On Tuesday the California Governor released his May Revision which contains changes to his January budget proposal. As expected, with some tweaks and changes, the Governor doubled down on his efforts to change how we fund education in California. The May Revision estimates that revenues will be up $2.8 Billion over estimates provided in January. Though this is good news it is a low projection when thoughts were that revenues could have increased as much as $4.5 Billion. However, these funds have allowed the Governor to increase spending in some areas while still maintaining an overall modest budget proposal. Specifically, for Proposition 98 the Governor proposes a one-time investment of $1 billion for Common Core implementation allocated to all schools outside of the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) on an ADA basis. This will be about $170 per student. Ignoring the complaints about the base funding being too low for schools in his LCFF and that his concentration grants should be eliminated, the Governor has produced data showing that 80% of his LCFF funding going to base grants, 16% to supplemental grants (for ELL students, students in poverty and foster youth) and only 4% going to the concentration grants.
Additionally, the Governor’s May Revision provides additional Proposition 98 funds for the following one-time K-12 uses including:
- $1.6 Billion to accelerate repayment of inter-year deferrals and;
- $61 Million to backfill the reduction in federal funding for Special Education under the sequestration cuts
For charter schools specifically the Governor did not change any of his January proposals which is very positive. The only issue that will affect charter schools is he has dropped his proposed changes to ‘online’ education and said that he will pursue those changes during next year’s budget debate.
To view the May Revisions and all of the proposed changes go to the Department of Finance’s website at www.dof.ca.gov.
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