Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 1 on Education

Today, we will be hearing the governors may revision proposals for TK through 12 education. We will begin with issue one on the proposition 98 overview. We will invite the Department of Finance and the Legislative Analyst Office to the witness table. I believe we have both Alex Shope from the Department of Finance and, Kenneth Kappan from the LAO's office here. And you all may get started whenever you're ready.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Alex Shope, Department of Finance. So I will provide, just an overview of changes, to the proposition 98 minimum guarantee. So within the three year, budget window, the May revision projects that the calculated minimum guarantee will increase by approximately $28 billion relative to the 2025 budget act, and increase by 6.4 billion relative to the governor's budget. So I will go year by year and talk about, some of those changes in a little more detail.

So starting in 24-25, the guarantee increases by about 1.1 billion relative to the governor's budget for a total minimum guarantee of 124.9 billion. The May revision also maintains that full $1.9 billion payment on the outstanding settle up obligation. In addition, increases in SAO General Fund increase the existing maintenance factor payment in 2425 to approximately 8.3 billion, which fully pays off that outstanding maintenance factor obligation. Moving to 25-26, the guarantee increases by about 3.7 billion relative to the governor's budget, for a calculated minimum, guarantee level of 125.1 billion.

Due to the improved revenue outlook in 25-26, the May revision, reduces that proposed settle up amount from 5.6 billion to 3.9 billion.

That means that the increase in the funded guarantee from governor's budget to the May revision is 5.4 billion. The reduction in settle up is then used to increase the discretionary deposit into the rainy day fund. The remaining settle up obligation, now 3.9 billion that reflects a level of continued uncertainty and continues to serve, as a proactive measure to manage the budget, and to avoid the over appropriation of prop 98.

When 25-26 becomes the past year, next year, at which point, statute, of course, prevents the reduction of existing appropriations should the guarantee decrease. Finally, 26-27, the guarantee increases by 1.6 billion relative to the governor's budget for a total minimum guarantee of 127.1 billion.

All three years in the budget window remain in test one. The mayor revision also maintains that 24-25 split calculation, as it was at the governor's budget with community colleges funded about 391,000,000 above the split in that year. Moving to average daily attendance, due primarily to enrollment decreases, across most grade spans. We are seeing relatively significant drops in ADA when compared to the governor's budget projections. So those decreases include a decrease of 64,000 in 25-26, And then a decrease of 81,000 in 26-27.

And again, those are relative to what we were projecting at governor's budget. And then just moving on to the public school system stabilization account, the rainy day fund. The May revision includes true ups to the rainy day fund deposits and the withdrawal from governor's budget. So again, I'll go year by year, provide that governor's budget transfer amounts, then the updated May revision amount. So in 24-25, there was a mandatory deposit of 3.8 billion at the governor's budget.

At the May revision, that is revised up to 5.3 billion. In 25-26, there was a total deposit of 664,300,000 at the governor's budget. That was made up of a $424,300,000 mandatory deposit, and a $240,000,000 discretionary deposit at the May revision. The mandatory deposit is revised up to 3.4 billion. And as I mentioned earlier, that discretionary deposit is increased to 1.6 billion.

So that means there's a total deposit amount now, 25-26 of about 5 billion. And then finally, 26-27, there was a mandatory withdrawal of 407,100,000 at the governor's budget. At the May revision, that mandatory withdrawal is removed. So there's now no withdrawal, no deposit in that year. So then with those revised transfer amounts, the ending balance in the reserve, is now about 10.3 billion, and the reserve caps for local school districts remain triggered in, 26-27.

And that concludes my remarks. Happy to take any questions.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Ken Kapphahn with the analyst office. We'll speak from our publication that we, released yesterday. And I'll focus my remarks on Proposition 98 and the architecture of the plan, and then we'll get into some of the detailed comments in in the later panels. So turning to page one, the starting point for this analysis is the 6.4 billion increase in the Proposition 98 guarantee relative to January.

That's of course across the three year window, but most of that reflecting a spike in 25-26. It's reflecting a combination of higher general fund revenues, partially offset by some lower property tax estimates. Turning to page two, another significant adjustment is a 3.8 billion reduction in baseline costs for the local control funding formula. That's generally reflecting, the May revision, truing up to more recent data from the Department of Education.

This doesn't increase the proposition 98 guarantee, but it has a lot of the same effect because it gives you more funding, for other school priorities.

You've undoubtedly heard a lot about declining enrollment from school districts this year and that adjustment reflects some of those savings becoming available for other school priorities. Scaling back the settle up proposal also means that there's another 1.6 billion available in this year's budget. Turning to page three, we think the estimates of both the proposition 98 guarantee and the LCFF, savings are reasonable. The states had or we've seen very strong stock market performance lately, driven by artificial intelligence.

Our revenue collections have been strong and the major vision is building on estimates that are consistent with all of those trends although we're still concerned about the risk of a market drop and the indicators suggesting the stock market might be overheated.

For schools, you heard that, test one is operative for proposition 98. That means there's this direct link where for every dollar of subsequent changes in state revenue estimates, the proposition 98 requirement would change about 40¢. Regarding the settle up proposal, we have the same basic assessment as we have in January. I think the governor has a reasonable concern about short term forecasting risk, but delaying that payment sets up larger deficits and more difficult decisions in subsequent budgets.

We think the smaller amount in the May revision is an improvement, but we'd still recommend an alternative in which the state sets aside enough funding to fully cover its estimates of Proposition 98, reduces non Proposition 98 spending as part of a broader plan to balance the budget and uses that additional $3.9 billion to build resiliency for school programs.

So turning to page five and the spending architecture, the plan before you has 17.8 billion in new spending proposals. 10.9 billion of that is from the governor's budget and then the mayor vision is adding another 6.9 billion on top of that amount. Bulk of that new spending is one time, 10.3 billion of the total, but the ongoing amount is still significant, dollars 7.5 billion in increases to ongoing programs.

To understand the package, really two thirds of all of that new spending is related to three specific proposals, a very large one time discretionary block grant, a little over $5 billion dollars $3.8 billion for larger cost of living adjustments and base increases and then $2.4 billion for a very large increase in special education, about a 42% increase in base rates.

So turning to page six, the other really large items to keep track of in this budget are the proposals from January, eliminating the payment deferrals, ongoing funding for community schools, and the full restoration of the learning recovery emergency block grant.

All of those amounts carried over from the governor's January budget. There are two newer proposals in the mayor vision worth tracking. Those are the additional one time funding for community schools and additional funding for literacy coaches. We'll cover both of those proposals a little bit later. Turning skipping ahead to Page nine in our assessment, thematically we think this mega vision revolves around three main ideas: discretionary funding, support for district cost pressures and increases to existing programs.

About 70% of the new spending that's in this major vision proposal is for flexible grants and other augmentations that would benefit generally all districts. And school districts have already received some very large increases since 2019-20, but they still do face some fiscal challenges.

Those range from inflationary pressure, managing the end of some large one time federal and state grants, rising special education costs, some increases in non personnel costs like insurance and utilities and discretionary funding would help the districts address some of those issues and their other local priorities. Then the other 30% of the new spending is for targeted grants that come with some specific requirements. As with the January proposal, these aren't really new programs but they are expansions or extensions of existing programs.

So turning to page 10, there are some advantages to taking that approach of funding higher cola and base increases in special education. Those mechanisms get funding to districts quickly, they're efficient to administer, and they're easy for districts to incorporate into their budgets. Mayra vision is one reasonable approach, but you could have a different balance, more cola, less special education or vice versa for example. Turning to page eleven, one question that's important for any budget is to ask how it would address a downturn.

And one positive feature of the mega vision is that it contains a cushion about 4.5 billion in ongoing funds that are set aside for one time activities.

And that creates a buffer because if the Proposition 98 guarantee drops in the future, you can simply let that one time spending expire rather than backpedaling on ongoing programs. So it's one powerful tool you can use to manage some of the uncertainty. The important distinction here is that nearly all of that buffer 4.4 out of the 4.5 billion is within the portion of Proposition 98 set aside for schools. For the community colleges, almost all of the ongoing funding is dedicated to ongoing programs.

The cushion is only about 127,000,000 and so they're a little bit more exposed to risk than schools are.

We also think the proposition 98 reserve is deposit as prudent. That 10.3 billion is equivalent to a little more than 8% of total schools and community college spending in 26-27. That's not huge in that context, but it could be very, very valuable if revenue drops quickly and the state needs to stabilize programs. So we'd recommend you deposit at least as much as what the governor is proposing in the May revision. Turning to page 12, the plan before you wouldn't fully insulate schools from the next downturn.

That's still something you'd have to think about and schools would have to prepare for. But it would probably let the state weather the first year of a mild downturn or perhaps or weather a wet mile downturn or maybe the first year of a more severe drop.

If you think back a couple years ago, the last time the state had a really severe revenue drop was three years ago and the fact that the previous budget back then had adopted some of these same features, reserve deposits and cushions meant that schools and community colleges came through that big drop better than most other parts of the state budget.

Given the risks, we think you might want to explore building more budget resiliency and we think you have at least two promising options in addition to reserves. One could be giving districts an advanced payment toward their 27-28 allotments at the end of this year, '7 and that's essentially flipping the script on deferrals by giving districts their payments a month early and so the next time the state needs savings, it could simply reverse that payment instead of implementing a deferral.

Another option could be to focus on pension costs. That means either setting aside money to address unfunded liabilities and reduce district contribution rates over an extended period or to offset increases as a buffer the next time the pension systems need to raise rates.

To the extent that you reject any of the governor's proposals or take your alternative on the settle up proposal, you would have more one time funding available and both of those options would use those funds to give you give you a little bit more protection for ongoing programs. So turning to page 13, the bottom line is that we think this is a reasonable starting point.

There are many ways to adjust the specific proposals and the amounts, but the estimates of the guarantee are reasonable and there are some prudent features here that would help you build resiliency and protect core programs and priorities.

One final postscript turning to page 14. There are some notable differences here between schools and community colleges. One we already mentioned, there's a much larger buffer for schools than there is for community colleges. Another one is that this mayor vision simply has more new spending proposals for schools, not just in absolute dollars but as a percentage of existing spending on each of those segments. And that distinction reflects a couple of issues.

One is that the Mayra vision is setting aside a percentage of funding from Proposition 98 in 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 for each segment. It's based on historical the historical split. And the Proposition 98 pot, the pie is growing, so both segments are receiving more than they were under the January proposal. But for community colleges, a much larger share of the increases is being absorbed by higher baseline costs and enrollment growth, leaving less for new programs.

The opposite situation for schools following enrollment is freeing up a lot of funding that's being repurposed for new priorities in this budget.

So this is certainly not a bad budget for the colleges overall, but compared with schools, they're in a tighter position and a little bit more exposed to risk. That concludes our comments. Happy to take questions.

Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. I'll start us off before, I pass it over to Senator Archuleta. I guess, first and foremost, I wanna speak to the settle up amount. And I was honestly surprised just to see the amount of settle up amount that continue to be left in the governor's proposed budget and the May revise.

And, I know at the beginning of the year that we had lots of discussions about what projections would be, right, in January, and I think there were some dramatic differences between what the governor was proposing versus what you all were proposing. You're much more conservative versus, you know, the governor kind of projected much higher revenues. And, obviously, things have looked a lot better than we anticipated, and and revenues are, coming in consistently much higher than I think we expected, which is good. That's a good thing.

I guess, what reason do you have to believe that revenues are going to drop so significantly that you would need to, that the settle up amount will will needs to be kept at the the place that it's at.

I'm I guess I'm just having trouble kinda understanding where your justification for that is is coming from, where the governor's justification for that is coming from.

So obviously, the reduced amount does reflect that improved revenue outlook. You know, I think that obviously kinda going back to the sort of top of my presentation, seeing some of the the the kind of big changes this year in the guarantee, right, about 28 billion, just in the budget window over, the budget act. Obviously, those are pointed to big increases, but I think it also, represents, a level of of volatility, and uncertainty that we're still looking at.

You know, obviously, for 25-26, we're we're still gathering data at that time. We'll have a clearer picture of it next year when we're kind of doing our our governor's budget projections in the fall.

And I think, I would just sort of return to the overall intent of the settle up proposal. You know, we wanna make sure, right, in light of that uncertainty that we are getting to the right number.

You know, there are those statutory restrictions, right, that exist that if there should be a big downturn or a kind of a big decrease in revenue, that would basically mean we'd be over appropriated general fund would need to be used to pay for proposition 98.

So I think that maintaining that amount at some level even if it is reduced kind of just I think reflects, the reflects the uncertainty and and just just our, I think, caution in trying to eventually get to that right number.

So I guess outside of just feelings of uncertainty, like what indicators that do you have that reducing the settle up amount from 5.6 billion and 3.9 billion, continuing to leave that 3.9 billion, is necessary and and that it's going to drop significantly enough that the settle up amount will shrink. Is there, like, any sort of indicators that you have beyond just feeling uncertain?

I can probably speak to more of the general economic certainty, but I think what makes us concerned is how reliant the state revenue structure is on the small handful of tech firms that are invested in artificial intelligence and how much of the state's revenue is driving off of the business and investment income coming from the fortunes of those small companies. They continue to do well. State revenues could continue to exceed projections next year and the state could be in line for a large windfall.

If that very small segment of the economy falters though, those reductions could quickly become very large. But I think to the Chair's point, we share that perspective on the sell of proposal.

The state absolutely does need to be thinking about volatility and we won't have final revenue data for 25-26. That really won't be locked down until May 2027, but we think there are better options for managing that volatility than than than delaying the settle up payment or not setting aside enough funding to cover that.

Okay. So you said you think there's better ways to deal with that volatility than delaying the set delaying paying off the settle up?

That's right. We would start by saying set aside enough funding in this budget to fully cover the estimate of the proposition 98 guarantee that you'd adopt. That's really step one. And then step two is what kinds of ways could address volatility while still funding the guarantee. The most direct example would be holding that funding into the putting that funding into the proposition 98 reserve.

Revenue meets expectations, okay great. We have that funding available for some kind of potential downturn in the future where it protects ongoing programs. If funding drops, the state can also then just take back that deposit that exceeds the proposition 98 minuteimum with no effect on school programs. That's not the only option but that's probably the most straightforward one that the state has available is this optional deposit into the proposition 98 reserve where the funding is fully set aside to cover those proposition 98 estimates.

Yeah. I and I hear you on the, like, economic outlook and uncertainty with our budget overall. I think we had a lot of these conversations in the fall of last year as we were looking into this year.

I think everybody's been talking about, like, this whole AI issue and if the AI bubble is going to be popping, especially given the conversations and rumors that were going around about the conversations that folks like Sam Altman were having with the Federal Government about a potential bailout. Right?

And I think that made everybody nervous. But we are in May, and we're having this discussion about the budget for 25-26, which is this year.

So, I'm I guess, it's just very unclear to me why we wouldn't just completely get rid of the settle up and leave the $3.9 billion I understand what you're talking about for, like, a a next year scenario, but I think it's been proven to us, and the governor made his bets in January, and he was proven correct that, the budget is doing much better than we anticipated.

I'm not really hearing specifics in terms of reasons why we should continue to leave a 3.9 billion settle up, in this budget. So I've I understand uncertainty, but I think there needs to be a little bit more, than wanting to be prepared for potential negative impacts.

Hi there. Jessica Holmes, Department of Finance. So a couple of things I'd like to point out. You mentioned that we're in May and we're at the end of the current fiscal year, the 25-26 year and so we should have more, certainty. I believe I think that's what you were, getting at.

I do just wanna point out. So the 25-26 fiscal year takes half of its revenues from half of the 2025 calendar year And the other half from the 2026 calendar year. We don't pay our taxes. Personal income tax is a huge driver of our state revenues. We don't pay our income taxes until for for 2026 until this time next year, April.

So although it feels very much like we should have more certainty at this point in in the current fiscal year about what our revenue outlook is going to be, The reality is we still have the rest of 2026, to make it through and and to have strong revenue, strong revenues from, before we know for sure what those revenues are.

So in addition to the concern about the AI bubble, obviously, some things have changed between where we were at at governor's budget and where we're at now, including things like the Iran War and increases in inflation. So there are some things out there that we're still very concerned about for 2026 that could impact 2025, '26 even after we've paid all the money and that could create need to reduce things on the other side of the budget.

And so what led you to the $3.9 billion number that we need to preserve? So I'm I hear these theoretical things, but I guess I'm just trying to understand what specifically led to that amount.

So there is no perfect calculation for what the amount of settle up should or could be.

I think what this reflects is our general estimate of where we think volatility could could lie. If you look back at 22-23 and obviously that was a different situation because we had late tax returns that year but we were off by about $8 billion. And so there's certainly precedent for a significant shift in the amount of the guarantee, especially when we're dealing with economic uncertainty, which we are now, and we were last year, just to be frank.

I appreciate that and I, again, I understand the uncertainty. This is something that we talked about late last year. It was something that we talked about early this year, and things have looked a lot better. Right? The governor's office had anticipated we would have higher revenues there.

Right? It's a good thing. But, yeah, I just frankly disagree that it makes sense for us to continue to include a settle up amount. So the other, I had an another couple of questions, but I'm gonna go ahead and turn it over to Senator Archuleta to see if he has any questions or comments.

Yeah. The Prop 98 obviously that's the big issue. And if you were if you had control and you get really aggressive, could you address this 3.9 over the next three years, four years? What what would that look like? And also share with me about this advanced payment tools that you would

use. Yes. So we think on the 3,900,000, yes. That is going to require likely some more difficult decisions on the non proposition 98 side of the budget, probably some reductions to programs. That's obviously a challenge.

You've already talking about it reductions. This would mean more of them. But we think that's ultimately going to be necessary anyway. And so this is the time to start putting together a plan, to get the overall budget back in balance. The mayor vision does make some progress on that.

It brings down the state structural deficit from a little over 20 billion to around 10 billion, but still more action is needed. And so we think you could address that. Put aside funding for the 3.9 billion as part of a broader plan to continue attacking that deficit. On the advanced payment idea, the way this would work mechanically is that we envision the state would give normally give schools and colleges 12 payments at the end of each month.

What happened is that in 26-27, so June 2027, the state would give districts basically an extra payment.

So 13 payments in 26-27 that wouldn't be to spend in 26-27. That would just be sort of a that would just be a down payment on what they would normally get in 27-28. So it's reversed normally with deferrals. When we need savings, we only give districts 11 payments to get the savings. This time we reverse that.

We give them 13 payments. That's prepaying our obligations in some sense in order to hedge against the possibility we might need those savings or have a tough time providing the regular 12 payments in the future. Important clarification that that this would not at all change the proposition 98 guarantee. This is just about giving districts some of their funding they would receive anyway a month ahead of schedule.

Yeah. One of one of the other things that we're all concerned about is making sure we're able to maintain the meals for the kids across the board. And it seems like that's increasing more and more. You see any deviation on that or are we gonna be solid with that?

Let's see if one of my colleagues could speak about the meals, but there weren't a huge there's been some pretty large increases in the number of meals served and increasing those costs more than I think what was anticipated when the universal meals was first adopted a couple years ago. But there aren't significant new increases in that in the smear revision compared to what was projected previously. I'll let my colleague add on to that.

Hi, Sarah Cortez, LAO. So we're still reviewing the universal school mill estimates, but I will I did wanna point out that this is one where we continue, like, we continue to look at those estimates and and kind of right size it to where where those when those mill reimbursements do come in. So then this is this is one where we get reports from the Department of Education to make sure that those those mills would be funded in align with the universal mills program.

Good. I wanna express my appreciation for the work you're doing. Certainly the governor is trying but when we meet in the full committee, we're gonna take your viewpoints and we're gonna fight back. No doubt and see what adjustments we can make. Because I think with the reserves that we have there might be some more wiggle room there especially if you settle up a little bit better than the 3.9.

So I guess look for that because I I see that hopefully there's room for that. But I thank you for your presentation.

If I may respond to that. So the reserves that we have currently that we're proposing in May revision, the vast majority of those are mandatory, required by its constitution in order to make those payments. The $1.6 billion that we are proposing to do discretionarily, that is from the pay down of the settle up. So, that really is the only wiggle room that we have in terms of the reserve payments. The other thing I want to make sure everyone is very clear on.

If we pay the $3.9 billion this year, you will have to take that from the other side of the general fund, so that will result in the need to either increase revenues or reduce expenditures on that side in this current year. If we then get into the next fiscal year, so this 25-26 becomes the prior year, and we have, for whatever reason, overfunded the guarantee, we can't take those funds back.

Statute says that we cannot bring down the guarantee to reflect actual revenues, which means you would have to take another cut from the other side of the budget to fully fund Prop 98. So I just want to make sure that that's clear, and that's what we're that's really what we're trying to protect against is ensuring that we don't accidentally over from the guarantee because our revenue estimates are too high. Then we can't take back any of those funds next year.

And then we have to take it from the other side of the budget again.

So I guess the question is the possibility of grabbing a little bit over the next four years rather than as you mentioned Yeah. Doing it all at once which

And that's allowable under settle up law.

So if you look into that plan, some sort of a deferred payment plan per se, to have a goal that it'll be wrapped up in x number of years, whether it be three or four, whatever it might be, that might feel better to the committee is what I'm saying. It would be a plan of action that we could look to. Thank you. Madam Chair, it's all yours.

Yeah. Yeah.

So I a couple of things. I know that, you know, as a Senate, right, we've had our plan and we've proposed fully appropriating prop ninety eight and 25-26 and appropriating half of the new 25-26 revenues using the DOF accounting method or an internal cash borrow.

So I would love Kenneth, if you could just speak a little bit to what we did for I think it was 22-23 when we did the prop 98 proposal and what that looked like and how that operated so that we're able to address this concern that she just raised.

Yeah. Sure. So the history lesson here, this had to do with how the state addressed a very large drop in the Proposition 98 funding requirement in the 22-23 year. The state ultimately decided to, allocate funding to schools that was, $6.2 billion above that minimum. So schools received that funding in cash, but from a state accounting perspective that was recognized as an expense over a ten year period starting in '27, '28.

So it was, functionally very much like an internal cash flow and where the state was borrowing from itself to provide schools and colleges this funding upfront and then paying back or recognizing that expense, over a ten year period.

I would note that our cash position has changed pretty significantly from 22-23. So in the interim, the state has, increased its internal borrowing for things like middle class scholarship, which we now pay for in arrears. You know, we are, floating a cash loan of of several or in the low hundreds of millions for UC and CSU, from year to year. There are also new, Medi Cal internal borrowing.

So, our cash position is somewhat different now than it was then, and the use of that maneuver assumes that the state will be able to continue to float that amount of cash for that period of time.

Kenneth, is it your position that that's the case that things have changed so dramatically from a cash on hand perspective that we would face challenges in trying to replicate what we did in 22-23?

I think our assessment I'd I don't wanna talk to one of my colleagues who works on this, but I think our assessment is the state's cash position is still, quite strong, Although they probably is not quite as strong as it was in 2022, 2023.

But I don't as far as I know, I don't think there would be a if it's over a ten or twelve year period like the last version, we'd obviously have to think about cash a long ways into the future and that's more uncertain. But at this point, the state's cash position and reserve position is still pretty strong.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I had one more question. I wanted to ask, using the Governor's May revision revenues, what would it look like for both Prop 98 and the general fund sides of the budgets if we unified the state preschool program under Prop 98 and rebenched it for the 2025, 2026 costs?

Sure. I can talk a little bit about how we understand the Senate plan would work. The idea here is that the state would shift, the preschool programs, that are operated by community based organizations in the proposition 98, aligning it with the way the state pays for preschool run by school districts and other LEAs. This would take effect in 2627 and then moving forward the state would decide on cola or other program expansions for preschool just as it does for all other proposition 98 programs.

And then in tandem with that shift, the state would permanently increase the minimum share of state revenues set aside for proposition 98.

That would likely be from the current percentage of around 39.3% to 39.6%. That's worth just over 800,000,000, which is designed to reflect the amount of preschool spending that's currently under contract with those providers. So that's the recalibration known as rebenching that's designed to, make that a cost neutral shift, based on that year one shift.

Thank you. I also wanted to ask a little bit about the discretionary deposit. The May review shouldn't make a discretionary deposit of $1.6 billion into the Prop 98 reserves. What's the rationale behind the discretionary deposit?

So as I mentioned earlier, obviously, the kind of decrease in sellable amount, roughly corresponds, to the increase in discretionary deposit. You know, I think in a sense the administration views obviously, there's an improved revenue outlook, but still kinda looking at this the uncertainty that that we're dealing with.

And we see, I think, using that sell off amount, to put into a discretionary deposit and kinda further improve budget resilience, is a kinda a prudent measure to, deal with some of that potential risk.

Senator Archuleta, did you have any other questions or comments? I'm good. Alrighty. We'll go ahead and, we'll wrap up then with Issue one. I appreciate you all answering our questions.

And we'll move on now to Issue Number Two, for the May revision proposals under the Department of Education. We'll start with the Department of Finance and have the Legislative Analyst Office and the Department of Ed at the table. And you all are free to get ready, or get started whenever you're ready.

Good afternoon, Chair and Member. Melody Jimenez with the department of finance. Today, I'll be giving a brief overview of proposals included in the May revision letter starting with resources provided for the department of education, and then we'll move on to highlighting some of the proposed trailer bill included in the May revision. The May revision provides three positions and 36,700,000 in state operations for the Department of Education.

This is in addition to the six positions and 6,200,000 in state operations for the department and government's budget for a total increase of nine positions and 42,900,000 for 2627.

With the addition of these positions and funding, a total of approximately 2,700 positions and 556,500,000 is proposed for the Department of Education in 2627. Of this amount, 407,800,000 and 17 hundred positions are for CDE headquarters, and 148,700,000 and nine 170 positions are to support the three state special schools and three diagnostic centers.

To highlight a few of the mayor vision state operations proposals, there are 9,900,000 general fund to support various purposes, including resources for legal costs related to federal litigation for the department of education and state board of education, a deferred maintenance augmentation for state special schools, auditing support, and rate reform implementation related to California state preschool programs, and employee compensation support for federally funded title one part e staff.

There are also three positions and 25,400,000 federal funds to support various programs, including the Golden State Teacher Grant Program, the Special Education Office of Administrative Hearing Contract, and out of state and religious non public schools monitoring, among other things. And, finally, 1,500,000 special funds to support technical adjustments related to the proposition for climate bond, tobacco use prevention education program, and the proposition 47, commencing and dropout prevention program.

The mayor the mayor revision also includes various changes to governor's budget trailer bill proposals including the following. California Community Schools Apportionments Program, California State Preschool Program, curriculum embedded performance task for science, oversight of single district counties, screening pupils for risk of reading difficulties, special education funding formula statewide base rate equalization, student support and professional development discretionary block grant, subject matter requirements to establish competency, universal and targeted assistance, charter school accountability.

Additionally, the May revision includes new proposals for technical cleanup and implementing language, such as twenty first Century School Leadership Academy, Holocaust and Education Grant Program, Literacy Coaches and Reading Specialist Grant Program, Mathematics Professional Learning Program, National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Grant, Inclusive College Programs, multi tiered systems of support framework, subject matter transcript review for teacher candidates, teacher supply report and teacher data sharing, teacher residency grant program, and national board for professional teaching standards grant program, use of LCFF discretionary cola increase, paid pregnancy disability leave, California Educators Together, support for students experiencing homelessness, and other technical and clarifying amendments.

Happy to answer any questions, and I also have my finance colleagues available in the room, to answer any questions on specific proposals, including the May revision letter.

Good afternoon. Edgar Cabral with the Legislative Analyst Office. So on the earlier panel, my colleague, mister Cabral, give you an overview of our overall comments related to the overall property and need structure. In this item, I wanted to just highlight a few areas where we have some comments or concerns with elements of the governor's proposal or or areas where we have some issues for you to consider as you decide whether or not to adopt these proposals.

So that'll be kind of a just I'll just highlight a few of those issues that that we have comments on.

So first on LCFF and special education, we talked about earlier, Michael, we think the overall structure makes sense and we think setting aside ongoing funding for those activities makes a lot of sense. In terms of the exact mix of of of the amount, we think the legislature could consider different amounts. We do recommend sticking with at least the same amount of ongoing funding. No more ongoing funding than is in the governor's, governor's, May revision.

Just to give you in terms of special education, to give you a sense of the magnitude, it's a significant increase.

We we estimate that right now, school districts pay for about 60% of their, special education costs with their own local funds in a that's beyond the state and federal categorical programs. Under this proposal, we estimate that the percentage that they cover would go down to less than half. So it's a significant improvement in reduction in the share that they would be paying.

But even even a lower special education increase could make a substantial makes a substantial progress to reducing the amount that comes out of local funds. In terms of the LCFF, we would just note that the the May revision includes $927,000,000 that would be provided beyond the statutory cola and the administration has indicated that would be an increase of 4.3%.

Based on our estimates, we think that $927,000,000 is not enough to get you to a 4.3. It would be more like a 4.04% amount. If you did wanna get to a four the same 4.31% that's in the main revision, we estimate you would need an additional $211,000,000. Shifting to community schools, there's a there's $485,000,000 in additional funding, in one time funding, for community schools.

This is essentially reappropriating funds that have been set aside from the one time program that's currently operating that it would no longer be necessary if we shifted the program to to ongoing.

I mean, of the 485, there's 34,000,000 that we think makes a lot of sense to adopt to help build capacity and implement the model statewide, and that's funding that's set aside for doing a study, of the program design for, temporarily increasing technical assistance and for developing the certification process, which is what's would provide the accountability to make sure that schools are implementing the model as expected. And then there's $6,000,000 for helping to integrate behavioral health services.

We think those are good uses of one time funding to help build capacity. The other aspects of the of proposal we have concerns about and we would recommend rejecting, that's 401,000,000 is additional one time funding for community schools grantees.

Under the way that the program is currently designed, essentially, the first three years are start up and and they have time and and that funding to help programs and so we don't see a clear action offer providing even more one time especially because the part of the goal is to make the ongoing part of it sustainable.

We don't we don't see a need to provide that ongoing that one time funding. And similarly, there's funding set aside for a secondary school redesign, which we do we'd I think we recommend rejecting. It's separate from the implementation of the specific program. There are a few areas where we other areas where there's additional funding that we would recommend rejecting that these are one time funding that we've provided before, but we don't see strong justification for augmenting the amounts.

And that's related to literacy coaches and the math professional development.

We just provided some increases last year, and I think that with with both of these programs, we we're it's not clear that there is a rationale for providing additional funding, beyond that. A couple more I wanna highlight. The on the the Multitude screener, there's $5,000,000 on an ongoing basis to cover the costs associated with maintaining that a a a multitude literacy screener would go to the UCSF Dyslexia Center. I think we would recommend rejecting it. The ongoing costs to maintain the the the screener are unclear.

The only specific requirement in there is to translate it to different languages. And I think we would note that the the this is a free screener and the the part of the the condition on receiving these funds is that the screener continue to be free. There are other screeners that are two other screeners that are also available for free. The there's a $25,000,000 for awards for inclusive colleges.

I think this is one where we would recommend rejecting because we have concerns about the lack of detail and legislative input regarding how those grants would be spent.

So the funding, there would there's a lot of flexibility given to the California Center for Inclusive College to decide how to spend it, and it is contingent upon the Department of Finance reviewing a plan, but that doesn't give the legislature any input into what that plan is, what are the priorities that are being funded with those funds. Shifting over to the there's a funding additional funding for students experiencing homelessness. We don't have a specific recommendation on this one.

I think we would just know we do think that the it's it's, $30,000,000 over three years for, grants to help, districts build the capacity to identify students who are experiencing homelessness and help provide them services. We think that this could be beneficial.

In particular, the language targets the program to districts that have not benefited from the existing federal program because the federal program is not available for every district in California. So we think that could add value. I think the one concern we would raise just as you're thinking about is that it doesn't provide on for this to be successful, districts need to continue to do these activities moving forward, and so this doesn't do that and there's no guarantee that that would happen.

And then finally, I wanted to touch on the the proposal for paid pregnancy leave. We don't have specific recommendations, but I do wanna just highlight a few things as you deliver on that proposal.

So that that proposal would require providing up to fourteen weeks of paid pregnancy leave. It essentially removes that, discussions about that from collective bargaining. This, like many and most all other, salary and benefit conversations are are determined locally. So this would be the state, kind of taking that out of that, out of the negotiation process. It would increase district's cost, meaning that there is less funding available for other types of compensation increases or other, k 14 programs.

We think the the cost the exact cost estimate is it's unclear. We know, you know, the the the way that the the proposal is being presented, it is tied to that funding in addition to COLA.

It's very well likely that that amount is more than sufficient to cover the the cost associated with it, but it does mean that when you're for for planning purposes, districts are they're getting a 4% increase, but they would have significant cost associated with this specific bill, and we don't know what those costs exactly would be.

It it can be very complicated because these this proposal could interact with existing leave policies, and it would affect things like leave balances, payouts, and converse interact with sick leave conversions to service rights. There's a lot of different ways that this could have cost, and so I think we just recognize that uncertainty.

We do think that the state, given the complexity, could require fund the requirement in a different way. You could, for example, create a new ongoing categorical program that would fund it fund it. That does potentially more transparency around the cost and the utilization of the benefit, but that also makes it more administratively burdensome both for the state and for districts. We also note that the proposed paid pregnancy policy is likely to be to be complex and interact with various other proposals.

And because it's in trailer bill, typically trailer bill takes effect immediately.

So this could go into effect July 1, the beginning of the next year. We think that this might be a case where you could set a later implementation date so that you could allow more time for for districts to work through those implementation details. And I will stop now. That concludes all of my comments. I'm happy to answer any questions at the appropriate time.

Thank you. Kimberly Rosenberger, on behalf of the state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Thurman, and CDE. We were appreciative to see a number of investments in, priority and and crucial projects for schools, including, greater investment in special education. We know those cost burdens are significant for our schools, and we align with the LAO on the consideration for the cost borne by schools largely out of pocket. We also were supportive of the paid pregnancy leave being incorporated.

The state superintendent has sponsored legislation, multiple years. In support of that, we look forward to working with the legislature and administration to ensure that we can help provide necessary guidance and ensure that we can address a lot of the outstanding questions that remain around this proposal to ensure smooth, implementation. On the community schools piece, we still continue to advocate for, funding to go to County Office of Ed. We recommend 25,000,000, in part because they are so, crucial in the implementation.

We understand that the funding for, differentiated assistance is all supposed to go to the support needed at the county office of Ed.

But there's a time for blending and braiding, and then there's times where we're concerned that it dilutes and undermines the intent of the resources. So that's one that we continue to advocate for additional funding for. We also are appreciative of the investment for the students supporting, experiencing homelessness. We wanna ensure that, the definition aligns with, the advocacy we're doing under AB 673 for the transitional youth, who, are unaccompanied minors.

16 and 17 year olds are often at the highest risk of, dropout, and so we'd like to see, priority given to those students and to ensure, clarification that, that, temporary shelter is included.

This is, aligned with our budget request and the bill that we have, with Assemblymember Jackson. Further, we are appreciative of the continued investment in the literacy coaches, and mathematic coaches. We are seeing that these investments are well worth it, with metrics moving across, the dashboard. So the continued investment, we think, is consistent with, our goal of reading by the third grade and moving the needle for literacy. Further, we do wanna highlight I do wanna address the Pupil Nutrition and Food Assistance.

We believe that is an accurate and, sufficient funding. So I know that was asked earlier, and I just wanna confirm that. However, we, did receive the feedback when, SB 411 was vetoed that it need to be done through the budget, and we put in a BCP to ensure that California Department of Education could fund permanent positions and have a statewide, system for the application for some bucks.

It's currently done at the local level, and we have, an issue with verifying the eligibility and often the state is left to pay back inaccuracies because there is no data control from the state top down. That BCP was denied and we would encourage the legislature to reconsider because it does overall improve, the veracity of the program, the data of the program, and also streamlines it for the, LEAs so that they're not responsible for this burdensome requirement, and can continue participation in some books.

We were appreciative to see the cost of living super COLA. However, we were disappointed to see it did not carry over to our preschool program. While we are appreciative of the additional COLA, we would like to see it consistent across the board. Parity is really important in stabilizing these programs for better recruitment and retention. We also are pleased to see the investment in our quality rating and improvement system block grant.

That is an investment that will go far in ensuring that our block grantees do not have services cut. And finally, we are appreciative of the investment in the Holocaust and genocide education. And with that, that concludes my comments. I'm happy to answer any questions.

Excellent. Thank you for your presentations. I have a couple of questions. Aye, one, it seems like there's know, an abundance of resources in Prop 98 compared to other areas of the budget. I wanna know how the administration decided what should be funded in its Prop 98 package.

I was, surprised to see the paid pregnancy leave, included just given the, high dollar amount and high investment. I know we've had lots of conversations about some of the structural budget challenges that we're facing. Obviously, was really excited, too, and pleased at the same time, but, was surprised to see it be included. So would love for you all to, just speak to that a little bit.

I know we've certainly had a lot of conversations with our Ed coalition stakeholders about what is and is not a priority to them, so would love for you all to speak to it.

Hi. Jessica Holmes, Department of Finance. So in regards to the first part of your question about the overall package, so, the largest investments that you're seeing are in both the LCFF and speaking specifically on the TK-12 side, LCFF and special education. We focused on those two areas knowing, A, that we have a lot of districts who are dealing with a lot of, fiscal, pressures, of varying, types.

One that is consistent with every district we've talked to is special education, but really wanting to ensure that LEAs can manage whatever it is that they're facing, whether it's declining enrollment, whether it's impact from federal immigration laws or actions whether it's increasing enrollment, which we do have some LEAs that have that.

We wanted to make sure that they could address those issues. In terms of paid pregnancy leave, that is part of our overall package on teacher recruitment and retention. So we have several proposals in the budget specific to both recruiting and retaining teachers, some professional development, some, in regards to eliminating, the need for teachers to take the CSET. This is one piece of that.

So in terms of, ensuring that teachers have the lead that they need, when they have children, many of our teachers come into education, because they love children and they have children of their own, and this is one more piece of, potential retention package that the state can provide.

I can give an overview of the pregnancy disability, proposal if you'd like. Yeah. It it that would be great.

And then also, I noticed that there's not a number listed here in terms of cost. So if you happen to have, like, estimated numbers in terms of cost for you, that would be great.

Yeah. So Audrey Bezos, Department of Finance. So this would provide, fourteen weeks of paid pregnancy disability leave, to all, college community college and k through 12, employees. The LCFF and SCFF include cost of living adjustments, well, well above and beyond sort of what the estimated cost of this, would be.

We are estimating total annual cost of $218,000,000 $195,000,000 for K through 12, and $23,000,000 for community colleges, and that is, assuming a substitute teacher needs to be hired for the full fourteen weeks of leave, and that's how we estimated.

We assumed a 2% utilization rate among female employees for that benefit and then multiplied by the average daily rate for substitute teachers. So as Jessica said, this is mainly a recruitment and retention tool that we think will be helpful for retaining and recruiting teachers to the classroom.

In addition, we note that there's a disparity in the amount of sick leave that teachers are able to sort of convert into, retirement, years, years of service, and that it's about point two eight years of service credit that a female is able to convert and point four one that, that, that men convert at the end of their service. And so we think that'll narrow that inequity and allow women to be able to convert the same amount, hopefully as men at the time of retirement.

Yes, we just note that, this would also not, impact any of the current provisions regarding, the leave that's currently available.

Teachers, have, parental leave currently. They have twelve weeks of parental leave, and they but, however, they're required to exhaust all of their sick leave, and then once sick leave is, exhausted, then they are, go on to differential pay, which is essentially the difference between the cost of a substitute and their own salary, but not to fall below 50% of their salary. So that is an additional twelve weeks if they choose to take it in addition to the disability portion of the leave.

Apologies. You know, I also wanted to just bring up a couple things that I saw that were missing. So, you know, there's been a lot of discussion just about the impacts on immigrant communities and some of the federal immigration enforcement that we've seen particularly on our schools. But I noticed that that was lacking within the governor's budget proposals.

There doesn't seem to be any sort of resources that are targeted particularly towards this, high needs population, especially at a time when immigrant students are facing a lot of uncertainty, including those that are in mixed status, families, students that might not be immigrants but might be the children of immi immigrants.

And just wanted to hear you all speak to that a little bit and, I guess, why that wasn't included, why that wasn't highlighted in in this budget.

So, you know, certainly, we've become more and more aware of the impacts of, immigration actions and we've started we've started to get some data, on, potential impacts to things like attendance from, concerns, families, whom could be impacted by, immigration actions. But unfortunately, we don't have great data at the state level of of precisely how much of an impact it has had. It's you know, generally speaking, these folks are not are not saying, hey, I'm not coming to school because I'm concerned about immigration rates.

Sometimes they do provide that information, but many times they don't. So in terms of our overall package, we felt it was really important to provide a significant amount of discretionary funding, as I mentioned before, so that LEAs could, use those funds to address whatever it is that they are, dealing with the time.

Some some have been heavily impacted by immigration actions. Some have not. Some are dealing with other fiscal pressures. So this allows them to, utilize those resources, to support their populations as needed, and in recognition of the fact that a lot of the information that we have around the impacts of immigration are not entirely clear.

Paula Tang, Department of Finance. I also want to add that it's not included in the education budget but on the other side of the budget, they're under the social services programs, there has there is an increase of $20,000,000 one time general fund to support immigration legal services. So I don't have more other information to provide other than that, support legal strategies and increase legal capacity to help Californians who are facing immigration court proceedings, particularly for individuals in civil immigration detention.

But happy to go go back to our colleagues and provide more information if that's helpful.

Yeah. And I saw that included outside of this section of the budget. And, obviously, this hearing is related to this section of the budget. And so I can appreciate the investment into legal services, but we do have resources that are located on campuses right now, both K through 12 campuses, as well as community college and four year institution campuses such as Dreamer Resource Centers that we use to offer resources to immigrant students and to students in mixed status families.

So, I think that there's kind of, like, a very kind of clear nexus that we can use.

I know there's some community schools that are doing innovative things. And in addition to that, I know that there are some students that are keeping better track at the impacts that this is happening, having on their campus than others. What I found as I've been talking with local education agencies across the state is, having, supportive resources on campus for students and their families is really critical, and these events come up at kind of a moment's notice. Right?

Suddenly, a, student will have both parents of the household be taken.

And so, then that student is suddenly head of the household for two small children. In other cases, one parent is taken, but that parent was the breadwinner, and so there might be some economic needs there. I've heard of other stories where a student was asking an administrator, how do I set up a bank account, because they suddenly had to figure out how to set up a bank account so that they could support their siblings.

So there's all sorts of kind of nuanced challenges that come up in these situations, and I can appreciate the discretionary funding that you're suggesting, but I think that there's also a need to be, very targeted in that approach. Right?

Unfortunately, there is a lot of political opinions about immigration. And so, whether or not funds get applied a certain way is going to depend on what that local education agency's preferences might be. And because immigration is considered a hot political button issue, whether or not somebody identifies that as a need, might be driven more by their political opinions rather than the need that's actually happening within the district.

And so I think hap having a bit more of a targeted approach when we know that this has become such a significant problem, is necessary. Yeah.

I certainly understand. I understand that perspective. And I would say I just would note, that in our, community schools investment, the 1 billion ongoing, we do echo much of the language from the original community schools program, which does strongly encourage, community schools, funding recipients to establish dream resource centers, on their campuses.

I'm gonna go ahead and turn it to Senator Archuleta. Senator Archuleta, do you have questions? Yes.

Thank you, again for your presentation. You touched on the, homeless, students. Can you enlighten us a little bit? How aggressive are we are we looking at that and what are we looking to do in the future?

Well, so under the administration's proposal, they're adding, I believe, 10,000,000 over three years. So a total of 30,000,000 to McKinney Vento. And we, at, Department of Education have been advocating for, greater, resources and expansion of the McKinney Vento pro proposal and the homeless coordinators, particularly for, the transitional youth and the 16 to 17 year olds. So, like, those that are at the greatest risk of dropout. So there's a lot of alignment between what they're proposing and what we're proposing.

So we think that there's, like, some synchronization that can happen where we can do early intervention and tie those dollars together, including around, transitional, and temporary housing. There's a limitation on what kind of housing qualifies that we're making recommendations and have been working with, the different policy committees on. So, we just are expressing our interest and support of those investments, but would also like to see, frankly, we believe it's about a 45,000,000 ongoing cost. There's about 9,000 unaccompanied minors currently in California.

So this is a really good starting point, especially as we expand the program, and look to see how we can do early intervention for students that may not be traditionally homeless or even how we describe homeless.

Because I think a lot of students that may be homeless may not consider themselves homeless, but they don't have that wrap around support. So while we'd like to see more investments, we are really appreciative of it and hope that we can work through the language to, maybe target the group that we find.

And now you're working with a number of non profits. And you mentioned wrap around services because you know the term now is unhoused. But really it's homeless. And and but the wrap around services are so desperately needed. LCSWs get involved, counselors get involved.

Then their teachers are dragged into it when they're gotta be teaching but then they become, you know, the big sister, the big brother and and it goes on and on. It's such a need. I'm concerned that we really go at it aggressively and have the funding for it. I think you were gonna mention that.

Nothing to add.

Oh, okay.

The only thing I would say to your point is I do think that that role for community schools does align with the goal for the homeless coordinator and the use of McKinney Vento funds, including especially the behavioral health initiative that's included, in this most recent May revise. I do think schools, especially post 2020, have become a big community hub and they provide sort their source for food, a source for additional aftercare.

And so all of those align with kind of the early intervention and supports needed for these students.

Yeah. You had mentioned community schools that is we had people here the other day where they had signs about community schools and how vital they are and we have to fund them. And I think they were asking for a billion, if I remember correctly. But I see that that's nowhere near that with what we're providing. Are we addressing that pretty well?

I'm happy to share. So we do have the 1 billion for community schools still included in the budget.

And the intention behind the 30,000,000 one time for students to support, to support students experiencing homelessness is to really help, schools provide one time funding to, increase the identification of these students with the goal that once the, the infrastructure for identifying students who are homeless are in place, then they can, they can, blend and braid with other sustainable funding, so such as community schools to be able to provide those services to homeless youth, after these one ten grants are are completed.

Changing gears a little bit, I've heard the discrepancy between a woman and a man at retirement. They had a what the woman should be getting versus the man because the the the male side of it never took time off. Female did. And then they're penalized at the other end. Have we addressed that discrepancy and how are we doing it?

I defer the administration but I think that is the goal of the pregnancy week.

Yeah. Sorry. Okay. The bell has rung. Alright.

Yeah. There there is a discrepancy. And, like I said, it's about a little over a quarter of a year that a that a woman will convert at the end at the at retirement and point four one of a year. We are hopeful and a lot of people suspect that a lot of that has to do with the fact that many women will take a significant amount of leave, when they have a child and therefore they have less, sick leave, to to turn in.

So the the idea behind, paid pregnancy disability leave is that, women no longer have to sort of make that sacrifice.

That basically they get that that time, for disability to be gone and, to be away from work and they don't have to burn their sick leave to be able to do So it's it is it is our hope that that will sort of, if not completely eliminate that gap, significantly shrink it.

And it'll balance out a lot more than.

Yes.

History has given us

Yes.

Or else it wouldn't have been brought up.

Yes.

I guess. And and I wanna bring that up because, you know, obviously the governor's concerned about it and we and the entire committee are concerned about, you know, an equal opportunity but equal pay for the women and the men. But at the end, they should have that equal pension as well after, you know, 25-30 years, whatever it might be.

And the other thing that I'd like to bring up is special education that we're at 2.4 billion and that may revision which reflects an increase and and thank God for that because these special students and special educators who work with our special need kids is is vital we do that. How healthy are we with that?

Elena Powell, Department of Finance. Could you just clarify your question real quick?

We're talking about the special needs and how important it is. And I know it's important to the committee, it's important to the governor and I see that we've allocated enough funding for it. But is that going to be enough? Are we are we paying good attention close attention to that because it's something that we have to address. So enlighten me how we stand with all that.

Yes. So to clarify, we are investing an additional 1.848 billion ongoing proposition 98 into the base rate for special education. So this is going to raise the per ADA, so per average daily attendance rate per child from nine ninety nine which was proposed as the governor's budget to 1,340 per ADA. This is an almost 44% increase, which historically has never been done before. So it is quite a significant increase into investment into our special education children.

Additionally, we do get regular feedback from the department, about the different cost pools and just making sure that we're accurately supporting them as needed at the levels that they're at.

You know obviously a 40% increase, 43% exactly. That makes a statement. And I've been at schools and and the parents have have come to you about their children and and how sometimes they're they're they feel they're put aside and so on. But, you know, I wanna emphasize that they're all God's angels And we need to treat them and give them as much as we possibly can.

So for the parents who are out there watching, you know, we've not forgotten, those children that are disabled and to a degree.

We want them in school. We want them to be given that education and go on and be part of society. And hats off to the governor for doing that, and I really appreciate it. And I'm glad we're we've got in the budget, and I'm sure when it gets to the full committee, we'll promote that as well. And I wanna thank you.

Madam Chair, it's all yours.

Thank you. I also wanted to ask a little bit about the governor's proposed 50,000,000 for middle school and high school redesign. What outcomes have we seen so far from the 10,000,000 that was appropriated last year for the redesigned pilot program? And I'm sorry we're playing so much musical chairs here, but appreciate you all being patient.

So you are correct in that, in the 2025 budget act, there was 10,000,000, provided to, support, high, secondary school redesign. And in the May revision proposal, there's $15,000,000 to expand on the state's recent work to redesign middle and high schools, but also but aligned with the community schools model. So, the distinction is that this fifth 50,000,000 is specifically to support community, community school secondary school redesign.

For the initial pilot, the 10,000,000, this provided funding to 14 networks of schools that were selected for secondary the secondary school redesign pilot. These grantees are doing active redesign work in 148 schools across 70 districts, directly serving more than 140,000 students.

And the, California Collaborative of Educator Excellence, which is the entity that's administering this program, received nearly 56 applications from networks of schools, representing 107 LEAs or nearly one in four districts that operate a high school. So, the intention for this funding is that, more networks can be awarded over several years to expand the pilot and meet the demand.

And then I also wanted to ask a little bit about the community schools grant funding. So the May revision re appropriates $485,000,000 in existing community schools grant funding mainly for planning and implementation grants. How does that impact the $1 billion ongoing investment in community schools?

Yeah. Shadi Nery, Department of Finance. So, to clarify, the 485,000,000 is a, re appropriation from the one time grant program, that has been in in existence. And so, it's two separate, fund funding streams that we're looking at. It's the 1 billion ongoing that will be the community schools apportionment program that school sites will receive.

And then, additionally, there's the one time, reappropriated $485,000,000 that, school sites, opting into the program, will also receive.

And if I could add, so part of the four the intention behind the 485,000,000, is that it was intentionally, or it was originally for, extension grants. So, as you recall, this funding, the community schools grant program was intended to end, and the expectation was that, local educational agencies receiving these grants would create a sustainability plan.

Since we have, are proposing to provide ongoing funding for this program, the extension grant funding isn't necessary anymore, and so we've decided to appropriate it, for it to support the implementation of the apportionments program. And there's specific, initiatives within that that my colleague from the LAO had mentioned.

So there's part of the funding, 3,000,000 is going to a study on the features associated with the community school's progress and, to inform the long term technical assistance or certification structure, which we formally mentioned was accreditation for community school sites.

10,000,000 is actually to pilot and implement the, certification program for school sites to make sure that community schools are being implemented with Fidelity. There's an additional 15,000,000 to increase the, the contract for the statewide technical assistance center, so we've been hearing feedback from stakeholders that the work that they're doing to help implement schools, and to be able to con continue this expansion is really important. So we we're providing additional funds for them to be able to support that work.

There are 6,000 to support, Transforming Together, which is an initiative between, the CY or the San Bernardino County Office of Education and partners with with the Sacramento County Office of Education to sup supported by the children and youth behavioral health initiative, but it's essentially to help county offices of education and community partners meet the behavioral health needs of students. There's a 50,000,000 that I mentioned for the secondary school redesign for community schools.

And then the 401,000,000 is not necessarily specifically for planning grants, but it'll be funding for existing community schools as well as, new schools that are apportionments program to help them implement whole child supports.

Okay. I know originally in the governor's up first proposal, there was language around community schools. We talked about that a little bit, in the budgets up hearing a couple of weeks ago. Is that something that's still included and that we still want to see included here. I'm not sure if you further refined that language.

You know, community schools, obviously, the the program is very nuanced in that you want each district and each LEA to kinda make it their own. And so, I know we were trying to wrap our heads around, how to do that in a way that both honors that kind of system and, still is kind of assessing the results

that we wanna see. Yes. So, as you had mentioned, implementing community schools with Fidelity is something that's very important for the administration. And so, I think our intent was to figure out a way to, streamline efforts. So there's an existing annual progress report that community schools are already existing community schools are already submitting every year, which provides data and reporting, to help inform, like, next year's implementation.

And so, part of our May revision proposal is that community schools can continue to use that existing annual progress report, to the extent feasible. There's also some language in here. I had mentioned the study about the long term structure of community schools. So part of that study is also to look into what makes sense for, in terms of the, long term reporting needs to be able to implement implement this program.

So the idea is that, we we want to make sure that there is a certification process in the long term, but that there's also going to be reporting requirements that are going to be helpful to inform the continuous improvement of community schools.

And so part of this intention of the study is to have an entity, provide recommendations to the State Board of Education on what the long term reporting requirement should look like.

So you're leaving it to the county office of educations to figure out, like, the details around that?

Oh, no. To, to clarify, so it's, the 3,000,000 is for a a study to be done by, an entity that is contracting with a statewide technical assistance center, and so their responsibility is to, determine what the accountability and the reporting and certification process will look like. So they will help inform the study, but the reporting requirements are really, I think, established or coordinated by the statewide transformational assistance center.

So they're the ones that are going to be helping schools, like, complete their required reporting and and help support that work.

Madam Chair, if I might add, we're still we're still looking at the the trailer bill language and we will let you know if we have some specific comments. But I think I would know I think one of the the issues that came up was about the requirements in the first few years, that the planning requirements didn't kick in until 2930. And I think there's a lot more detail in the May revision around what those reporting requirements are.

And then there is a new requirement that that there is that the expectation is that there would be a shared governance structure that's established upfront. So I think that's one of the the the key new things.

We're still continuing to review the language and and see what's specific comments for you.

Okay. Yeah. And and we'll wanna have continued conversation, you know, around that, and I think some of those kinda more granular pieces that don't have to do with dollars and cents. I know there's also some pieces around this, with the literacy program too and some timeline pieces.

So it would be helpful just to talk some of those things out because our local education agencies, as they're working on these reports, as they're trying to follow these timelines that we're setting in place as a state, it can be really confusing.

And, honestly, the more confusion we create, the more it just delays solid implementation. Did you have any other questions, Senator Archuleta? Okay. We'll go ahead and we'll move on to our third item, which is a commission on teacher credentialing. And we will again start with DOF, and invite the LAO and commission on teacher credentialing up here.

You all may get started whenever you're ready.

Hi. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Member. Liz Mai with the Department of Finance. So the May revision proposes additional state operations for the commission on teacher credentialing that build upon positions proposed in the governor's Budget. So specifically, the May revision proposes 125,000 ongoing general fund in one position to provide necessary legal staffing to implement, SB 848.

The May revision also proposes 807,000 ongoing general fund and four positions to provide necessary legal staffing, to address the commission's increase in educator misconduct caseload. And then the May revision additionally proposes 47,000 ongoing general fund to upgrade an analyst two position that was proposed at the governor's budget, to an education consultant position to deal with, increased, grant implementation workload. There's also a number of trailer bill language pieces proposed at the May revise.

So first, the May revision proposes statutory amendments that would increase the fee for clear credential renewals from $100 to 125. And these fees are paid once every five years.

With this funding, the administration intends for the the commission to develop a statewide transcript review platform so that, more teacher candidates would have access to transcript review as a means for, establishing subject matter competency instead of taking, exams.

Similar, related to that, the May revision proposes $5,000,000 one time Proposition 98 General Fund for the Commission to partner with a county office of education to create a transcript review platform that they would then implement for teacher candidates, and it would allow the commission to conduct transcript review, more effectively.

And then, for the commission, the main revision proposes 2,000,000, teacher credential funds in three positions for them to actually, maintain that platform and then staff, the teacher credentialing portion or not sorry, the the transcript review portion of that work. The May revision also proposes $30,000,000 one time Proposition 98 General Fund for the Statewide Residency Technical Assistance Center to continue providing guidance to the field on the teacher residency grant program and provide technical assistance for teacher apprenticeship preparation programs and national board certification.

There are a number of other technical amendments in the May revision, including a alignment of the 2018 teacher residency grant program repayment terms with the 2022 repayment terms, and then some language around facilitating improved data sharing between the commission and the department for their teacher supply report.

And that concludes my remarks. Happy to take questions at the appropriate time.

Good afternoon. Dylan Ocasio with the Legislative Analyst Office. I will start by saying our comments are based on our initial look at the May revision, and we will let the committee know if we have additional comments or concerns as we continue to review. Regarding the legal staffing for related to SB 848 and the educator misconduct workload, at at this time, we have no comments or concerns. For the statewide college transcript review platform and the review process, we have we identified three different actions.

The first is the $5,000,000 to build the transcript review platform. We do see a statewide benefit to this. However, the legislature may wish to request additional information to determine whether the $5,000,000 cost is aligned with the projected costs of creating the platform. Second, there is the ongoing review of transcripts, which we're told is gonna cost $2,000,000 ongoing teacher credential funds. And then third is raising teacher credential renewal fees from a $100 to $125.

And, the Department of Finance has estimated that, this will raise nearly $5,000,000, ongoing in teacher credential funds, more than offsetting the, transcript review costs. So we do recommend adopting those last two proposals if the transcript review platform goes forward. And then lastly, the statewide residency technical assistance center, we recommend rejecting the proposal as the technical assistance center currently has funding through, 2029. The legislature could revisit this proposal as we get closer towards when the, center would run out of funding.

And we do note that the proposal would also expand the scope of the center to provide support to teacher apprenticeships and, Nash the National Board Incentive Program.

If the legislature is interested in doing so, it could provide, more targeted funding to expand, for the current funding period. Thank you. That concludes my comments.

Great. So oh, sorry. Were you gonna

Adam Ebrahim from the Commission on credentialing. We have nothing to add, but are happy to answer any questions that you may have. Okay.

Okay. Just wanna make sure I give you guys time in case you have any any comments to make. I, wanted to know, obviously, was, very excited to have my bill passed last year, SB 848, and saw that there was legal staffing included in the budget, for five additional legal staffing, positions, and wanted to know what is driving the increase in educator misconduct workload that it requires additional attorneys at the Commission on Teacher Credentialing? I recognize that there's been a number of AB218 cases.

Are we seeing them continue to just rise and increase the number of them that are coming out?

Erin Skubal with the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. I do oversee the division that handles the, educator enforcement work, and my colleagues in the legal division do support that work. And so four of those five positions are associated with an increased workload in the number of misconduct cases that we have seen, progressively over about the last five to six years. And so with that increase comes, the work that the legal office needs to support the commission as a whole on.

They do, do the advisory portion of the work associated with the, the committee on credentials that meets, monthly and, sees cases, both at the initial and the formal review state.

So that is primarily what those, four of those five positions are associated for. And the one additional position is to support the SB 848 work.

Okay. And I'm reading that here now that I missed. It's not 54848 . It's 5 and one is going to be dedicated to 848 implementation.

Correct.

Okay. And, obviously, if there are other needs that you all have around that implementation, please, like, let my office know because I wanna make sure we troubleshoot with you. It's very important to me that we get that database set up and and functioning. As it relates to the CTC's proposal for transcript review system database, will AI play a role? And if so, what will that role be?

Are there other examples in state government that uses AI in a same way? We'd love to hear.

Adam Ebrahim with the Commission on Teacher Credentialing. The AI would play a role in the transcript review process, but it would be, it would be backstop by by human review.

So, trans, artificial intelligence would would do the process of connecting coursework that is completed from the transcripts with the sort of domains of subject matter competence, and organize that and and, get it all situated, rendering some possible likelihoods, and then it would be reviewed by a human that would verify or dissent or disagree with the the with the the findings. I'm unaware of any other use in state government.

We did consult with the with Fresno State University, who has developed a proof of concept of using artificial intelligence in a closed environment to match transcripts, with domains and produce the results.

Thank you. And I also wanted to talk a little bit about, the proposed increase for the fee that teachers pay, from $100 to $125 it says revenues from this fee increase full backfill loss testing revenues from the subject matter competency exam exemption. How did the administration determine that an increase from $100 to $125 for the new, renewal of clear credentials would be sufficient. Is is that the exact amount? What did you do did you all calculate that to determine that it was going to be $1.25?

Yes. So, I the the increase we see more associated with trying to get the transcript review platform up and running and get the human resources to actually do that. And so I think from we kinda started there of how much would this database cost and how much would it cost to run it.

Even though right now, we've proposed at the May revision $2,000,000 for staffing, we kinda know that as the database is actually completed and, you guys start kind of, the commission starts ramping up the work that they likely will need more positions. We just don't know what they are.

But we felt like $4.04 to 5,000,000 was a pretty good place to to land just based off of other departmental, like, units of, like, size and scope that we would anticipate would be needed. And so from there, Kinda said how many renewals are are done every single year, how much are of revenue are they generating, how much would they generate at different levels of increasing the fee.

Just to note that the the last time we had a fee increase was in 2015, when it was increased from $70 to 100.

Senator Archuleta, did you wanna make any comments?

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. Going back to the the legal staffing and it says five, Is that gonna be a permanent position to to handle the the misconduct case load or is that Yeah. It just periodic

Yes. That those are permanent positions.

So they are permanent?

Correct.

Okay. Alright. And we've allocated the funding for that?

Yes.

Alright. And then the other thing is the the backfill that we talked about for the teachers' fill, you know, for the 125 as mentioned, that is sufficient enough to cover additional cost that you're thinking the feet going from 100 to $1.25?

Yes, Senator Charlotta. That'll that'll that'll cover the cost associated with standing up the the transcript review platform and operating it and we can come back and continue to work with our partners at the Department of Finance if anything else.

And and my last question is talk to me about the residency, the technical residency assistance center and how that works and and how that works with retention and recruitment and because it sounds exciting. So tell me all about it.

Yeah. The state residency technical assistance centers have been very successful. So they've really been crucial in helping support the funds that have been, allocated as grant funds for residency programs. And we know that the residency program does really support, teacher recruitment and retention. They do, help with growth and long term sustainability, of that program.

They're because those are grant funds, the residency technical centers do help those programs develop long term funding operational models that can reduce the reliance on those grant fundings. As well, they support, rural and remote LEAs, to have access to those opportunities to have those, residency programs.

And as well, they really help support the teacher retention and workforce sustainability, by ensuring that teachers are adequately and appropriately prepared, supported at their local LEA, and have the, ability to, go out into the workforce, fully prepared and, you know, want to retain those positions and stay in those jobs.

And we're disseminating this excitement throughout the state, to the school boards and all the way down to that level. Right?

Absolutely. Yeah. The commission is, very much highlighting these grant opportunities for LEAs. And the residency, technical support centers really, are statewide and so they're, able to, you know, go across the state supporting those programs.

Very good. Thank you. Madam Chair?

Thank you. That is it for the questions that I have on this section. So, we will go ahead, and finish, out, this hearing now. Now, and we'll move on to public comment. If there's anyone in Room 2100 who wants to provide public comment on items that were on today's agenda, then please line up.

We ask that you limit your testimony to one minute, and I will set a timer. And give me one moment as I get that timer ready. Here we go. Clock. Stop.

All righty. And we'll get started now.

Thank you so much, Chair and Members. Tiffany Mokka, on behalf of CFTA, a union of educators and classified professionals, we'd like to urge you to reject the $3.9 billion settle up creation, reject the 2% state preschool fund cost of living proposal. We'd like you to support the Super Cola of 4.31%, support the special education funding for $2.4 billion support the pregnancy disability leave mandate, and support the discretionary fund amount and being discretionary. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much. Deborah Bautista Zavala on behalf of the California Association of Suburban School Districts. Suburban districts appreciate the meaningful progress. In the May revision, I wanna highlight three items. First, ongoing increase for special ed funding, which will benefit all students and dedicating more state funding for these services.

Second, additional LCFF COLA, which begins to address the longstanding challenges for the base grant. We also analyzing the cost for the proposed pregnancy disability leave mandate. Third, the increase of the discretionary block grant, which will help districts weather rising operational costs, especially in districts experiencing declining enrollment. And third, the following the increase of discretionary block grant, which will help districts weather rising operational costs, especially in districts experiencing declining enrollment.

The remaining 3.9 billion prop 98 settle up gap rather than defer it into deficit years, AB 218, higher COLA will help us breathing with breathing space, but the COLA doesn't sufficiently address or make a solution.

So highlighting that. Third, the community schools, we support 1 billion ongoing investment but urge two principals equity across school sites within the districts because not all schools serve community student's things.

Good evening, Madam Chair and Member. I'm Dominique Denee on behalf of EdVoice. On literacy, we applied the, additional $428,000,000 for the literacy coaches and reading specialist grant program. As was mentioned earlier, we we've heard that the investments are working, and so we are very supportive. Concerned about the proposed restrictions on literacy screening timelines, particularly for first and second grades.

There isn't strong evidence for delaying screening in later grades. And doing so will delay identifying struggling readers when intervention matters most. So we urge you all to preserve local flexibility. We'll be back tomorrow on Golden State teacher grant, and we have also submitted multiple letters from our coalition and our organization. Thank you.

Sara Bachez with Children Now. Really excited to align many of my comments with CFT minus two items. On the discretionary block grant, we recommend that funds be distributed in an equity manner based on the LCFF formula so that we target as much available resources to our most vulnerable students. We're also in opposition to the reduction in COLA for preschool and we're continuing to support the education reform, package and investments in paid family in paid pregnancy leave, teacher residency, and community schools.

And then we do urge, and something you acknowledge today for our immigrant students, an investment in CalNEW to make sure that they are supported as well as UPK coordinators.

Thank you.

Hello. Paige Clark with the National Center for Youth Law. We strongly support the 30,000,000 in one time funding for K 12 students experiencing homelessness and encourage the legislature to include the full $45,000,000 request in the final budget. Research shows that targeted interventions are needed to address the unique educational barriers faced by California's almost 300,000 students experiencing homelessness. A $45,000,000 investment will ensure that roughly one fourth of California's districts can receive funding, for this student group.

Thank you.

Lucy Salcedo Carter with the Alameda County Office of Education. We support the increase to the special education base rate as well as the increase to this discretionary block grant. We also appreciate the proposed $30,000,000 to improve the identification of and services for students experiencing homelessness. Even one time funding will help build capacity and improve practices. And we believe the investment in subject matter testing alternatives, including support for a transcript review system, is much needed to bring additional teachers to the field.

We do remain opposed, however, to the proposed withholding of the 3.9 billion in proposition 98 funds. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. Pamela Gibbs representing the Los Angeles County Office of Education. First of all, I'd like to align myself with the comments by, our colleague from CFT related to the withholding of proposition 98 funds and also, the reduction in COLA for state preschool programs.

On item two, as for community schools, we urge support for the regional technical assistance centers as technical assistance center, system is currently structured, and we are aligned with CDE in supporting ensuring county coordination staff are funded as under existing law. Also, under this item, we appreciate and support the $2,400,000,000 increase of funding for special education and $30,000,000 for students experiencing homelessness.

Lastly, under, the commission on teacher credentialing, and we too will be participating in comments tomorrow, and we encourage and support, the continued support of teachers aspiring to become school leaders. Thank you very much for your time.

Michelle Warshaw, on behalf of the California Teachers Association, we are opposed to the $3.9 billion underfunding of Prop 98, and we want to appreciate the Senate's budget plan released earlier that rejects the governor's proposal, and we urge you to fully fund the guarantee. We are extremely supportive of the paid pregnancy leave, providing a critical benefit to educators that helps make the profession more sustainable. We also wanna express support for the 4.31 super COLA and the ongoing funding for special education and community schools.

We are opposed to the governance proposal and the changing role of the state superintendent. We believe that this shifts attention away from the classrooms and creates confusion instead of solving real problems.

Thank you.

Hello. My name is Kristen Howard, and I'm here in support of the budget request from Ben Allen. I am a researcher and early career fellow and leadership facilitator with the Consortium for Diverse Leadership in Science. Our work at the consortium has been jeopardized with the recent federal changes, and our work was also referenced when the governor was defending, Trump's 584,000,000 attempt to claw back at UCLA grants. Our organization focuses on advancing equality, leadership, the environment, STEM workforce, and development and civic engagement.

We have supported over 500 fellows who now serve as researchers, educators, and community leaders across California. The May revised commits a record 5 billion block grant for the educator professional development historic UC and CSU compact investments. CDLS is the connective tissue for this kind of work. It's how investments reach community college students, first generation UC and CSU students, K-12 teachers, and veterans. The exact populations of the compacts and block grants are designed to serve.

Thank you.

Committee Members and staff, my name is Justine Wiebel and I'm a research fellow also here to support the budget request submitted by Senator Ben Allen on behalf of the Consortium for Developing Leadership in Science. We are requesting assistance with a shortage of $24,000,000 in state funding due to federal funding cuts, which has left the organization in an existential crisis.

The research I've been involved with for the consortium is critical for coalition building across the arts and sciences to build community resilience for Los Angeles neighborhoods in the face of worsening climate change. This fellowship has been instrumental in growing my leadership and networking skills, assessing needs of communities through survey mapping tools and honing in on my data analysis skills.

My mentors involved in this project have been incredible in facilitating connections for my career and doing real boots on the groundwork to bridge science and humanities in the public narrative.

When I was laid off from my research position on conservation science curriculum development at UCLA in the first round of Doge funding cuts last year, the consortium's fellowship helped me get plugged into opportunities for community focused research and coalition building. I'm grateful for this committee for your consideration of funding this life changing career development program.

Good afternoon, chair and member. Cordell Hampton with the Association of California School Administrators. While we support certain proposal the governor's main revision, like the $5,000,000,000 FreshGrade Block Grant and an increase in special special education base rates, We do remain strongly in opposition to the governor's proposal to withhold 3,900,000,000 from proposition 98 and request that those funds be fully paid. With regard to the paid pregnancy disability leave proposal, we recognize the importance of this policy and appreciate the intent behind the proposal.

At the same time, we have important questions regarding how the program would be funded.

We look forward to working with you to ensure all schools have access to funding that sufficiently cover the cost of the associated policy. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair, Members. Andrea Ball here today on behalf of the Orange County Department of Education. We want to express our appreciation and support for the May revision proposal of $50,000,000 for and the language for multi tiered systems of support. It's within the re appropriation around community schools funding. We want to thank the Administration and the Legislature for recognizing the critical role that MTSS plays in supporting California students, educators, and communities.

Orange County Department of Ed, in partnership with Butte County Office, has led the statewide MTSS work for over ten years. This $50,000,000 appropriation will continue that work and solidify the foundation and connection with community schools. Thank you.

Leticia Garcia on behalf of the Riverside County Superintendent of Schools. In relation to community schools, we appreciate the ongoing funding for the program.

We would like to see the continued funding for the County Office of Education Coordinators, to ensure fidelity with the implementation of that program.

Also appreciate the increased funding in special education. Appreciate the additional clarifying language on the administration of the reading difficulty screener.

Lastly, support for the additional funding and the discretionary block grant and urge for these dollars to go out on an ADA basis, so that all districts have the funds to offset the rising cost. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Gabby Vargasbuele on behalf of California County Superintendents. We strongly support the allocations to community schools.

However, we also support removing the expiration of the county office community school coordinator grants as ongoing support is key to local sustainability. We support the fourteen week paid pregnancy disability lead proposal.

However, the proposed LCFF Super Cola is inequitable for many county office employees, whose positions are not funded by the LCFF. We look forward to working with you to ensure county office employees can access this benefit without sacrificing dollars earmarked for student support.

We also support the governor's universal and targeted assistance proposal, student homelessness and the educational governance proposal. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and member. Ben Murphy with Public Advocates on behalf of the California Partnership for the Future of Learning.

We support the 1,000,000,000 ongoing apportionments for community schools and appreciate several updates to the May revisions trailer bill language that align with our previous recommendations.

We also urge the following recommendations to further strengthen that language. We recommend requiring annual planning and reporting at the school site, LEA and state levels to begin the conclusion of the 26,27 fiscal year.

This is critical because it supports capacity building, continuous improvement and coherence at all levels. Reporting requirements for the first year or two do not need to be as comprehensive as later years. We cannot wait three years to have any reporting.

We also recommend restoring the cap on the maximum level of funding that is retained by a local educational agency but increasing it to a more sufficient level.

This will provide LEAs the funding to administer and support networks of established community schools, while also ensuring that eligible schools have sufficient funds for planning and implementation to support continuous improvement at the school site and LEA levels. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Sarah Petrowski on behalf of the California Association of School Business Officials. Overall, CASBO members are very pleased with the May revision. In particular, they're very supportive of the increased investments in special education.

This continues to be an intense cost pressure on LEAs, ensuring that we can serve all of our students with disabilities. We also are appreciative of the increase in the discretionary block grant.

Like my colleague from Riverside County Office of Education urged those dollars to be allocated on a per ADA basis to recognize the rising cost pressures for all LEAs. Finally, we are opposed to the withholding of the proposition 98 in 2526. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Dan Roman on behalf of the California School Boards Association. Like many others, we remain opposed to the withholding of $3,900,000,000 from Prop 98 and would uplift the comments of the Senate and the Senate's plan.

We do support the additional funding for special education, the additional discretionary block grant and ask that it continues to go out on a per ADA basis, as well as the additional COLA.

Though, we do have some concerns around the appropriateness of earmarking COLA for a specific purpose and just the mechanically making sure, like county superintendents mentioned, that we get that to all programs, especially for staff that are categorically funded or at least funded outside of LCFF.

Finally, we do continue to support the governance proposal but with the latest changes proposed in trailer bill, we'd actually prefer to see those go through the policy process to refine those and talk about how the state can better support LEAs. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Anna Ioakimedes, on behalf of Los Angeles Unified School District.

Echoing previous comments, we are strongly opposed to the governor's proposal to withhold $3,900,000,000 and request that be allocated through proposition 98 guarantee, on this side of the budget this year.

In addition, we are very supportive of the 4.31% cola and do ask that be extended to our early learning colleagues in California State Preschool Program.

Finally, in regard to the discretionary block grant, again, very supportive but believe it would be more equitably funded if it followed LCFF methodology with additional funds going to districts with higher supplemental and concentration grant pupils.

Finally, very supportive of the community schools and special education allocations. Thank you.

Good afternoon, madam chair and members. Melissa Barto on behalf of Ed Trust West. I'd like to express our support and appreciation for increases to the LCFF and SDFF COLA.

In addition to the Super COLA as well as the Pregnancy Leave Proposal, which is an important recruitment and retention tool for our educator workforce.

In addition to the $1,000,000,000 ongoing investment in community schools, we also support the dedicated resources to expanding the school redesign pilot.

I'd like to align our comments with, earlier comments, for the discretionary block count and allocating along LCFF metrics.

We also support the additional funding for mathematics professional learning partnership and the administration's education governance proposal. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair. Jackie Gonzales, policy director at Immigrant Defense Advocates and appreciate the chair's comments on resources for immigrant kids.

I'm here to support Senator Wahab's proposal to establish a K through 12 program, to provide immigration legal services at the elementary level. For many years, the state has provided both prop 98 and General Fund Dollars, at the CSU and California community colleges.

The model has been incredibly successful, not just serving students but also their families and the faculty and the extended community.

We saw how aggressive immigration enforcement was around, particularly elementary schools over the last year in our state and we feel that this is a significant gap that we could begin to immediately address through a proven successful model. We urge your support. Thank you.

Good afternoon, madam chair. Christopher Sanchez with the Mesa Verde Group here on behalf of the Central American Resource Center, Cadiz and echoing the comments and aligning them with the previous speaker, for Senator Rob's proposal for immigration legal services at K through 12 sites.

Good afternoon. Aaron Koontz, basic needs college, advocate. We know this is K through 12 and we know that there's new research that shows that students that access public benefits in K through 12, have a significantly higher chance of going to higher education.

We'll be back tomorrow to talk more about higher education as well but with college affordability resources shrinking, enrolling more eligible students in public benefits programs like CalFresh is vital for both students and California's economy.

Today, 75% of eligible students aren't receiving the help they qualify for. That's why, our coalition urges your support for the $10,000,000 request to establish the innovation hub for public benefits. Thank you.

Hi, chair members. I'm Ocenie Jean with UAspire. I'm a policy intern and a UCSB student. I'm here to echo what has been said before me and also requesting that you reject the proposed cuts to the middle class scholarship program and as a student, I'm really surprised to see that on the thing.

We also request establishing the innovation hub for public benefits with a 1$0,000,000 in one-time investment to provide centralized training, technical assistance and implementation support to improve public benefits across access and outcomes for college and students across California.

We support the workforce Pell implementation and are also requesting a $5.3 million, one-time for KEDA, to expand and sustain outreach efforts that increase awareness and completion of the application.

Hi, Chair and member. Gabby Davidson on behalf of the California Food Banks. First, just want to thank the Chair for your leadership in child nutrition and on behalf of the End Child Poverty California and California Food Banks.

We're urging the legislature to include $3,000,000 one-time and $3,000,000 on-going to create a statewide online application for Sunbucks, to make it easier for families to apply and get food assistance and California Food Banks is also in support of the request to create that innovation hub for public benefits. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and members. Parshan with UAspire. So, like many of our colleagues before us, we are also here to elevate and support the creation of the public benefits lab as a hub for coordinating around CalFresh completion.

We know that we have the ability, if we get all of our students who should be filling out and getting CalFresh there, we have the ability to bring back every single dollar that's being lost because of HR 1's impacts and so this is going to go a long way.

We will be there tomorrow as well to talk about it. This impacts K-12 students. This impacts higher ed students but speaking of our immigrant populations, our KIDA numbers have been going down for many, many years now and so we need to do more to get that back up.

That's why a number of coalitions, CUHEC, the affordability coalition, financial aid for all coalition and college for all coalition. All of us are coming together to ask for $5,300,000 to be given for the next two years to focus on bringing the KIDA numbers back up.

Lastly, workforce power, we are heartened to see the proposals that have been included in the May revise but we think we need to do more to make sure that there are also guardrails attached to that and ensuring that those dollars are going the right way, to supporting our students in the workforce.

So, thank you all and looking forward to working with you and see you all tomorrow.

Good afternoon, madam chair, members. My name is Sean Fuentes. I'm with Bay Area Community Resources and we provide expanded learning programs to thousands of students in the Bay Area in eight different school districts.

Also, the proud father of a rising tenth grader and rising sixth grader, here today to urge you to include key expanded learning improvements in the state budget.

We appreciate the continued investment into after school and summer programs but too many older youth still cannot access these programs.

We urge the state to increase expanded learning opportunities for high school students currently left out of the expanded learning opportunities program and ACEs funding sources.

High school students continue to express their need for a safe place to be after school, to support their mental health and physical well-being and their ability to gain and practice the skills consistently and necessary for them to enter adulthood and workforce.

So college and career readiness, career exploration, academic support, mentorship, social emotional learning are all provided through high school expanded learning programs. So, we respectfully ask for your support in the state budget. Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Atalia Coronjoieres. I'm a second year student at UC Berkeley and the disability justice officer for the UC Student Association.

I'm here to urge the legislature to fund a request, for a $20,000,000 one-time investment into emergency basic needs, housing and disability services at the UC that I've played a significant role in shaping.

Thank you to Chip Perez and the members of the legislature for continuing to support our ask.

The UC's $8,000,000 one-time match for the ongoing state funding for disability services, is since setting in the next two weeks and they've made it clear they have no plans to address the drop-in services that this would create or renew the funding.

This funding largely sustains our disability specialists and staff who are indispensable for coordinating accommodation requests, proctoring exams and are the crucial link between students with disabilities and faculty.

Though the previous funding allocations and staff increases have drastically reduced wait times from six to eight weeks to twenty-four to seventy-two hours, the disability staff to student ratio continues to reach to over 1 to 800 at our universities and contribute to pervasive wait times.

23,000 students at the UC who rely on these programs fear that the drop in funding will bring us back to the previous rates in the fall and would be effectively pushed out of our right to an equal education at the UC.

As a student who's on the spectrum and partially blind, the current understaffing in our centers means that I will face disparities in receiving service.

Though they're at the bare minimum, allow me to advocate for myself through the centers, to professors, who push back on my accommodation so that I may operate on the same playing field as my colleagues.

This request is our community's last hope and we humbly ask that you consider our funding in the future. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair Perez, members. My name is Cindy Lee, a student of UC San Barbara. On behalf of UC Association and students across the state.

I'm here to urge you to support our ask for the $20,000,000, in a one-time emergency funding that will address student basic needs and securities and a rising need for disability services, as UC enrollment continues to increase and students face disproportionate federal impacts.

Our basic needs and disability centers are understaffed with a heightened demand from low-income, first-generation students and this one-time request will support them to continue important retention work, for our students. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair. My name is, Bibi Hamida Hashmat. I'm a political science, student at UC Davis and I am working with the UC Student Association. I strongly support the $20,000,000 one-time investment in emergency basic needs, funded for UC campuses.

Students across California are struggling with food insecurity, housing instability and long wait time for disability and basic needs services.

Many campuses centers are fully booked for weeks and even entire quarters because there's simply not enough stuff to meet the growing demands. I think investing in students, is investing in the future and I urge your support. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon, Chair and Board members. My name is Lisa Hickman. I'm here with CTA and I'm the proud President of the Tustin Educators Association.

I would like to express strong support of the $2,400,000,000 in special education funding. For decades, special education has been chronically underfunded, even as the mandate to serve students with disabilities has remained unchanged.

When that funding falls short, districts pull from general education funds, straining resources from across the community. Every dollar invested in special ed education, is dollars invested in the most vulnerable and highest need students.

Those that rely on specialized instructions, therapies and individualized supports simply to access their education. The $2,400,000,000 is a critical step in the right direction.

For California students, it helps protect general ed budgets, while strengthening services for students with disabilities. It moves us closer to fulfilling both our legal responsibility and moral obligation to serve every child with dignity, equity and opportunity. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Jess Bracken and I am the proud president of Irvine Teachers Association. I'm here to strongly support paid pregnancy leave for our educators.

When a teacher starts a family, they must first exhaust years of accumulated sick leave, even though having a baby is not a sickness. Once those days are exhausted, they're pushed into differential, earning a fraction of their salary.

A long term substitute in my district costs a new mom $1,100 a week. When and when they return, they don't have any sick days, no days for when their newborn or themselves get sick. Eventually, they may be pushed into unpaid days.

That financial hit doesn't stop there. It follows them into retirement, compounding an equity that they will carry for the rest of their careers. This is a reason that teachers are leaving the profession. This is why young women are thinking twice before entering it.

We are losing talented educators not because of their lack of passion but because of the lack of support at a most human moment of their lives. Our educators put their heart and souls into other people's children.

it's time to support them as they start families of their own. Thank you for your support in keeping teacher maternity leave in the budget. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair and members. My name is Addison Peterson with the California Alliance of Child and Family Services and we represent over 200 non profit community based organizations serving children, youth and families across all 58 counties.

We strongly support the ongoing investment in the California Community Schools Partnership Program and the Chafee grant for foster youth.

Community schools are most effective when they reflect true cross systems partnerships between schools, behavioral health providers, child welfare agencies and trusted community-based organizations.

Our members serve foster youth, youth experiencing homelessness and young people with complex behavioral needs across all 58 counties. For these students, educational success depends on coordinated systems of care, not isolated programs. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Cassie Mancini here on behalf of the California School Employees Association to raise two, serious concerns with the charter school accountability proposal in the budget.

First, we're concerned that this proposal would inadvertently limit authorizer's ability to raise material concerns about a charter school, during the renewal hearing, if those concerns were not already raised during the annual sixty-day notification period, created by this bill or by this proposal.

Authorizers should not be restricted from evaluating a charter school and its performance as a whole during renewal deliberations. We fear this proposal will lead to costly litigation and increase in abuse of discretion appeals, hearings and potential liability for authorizers.

Secondly, the May revise rejects the proposal to audit the calculations that serve as the basis for the non-classroom based charter school funding determinations. We think that the legislature should reinstate that proposal to prevent fraud.

Leaving those calculations unaudited makes non-classroom based charter school funding especially vulnerable to fraud and it doesn't make sense in a school auditing bill. Thank you.

Good afternoon, chair, committee member. Brian Merrimontas with California Teachers Association. Just want to align my comments with my colleagues at CSCA, related to the charter school proposals, related to oversight and audit language that are in the May revise.

In addition to that, I want to stress the importance of reinstating the moratorium on non-classroom based charters.

Particular given that these provisions wouldn't go into effect until 2028, it's incredibly important to reinstate that moratorium until they're fully in effect and implemented to ensure that there's no additional fraud. Thank you.

Hello. Sierra Cook with San Diego Unified School District. We oppose the withholding of $3,900,000,000 in the mayor vision proposal. We strongly support the investment in special education, the Super COLA and the $5,000,000,000 discretionary block grant allocated on ADA.

We also support the shift to ongoing funding for community schools but we are concerned that the proposal prioritizes expansion over sustainability.

We are excited to expand our schools. The proposal would allow us to grow from 35 to 95. However, only six of those schools would receive adequate funding to cover their baseline community school staffing costs.

So in order to make sure that this program delivers on its potential, we think it's essential to reconsider the funding allocation to ensure that each school site can actually hire the dedicated staff that implement the strategy. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Laura Beebe on behalf of the California After School Advocacy Alliance. We're a coalition of more than 40 organizations serving half a million students across California. We support and appreciate the $62,000,000 to increase the tier two rate for ELOP to 1,800.

We also support and appreciate the Mayra vision trailer bill language that increases collaboration between expanded learning and community schools, recognizing that expanded learning is a pillar of community schools and critical to that program's success.

Finally, we want to continue to lift up the gap in expanded learning opportunities for older youth. California invests more than $4,000,000,000 annually into expanded learning but high school students receive less than 2% of that funding and middle school students are not far behind.

We know that adolescence is a critical period of development and that expanded learning is really important for those students, so we urge the legislature to think about how existing funds could be utilized to start closing that gap for older youth.

We'll share more details in writing in our budget letter. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Michelle Underwood on behalf of the Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special Education.

Thank you so much to all the speakers who came before me supporting the Governor's proposal as well as, you two senators, supporting the need for additional funds for special education. It is a big increase.

We need more and we appreciate it. Finally, on behalf of the California School Funding Coalition, with no malice for the policy idea of paid pregnancy disability leave. We would encourage the legislature to think about a more precise mechanism for providing funding than the augmented COLA.

There are many types of districts that don't receive funding based on the COLA, community funded districts, county offices of education, necessary small schools. Also on the community college side, hold harmless districts, community funded districts.

So we would recommend, a reimbursement pool, that would really have a precise, 100% reimbursement as those costs come in.

We could also explore a categorical program. Again, appreciate the proposal and want to make sure that we're funding it in the most efficient way possible. Thank you.

Thank you and that concludes all of the public comment that we have here today, seeing as nobody else is in the room. If there is anybody that wasn't able to attend today's hearing that wants to offer public comment, please feel free to reach out via email.

You can submit your comments or suggestions. They're important to us and want to thank everybody for participating today. We have concluded the agenda for the hearing and the Senate budget subcommittee #1 on education is adjourned.