California lawmakers approve 2018-19 state budget: how schools, colleges will fare

Gov. Jerry Brown will leave office at the end of this year with the state providing more money for schools each year for seven years straight. On June 13, the Legislature approved a budget package that provides $78.4 billion through Proposition 98, the primary source of spending for K-12 and community colleges. That total is 5.2 percent — $3.9 billion — more than appropriated a year ago. When Brown took office for a third term in 2011, he inherited a $27 billion deficit, and his first budget cut Prop. 98 appropriations by $2 billion. Since then, Prop. 98 funding, aided by a tax increase, has risen by $30 billion.

The following graphics summarize funding for K-12 schools, community colleges and the state universities — and how they plan to spend much of it. Once the Legislature’s actions on June 14 are calculated, the totals may be slightly different. We will update if needed. Along mostly party lines, the Senate approved Senate Bill 840, the budget bill, 27-10; the Assembly approved it 57-23.

What’s new in K-12 schools spending

K-12 school districts will have $6.16 billion more in one-time and ongoing appropriations to spend in 2018-19 than in the current year. That’s more than $1,000 per student. Most of that money will go toward permanently increasing funding for the Local Control Funding Formula, which Gov. Jerry Brown made his funding priority since the Legislature passed the funding formula law in 2013.

The following is a rundown of some of the significant new appropriations that Brown and the Legislature agreed to.

Higher education

Prop. 98 makes up about 60 percent of funding for the community college system. The rest comes from tuition and other student fees, money from grants and contracts, the state lottery and other sources.

Total Prop. 98 spending for community colleges in the 2018-19 budget package is about $9.2 billion. That represents roughly $500 million more in Prop. 98 funding than in 2017-18.

The Prop. 98 funds are called either “general purpose” funds based largely on student enrollment, or “categorical funds” that must be spent for specific purposes, such as boosting the performance of low-income students, job training and online course development. “General purpose” dollars for community colleges total about $6.7 billion.

Community colleges

University systems

The budget package sends hundreds of millions of dollars in additional money to both the University of California and California State University systems.

The extra UC money, totaling about $200 million, staves off a tuition hike that UC officials were considering all year and provides money for other crucial expenses, including deferred maintenance.

The CSU, which is getting roughly $360 million more this year, announced earlier in the year that it wasn’t raising tuition but lobbied heavily for additional money to cover maintenance, salaries and other core expenses.

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