Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimages
Photo by Allison Shelley for EDUimagesSchool districts and charter schools would get $4.5 billion more than Gov. Gavin Newsom is proposing for the Local Control Funding Formula, under a draft 2022-23 state budget that the Legislature released this week.
But to do it, lawmakers would cut into some of Newsom’s favored proposals like his early literacy proposal for $500 million over five years to train and hire literacy coaches and reading specialists in elementary schools and $200 million to create or expand multilingual school or classroom libraries with “culturally relevant texts” to support reading. The Legislature also wants to cut an additional $1.5 billion to establish community schools in schools with concentrations of low-income families; the 2021-22 budget included $3 billion to launch the program.
The literacy proposals are backed by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond’s task force on early literacy.
Since legislative leaders are basing their alternative budget on the same revenue projections for 2022-23 that Newsom used, they would eliminate or reduce some of Newsom’s top priorities to make room for the $4.5 billion.
The Legislature would further slice Newsom’s pot of one-time funding by dropping $1.8 billion for deferred maintenance of K-12 facilities and reducing increased funding for dual enrollment and career pathways.
All levels of higher education and early education would get additional funding, too, under the Legislature’s plan. Creating a unified plan will enable leaders of the Senate and Assembly, where Democrats predominate, to speak with one voice when negotiating with the governor to meet the June 15 deadline for passing a budget.
Along with different priorities, Newsom’s and the Legislature’s plans reflect a fundamental disagreement over how much of the state’s surplus should be divided between ongoing and one-time funding.
In his May budget revision, Newsom proposed a 9.9% permanent increase to the funding formula, the main source of districts’ and charter schools’ general spending; it would include a new $2.1 billion, plus an increase in the cost of living adjustment to reflect rising inflation. Legislative leaders would add $4.5 billion to make it 16% more – the biggest annual increase since the formula was created nine years ago. The Legislature would increase the formula’s extra money for districts with low-income students by expanding eligibility from 185% to 250% of federal poverty guidelines.
School districts have made more money for the funding formula their top budget priority. Some advocates for students in poverty, however, argue legislative leaders are advocating the wrong approach.
“We’re concerned that the Legislature is proposing to cut equity-focused investments in the neediest communities in favor of a middle-class expansion of the Local Control Funding Formula,” said John Affeldt, managing attorney and director of educational equity for the nonprofit law firm Public Advocates. “Using a 250% of poverty threshold would dilute the current equity focus of LCFF and send more dollars to districts that are not experiencing the effects of concentrated poverty.”
Other significant changes to Newsom’s budget include:
- Adding $500 million to the $8 billion in one-time funding Newsom proposes for districts, extending it to seven years and requiring that districts spend it on personnel-related expenses to help students recover from the pandemic. (Early literacy specialists and materials would qualify for this money, the plan says.)
- Adding $1.2 billion for the existing home-to-school transportation program, which has not been increased for nearly a decade, with the goal of moving to free bus transportation for elementary school and low-income students by 2027-28.
- Adding $1 billion for school construction and repairs to the $3.1 billion Newsom has proposed from the state’s general fund.
- Adding $250 million to Newsom’s proposed $450 million to upgrade school kitchen facilities with $100 million to purchase locally grown healthy food.
- Cutting $385 million for teacher training in the state’s science and mathematics standards. (Districts could use the $850 million, one-time pandemic recovery funding for this purpose, the plan says.)
Child care and early education
The Legislature is proposing about $1.8 billion to bump up the amount of money that child care centers are paid to care for low-income children. The plan also sets aside funds for provider health and retirement benefits in an effort to buttress the fragile child care system.
State child care programs, including preschool, would receive 85% of the 2018 rate, up from 75% now, plus a cost-of-living adjustment. There would also be an increase in payments for 3-year-olds in state preschool programs, even as 4-year-olds migrate to transitional kindergarten.
“California leaders have failed to adequately compensate subsidized child care providers in recent years, despite the state’s strong revenue growth,” said Kristin Schumacher, senior policy analyst for the California Budget and Policy Center, a nonprofit research organization. “Gov. Newsom should absolutely follow the Legislature’s lead and continue to increase payment rates in the 2022-23 budget agreement.”
Other key changes in the early childhood education space include earmarking $300 million in one-time funding for more prekindergarten planning and implementation and $650 million for facilities for preschool and kindergarten programs.
Higher education
For California’s colleges and universities, the Legislature’s agreement seeks more spending than Newsom proposed in several key areas, including financial aid and base funding for the college systems. The Legislature’s joint agreement seeks to add the following new funding to Newsom’s budget proposal:
- $315 million in 2024-25 and $237 million in 2025-26 to fully fund reform of the Cal Grant, California’s main financial aid program. The changes, which are proposed in Assembly Bill 1746, would expand eligibility for Cal Grant awards to an additional 150,000 students — mostly in community colleges. The Legislature also seeks to simplify the Cal Grant program by consolidating it into just two awards, one for community college students and another for students attending four-year universities.
- Funding to further strengthen the Cal Grant, beginning with $185 million in 2023-24, by increasing the nontuition award amount to help students pay for living costs.
- An additional $100 million in 2022-23 and $200 million in 2023-24 over what Newsom proposed for California State University’s base funding. That should be welcome news to the 23-campus system; following Newsom’s revised budget proposal in May, interim CSU Chancellor Jolene Koester said it was “disheartening” that Newsom didn’t offer more funding amid high inflation.
- An extra $50 million for the University of California’s base funding in 2022-23 over what Newsom proposed.
- An increase of $700 million in Proposition 98 funding for California’s system of 116 community colleges above Newsom’s proposal.
EdSource writers Karen D’Souza and Michael Burke contributed to this article.
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Mary Johnson 10 months ago10 months ago
The LCFF is just a cash cow to districts, that still excludes students that should be targeted. I sit on LCFF for a school district advisory committee. It was just a sham because no suggestion that was make by committee ever make it to board. The decision on how to use the money was done in a back room with district directors. What I disagree with the LCFF is it addresses every subgroup, expect … Read More
The LCFF is just a cash cow to districts, that still excludes students that should be targeted. I sit on LCFF for a school district advisory committee. It was just a sham because no suggestion that was make by committee ever make it to board. The decision on how to use the money was done in a back room with district directors.
What I disagree with the LCFF is it addresses every subgroup, expect African American students, which all across California are the lowest performance subgroup, even below English Learners. They need to stop sweeping Black students under low income. It’s great to have a cash cow but make sure that every single student is benefiting from the cash cow. There should be a discussion on changing the wording in LCFF policy.
Jay 1 year ago1 year ago
Increased funding must be targeted in two ways. #1 Decrease the size of classes at all grade levels. This must be done through caps instead of averages, which always can be manipulated. No money may be spent outside of the classroom. #2 Pay down as much of the pension obligations of CalSTRS as possible.
Todd Maddison 1 year ago1 year ago
Pouring more money into the school systems via LCFF - with little or no rules on how it will be spent - will simply do the same thing it has been doing for most of a decade. Higher pay and benefits for school employees, no improvement in actual performance. Which is proven by experience since 2012, when we raised funding through Prop 30. Since then per student funding has risen at a tremendous rate - 7.09%/year, … Read More
Pouring more money into the school systems via LCFF – with little or no rules on how it will be spent – will simply do the same thing it has been doing for most of a decade.
Higher pay and benefits for school employees, no improvement in actual performance.
Which is proven by experience since 2012, when we raised funding through Prop 30. Since then per student funding has risen at a tremendous rate – 7.09%/year, three times the rate of inflation – but by every measure out there actual performance has been flat or declining.
Meanwhile, pay and benefits have also been increasing at rates multiple times inflation, with median total pay/compensation in 2020 for Administrators of $165,220 and Teachers $119,555.
Ever since Torlaksen allowed increased LCFF revenue to be used for “more money for me” rather than things that actually improve education, that is clearly what has been happening.
And here we go with another round. We are already hearing that people receiving fair six figure compensation feel they need more money more than the kids do and are willing to hold the education of those kids hostage for that money – see Sacramento City Unified.
Now we’ll see even more of that.
And almost everyone will continue to think education employees are “underpaid”, because our media will not publish anything showing what the actual compensation levels are, instead relying on lowball “averages” from the state and quoting starting pay rates – instead of using actual pay data from the districts’ own pay records…
I’m sure they’re lining up at the trough already to get their share, while at the same time complaining about “underfunding from the state” as the justification for their poor performance.
Emma Villa 1 year ago1 year ago
Pouring more money into a failing, broken, system is a waste of resources and our children will not benefit.