE categorical programs and are not part of this application consolidation proposal or any other kind of proposal that would kind of streamline or modify the programs in any way.

The staff comments in the agenda on page 13 lay out a few options for streamlining and aligning programs that the Legislature may want to consider. That concludes our comments. Happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you. Department of Education, please.

The Department doesn't oppose this proposal to consolidate. We would like to look at the requirements to ensure that they all align because they are a little different.

They've been around for a long time, but that doesn't mean that the requirements are the same and there may need to be changes to statute as well to ensure that these grants can be consolidated. But we're not opposed to a study and looking into this.

I think the other thing that we have heard from our LEAs is that they are different again. And how would they combine these into one application and what would that actually look like? We're not opposed to looking into it for sure.

Thank you. I'll turn it over to the Committee. I was going to give Mr. Mertucci the opportunity to go first because I know he's been very focused on this issue of consolidation of application applications and efficiencies. Given our hearing last year, which we held, would you like to go first, Mr. Muratsuchi?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, yeah, I think we're hearing from CT providers statewide loud and clear that, that they want the application process to be streamlined and they want the reporting to be cut down to Ms. Nicely's point.

And having to apply every year, you know, for the funding and then to have to file a report every year is, seems to be unnecessarily burdensome.

And so to the Department of Finance, why not include can you respond to the LAO's comment about why are we excluding the the biggest CTE funding programs, including CTIG and K12 strong workforce?

So primarily the reason we are not including the two programs is that the focus of the proposal was on historic programs that have remained largely unchanged, aren't program haven't had concerns in the field around their Administration. And by definition the K through 12 strong workforce program and Career Technical Education Initiative Grant, they both have several things.

They're formula driven, they have matches. They were only enacted in 2015 and 2018 respectively. They have a lot of because of the formulas, they have a lot of questions, administratively speaking, every year.

So because of that and because this focus was more on these historic programs that have remained unchanged and under current law could be consolidated and just have not been yet. That's sort of the focus of the current proposal. But should there be future proposals for this different consolidation efforts? We'd have to evaluate those at that time.

Okay. Yeah, I think, you know, for the master plan to live up to its promise, I think we should address the number one concern that we're hearing from CTE providers, which is the difficulty and the redundancy and the burdensomeness of all the reporting and applications.

And so I, I just want to thank the Committee staff for providing the recommendations in the staff report, which I think would go a long ways toward streamlining the CTE provider application process, including shifting grant cycles to at least three years. I have a Bill, Assembly Bill 401 that's proposing four years, but. Three years. Four years.

I would love to provide that kind of stability for RCT providers. Stability and predictability, as well as aligning the program reporting for LEAs with multiple funding sources and aligning the Perkins funding with CTIG design and requirements. I mean all proposals, all recommendations designed to. To address what we're hearing loud and clear from CTE providers. And so I look forward to continuing that conversation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Muratsuchi. I would just agree to not be repetitive on all of those. I would also like to better understand how these are not aligned with the 13 regional clusters and jobs first in the master plan.

And you know, to the point of who's doing what if there is, at least at the minimum the process was centralized in regions and people would like know better. Or am I missing something? Is that already truly happening? Maybe the Department of Education can chime in on this.

Is that already happening when there's applicable, when these grants open up, are people by region sitting together and getting the technical support to apply? What is the collaboration happening on the front end of these application processes?

So I think this is another area that we have to work on because we do have the regional. The eight regional. I can't K12 strong workforce, regional coordination. And then we have eight regional technical assistance centers that were just put in place for the Golden State pathways. So there is not that coordination.

Those are out of county offices of education. Then there's other regional technical assistance centers that are being set up and coordinated. So I don't think that coordination is really happening. And we do need to look into how we. How we look at when we are rolling out grant programs, what that technical support support actually looks like.

So you all were not the master plan panel. So it's maybe unfair question, but we went from. We've got all these programs that utilize all these different mechanisms of funding and clustering of. And yet the master plan focuses on the 13 again, from what I understood so far. Why are we not. Why does this proposal not consolidate into those 13?

That's a good question. I don't know. I'm not sure if that is part of the master plan. They are hoping that those would potentially be the coordinators. Yeah, I'm not sure.

Do you have anything to add Finance?

I was going to say, because this is a study that this is definitely something that CDE can contemplate in the report that they provide to the Legislature.

Okay. And then are all of these annual programs, Annual applications?

Yes. The three that are in the language are annual.

And you didn't consider multiple year funding for any of these in this proposal?

The proposal is mostly focused around reporting currently and understanding the different programs and the feasibility of consolidation. So actual consolidation is not a part of this current proposal.

So we're not consolidating the three programs?

No. This proposal specifically is a It provides two reports from the Department to the appropriate parties surrounding feasibility of consolidation and program history and subject matter.

Would we require legislative authority to consolidate these programs? Can that be done in this year's budget?

I'm not certain. But again, I think that the reason why we started with this report is because there isn't much known about these programs since they've just kind of been. Running kind of a little bit on. Autopilot for the past few years. And I think that there does need to be careful planning to make sure there's no disruption in the field.

Is there an intent just to potentially consolidate applications? And it's not even that it's a report on that and reporting, but also ensuring that we identify metrics in all of these as we go forward to make sure we're measuring the right outcomes here.

That's not currently in the proposal, but. We're happy to have conversations.

Does the LAO have any comments about that regarding these three proposals and the ability feasibility to consolidate now and to add some sort of outcome measurements to these, or can you provide that?

I think that is something for the Legislature to consider. I think would say not just focusing less on the specific programs and just more broadly what is a district's CTE outcomes. Right. So that you could look at it.

Because to the part of the conversation we had earlier, the expectation was that LCFF funding is also being used for cte. This is not the only source of funding for school districts. And so a broader set of outcomes that are not tied to a specific program might give the Legislature a better sense of what's actually happening out in the field.

We don't have a specific set of recommendations here, but I think that is something to consider rather than having these very specific program focused inputs or measures that we want to have.

And I get the sense again from the master plan conversation that the idea here is to be nimble and for regions to be able to do what they need to do. And yet it sounds like we want to maintain prescription to what these programs should be.

And I'm not sure that that gives the gives the master plan a chance to be successful and certainly not if it's not tied to metrics. So I think there's work that certainly remains to be seen done here.

Look forward to the input from from the lao, from the Department of Education working with Department of Finance for the May revision. So we will hold this issue open and move on to the next one. Okay. I'm trying to manage multiple demands on Members of this Committee.

So I think we can get through the interagency Council conversation, especially now that Mr. Fong is back. It's important for you to be here for that. And then we may go from that to the K16 collaboratives because that requires a vote depending on time. Because I know I definitely need to be at two places at the moment.

So thank you very much. Two places beyond this, I think we can get this done in 15 minutes. So we'll ask the presenters to keep your marks a couple of minutes if possible. I know that Members will have some questions and you can elaborate then. Thank you very much. So let's start with the Department of Finance, the proposal. Thank you.

Natalie Griswold, Department of Finance So the governor's 2025 Governor's Budget proposes $5 million ongoing for the California Education Interagency Council. And I can let my colleague Justyn Howard from the Government Operations Agency provide more details on that proposal available for any questions.

Thank you. Good job. Good morning, Mr. Chair, fellow Committee Members, My name is Justyn Howard, I'm the Deputy Secretary for Fiscal Policy and Administration at the California Government Operations Agency. We are requesting $5 million to help establish and set up the California Education Interagency Council as way of the background in August of 23.

And I know you heard this a little bit in the first panel, so I'll try to be brief. Gavin Newsom launched the development of California's Master Plan for Career Education. This initiative aims to promote equitable access to high paying jobs by addressing structural barriers and strengthening the education and training pathways.

The development of the Master Plan included extensive public input from across the state. The public submitted written comments, more than 30 interviews were conducted with key stakeholders including Members of the Legislature and legislative staff, and eight design sessions were held in various regions across the state.

One of the primary recommendations consistently echoed in these various forums was the need for state and regional coordination. More specifically, the need to regularly evaluate the changing nature of work and the economy to define career pathways in which the sectors should respond to and enhance collaboration.

Decision making amongst the education systems, workforce providers, community organizations and stakeholders were some of the most regularly requested outcomes of the master plan process and this proposal is seeking to address that recommendation in the Master Plan. So with that, I'm here to answer any questions you may have to the best of my ability. Granted.

One of the common questions we get is why govops? So I'd like to just start with that really quick because we don't normally participate in the education sector, but we are a neutral third party kind of agency who doesn't have any preconceived notions about what goes on in the education area.

We're going to serve as an area just to host and bring everyone together. We are experts in standing up new state entities or councils or commissions. We actually wrote the playbook that most state departments follow when it comes to the work in doing such efforts.

We also work great across agency lines, which is what this is specifically trying to do. As the operations agency for the State of California, we were able to cut through a lot of red tape quickly in order to get things done. And so we hope to be able to do that here as well. Thank you. Appreciate that.

Legislative Analyst Office, please.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Members. Alexander Bentz, Legislative Analyst Office we have three main concerns with this proposal. First, there are two existing statewide entities, one in workforce, one in higher education, that provide venues for statewide coordination and planning. And so it's unclear whether a new venue will lead to better coordination.

The second is that this proposal doesn't change any of the incentives of the education and workforce agencies that would be a Member of it. Each of these agencies, as has come up in the discussion on the prior panels, have their own goals, they have their own funding, they have different statutory mandates.

And so that it doesn't change any of those underlying incentives. And to that, our third concern is that this council would not have any authority to implement a particular vision and they would have to work with the goals and the priorities of each entity.

On top of that, given the state budget condition, we do recommend setting a high bar for new discretionary spending this year, particularly on the non Prop. 98 side of the budget. And so we recommend that the Legislature weigh this proposal against their other their other priorities. And so thank you. I'll be here for questions.

Thank you all for being concise there. I want to give Mr. Fong the opportunity to go first on this issue.

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair. And in my opening comments as well as Mr. Previously, I introduced a coordinating Bill body Bill Last session. We did move it. But it's important that we continue to advocate and push for this coordinating body.

As California is one of two states in our nation without a coordinating body which helps higher education planning and to really prevent conflicts between segments. We know that this is something that we're going to continue to advocate for and appeal for.

And I've also amended AB95 to mirror the Governor's trailer Bill Language on the Education Interagency Council that we can have policy discussions to bring back a coordinating body to really bring all the entities together.

While this is not part of the career education well, this council is not as part of the master plan for career education and not part of the master plan for higher education.

I believe there's value in having this body, and as we discussed in issue number two, we have a lot of CT and workforce development programs in our, at the federal level, at the state level, and having a coordinated entity to review all the programs and evaluate and really look at metrics, look at success, look at the data.

To make recommendations as to whether or not funding should be administered differently would be valuable. And in these very challenging times, I know that the proposal is for $5 million. I think it would help the state to be more efficient and thoughtful in the programs that we administer.

So really with the Governor, stakeholders, legislative colleagues on this proposal, we want to make sure that folks are having the opportunity to improve their skills and to get the better paying jobs to really advance in the different economic sectors.

The question I did have on this as well is that with the proposal, it will also include the Governor's Office of Business and Economic Development and engagement of employers in the council. What would be the value added in terms of how that would improve the council? Put it out there.

Well, part of the proposal here is obviously to bring together the workforce and jobs. And in order to know the types of jobs that are needed in the workforce, you need to have your economic experts also participate so that they can help you to define those areas of the economy where certain job skills and job needs are at.

And they will do that in concert with the labor and Workforce Development Agency Secretary and doing those efforts.

No, absolutely. Because in terms of the structure and proposal there, that's just adding to the structure and we don't want to make sure that as we heard from Elio, we have all the different entities and really looking at enforcement mechanism as well to really to have teeth to the recommendations and everything going forward. So I just wanted to uplift the work there and I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. See Ms. Hadwick, please.

Hi. Thank you guys. So I represent the rural North. I have four of the five counties that do not have a community college and we have one private University in my district of 11 counties.

I'm wondering why the private sector isn't included in this and because they are in the Commission on Teacher Credentialing, California Student Aid Commission, Cradle to Career Governing Board, AB920 transfer implementation work Group. I think that we're missing a valuable collaborator and I would like to see those universities included as well.

Because we, we have to start collaborating better and working together. I think we often pit one another against each other and that's not helping us or my constituents or California for that matter, is that in a discussion or can that be.

I would say this right now the proposal in front of us is for public entities and interagency work amongst public entities. I'm not sure other than the fact that these. That this council will be holding open meetings for and seeking and working with all stakeholders.

Presumably that would include many private sector entities, including higher education private sector entities. But right now it's just focused on interagency amongst the public sector. But I can take back your feedback.

Okay. And please let me know if there's further. I think that's a huge misstep in this. We have to have all the stakeholders at the table to plan well, especially for the Northern California counties.

Just a. Just point of clarification that the chief of the Bureau for Private Post Secondary Education is a proposed Member of this council.

Okay. I was. I was not informed of that. Thank you. Yeah. Okay.

It is a public Department.

Thank. Thank you very much. I will align most of my comments with Member Fong. So certainly want to. I think this deserves a continuous conversation through the policy efforts. Oh, Dr. Patel, you'd like to ask questions?

Yeah, yeah. I'll start with a comment. While I do have concerns about increasing the bureaucratic footprint of our California State agencies, I am intrigued by this being potentially recommending that we do this as a short term funding mechanism for three years.

I think we do need to see some clearer establishment of what activities the new entity is going to embark upon and look at our outcomes and our metrics and what actual authority that you will have in this new agency. I do have concerns.

We are in a very tight budget year to pretend like we can start a new agency while cutting others that are actually delivering directly services and supports to students. It's a little difficult for me. I'm looking at the proposed 8% cuts to the CSUs and the UCs.

Those hurt and to then turn around and try to create a new agency at this time. It's troubling especially since some of this work could be embedded in the existing structures.

So I just want to make sure that we're very clear on what we're establishing here, what the boundaries are when we do that, when we Fund a new Department or Commission Committee, etc. So it's just a word of caution. I want to make sure we're. We're hitting our goals and our boundaries are set very clearly.

Thank you. I would agree with that. Any expenditure in non 98 that is new means we have less funding available to our UCs. And our CSUs, which are fully dependent on General Fund Dollars. And so we have to be very intentional about any expenditure and what we're going to accomplish with that expenditure.

I would have expectations that this council would have some authority. I don't think. Again, it was pointed out in the master plan report, the pass has not been as successful because it serves as a body that's sort of advisory. There's no reason to compel anybody to do anything.

As part of that, I would also like to make sure that there's focus in college and career deserts. We're talking about access to higher education and we're talking about access to jobs, and we're trying to tie those two things.

Whether you're in Northern California where you know it's 80 miles away from a University public institution, or in Southern California where it's maybe not as far, but still lacking access to college, higher education and good jobs, then this Commission should have as a focus doing that.

I do not expect the Commission to then go into the urban centers where we already have a lot of programs happening and things available to people, and we're just sort of putting together things that already exist. Let's actually innovate. Let's do things differently and let's reach people that are not being reached.

That is what I think the mission should be of the council. And so with that, I hope that the conversation as it goes forward, certainly led by our colleague here, includes some of those comments made by the body here. So with that, thank you all. Appreciate you being here.

And we will quickly move on to item number seven, a little bit out of order issue seven. Please come forward. Those who are on that panel. We have the Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst Office and the Office of Public Public School Construction.

We ask you again to be brief a couple of minutes and then we will be taking a vote on this item. So, Department of Finance, can you please begin your presentation on this proposal?

Good morning, Chair and Members. Alex Anaya Velasquez with the Department of Finance. I'll be providing an overview of the Governor's Budget trailer Bill proposal for the K16 collaborative program. The Governor's Budget includes trailer Bill Language that proposes amendments aimed at aligning the K16 collaborative program with California Jobs First.

Specifically, the proposed changes would one, align the occupational pathways created by regional K16 collaborators with primary priority sectors identified by Jobs first regents and to extend the deadline of the K16 collaborative's work from 2000 sorry, 2026 to 2028 to align with the 2024 Budget act investments for Job First.

Additionally, as noted in the agenda, the California Jobs First Council is focused on streamlining the state's economic and workforce development programs to create more jobs more quickly. The Council is tasked with coordinating the development of a statewide industrial strategy and supporting the regional Jobs first collaboratives. Lastly, the Governor's Budget does not propose any augmentations to the program.

No new words are anticipated at this time as the original 250 million appropriation has already been encumbered. This concludes my remarks and I'm happy to take any questions at the appropriate time. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Chair. Michael Alferes, again with the LAO. We don't have any specific comments on this proposal.

Good morning Mr. Chair and Members. Rebecca Kirk, Executive officer for the Office of Public School Construction. I would just note that our office is the fiscal agent and administrator for this program and then also the foundation for California Community Colleges serves as a third party program administrator and I'm pleased to address any questions the Subcommitee may have.

Okay, turn it over to the panel. Questions, comments, Mr. Fong

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for the presentation here today. In terms of the allocation, we know it's approximately $250 million one time General Fund. In terms of the pathway programs, can you give us the status of the pathways?

I know that they're allocated across the state, but how many of the pathways have been established, which ones and what's the progress?

Thank you so many Member for the question. I'll start by saying this program uses the same 13 regions as are used by Jobs first as well that I know have been discussed in earlier items by the Subcommitee today. We've had grants awarded from that original 2021 Budget act appropriation of 250 million.

There were a total of $243 million in grants awarded among those 13 collaboratives statewide. The remaining funds have been available for administrative costs. As far as the specific pathways that have been established in part, the original Budget act language for that appropriation requires each collaborative to establish at least or pathways in at least two different industry sectors.

There are 13 collaboratives and then with numerous pathways from each one we know as of January 12024 we had more than 158,000 students that were enrolled in pathways that had been established through this program statewide.

Since that time, we expect that the number has increased and we currently have new data reporting coming in for analysis and compilation.

On that note, those pathways can span a number of different fields under the previous Budget act language and the proposed Trailer Bill language changes that are included in the Governor's Budget would expand upon that, allowing for greater alignment with specific identified regional needs and sectors in each region that have been identified through the Efforts of Jobs first

And thank you for that context. So 158,000 students programs being implemented. If so, then how much would be reverted if the encumbrance date is not extended?

Thank you. It's a little hard to pinpoint just because under the current language, the encumbrance deadline is the end of 2020 or, excuse me, June 30, 2026 with an additional two years to expend the remaining funds. So. So those funds have been encumbered at this point. So there would be that June 30, 2028 deadline.

It depends ultimately on how much is drawn down based on administrative funds for both the Office of Public School Construction and then also the third party program Administrator, the Foundation for California Community Colleges at. I'd say maybe to pinpoint approximately $2 million if it's not extended, if there is an extension.

That may vary again, just depending, but there's a possibility there as well.

Okay, thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I see no other question. Oh, Mr. Muratsuchi.

Thank you. I, you know, was just talking earlier about how we need funding for, to incentivize regional collaborations across segments. And I see the chair's recommended action on this item. And I believe, I mean, we'll be hearing from you shortly. But it's my understanding that the primary reason for the chair's recommendation is. The.

Difficult budget picture that we're facing overall and especially where I am aligned, I believe with the chair that our number one priority is to try to stave off the 8% proposed cuts for our University of California and our California State University.

So I, you know, while I do continue to believe that we should have funding that incentivizes these kind of intersegmental collaborations, I do want to recognize that we're facing difficult budget decisions. I'll just leave it at there for.

Thank you. Ms. Hadwick.

I just, I wanted some clarification because the recommendation said we're rejecting the governor's proposal on this. I just want to know, I guess from the Committee, like, what is the impact on these groups that are doing the K16 pathway?

Because my group that's listed on their north state together represents nine rural counties and that is the collaboration group that they talked about at the master plan meeting that is doing such good work in our, in the north, like it will it will cripple our support services for our students. It's tutoring. It's our college centers.

In these small towns that don't have colleges, it is. It's a huge hit for them. So I just want to make sure. Is it just what they haven't spent? Like what?

So the allocations that have been made, the awards do not change. It's just the encumbrance. They need to spend the resources in our staff recommendation, by the time they said they would, would do so when these were awarded.

Okay. So they won't lose out on anything. Okay, that's. I just wanted to clarify that for them. Thank you. Yeah.

So that's the recommendation to reject the Governor's Budget proposal to extend the funding encumbrance and remove program interim outcomes, but approve the K16 pathway inclusion in the jobs first regional pathways. We need to take a vote, so we need a motion.

Enter. If I may, for the record, for procedural matters, the Administration remains committed to the K16 collaboratives in the amendments displayed as part of the trailer Bill in the Governor's Budget and would be opposed to any new amendments to this. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that.

We need a motion and we need a second.

I'll make the motion.

Dr. Patel, motions. Mr. Fong, seconds, please. Call the roll.

[Roll Call]

Motion carries. Thank you very much. Thank you for taking this out of order. Appreciate you all. We will go back to order. Which would mean we are now at the issue number five, the California College Corps program. As I stated earlier, this issue was heard in Subcommitee number five.

Member Quirk-Silva thought it was important for us to hear this item as it is a non 98 expenditure which has implications to our higher education programs. Again, UC/CSU facing severe cuts and this is a roughly $100 million new expense. That is non 98. So with that, we will turn it over to Department of Finance to hear on the proposal.

I'll defer to Anthony Chavez with Gov Services

Great, Thank you.

Thank you, Chair Alvarez and Members of the Committee. My name is Anthony Chavez and I am the Chief Deputy Director of the office, Governor's Office of Service and Community Engagement. Joining me this morning is Jacquie Yannacci, who is the Executive Director of California Volunteers.

Our office was established in 2024 by the Legislature to elevate paid service and volunteerism in the state, promote youth and community engagement, and advance public awareness and outreach campaigns to tackle the state's most pressing challenges. Go Serve consists of the office of community partnerships with Strategic Communications, California Volunteers and the Youth Empowerment Commission.

Today we are here to highlight the College Core program launched in 2021 and has created essential opportunities for low to middle income students and AB540 Dream act students across California.

While we are also benefiting our communities and why it is crucial to continue this vital program, College Corps is a unique program started here in California, already impacting thousands of students and hundreds of community based organizations and communities across the state.

College Corps is a service and professional development program where we are also creating debt free pathways for low income and AB5.4 Dream act students who now have opportunities only afforded to wealthier, privileged students.

The chance to help your community, the chance to gain real job skills, the chance to build social networks and social capital, all while being able to stay focused on finishing school on time. So Far College Corps has been proven to be a win win win for California.

It's a win for over the 10,000 students who already participated and received up to $10,000 for having this service experience.

It's a win for our communities where College Corps Members have already served 2.5 million hours in our classrooms providing high dose tutoring and mentoring low income students in our food banks serving families in need and in our park securities communities taking climate action.

It's a win for California's future as College Corps prepares a new generation of leaders who can collaborate with people from diverse backgrounds and recruits and prepares the future workforce including teachers, nurses, green workforce and emerging civic leaders.

And we have seen the real impact of our College Corps Members as recently as the LA fires where many were deployed to stand up disaster resource centers, supply distribution centers and food banks.

This year the Governor has proposed an 83.6 million investment in ongoing General Fund starting in 2026-27 to continue the college Corps program which is currently funded only through 2026. These resources will expand service opportunities to more than 4,000 undergraduate students annually in partnerships with over 50 universities including CSUs, UCs, community colleges and private universities.

Nearly all of the Legislature's allocation directly goes to students for programmatic costs associated with running a unique service and workforce development program. California is providing College Corps Fellows with a valuable experience and it requires a significant effort. These types of experience sets our program apart from other college campus programs.

The cross pollination of students from diverse backgrounds offers unique takeaways such as learning to collaborate with others from different perspectives and provides valuable career development opportunities that are often not accessible to low income and AB540 students. Students in College Corps receive up to $10,000 for completing 450 hours of service during an academic year.

The $10,000 amount was not arbitrary. We received the direction from the UC system and higher education leaders. That is the amount a Pell Grant student in the UC system has to come up with.

By either taking out student loans or working now with College Corps, they have the chance to experience what so many other wealthier students have, which is to get real job experience, to do meaningful and purposeful work in their communities, and to start their careers.

The way the program is structured to make college more affordable to those who need it most while also giving them brand new experiences that are going to help them the rest of their lives and in their careers. We have created efficiencies and the cost per student has been reduced since year one when the program was first launched.

As we learn more, we will continue to find ways to improve the program. This successful program model has now spread to other states including New York and Minnesota, who are launching their own version of College course. Beyond being modeled after, the success of the program is also demonstrated by the clear demand from our students and their communities.

Last year, over 3,500 positions in College Corps were received applications from nearly 11,000 students, an increase from several public universities wanting to participate in the program. This funding proposal will allow College Corps to continue to make an impact throughout our state and meet the demand for this popular program.

In conclusion, College Corps makes college more affordable and accessible for low income and AB540 students, helps our community solve real problems they are facing now, whether it's tackling learning loss in our schools or food insecurity in our food banks, strengthens California's future workforce by providing unique professional and career development opportunities and is extremely popular as we see major demand among students, colleges and universities and states who want to participate with this one of a kind program. We look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Hi, good morning. Natalie Gonzalez with the Legislative Analyst Office College Corps, as mentioned, has three main objectives to help students graduate college with less debt, to create service opportunities for students, and to also support students students career development California Volunteers has shared information with us indicating that the program is generally meeting these objectives, but we do have some concerns with the proposal.

First, campuses already provide community service and career development opportunities for students. Also, campus financial aid offices package multiple types of financial aid awards for students. The state even has another award financial aid program with a community service component similar to College Corps.

Given College Corps operates outside of these established systems as its standalone program, it requires additional staffing and funding. This leads to our second concern regarding the program's high administrative costs. Of the 84 million ongoing proposed for the program, 45 million would be for administrative and operational costs.

This means that less than half of the funding would go directly to student financial aid. California Volunteers would also receive 48 permanent positions to administer the program. To put this into perspective, that is about one third the number of positions that the California Student Aid Commission has.

But College Corps equates to only about 3% of financial aid funding that the Student Aid Commission administers. We understand the value that College Corps brings to student students and communities.

But given the state's projected budget deficit, the high administrative cost to run the program, and the proposed reductions in higher education to the California State University System, the University of California system, and the proposed reduction to the state's middle class scholarship financial aid program, we recommend the Legislature reject the Governor's college core expansion proposals.

Without this new funding, the program would still have $63 million in one time funding to support a new cohort of students in the 25-26 academic year. Thank you and happy to take any questions.

So, Mark Jimenez, Department of Finance I just wanted to highlight that this proposal is largely a continuation of an existing program that would otherwise end in July 2026 and that these resources will also expand partnerships with over 50 universities and provide service opportunities to over 4,000 undergraduate students. And happy to answer any questions you may have.

Great. Thank you so much. Appreciate the presentations here today. Thank you to all of you for the presentations. As you've heard, College Corps is helping to develop civic minded leaders and to help address address societal challenges, build more equitable communities.

I had a chance to visit the College Corps at East LA College about a year ago, so firsthand the work and efforts as well. But also very concerned also about the high administrative costs of the program as well.

As we've heard the proposal for next year is 45 million will be used for admin costs, half of the state, half of the campus levels. And when we look at the challenging budget times that we're in in terms of the proposed cuts to the UC system and CSU system, that's very critical as well.

And I know the program has the opportunity to serve undocumented students as well. And we also know the California Student Aid Commission has the California DREAM Act Service Incentive Program as well that will help undocumented students who complete 300 service hours. In terms of this program, can we explain why the program has such high administrative costs?

Yes. And so you know this program provides a unique opportunity It's a Workforce Development Service program, not a financial aid program directly. And what has been categorized as admin costs are essential program delivery costs. Whereas 87% of the total funds here that we're requesting go to direct Member support.

Okay, thank you for that context and just also want to put out here the Subcommitee 5 will act on this issue today. It's a Subcommitee 3 Information and Discussion item to hear the discussion and concern. So I appreciate the context as well.

Also in the past few years we've also as a try to push Cal Grant reform to really help out our students with additional financial aid. Cal Grant opportunities to implement that program. Would the funds be better used to implement portions of the Cal Grant program? Cal Grant Reform program Eliana, do you want to take or anybody?

Yes. One option the Legislature could consider is using this funding for other types of financial aid programs. Specifically for things around Cal Grant. Something we looked into specifically is if this funding would be used to increase the Cal Grant B Access Award which is used for non tuition coverage. Right now that award is about $1,650.

With something like this, it would raise the award by about $300 per student. So that is one way to use funding to provide financial aid to the state's lowest income students. However, this is gift aid under the Cal Grant B Access Award.

So it would not have a professional development or community service aspect that College Corps would have. So it is one alternative to think about.

Okay, thank you. Any other questions or comments? CNN really appreciate the opportunity to connect here today on College Corps and thank you guys so much for your presentations. Thank you. Next up we'll have issue number six.

Regional Consortium Coordination of for Career Education. Welcome. Thank you so much. Welcome please

Grace Henry, Department of Finance I will allow Abby Snay of the Labor and Workforce Development Agency to introduce this item.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm Abby Snay. I'm a Deputy Secretary of Labor Agency for Workforce Strategy and we'll try to have my back to you all the time.

As you heard Secretary Knox announce this morning or describe this morning, the Governor released the Master Plan for Career Education last week and within that plan, regional coordination is a core component. The plan calls for assessing regional assets as well as challenges related to regional coordinate collaboration.

It aims to strengthen employer engagement to identify critical skills for the workplace and expand opportunities for work based learning such as paid internships and apprenticeships. Secretary Knox told you this morning that regions are where the work happens and this component of the Master Plan has two overarching goals.

First, preparing people for in demand jobs that meet employers hiring needs as well as improving efficiency and reducing redundancy in regional coordination.

In this dynamic and quickly changing economy, education and training partners have to work closely with businesses at the regional level to anticipate their talent needs and build training pipelines to meet those needs and prepare students and workers for good jobs as well as career pathway advancement.

Regional coordination and this has really been a theme in all of your discussion items today varies greatly across the state and we want to understand the structures and partnerships that work, why they work, and how successes can be adapted and replicated in other regions.

We want to learn the systems barriers that impede coordination among community colleges, workforce boards and other education and training providers and identify solutions that reduce redundancy and enhance efficiency and effectiveness, all toward the goal of strengthening education and employment outcomes for young people and working adults.

Again, some of the themes that have come up all morning really have described the complexity at the local and regional levels and the need for greater coordination.

The 4 million in requested one time General Fund Dollars will enable LWDA to contract for the evaluation of current regional structures, funding streams, data collection systems, leadership roles leading to recommendations for streamlining systems and processes and improving education and employment outcomes. This item is described as an evaluation as research.

I'm going to ask you to think about it as action planning. Really. We want to focus on the recommendations and changes that can come from this. We want to identify how regional coordination models can be adapted and developed to create sustainable forums where educators, workforce training providers and employers work together to align education and workforce programs with employer needs.

This research will build on the work that Jobs first and the K16 collaboratives have started and assess the changes that have already come through these efforts at the regional level, identifying the leadership and intermediary roles that have already emerged in each region and then make recommendations for structures and systems that improve coordination through shared vision, clear roles and responsibilities, leveraged resources, braided funding, and as came up earlier today in one of the questions, coordinating better coordinated funding applications. The challenges and ideas that emerge will inform this planning as well.

This research and action planning process will also examine current funding streams, including WIOA, K16, Adult Debt and strong Workforce, to identify ways these could be better aligned to reduce redundancy, avoid duplication and streamline application processes, all with the end goal of preparing more people effectively for jobs in demand.

The recommendations from the proposed research would inform state policy and go to the proposed State Coordinating Council so that state policy changes would affect education and workforce stakeholders across systems and lead to better aligned planning, streamlined funding and strong workforce programs. These are two pieces that fit together in one coordinated puzzle.

The research conducted through the regional coordination component of the Master Plan will give proposed the proposed council the information it needs to create state policy and structures that support regional coordination.

These recommendations will also drive changes internally at LWDA and our workforce departments on regional strategies over which we have some authority that can lead again to better jobs for individuals and a more competitive and skilled workforce for regional employers. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today today.

Thank you so much. Any other presenters?

Yes, thank you. Alexander Bentz, LAO. My comments are are pretty similar to on the item, the Interagency Council item. First of all, just remember that it's a it's a tight budget year and to make sure that this is a priority.

If the Legislature would like to make this a priority, we do recommend that it focus on making sure the evaluation is actionable as Ms. Snay speaks on, and to require that the evaluation focus on specific ways that the state can incentivize local education and workforce agencies to adopt effective practices that may be identified.

And just to put a finer point on this issue, that previous state led efforts around regional coordination in this area have had mixed results. In particular, some local agencies have been less willing to engage in the coordination efforts than other agencies and so to really make sure that any evaluation can actually lead to changes. Thanks.

Thank you so much. Any other comments? And then just for the record, also this item is information only. Subcommitee 5 will act on this issue, informed by Subcommitee 3, discussion and concerns. Appreciate that. Any questions or comments from colleagues? Thank you so Much. I had a quick question.

In terms of the evaluation that's being proposed, could this also be done by the proposed interagency council?

The State Interagency Council, Correct? Yeah, I think it's going to be more effective done through the labor agency in partnership with the interagency Council. Some of that Member Fong has to do with timing. That interagency council is going to take some time to get up and running.

I mean we are all set assuming this budget item passes to do a procurement really as soon as the budget is passed to get that out and get that started. In fact, we believe that having this research and action plan achieved early will help inform the work of the State Coordinating Council and really propel its effective start.

Thank you for that context and to the LEA's point about how do we hold local agencies LEAs accountable in terms of the recommendations, things going forward, how would this evaluation help implement that?

Yeah, I think that's going to be built into the work. I think we need to understand why past efforts haven't worked. We need to understand, you know, what is working in certain regions and why again how those can be replicated.

And I think there's good analysis to be done with the different funding streams and ways that those could be graded at the local level and incentives created at the local level for greater collaboration, joint applications. And I believe that we all do this for the same reasons. We want to see the outcomes.

We want to see more people in good jobs. And I think being able to show those outcomes improved will create incentives for greater collaboration.

Great. Thank you so much, Seeing none. I will wrap up this panel. Thank you so much to all the panelists. Next up is issue number eight, California College Guidance Initiative. Welcome. This item will also be information only. Thank you so much. Welcome. Please proceed.

Good morning Mr. Chair and Members. Patrick Rochelle with the Department of Finance. I'll present today on the fiscal year 25-26 funding request for the California College Guidance Initiative.

The Governor's Budget includes an increase of 3 million ongoing Prop 98 General Fund for the California College Guide Guidance Initiative CCGI to backfill the portion of their 24-25 budget that was previously covered by one time carryover from the prior year.

This funding will allow CCGI to continue scaling its tools and services to all districts serving students in grades six to 12. As part of its role as a statutorily authorized operational tool of the Cradle to Career Data System.

The CCGI is entering year five of a planned five year stage statewide scaling process in which it will expand provision of its tools and services to all local educational agencies serving students in any of grades 6 to 12 as authorized by Education Code Section 6900.5.

This request is in line with previous projections for scaling and will ensure CCGI has the resources to continue adding partner districts, integrating with higher education applications and developing college and career planning planning tools and technology to better serve students and educators.

This will bring the total ongoing appropriation to 23.7 million in Prop 98 funding, which is consistent with 24-25. With this augmentation, we believe CCGI is at the limit for cost for scaling at current scope of work, barring inflation or other unforeseen factors, but we would not anticipate future major funding increases at the same time.

That concludes my remarks. I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Good morning Members. Dylan Hawksworth-Lutzow with the LAO. We don't have any concerns at this time.

Thank you folks up here. Anybody else? You don't have to say anything you don't want to say. I'm not sure who's presenting, sir.