Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education

Senate Budget Subcommittee Number One on Education will come to order, and I think--I would actually ask, let's start with a roll call. So will you please call the roll?

[Roll Call].

All members are present and we have established a quorum. This is our close-out hearing for Senate Budget Subcommittee Number One on Education where we will end by taking votes based on the input that we have had.

I see many familiar faces here from people that I have seen over the last few months, and after the governor's January 10th budget, until the revised budget in May, I think we had seven hearings and we drilled down on every single individual item that was proposed and we took public comment from many of the people that are in the room.

And the idea, or the process was, is that while we took no official positions during those hearings, we really sent a direction about how we felt on many of the different education issues that were contained in the budget, and when the governor issued his revised budget in May, we saw that some of the things that we raised had been incorporated.

But the May Revise for the uninitiated is really, once you have the tax revenue, once you've had four months of input from the legislative budget process, there is a revised budget there, and then we take it from there, and in the ideal world, we have a three-party agreement, but generally we are in the situation we are in today where we have a two-party agreement.

We have an agreement with the Assembly, and it is based on--we will hear animated debate, we will hear debate on the floor of the Senate, and people will say, 'gee, there wasn't much time.' If you sat here during these hearings, it was an endless amount of time, and we talked about every one of those issues down to the weeds.

And so, it is very good because today, the budget in front of us reflects what we were striving to do, and we are not having a formal presentation on the budget because we have considered this in every different way, but we do have--as you've seen in the agenda--every individual item called out with what it is and what the proposal is so that we can take appropriate action and we can hear from you.

And so, the overall budget includes $12 billion of solutions that rely on a combination of reductions, borrowing, and other solutions, and while the May Revision included what I would characterize as still draconian cuts to higher education, the legislative budget maintains our commitment to higher education and rejects the ongoing cuts to the University of California and the California State University System.

We also address the issue of the Middle-Class Scholarship, which is the biggest proposed cut that was within the Student Aid Commission items and our, our student aid programs. And with the fact that we do higher education and we do kindergarten through 12, including pre-kindergarten and transitional kindergarten, in many ways it's a tale of two budgets because the higher education relies much more on the General Fund.

The K through 14 is really guided by Proposition 98, and so Proposition 98 is, is functioning as its authors intended and is protecting schools from the hard decisions that were made on the other side of the ledger with higher education. And so it, it really--the legislative budget prioritizes the most critical investments that were proposed by the governor while including investments that continue youth mental health services, Universal School Meal implementation, and educator support.

It also--the legislative budget--supports the future fiscal stability of Proposition 98 so that the future legislatures are not faced with the difficult decisions that were easily avoidable with more responsible spending. So the budget in front of us that we will take action on later in this hearing represents a two-party agreement with the State Assembly.

We know that if we meet the budget deadline of June 15th with a legislative budget, there will be further discussions with the Administration and likely further action to take whatever that three-party agreement is and true it up against the two-party agreement that we will consider today and on the floor later in the week, and we look forward to continuing those conversations with the Administration and continued conversations with various stakeholders in a thoughtful and collaborative manner so that we can get to a complete budget by the deadline of June 30th.

And so today, the run of show is is that we will begin with public comment on any of the issues in front of us and take--in a moment, I'll ask if there are any opening comments from either of the other two subcommittee members, but also after the public comment, we'll give a chance to see if there's any final comment from committee and then we will move to a vote.

And we have between us--let's see if I can use my public school education math scores--we would have in front of us a vote on 165 items, and it will be between the Part A agenda, which is on the Proposition 98, TK, PreK to 14 side, and then we will have the higher education aside Part B, but we will take essentially three votes.

We'll take a vote on where all--essentially a consent agenda where all three of us have signaled that we could support, all support the items. There'll be a one on where there would be likely a two-to-one vote, and then we'll do a roll call on those items. That will be two to zero.

And we will consider--we'll have three votes--so we'll consider Plan A and Plan B together in those three categories when we get to a vote. And so with that, let me--as the introduction to what we're doing, the run of show--let me ask my colleagues if there's any opening comments. Senator Ochoa Bogh.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Senator Perez. Education and stakeholders, good afternoon. Hope you're doing well. Good to see you all, familiar. Probably a few times we'll see you before the final vote.

So before I start, I'd like to give it a special shout out to the Republican Sub One fiscal consultants for their diligent work in analyzing each of these votes with the information that they have available. I greatly appreciate their time and their sleepless nights.

First, I think it's important to note that in reviewing the briefing materials in preparation for this hearing yesterday evening, I found references to a significant amount of placeholder language. While many of the proposals seem supportable, I have concerns that we haven't seen the final language, which means that we're going to vote--that we're--that what we're voting on today won't be the final agreement.

I hope that these items will be formally presented to the subcommittee in order to ensure that transparency and allow for public comment. I look forward to reading the final language before we vote on the final budget bill.

With respect to the UC and the CSU, I do appreciate that my legislative colleagues are providing additional funding for these higher education branches, but I had hoped that we'd go further and fully restore the funding to these higher education branches and provide for the compact base increases.

And speaking of deferrals, this would not be the solution for our schools or community colleges. While I'll be supporting the K12 proposal because it backfills prior deferrals, I'm hesitant to support the community college deferrals. I also have concerns with the transitional kindergarten penalties.

Our schools are doing everything they can to support TK and we should be supporting them in their own transition rather than penalizing schools that can't meet the standard for a variety of reasons outside their control, though I did find out just earlier today that the number for the penalties would be increased to about 24, so that's actually a positive thing so I'll be abstaining on that one.

Regarding the Golden State Teacher Grant Program, while I am supportive of the program, I do believe that we need to do--have more data about its effectiveness before funding it for the fourth year. CSAC will be releasing a progress report at the end of this year.

It would be prudent of us to wait for that report and then revisit this budget item next year. And lastly, I want to note that I'm supportive of ELOP, but agree with the California--

Oh, you just did an acronym.

Oh, sorry.

Extended Learning Opportunities.

Yes. Extended Learning Opportunities Programs. Yes, sir. I apologize for that, but yes--should have known better--but agree with the California School Board Association that we should delay expansion of the program until the state is in a better financial situation and use that money to lower the deferral amount this particular year. Those are my prepared remarks, and I look forward to voting and continue to work. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much. Senator Perez, any comments?

Yes. Well, first and foremost, I want to thank you all for being here. I know so many of you have been showing up to these meetings regularly to provide your feedback, to provide your thoughts on this budget, and also want to recognize all of the hard work that budget staff have put into shaping this, as well as the partnership that I've had both with the chair, Senator Laird, and Senator Ochoa Bogh.

You know, we've had very robust discussions. I think many of you recognize that we're facing some pretty devastating budget challenges this year. It has been incredibly, incredibly tough, and we are continuing to face ongoing challenges with potential cuts coming from the federal administration that will impact our higher education systems.

And so we are going to be having ongoing conversations about the budget. That is the reality and I recognize many of you in this room that we are going to continue to be having these discussions. They will be ongoing, so I want to highlight that.

First and foremost, I, you know, want to highlight, I think there's a lot of positives that have come out of this budget proposal. You know, we rejected all proposed cuts to K through 12 education. We know we heard from so many parents, from, you know, students, from teachers, administrators about the need for us to reject those cuts, and we remain steadfast in our commitment to maintaining school funding without reductions, recognizing how important stable funding is for our families across the state.

In addition to that, you've heard me say time and time again, I'm a product of the CSU system, and so making sure that we were restoring funding to our CSU system, to our UC system, is so critical because I know from so many young people all across the State of California, the UC System, the CSU System is really their pathway to attaining a college degree.

The governor had proposed a 7.95% ongoing cut to the UC and CSU System in January, and then in May that was adjusted to a three percent cut, so you know, we have now reduced that and rejected that proposed three percent ongoing cut and instead we are deferring the reduction to 2026-27 and giving campuses time to plan and providing cash flow resources to ease the impact.

With community colleges, the May Revision proposed moving $492 million from community colleges to expand transitional kindergarten. While we understand the importance of TK, we rejected the funding shift for 2023-24 and 2024-25, returning 260 million back to community colleges which will benefit students accessing workforce training and adult education. And we approved $217 million in ongoing Prop 98 funding to provide a 2.3% cost-of-living adjustment for community colleges, allowing them to better serve students.

We know community colleges play such an important role for providing economic mobility and providing a pathway for working class students, for low-income students to be able to access higher education. Last but not least, something that's incredibly important to me as well is our Middle-Class Scholarship program. I myself have benefited from a Middle-Class Scholarship.

We know that there are thousands of students all across the state that utilize that funding, and at a time when so many students and so many families are facing affordability challenges, making sure that we have financial aid resources available for those students is incredibly important.

We know that there were initially cuts proposed to the Middle-Class Scholarship. We rejected that cut and are instead reinvesting $513 million in ongoing General Fund support and $405 million in one-time funding and for the 2025-2026 year, thereby assisting middle-income families across the state by expanding access and reducing debt to higher education.

We know this is critical, we know this is incredibly important, and you know, the kind of impacts that we'll see from programs like this will be ongoing, so once again, just want to thank you all for all of your work and the effort that you've put into reaching out to each one of us and sharing some of your concerns, and as I mentioned before, recognize that many of these conversations will be ongoing as we face different challenges with the federal government.

We are here to support you all, and, you know, very proud that we were able to resolve, I think, many of the challenges that we were facing in this year's budget. So that'll be it. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And now, as is my habit, I'm just going to take a little survey of how many of you intend to make a public comment here. Okay, that's good. There's only one person over by Finance that's doing that and I'm assuming that's not a Finance person wanting to jump in.

Then let's, let's allow, given that--and I looked at about 20 or 25, although there'll be all these people that run in from the hallway acting like they were never here for that survey; I know how you work--and so let's take public comment, and you can have up to a minute.

You don't have to use the whole minute, but you can have up to a minute. So please line up and we'll use this microphone here and we welcome your public comment. Welcome, Jonathan. Welcome to the committee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Jonathan Lyman, on behalf of the Community College League of California. We want to thank the Senate for taking the concerns of the community college districts into account, specifically the additional money for growth, the rejection of the retroactive portion of the TK rebenching, the reduction of the deferral, and the funds to support the Student Support Block Grant and emergency financial aid, and we hope these items are maintained in the final package.

Thank you very much. Appreciate your comments. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. My name is Catherine Hutchinson. I'm the President of California State University Employees Union. We represent 35,000 non-faculty and student assistants.

I'd like to thank you guys for the support of the CSU by eliminating the proposed cut, for adjusting the deferral, including a clear commitment to fully funding the compact, providing a pathway for CSU to address its cash flow issues and associations with the deferral, and requiring turnaround plans.

This proposal and the governor's commitment to the compact communicated during his May Revision presentation will ensure that the CSU meets all its compact commitments to its students and employees. Importantly, this includes our contract being implemented to move our members to the appropriate merit step system that they deserve to be on.

We fought for this for many, many years, so we appreciate that, and we, of course, are in support of your action here today and ask that you continue to stand with CSUEU members and budget negotiations with the governor. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Hi. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Andrea Ball, first, on behalf of the Orange County Department of Education. Well, first I just want to thank you, your staff, and all the other entities for all the work this year. On behalf of the Orange County Department of Education, want to thank all parties for the trailer bill authorizing the use of some savings from the Multi-Tiered System of Support Grant to be able to use those to support LEAs impacted by the wildfires.

On behalf of just about every other LEA group I work with, Suburban School Districts Association, Central Valley Coalition, a coalition of superintendents in the San Gabriel Valley, and Long Beach Unified School District, we appreciate the funding for the TK and the adjustment of the penalties that all parties have agreed to.

We do appreciate the changes to the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, and in the legislative proposal we saw the write up to address stability for the Tier Two rate so they don't fluctuate.

We are all deeply concerned about the significant reduction to the Discretionary Block Grant, although districts to varying degrees use that in their budgets, which they are adopting this month. That is going to have--that's a very significant reduction and we are troubled by the continued--by all parties not to appropriate the 1.3 billion in Prop 98.

Finally, I just want to say that for the Suburban School Districts, especially many of them working on secondary school redesign and innovation, Portraits of a Learner, we really would like to see that $15 million restored. Supporting innovation by the state is something a little bit unusual, but I think it would really be helpful for sharing learning. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hi. Good afternoon. Carol Gonzalez, on behalf of the Cal State Student Association, just to share appreciation for the Legislature's version to protect students. Students across the state are very thankful and very hopeful that it makes it into the three-party agreement.

On behalf of Long Beach City College and Gavilan College, we're thankful for the Legislature's proposal to reject the funding shift over for the prior years and current year funding for the TK shift. Appreciate the block grant set aside for community colleges and the enrollment growth for current year and the following year.

On behalf of the Alliance for a Better Community and Southern California College Attainment Network, we're also very appreciative of the Legislature's inclusion of the 5.1 million for financial aid support and outreach, and on behalf of Hispanas Organized for Political Equality, echoing the comments before made by the chair to protect overall funding for higher education segments and for the funding for the Dream Resource Liaisons and the emergency financial aid just given everything that's happening. And thank you. We hope that it makes it into the three-party agreement.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Laird and members. Liz Fenton, on behalf of the Office of Kat Taylor and the Center for Ecoliteracy, here in support of the school nutrition investments including Issue 15: the COLA, 38: Universal School Meals, 39: infrastructure and training and kitchens, implementation of food dyes, and 84 and 99: summer meals through SUN Bucks.

Just wanted to say a special thank you to the subcommittee and staff for recognizing the important role that our classified workers, especially our school nutrition staff, in serving free school meals to California's children. It's one of the simplest levers for the state to address the cost-of-living crisis because it quickly puts money back in the pockets of families when their children eat for free at school. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Anna Mathews, on behalf of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges. Good afternoon, chair and members. Thank you so much for funding 90% reimbursement for the Part-Time Faculty Office Hours Program. We really appreciate it.

We also appreciate you recognizing that the governor's proposal to fund TK outside of the split would create a huge hardship for the California Community Colleges and we're really grateful for that 260 million being returned to the community colleges but have concerns about the proposal commencing in the 25-26 year.

We also oppose the reappropriation of 135 million from the part-time faculty healthcare pool. AB 1171 charts a path forward with a statewide part-time healthcare pool and those funds are really necessary for that to happen. And as I always say, our colleges on hold harmless are in dire need of call COLA as well. Their students matter too. So thank you so much for all of the work that you guys have put into this.

Thank you. Appreciate your comments. Welcome.

Good afternoon, chair and members. Bella Kern, on behalf of the Institute for College Access and Success. We are very appreciative of the dedicated funding to community college emergency financial aid, Dream Liaison Resources, financial aid outreach, and the reduction of cuts to the CSU and UC systems.

We urge the Legislature to maintain the cohort default rate with no new car routes and to include trailer bill language on the Middle-Class Scholarship and to make it more predictable and efficient. We would also encourage additional language to how the most vulnerable student populations can access the emergency financial aid at community colleges. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Thank you. Leila Alicon, on behalf of the California State Assembly of YMCAs. We appreciate the Legislature's support of--for increased and meaningful investments in the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program.

The ELOP has been transformative for schools, students, and families wise serve in partnership with local districts and we are excited for the increased support of expanded learning also part of the Legislator's budget framework. Thank you.

Thank you, and thank you for the Youth Model Legislature as well. I'm a former Senator and look what happened. Welcome.

Good afternoon, chair and members. Heather Calomese, representing EdVoice. We strongly support the proposals and investments in literacy and teacher workforce in order to uplift academic outcomes for California students. Notably, we strongly support the investment of 200 million for teacher training and evidence-based reading instruction.

As research has shown, the ability to read by third grade and having access to effective teachers are two foundational elements to long-term academic success. Regarding the educator workforce proposals, we fully support full funding for the Golden State Teacher Grant Program and would recommend a restoration of funding for participants back to $20,000 with a four-year service requirement in a priority school.

For the student teacher stipend program, we urge you to prioritize the funding for student teachers serving in high-need schools where the shortage of qualified educators is most severe. Thank you for your leadership that prioritizes uplifting student outcomes in California.

Thank you. Welcome.

Welcome. Thank you. Baltazar Cornejo with Brownstein, speaking on Item 30 on behalf of David Solow, President of Special Olympics, Northern California. First, I want to express their gratitude for the Legislature's support for the continued base-level funding for their budget request of $30 million through three fiscal years of funding.

I also want to give a special shout out to Senator Ashby and Grayson who've led on our request and thank your staff who've worked with us and made themselves available to discuss the request with us. We ask that the committee accept the staff recommendation and approve this request. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Chair and members, Alex Torres with the Brownstein, also on behalf of the Special Olympics, Southern California and CEO Kelly Pond. I'll echo what my colleague just said. Big thank you for the $30 million.

Also want to give a shout out to our champions in the Assembly, Assembly Member Nguyen as well as Assembly Member Lackey. Also here on behalf of the Bay Area Council, representing over 340 employers from the Nine County Bay Area, want to express our support, and thank you for the elimination of the cuts for CSU, UC.

We think it's absolutely critical that their economic prosperity--that their prosperity is key to our economic prosperity for key employers, so big thank you for that. Urge your support in accepting these staff recommendations. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Hi there. Kordell Hampton with the Association of California School Administrators. There are portions of today's agenda that we're supportive of and are mentioned in our May Revision letter. There are a few, a few items on today's agenda that we want to make mention of. One is regarding Item Number One.

We're opposed to the underfunding of Proposition 98 and asking for it to be fully funded. Regarding Item Number Nine, we appreciate the consolidation language accompanying all grant programs. We look forward to working with the committee staff on implementation. Regarding Item 21, we appreciate the Legislature's support of the governor's Expanded Learning Opportunities Program, interested in seeing what the rate two stabilization looks like.

However, we are concerned about postponing the program's expansion until the middle of the school year. And lastly, regarding Item 79, we're interested in reviewing the language related to financial reporting for childhood sexual assault transactions and look forward to working with committee staff. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and Senator. Stokes Ubers, on behalf of the California Professional Firefighters. We'd like to thank the subcommittee and strongly support Items 39 and 40 and Part B of the agenda relative to apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship.

We think those are incredibly important investments and we are hopeful that they are supported here today and then included in the final budget agreement. We'd also love to continue to work with the subcommittee to fully fund firefighter cancer research in the state. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good afternoon, chair and members. Brianna Bruns, on behalf of the California County Superintendents, representing the 58 County Superintendents of Schools. Thank you, members, and your staff for all of your work on this two-party agreement.

We support the Legislature's effort to improve fiscal stability in the out-years. Notwithstanding that, we continue to emphasize the importance of the Discretionary Block Grant to preserve core educational services in light of the expiration of federal one-time funds.

We also support funding to the math and literacy coaches, but urge the Legislature to fund the Mathematics Professional Learning Partnership to ensure coherent strategic planning and capacity building across the state. In addition, we support the Legislature's dedication to Whole Child programs.

We are particularly supportive of increasing the Education Learning Opportunities Program or ELOP, minimum grant, and stabilizing the Tier Two rate. In addition, we're supportive of extending the encumbrance dates for the UPK Planning and Implementation Grants and providing additional funding for that purpose.

We'd also add on to that request that we would request an extended encumbrance date for the Early Education Teacher Development Grant as well. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members. Sandra Barreiro, on behalf of SEIU California. In TK through 12 education, we want to thank you for improving fiscal stability, funding school nutrition, and funding the COLA. However, we would have liked to see the Classified Summer School Employee Summer Assistance Program fully funded.

The program's currently oversubscribed and it is the only recruitment and retention tool for low-wage classified school employees, and additionally, we'd like to see the eligibility cap on that program adjusted for inflation. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Hi. Good afternoon, chair and members of the committee. On behalf of the 29,000 faculty members who are members of the California Faculty Association, we thank the Legislature for rejecting the proposed cuts in this fiscal year and look forward to discussing potential budget solutions to close the gap in the out-year.

We know it's been a difficult budget year and just, you know, really appreciative of the Legislature's ongoing commitment to higher education. And Eric Paredes with CFA. I realize I left that out.

I was just going to ask for the record, so thank--

Yes. So thank you so much.

Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Amy Costa of Full Moon Strategies, here on behalf of Hazel Health. We are a proud partner with over 118 local education agencies or LEAs. We are here in strong support of your proposal to provide Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative bridge funding, Issue 80. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. Welcome.

Hi. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. McKenna Jenkins with NextGen California. On K through 12, we want to thank the Legislature for fully funding School Meals for All and the Kitchen Infrastructure and Training Program. Both are essential for fighting food insecurity and expanding access to healthy school meals.

On higher education and also on behalf of uAspire, we're grateful for full funding and the one-time increases to Cal Grant Program and the full restoration of the Middle-Class Scholarship. This is really important because it ensures that students don't see a drop in aid this year.

We also appreciate the 20 million in flexible emergency aid for community colleges and the 15 million for Dream Resource Liaisons as well as restored UC and CSU budgets. We hope these institutions will use their own aid to support students who lost their federal aid.

Finally, we just want to thank the Legislature for approving the use of the 2020 cohort default rates to protect students. We understand it is a tough budget year and so we just deeply appreciate the Legislature's commitment to vulnerable students and really urge the inclusion of these items in the final budget deal with the governor. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Good afternoon. Anke Schennink with the UAW. UAW Local 4123 represents 10,000 academic student employees in the CSU system working as teaching associates, graduate assistants, tutors, graders, etcetera, and we would like to thank you all as well as your colleagues for rejecting the cuts to the CSU funding.

We would like to advocate for an increase in funding, of course, but realizing that this is a difficult budget year and it's not the end of it as we're seeing rumors from federal administration but we appreciate this support and it's very timely as next week we will start the first bargaining session for a successor contract with the CSU administration. So thank you all.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members. Melissa Bardo, on behalf of EdTrust-West. Just want to express our appreciation to members of this committee and Budget staff for protecting investments in higher education, especially during a really challenging budget year, specifically rejecting the proposed UC and CSU cuts and funding enrollment growth at the community colleges, protecting existing financial aid resources, and adding new financial aid resources to protect the most vulnerable students at community colleges, including through emergency aid and financial aid application outreach.

And lastly, we just ask that these investments will ensure our most vulnerable students apply to enroll and persist in higher education. Respectfully ask for your aye vote and inclusion in the final budget agreement. Thank you.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good afternoon. Jessie Hernandez-Reyes, on behalf of the Campaign for College Opportunity. Amid a difficult budget year, we want to thank the Senate for maintaining the promise of higher education through these dedicated higher education investments in this budget bill.

We're grateful to see thoughtful financial aid investments via grants and aid outreach to our California Community College students and investments to support the crucial work of Dream Resource Liaisons at our community colleges.

We hope that these investments will ensure continued college access and success for our most minoritized students, including mixed-status families and undocumented students in California despite federal ongoing threats to the safety and livelihood of these students.

We were also pleased to see a continuing commitment to system compacts and we look forward to making sure that these investments continue to produce college access and success for our most minoritized students at the UC and the CSU. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Good afternoon. Dan Merwin, on behalf of the California School Boards Association. We would like to respectfully disagree with the chair on his comments on Prop 98. The $1.3 billion underfunding is something that is really not only not envisioned, but frankly, undermines the integrity of Prop 98 and something that we'd urge is ultimately rejected.

We'd also appreciate Senator Ochoa Bogh's mentioning of our letter and our comments around the expanding of the Early Learning Opportunities Program while simultaneously taking out a, well, thankfully smaller deferral than was originally anticipated at the May Revise, but a deferral nonetheless, as well as comments around the punitive UTK penalties for the staffing ratios.

Appreciate that really being delayed a little bit so that we don't run headlong into--while well-intentioned--expanding and finally fully implementing at the same time, and frankly, hitting facilities and staffing hardships that we anticipate from our members. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Welcome.

Mr. Chair and members, Silvia Solis Shaw, here on behalf of the American Heart Association. We'd like to thank the governor and the Legislature for their funding for the Universal School Meals Program. Studies have shown that a healthy diet is associated with improved academic achievement, healthy behaviors, and increased school attendance, so we thank you very much.

Thank you. Welcome.

Thank you. Hi. Kellie Longo Flores, on behalf of the California Association of Food Banks and END Child Poverty. Speaking to Items 38, 39: Universal School Meals and Items 41, 42, and 99, which is SUN Bucks, Chair Laird, thanks to you and the Senate for your leadership on these programs to prevent child hunger year-round and to Senator Perez for--thank you for being an immediate champion in this space. We really appreciate all on this committee. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Seeing no one else lining up for public comment, that completes public comment. We are going to give a chance to my colleagues to make any last comments before we move to vote, if anybody has comments.

Just because I, I realized I didn't make it and I appreciate the last commenter for bringing it up but, really, really grateful that we saw the expansion of the School Nutrition Program in this budget too.

I know that was really exciting for so many folks to see, including myself, given I have a bill in this space, and it's certainly helpful to see dollars allocated towards the expansion for Summertime School Meals, so something that we know is very necessary. That's it. Thanks.

Thank you. And in my opening comments, I was remiss in not calling out the two staff members that are sitting on each side of me who--it's fair to characterize are just aside of zombie status right now, and I think for good reason. They have been working around the clock.

The fact that we have an agenda with 165 items that, that they process that had to be ready after it is just a tribute to the amount of work that they have put in and, and we're not quite done, but it is just been--they have served you, the public, immensely well during this entire process and, and have had to monitor every little issue and every little nuance in a good way.

So I'm just really grateful for their work and grateful for the work that they did that brought us to the moment we are about to have. So we are going to move to a vote and we will have three different motions and the first one is the equivalent of a consent agenda and I'm actually going to read each item in each one for the record. So we have a Part A and Part B. Part A was the K through 12 plus. Part B was the higher ed.

So on Part A, a consent agenda includes the following items: Four through seven, nine through 20, 22 through 45, 47 through 51, 54 through 76, 78 and 79, 81 through 90, 92 through 95, and 97 through 127. In Part B, in the same motion and consent, that would be Items One through Three, Five, Eight, Ten, 13, 14, 16 through 18, 20, 22 through 29, 31, 32, 34 through 36, 41, 43 through 53, 56 through 64, 67 and 68, 70, and 72. Do I have a motion to approve those items?

I'll move to approve.

Motion by Perez. Any further discussion? Yes, I have a feeling there's a comment here. Okay, no comment. Then, with no further discussion, please call the roll on those items.

[Roll Call].

That motion passes three to zero. Then we are going to move to a second motion and that motion will include in Part A, Items 52 and 53, and in Part B, Item Six, 21, 33, 42, 66, and 71. Do I have a motion?

Move to approve. Move to approve.

Motion by Perez. Any further comments? Seeing none. Please call the roll.

[Roll Call].

That motion carries; two to one. Then we're going to move to a third motion, which is in Part A, Items One through Three, Eight, 21, 46, 77, 80, 91, and 96, and in Part B, Items Four, Seven, Nine, 11 and 12, 15, 19, 30, 37 through 40, 54, 55, 65, and 69. Do I have a motion on those items?

Move to approve.

Motion by Perez. Any further discussion? Seeing none, then please call the roll.

[Roll Call].

That motion passes two to zero. So for the moment, that completes our business and we will be monitoring the budget process. If necessary, we will come back for any further action related to the negotiations and final action.

These items will proceed to the floor of the Senate along with the items of the other Budget Subcommittee in a complete budget that we will vote on at the end of the week. And so let me thank everyone for their participation in this process and getting us to this moment.

If for any reason, any of you wanted to comment or have further comments that you were not able to make, the subcommittee will take the them at our website or by letter with the address that you can get for the website because we would appreciate your comments and anything that informs us in doing that business.

So once again, thanks to everyone that participated in this and allowed us to get to this successful outcome today. Budget Subcommittee One on Education stands adjourned.