Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education

The Senate budget subcommittee number one on education will come to order. Before we begin, let's we let's establish a quorum consultant. If you can please call the roll.

[Roll Call]

The consultant notes a quorum has been established. Today, we will be hearing the governor's proposals on dual enrollment, the implementation of the screeners for reading difficulties, special education, school facilities, and issues related to the commission on teacher credentialing. We have seven issues on today's agenda, and we will begin with issue one on the dual enrollment proposal. We will start with the Department of Finance. So if you could have them please come up.

And, from the Department of Finance, we have Melody Jimenez, Michael Aferas from legislative analyst office, and Kimberly Rosenberger from the Department of Education.

Good morning, Chair and members. Melody Jimenez with the Department of Finance. Today, I will be providing an overview of the Administration's proposal related to the Dual Enrollment opportunities grant program. In the 2020 budget act, the state provided $2,200,000,000 one time proposition 98 general fund for the dual enrollment opportunities grant program. This program provides grants to local educational agencies to establish or expand dual enrollment and dual credit programs.

There are two primary programs supported by this funding. Number one, middle college and early college high schools, and number two, college and career access pathways. Middle college and early college high schools are formal partnerships between schools and higher education institutions like community colleges, CSUs, and UCs. These schools are intended to support students who are underrepresented in post secondary education or who may be at risk of not completing high school.

A CCAPS are partnership agreements between school districts and community colleges that allow cohorts of students to take college level courses on a high school campus.

While these dual and pro dual enrollment programs are different, they all share the same goal of expanding access to college and career pathways for high school students. So the governor's budget builds on this prior investment by including an additional 100,000,000 one time proposition 98 general fund available through 06/30/2029 to support more grants to LEAs. The proposal also includes several notable programmatic changes to the dual enrollment opportunities grant program as listed on page three of the agenda. And I'd like to highlight four changes in particular.

Number one, it clarifies that regional occupational centers and programs are eligible to participate in the program.

Number two, it provides an additional $50,000 in grant funding for LEAs that expand dual enrollment opportunities for justice involved youth in county operated facilities. Number three, it prioritizes funding for LEAs that have higher than the state average of unduplicated pupils in an effort to capture LEAs that have the highest needs of students. And number four, it clarifies that grant funds may be used for teacher professional development, specifically to help teachers meet the minimum qualifications to teach dual enrollment courses.

In addition to these changes in the dual enrollment opportunities grant program in particular, the governor's budget also proposes related changes to daily instructional minute requirements. Specifically, it would reduce the requirement from two hundred and forty minutes to one hundred and eighty minutes for students participating in CCAP or other dual enrollment programs offered through partnerships with higher education institutions.

This change aligns with the existing minute requirements for middle college and early college high schools where students are already counted as a full day of attendance at one hundred and eighty minutes rather than three fourths. By providing greater flexibility in daily instructional minutes, this change is intended to minutes, this change is intended to remove barriers and expand access to dual enrollment opportunities. Overall, this proposed investment and these policy changes will help schools increase access to college and career pathways for high school students.

That concludes my remarks. I'm also joined here by my colleague, Amber Alexander from the Department of Finance, and we're happy to answer any questions.

Good morning, madam chair. Senator Alex Chillera. We're recommending or sorry. I got a pedestal to the legislative analyst's office. We're recommending the legislature reject 100,000,000 in one time funding as it would not address any barriers to implement dual enrollment programs.

We note that it is not clear whether there are any fiscal barriers to implementing dual enrollment as the state's funding policies for dual enrollment models benefit both schools and community colleges. We have seen participation in CCAP programs in particular increase significantly in recent years. Full time equivalent enrollment in CCAP programs rose by 82% between twenty twenty, twenty one and twenty twenty three, twenty four from about 1,300 full time equivalent students to over 24,000 or 13,000 to over 24,000.

The state has also taken action recently that has made it easier for school districts to implement dual enrollment programs by allowing them to partner with other community colleges outside of the local service area, which previously presented a barrier for some school districts. Lastly, we also note that LEAs can also use funding from the proposed discretionary block grant to expand dual enrollment programs.

So LEAs that are interested in using one time funding to expand the dual enrollment programs can use the one time funding from the proposed block grant for the same purposes. That concludes my comments. Happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Kimberly Rosenberger. On behalf of the State Superintendent of Public Instruction, we are very supportive of the proposal of California, which has laid a strong foundation with initial investments and a strong partnership with the community colleges. We think this proposal represents a timely and strategic next step.

Our only recommendation is that of the 100,000,000, we are recommending that 10,000,000 of that be utilized for extending the dual enrollment opportunity grant and creating technical assistance systems since we do hear that there's a need for additional hands on support at districts and colleges to design the program, strengthen partnerships, and align curriculum. We would provide that technical assistance with that 10,000,000 in partnership with the community colleges. So providing them both support along with our LEAs in TK through 12.

Great. Thank you for that presentation. I have a couple questions. I actually just wanted to build on the comments that you just made, Kimberly, on behalf of CDE. So you said that you would intend on using CDE would intend on using $10,000,000 for the dual enrollment opportunity gap program of the 100,000,000. How else do you envision allocating the $100,000,000 between the two programs, both the College and Career Access Pathway grants and the Early College High School programs and Middle College High School programs?

So we would build off the existing 200,000,000 and continuing putting the dollars out there. We have over a thousand schools that currently partner, but we think by taking 10,000,000, which would require a change in the current proposal to put 10,000,000 towards CDE, we would help expand, partnership and participation. So that we think we have there would actually be, greater opportunities for students because right now, we do see, not everyone does take up because they are kind of confused on how the structure works.

So outside of that 10,000,000, we wouldn't change the current structure.

And then what would be some of the trade offs if we were to reduce the number of instructional minutes for students duly enrolled?

I defer to my colleague, Amber, to answer that question.

Amber Alexander with the Department of Finance. The reduction that you see in terms of the instructional minutes is really to, provide flexibility, locally to enhance planning efforts both on scheduling at the LEA side and, course, offerings on the community college side. So we believe that by reducing the instructional minutes, it will provide for, greater flexibility to provide these opportunities to students locally, and in line with the the investment, expand to access, to dual enrollment programs and increase participation in those programs.

Senator Archuleta, do you have any questions or comments?

Yes. Thank you. In reference to the 10,000,000 that you just mentioned, you had 10 different technical assistance. Would you describe what exactly that means?

Sure. So mirroring how we have technical assistance centers for our, community schools, this would be something that we would do at a statewide level and we would be both responsive to the community colleges that are participating as well as our LEAs.

And in that, we would help with, the program design, the partnerships with the community colleges, so doing that outreach and connecting them with interested parties, and helping align the curriculum going back to the, shift in, instructional minutes, making sure that they are maximizing, education opportunities and utilizing, the the schedule so they they overlap and and, best, enhance the program participation.

You know, I find this program fantastic because when the kids feel the sense of power, the sense of engagement and participation to be able to look ahead and, almost like having a a grade 13 where they finished the twelfth grade that they have no choice. They've got go right into 13 which opens doors for further education and then on for the four year degree. And I think it's a great program.

We just have to make sure that we're very careful with the monies that are allocated and, to expand it as as much as we can. And to make sure we have the professors, and teachers on the other end to welcome them because that's what it is.

Kind of a PR thing. And I think when the community is able to see their young graduates, students, go into the community colleges and on, they have to feel like they're being, still looked over and looked at and protected. So, I appreciate what all you're doing and and, allocating those funds for them. It's a it's a great program. Thank you, madam chair.

Good. I don't think I have any other questions. So we will go ahead and move on now to issue two for the proposal on the reading difficulty screener, professional development and implementation. We'll start with department of finance again. And you all can get started whenever you're ready.

Good morning chair and member. Elena Powell, Department of Finance. The governor's budget proposes 40,000,000 one time proposition 98 general fund to support implementation costs related to the screening of kindergarten through second grade students for risk of reading difficulties. This funding is provided in recognition that there are costs that local educational agencies are incurring while mandate claims are being filed with the commission on state mandates.

The budget additionally proposes statutory amendments that establish requirements for when local educational agencies can implement screening for the purposes of at risk identification for reading difficulties for pupils in kindergarten through second grade.

Additional statutory amendments recommend that screening instruments be administered to pupils on a one on one or small group basis for best practices. The proposed language changes address long standing concerns around increasing over identification in special education by establishing that for purpose of identifying a student of as at risk, local educational agencies must wait at least ninety one school days in a school year before administering the screening for kindergarten pupils and at least forty six school days for pupils in first and second grade.

These new requirements would not prohibit schools from screening students at the beginning of the school year, nor would it prevent schools from using the results of those screenings to inform instruction or provide varied tiered services that their students may need. What this language is intended to do is ensure that at risk flags would only trigger the broader process of evaluation for special education services only after sufficient exposure to foundational reading instruction has occurred.

While intervention provided at an early age requires less time to remediate skill deficits, that is only true when early identification of a student is valid.

A false flag does not accelerate help and in fact can often result in negative social, emotional or educational impacts for the student involved. This proposal ultimately aims to avoid the risk of over identification for our youngest learners. That concludes my remarks and I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Good afternoon or good morning. Sara Cortez, LAO. We think the cost of administering the screeners are likely lower than what the administration proposes. The $40,000,000 figure is the same that was provided for the first year of implementing the screener. And then moving into the second year, we'd anticipate the cost would be lower since LEA's already completed the relatively large lift of training all staff and likely wouldn't need that same level of training implementation.

We would note that LEAs are required to provide targeted support to students identified by the screener. The cost of doing this are really unknown given that there is a lot of discretion

for LEAs on the level and types of support to provide. Given these considerations, we would note that LEAs are required to provide targeted support to students identified by the screener. The cost of doing this are really unknown given that there is a lot

of discretion for LEAs on the level and types of support to provide. Given these considerations, we recommend rejecting the $40,000,000 that's specifically for the costs associated with administering the reading difficulty screener. And if the legislature is interested in providing additional funding to cover some of the costs associated with this, it could redirect those funds redirect the funds in the proposal to the discretionary block grant. And this would give LEAs the flexibility to use funds for reading difficulty screening or any priority. That concludes my remarks. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Kimberly Rosenberger with the State Superintendent Public Instruction. We are supportive of the 40,000,000 investment. We think it's consistent with the move proposed recommendation to assess children in a one to one or small group setting. In addition, the legislation proposes to restrict initial screening to the ninety first day of instruction for children in kindergarten and 46 for children in grades one through two.

We see a lot of merit in ensuring that children have had sufficient instruction and foundational reading skills prior to assessment. Screening students, especially those in kindergarten who may be seeing a formal classroom for the first time, is not likely to yield appropriate results. Likewise, waiting until too late in the school year, we have heard which some districts are doing, is also inappropriate as that limits the time to notify parents and guardians of potential risk and to provide timely supports.

We are prepared to work with LEAs in the coming year to ensure that the best decisions are made regarding the timing of screening, provision of needed services, appropriate assessment practice for English learner students, and more. 2025 and 2026 was the first year of implementation of screening requirements in California, and we have learned a lot of lessons that can be used to improve the process going forward and to ensure that young children are appropriately and expeditiously screened and served. Thank you.

Great. Thank you. I had a couple of questions about the budget and particularly in the governor's proposal and just wanted to kind of tease that out a little bit. I was really concerned regarding the language that would prohibit the the administration of the screener prior to ninety one days into the school year for kindergarten students and forty six days into the school year for first and second graders.

That seems, one, incredibly specific and prescriptive, and two, I would worry is going to actually interfere, with successfully implementing a program like this in schools. So just kind of wanna better understand where the arbitrary number of ninety one and forty six came from, the research that was used to substantiate that. I yeah. I'm concerned that this is gonna create real conflict for local school districts.

Hi. Elena Powell, Department of Finance. I'll take that question. So the dates were selected to allow for people exposure to curriculum before screening in order to reduce the over identification of pupils at risk for reading difficulties. We have seen through preliminary screening data that there is a sharp drop off at the ninety first for kindergarten and 46 for first and second grade for students who are initially identified with reading difficulties who are then continually identified after that point in time.

We feel that this is a sign that the in the first couple of months students in especially kindergarten but first and second grade as well are being exposed to curriculum for often the first time depending on their home environments and so it is giving them a chance to be exposed to this curriculum before having that identification flagged for them.

While the work and research are still ongoing, we have just seen that this data is across several screeners showing the steep decline at those points in time, which is how those dates were particularly identified. The proposal reflects an attempt to prevent harm resulting from overidentify overidentification of students who aren't in need of these services at the beginning of the school year.

I also just wanna emphasize that this proposal is a modest ship that's mirrored in several other states including Colorado, Texas and Massachusetts. But there is nothing in it that's prohibitive of early intervention instruction observation and universal support begins on day one of school. And so this is just the formal screener, but we have webinars, technical assistance. We work with our schools regularly to do early identification and we don't believe that this undermines or prevents that kind of early screening that teachers are trained to do.

I know that there's some school districts that are already doing screening right now. And so are there school districts that might already be doing screening that are ahead of this deadline? Like, I I just kind of question why we should be so specific, in providing guidance around a program that we're trying to ensure that school districts are successfully implementing.

And I don't know what kind of strategies are currently being used, but it's my understanding that there might be some school districts that are currently screening ahead of this kind of ninety one and forty six day timeline.

So I I'm it's my recommendation that this language not be included because I I think it gets way too into the details in terms of the implementation process, when we're talking about, you know, hundreds of different school districts across the state that are potentially working with different vendors, and some that already have programs that they've taken to implementation.

I mean, have you talked to folks that are currently operating and doing screening within school districts right now?

I'll defer that to the department.

We we do have districts that are on both ends early in our screening and then later and we that's why we do agree with kind of a more cohesive structured timeline so that we can get consistent results and also avoid over assessments where we're putting students in support they may not need that has unnecessary cost and also can be stigmatizing. And then on the back end, we don't want it too late where they're not getting the early interventions necessary before we see them leave for breaks.

I would also like to note just for the Department of Finance that while it would establish that the at risk screening has to happen at the ninety first and forty six day mark after that point. That is specifically the screening that triggers special education resources, additional screening, etcetera. There's nothing preventing in the language, schools or local educational agencies from screening and providing services to students before that point as a baseline.

And you said the two states that are doing this already are Colorado and where else?

Let's see here. Colorado, Texas and Massachusetts all have a variety of versions of this. Colorado adopted a dyslexia screening timeline that adheres to that ninety day instructional minute timeline. The Texas Education Code outlines that kindergarten and first grade students must be screened, at the end of the school year, so it's a bit different than this. And the Massachusetts, guideline recommends that, initial screening for kindergartens not be before September so that they can have that initial exposure to reading.

And in Texas, for grade one, it's no later than January so it falls along the same timeline for that initial first grade.

Okay. I in Colorado, Texas, and Massachusetts, you they utilize that timeline, but that has led to results for students in in all of those cases? So in all of those cases, they saw literacy improve for children as a result of these programs?

Go ahead. The study showed us more consistent, accurate identification. Okay. The study showed us more consistent, accurate identification. So the students that were identified with those shifts tended to stay within those IEPs or additional support versus other states that have greater variations.

Okay. I do wanna note that professor Young Suk Kim wrote to the committee, as originally written, ed code section fifty three zero zero eight allows LEAs the flexibility to administer screeners based on local needs. The proposed language would prohibit screening until the ninety first or forty sixth day of school for kindergarten students and first and second graders respectively. These restrictions conflict with evidence based practices.

Most validated screening tools including some selected by the State Board of Education's reading difficulties risk screener selection panel are designed for beginning of year administration.

Research shows that early and repeated screening supports timely intervention and states with strong literacy outcomes such as Mississippi screen within the first thirty days of school. These proposed restrictions are counterproductive, run counter to the original intent of the bill and research, and risk delaying early identification and support for students. So I'm I'm gonna be honest with you, and I I'm I understand what you're saying. I also understand the concerns that are being raised, right, by this member of the State Board of Education.

I think what I would like to see, if you happen to have it, and I would hope we'd have it, I imagine someone like the Education Trust might West Trust West might have it, is actual information that looks at a variety of states that have used screening tools and seeing what the best tool is and what the best timeline is.

Because picking three states out of a habit, and I don't know how many other states are doing screening and determining what is going to be most successful is, I think, for me, like, what's most important and making sure that we're not creating arbitrary rules that are creating more challenges for local districts that are trying to implement these policies. When what we wanna ensure that we're doing is all school districts are successfully screening is really important to me.

Like, that's that's what I wanna get to, is all school districts actually utilizing these things rather than them being so confused by the timeline that they end up not going into implementation at all. When would you all be able to provide that information and and look into some of that?

I can get back to you with a timeline. I believe SBE is working on that request, and so we'll follow-up shortly.

Okay. And that'll look at a variety of states not just three?

Correct. I believe they're looking at a larger

Okay. Excellent. Senator Archuleta, do you have any questions or comments? .

Madam chair, my question would be the literacy screener expert when we use the word expert. Literally, it you know, the literacy screen expert, we're talking about remedial reading. We're talking about people getting engaged with the student and having this passion that I believe all students share with their teacher, and they could feel when a teacher really cares. And I think this is such a terrific time when the student and the teacher come together because they can see, the progress that's being made. But tell me about the other end.

If this is a screener that establishes this child's lacking something, whether it be physical, mental, whatever it might be, and and where does it go from there?

What is our outcome at the other end for success? Because we're obviously putting the money on the table. What's the outcome at the other end? What are we looking for? And who determines that?

I could have our expert in house, Nancy Brailsen. Okay.

And while she's coming up, I'm gonna, if I may, madam chair, tell you a story. There was a young man, a young boy, who was pushed along year after year after year. And, in the eighth grade, there was a missus Perez, LA Unified School District that said, we'll call him Johnny. Little Johnny, you're not a troublemaker. You're not a bad kid.

But somewhere along the line, you lost what you should be doing. You lost it. Let's find it. And she sat him down and convinced him that every day after school, this teacher would meet with this young boy. And she gathered all the books from the first grade, then she gathered the books from the second.

It took almost a year, every day after school. And the bond was there, the love was there, and the passion to succeed with this young boy. Well, that young boy finally was able to go on into the ninth grade and become an honor student. Change his his, environment with the kids he ran with, with the kids who were reading and writing and straight a students, so on. And he was able to go on and and be very successful in life.

So that remedial reading that I call it, it was because of that one teacher. And this is why I'm so proud of the teachers that are in the room and the educators that are here because I see it as a calling, not as a career or a profession, but as a calling. So the outcome is what I'm asking. Where where where does it go from there? Because this one teacher stayed with him the entire year.

Obviously, we can't do that today, but the program which is so vital, I see it. So we're putting on the money on the table. What are the results we're looking for?

What we're looking to do and I'm Nancy Brennelson, co director of Statewide Literacy for the California Department of Education.

What we're looking to do from this early signal is to investigate further what may be triggering this flag for risk of reading difficulty and then actually plan a program for that child based on either the information at hand or further diagnosis to provide the instruction or if needed the remediation, the intervention needed to ensure that the child achieves grade level standards for either kindergarten, first or second grade.

So the the legislation is broad in terms of the types of supports and services that can be offered, to the student and the parent needs or guardian needs to be informed of the results of the screening and the supports and services that will be provided. And those can be anything from one to one tutoring as you've described, which is very powerful to small group instruction, further diagnosis, perhaps a recommendation for assessment for special education.

This is not an automatic, should not be an automatic referral to special education.

But you're right, all of those services need to be considered and the school needs to carefully plan for those those children.

And I really think that our public schools, have got to be as competitive as possible versus private schools. But the tools that you have are there. No doubt. This this this expert is so important. Is is that position, a special position that's given by the school district, the principal?

How is this screener pulled out from the rest of the population of teachers? Who is this special person?

Who conducts the screening? The again, there's a lot of latitude about who may conduct the screening needs to be a school employee, could be the classroom teacher and we see a lot of benefit to having the classroom teacher actually conduct the screening because then she or he has the information.

But it also, there's benefit in having perhaps a team of individuals specially trained come around and do the screening more expeditiously because if you have 20 to 30 children in a classroom and it takes anywhere from ten to fifteen to twenty minutes each, then that takes time. So, the instruments are such that you don't need amazing expertise to actually conduct the screening. The expertise comes in planning what the program will be afterwards for someone who is identified.

Yeah. Because earlier we talked about getting the kids into a pathway to school and college and so on.

Yes.

And this is so very, very important and I congratulate you for fighting for it and and asking for the funds to continue it and and I'm gonna do everything I can to support the program. Madam chair, thank you.

Thank you so much. That concludes this item. We'll go ahead and move on to issue number three on special education. And again, we're going to start with the Department of Finance.

Good morning again chair, Elena Powell, Department of Finance. I'll be providing an overview of the special education investments for the 2026 governor's budget. In recognition that there are often additional costs to serve students with disabilities, the budget annually appropriate special education funding outside of the local control funding formula. The special education funding stream receives growth and cost of living adjustments. The governor's budget proposes an increase of a 144,900,000 ongoing proposition 98 general fund to reflect a cost of living adjustment of 2.41%.

The jet the budget proposes a decrease of 35,100,000 ongoing proposition 98 general fund to reflect a growth adjustment of negative 0.592%. Additionally, the governor's budget proposes an augmentation of $5.00 9,000,000 ongoing proposition 98 general fund to increase the special education base rate. This infusion of funding along with the proposed cost of living adjustment equates to a new statewide special education base rate of nine ninety nine per average daily attendance.

At this level, special education rates across the state will be fully equalized, meaning every special education local plan area or SELPA will receive the same base rate per pupil for state special education funding. That concludes my remarks and I'm happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Good morning. Sarah Cortez, LAO. We recommend the legislature adopt this proposal as it will help address district cost pressure. Based on our review of historical spending data, districts have had to increasingly rely on local funds, which is largely LCFF, to cover special education costs. The legislature could adopt the governor's proposal with less money.

This estimate will shift with as we update cost of living adjustments and attendance data, but we currently estimate it would cost $322,000,000 to bring the base rate up to $999 not the $5.00 9,000,000 currently included in the governor's budget. That concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to take questions.

Thank you. Kimberly Rosenberger with CDE on behalf of state superintendent and public instruction Tony Thurmond. And also I have an eye injury that makes me, like, sensitive. This isn't like a poker face, I promise. So California serves 870,000 students with disabilities.

That cost has been growing exponentially. This is a significant and much needed investment of 509,000,000. This increases amount to $999 per ADA on top of cola and, maintains the commitment to ensure that equalization, which promotes fairness for students with disabilities in all regions, urban and rural, have access to comparable resources. Specifically, the feedback we received is this is much needed in a small SELPA in Tehima. For instance, they had an 850,000 funding shortfall.

This proposal would help completely make up that shortfall. So it's proposal would help completely make up that shortfall. So it's very much needed and we we think it helps get away from students support being based on their zip code and allows SELPA's to address the structural changes such as transportation, workforce shortages, etcetera to best serve students. In terms of the policy implementation considerations, our data shows special education enrollment is rising 13% to 15% amongst TK through 12 students despite overall enrollment declines.

So this pressure is real in our LEAs and these funding really helps address long standing insufficient funding.

Additionally, for the SIP proposal, we are appreciative of the extension of the encumbrance state of that funding. It is a five year project where we have spent nearly two thirds of it, but that additional time allows us to provide the much needed support at LEAs for an additional year. And we are ensuring that there is great transparency and oversight to best make sure those funds are tied to student outcomes.

We have provided through SIP clear and measurable results, and we also have SIP providing additional submitted plans to ensure that they are spending down those unspent funds. And so we're appreciative of extension and supportive of that proposal. That concludes my remarks. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation. Aye, have heard from a number of school districts all across the state about the need for more special education funding and supports. I think one of the dynamics that we've been seeing happen in some of our public school districts has been that enrollment is declining, but the number of students that are special education students has continued to rise, especially as we've improved our screening process for identifying students that have special needs.

So I was actually pleased with the governor's proposal to, increase the, special education base rate, which I think is really necessary, and, is something that, you know, will continue to to, I think, be really important to school districts. I I guess, what what do you all anticipate?

I noticed that the LAO's office argues also that they think that it's an overestimate of what of what our school districts need, which I I think is kind of surprising. This is something that I'm hearing about constantly, especially as we're continuing to see enrollment drop overall. You know, given those trends, what do you anticipate the future is going to look like for some of our local school districts and how can we better address some of the fiscal challenges that our local school districts are facing?

Sara Cortez, LAO. I just wanna clarify. We'd we're saying it's we're saying the estimate is more, is an overestimate to get to the $9.99 level. So the governor's budget proposes, putting, that raising the rate to $9.99 per student and we're saying you could do that but it doesn't cost as much money to do that. Not we're not making a statement about need here.

We did we do, recommend adopting the proposal because we do see kind of signs within the data that, there are there are a lot of cost pressures in special education.

So I guess that doesn't answer my original question. Right?

I'm I'm so sorry. I just wanted to clarify the recommendation. Could you could you repeat the original question?

So so where do you anticipate, like, things are going just given the trends? And and what do you think we can do, I guess, to better resolve some of the fiscal challenges and dynamics that our school districts are facing that most districts are facing, decreasing enrollment, and yet an increased dramatic increased rise in in the number of students requiring special education.

Sarah Cortez, LAO. Yeah. Just just to kind of you you you've mentioned the trend. So declining enrollment, the formula is based on the enrollment of, of census enrollment. So entire, the entire ADA of a of an of an LEA, rather than the number of students identified for special education, and that number is increasing.

So if that trend continues, you anticipate seeing additional cost pressures in the future.

Hi. Liz Mai with the Department of Finance. I do also just want to note, how the special education based funding is supported is it takes the greater of the current year ADA, the prior year ADA, or the second most prior year ADA just to try and kind of mitigate, those large drops in Enrollment, that that we do see with the increasing, special ed education identification.

In terms of providing a long term solution, I think, to to some of these challenges, do you do you have any thoughts about that? This is just a question that comes up so often, you know, from school districts that are that are facing this and just the financial needs that they have to meet the special education needs of their students. Yeah. What do you think about like long in terms of long term solutions to to try to resolve this?

I think some of the long term solutions that are needed is because the base rate was so low, the structural issues that I mentioned earlier have been kind of instructional time, which is the teachers. But greater investments allow them to stabilize and build into a structure that has greater support and consistency. So schools are actually able to grapple the full need of the students.

And so that's why we're appreciative of the investments as we do see these growing needs and especially for high cost students where there's greater infrastructure need, increasing the base allows schools to make necessary investments that they've been putting off for some time.

Well, good. I am and I'm I'm hoping that raising that base rate, like, will help our school districts and will help to resolve some of these issues. If if we were to meet all of the special education needs for students across the state, what would that look like? I mean, does this be base rate actually meet that, this 999? Or what would we have to to get to in order to meet all the special ed needs of of all of our students?

I don't have numbers in front of me. I'm just just looking through through my papers today. So there there so there's different ways and different goals to kind of cut, to cut to, like, get an estimate at, like, what, is needed. A way we've looked at it, and I can I can follow-up with you with your staff on this? A way we've looked at it would be, like, well, what is the the various, contributions of the three different funding sources?

So there's federal, state, and local. So we know what local is about right now. It's about 60% based on the recent data that we've looked. So what would it take to decrease the local contribution and increase the state contribution to, like, make up that? I don't have numbers in front of me right now, but I will follow-up with your staff to kind of get some of that information to you.

Okay. Yeah. We'd we'd love to take a look at those numbers and, you know, see how we can get close to to addressing and permanently closing that gap and what it might look like. Okay. Well, that concludes this item.

We will go ahead and are moving on now to the school facility program administered by the Office of Public School Construction. Welcome to the committee. And, again, we'll get started with the Department of Finance, and you all can begin whenever you're ready.

Good morning. Ethan Schroeder with the Department of Finance. I'll be providing a high level overview of the school facilities proposals within the governor's budget. Proposition or the governor's budget continues to allocate 1,500,000,000 in proposition two bond funds for the school facilities program in 2627. Proposition two was a bond measure passed by the voters in 2024 to pay to renovate or build new TK-twelve public school and community college facilities.

The proposition authorized a total of $10,000,000,000 in state general obligation bonds. Of this amount, Proposition two provides $8,500,000,000 specifically for TK-twelve schools to be allocated through the school facility program, which is administered by the Office of Public School Construction. I'll be happy to take questions later.

Sarah Sarah Cortez, LAO. No prepared comments today, but I'm happy to take questions.