Legislature disagrees with Newsom on how to spend additional billions for education
School 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 recently.
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 onetime 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 middleclass 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 $500million to the $8billion 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 $1.2billion for the existing home-to-school transportation program,