Daniel J. Willis
June 3, 2020
2 Comments

Federal stimulus funding is coming to the aid of California’s school districts. The federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that Congress passed in March allocated some aid directly to K-12 schools. The CARES Act also includes education funding for each state. The combination of Congress’ allocation and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to distribute money would cover more than 90 percent of the proposed $6.4 billion cut to K-12 education funding Newsom is proposing for 2020-21 year due to a massive loss of tax revenue. An EdSource analysis projects that of the 897 districts that receive their funding through the state’s education funding formula, 60.4 percent would get more in stimulus funding than they’d lose in state cuts. The last column shows the projected funding change from 2019-20 to 2020-21 after combining the proposed 7.92 cut in state funding with revenue from the federal CARES Act.

School district or county office of education % High-needs students
2019-20		 Proposed state funding†◊
2020-21		 Direct federal stimulus funding Projected stimulus funding†
high-needs		 Projected stimulus funding†
special education		 Total†
2020-21		 Change†
EdSource used available student data from the California Department of Education to calculate the CARES Act funding for each district using the allocation formulas that Newsom detailed in the May budget revision and that Congress detailed in the CARES Act. We compared that with the 7.92 percent cut that Newsom is proposing from every district’s current funding from the Local Control Funding Formula. The funding formula, providing about 80 percent of overall state funding, sets a uniform base funding level and extra money for “high-needs” students attending the districts. The estimated change shows the impact on the level of projected 2020-21 funding after CARES Act funding is included.
* Charter school’s special ed enrollment is included in their authorizing district’s total
** Special education enrollment not released by CDE for privacy; district or county office of educations is getting between $1,800 and $20,000 in additional funding beyond the listed total
*** Special education enrollment was not published by the California Department of Education
◊ State funding through the Local Control Funding Formula.