Senate and Assembly budget proposals set stage for Conference Committee
Published: May 29, 2013
On Friday, May 31, action will begin in the Budget Conference Committee to craft the state’s budget. Both the Senate and Assembly have advanced budget proposals, as has the governor through the May Revision he released on May 14. Details about both the Senate and Assembly proposals are available through this blog post authored by CSBA Legislative Advocate Andrea Ball.
“All in all, the proposals advanced by the Senate and Assembly contain elements favorable for schools,” noted Ball in expanding on her blog entry. Both houses have used the more favorable Proposition 98 revenue projections from the Legislative Analyst’s Office as the foundation of their proposals versus those provided by the Brown administration. Both the Senate and Assembly budget proposals would direct about another $1 billion in the current year to K-12 education above the estimate provided by the May Revision. In addition, both proposals offer more aggressive buy-down schedules for deferrals, although there are differences between the Senate and Assembly schedules.
Both houses allocate one-time funds for implementation of the Common Core State Standards and provide funding for school transportation—and call for those funds to be used on transportation. The Senate put forward a new career technical education grant program; the Assembly would restore child care to Proposition 98 and augment preschool and child care.
The Senate and Assembly have taken different approaches on the governor’s Local Control Funding Formula, but both houses recognize the need to provide a higher base grant—something CSBA has advocated throughout the budget hearing process. In addition, both houses call for adult education and career technical education to remain outside the LCFF.
With respect to the LCFF, the Senate has proposed an increase in the base grant for all school districts of roughly $500 more per student than was proposed by the governor. The Senate proposal doesn’t include a concentration grant for large numbers of English learners, students from low-income families and foster youth. Instead, it increases the supplemental grant for those students to 40 percent of the base grant. Conversely, the Assembly version adopts principles related to LCFF that include setting an aspirational funding target for education at the national average—another goal advocated by CSBA—and proposes an Economic Recovery Target to restore districts for a reduced deficit factor (including a cost-of-living adjustment) and categorical reductions. The Assembly proposes that the amount of the supplemental and concentration grants should be based on best available research.
Stay tuned—CSBA’s Governmental Relations staff will continue to provide updates through www.csba.org, the weekly member eBlast and the CSBA blog. The deadline for the legislature to approve a final budget is June 15.