Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance, Tuesday, April 21, 2026
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Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance California State Assembly
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 7
overall. For enrollment growth, we are proposing a 1% in the current year, which will cascade into the budget year, and then a point 5% enrollment growth in the in the budget year. The current year funding would add $55,300,000, and the budget year adjustment would add an additional 31.9 for a total of 87,200,000. We also propose a 88,700,000 one time in prop 98 general fund to accommodate increasing apportionment costs and to fully fund the total computational revenue. With regard to the prop 98 rainy day fund, we propose a withdrawal of 44,500,000, which is being used to support apportionments.
Speaker 2
Aside from the apportionments, there's a few new proposed investments, some of which will be discussed later. We'd like to point out just some of the larger ones, a $100,000,000 one time prop 98 general fund for a flexible block grant, a student block grant for the system, and a 120,700,000 one time prop 98 general fund to support deferred maintenance needs at the community college. That's my presentation, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Speaker 3
Good morning, chair and assembly member. Lisa King with legislative analyst office. This first issue on your agenda covers a number of proposals for the community colleges. I'll focus my comments on the cost of living adjustment for apportionments as well as enrollment growth. Regarding the apportionments COLA, we recommend prioritizing this with an available proposition 98 funding for the colleges.
Providing a COLA for apportionments helps districts cover increases in their core operating costs while providing them with the flexibility to address local conditions. As usual, the data that's used to calculate the COLA will be updated later this month, and so you'll receive a new rate at the May revision. Turning next to enrollment growth, this is the other proposal that we recommend prioritizing for ongoing proposition 98 funding at the colleges. As you may know, about half of districts are currently on track to exceed their growth targets in the current year, and there are a number of factors that could lead to continued enrollment pressure in the budget year. Specifically, those factors include regional demographic growth, particularly in inland parts of the state, an elevated unemployment rate, which could lead more individuals to return to school, and recent efforts to expand dual enrollment for high school students, which has been a key driver of enrollment growth of the colleges in recent years.
Depending on available funding, the amount of funding that the legislature provides for enrollment growth could be higher or lower than the governor is proposing. Regardless of the amount, we would recommend providing the funding beginning in 2026, '27 without revising the current year growth target. This is because the state sets enrollment growth targets based in part on what it believes it can afford, and our concern is that going back and providing additional funding when districts exceed that target could create an incentive for districts to disregard the state's growth targets moving forward. This issue does contain several smaller proposals for the community colleges. I'll just very briefly note that there are a couple we have concerns about.
First, regarding the proposed funding for the Healthy School Food Pathways program, we recommend rejecting the proposal to make this initiative ongoing because the initiative to date has had high state costs and mixed outcomes. And second, regarding credit for prior learning, we think it could be premature to provide additional funding for this initiative in twenty twenty six, twenty seven. This is because the state is just beginning to fund beginning to send funding that was provided for this purpose in last year's budget, and so the outcomes of those activities are not yet known. I'll conclude my comments there, but I'm happy to take questions on any of the proposals contained in this issue. Thank you.
Thank
Speaker 4
Yeah. Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor for finance and strategic initiatives at the California Community College chancellor's office. So I I won't get into all of the figures that have already been presented. But over time, since the pandemic, we've seen a significant increase in our enrollments in our system, which really is a a testament to our focus on recovering those enrollments, getting students back into our programs, and ultimately seeing them be successful through our programs and obtaining economic mobility and and getting a living wage. Those remain our our core focus and our core goal as a system.
So with that, that enrollment increase over time has gone from about 1,800,000 or 8,000,000,000 students sorry. 1,800,000 students in the low of the pandemic back up to 2,200,000 students today. What that means in terms of FTES, real FTES, not the the protected levels, we've gone from roughly 900,000 full time equivalent students in actual reported or reports from colleges, and we are back up to just over 1,100,000 FTES for students. So we've seen that recovery growth. We've seen them come on into our programs on our campuses, whether it's, remote, whether it's hybrid, whether it's in person.
You know, we are seeing success as a system. That said, chair, to your point, not every college is in the same position and every district in the same position throughout the state. There are some colleges that are growing rapidly, and there are others that are still continuing to see limited enrollment recovery. A lot of that is attributable to shifts in demographics in the state in terms of where our younger families are living, you know, often moving out of the Central Coast to the Central Valley. With that, you know, certainly strong supporters of the 2.41% cost of living adjustment for the student centered funding formula, strong supporters of the 1.5 enrollment growth, and the structure to provide resources to districts in the current year, 1% and half a percent starting in the budget year.
Speaker 17
Our current projections show that enrollment increases are likely to come in closer to 3% overall, and we are working with the Department of Finance to provide them with the latest caseload updates so that they can contemplate that as they build out the May revision and as we work toward a a final budget. Of that 3%, what that means in terms of fiscal cost is roughly 85 to 90,000,000 ongoing, to support those additional students. And what I can say is our college system is well aware that if we start growth in the current year and it flows into the budget year, you know, they understand that there is a risk that the state will not always be able to do something of that nature. And if they do over enroll, they could be left having to pull from reserves or take other measures to continue serving that that student base. We remain strong supporters of the $35,000,000 investment onetime investment for credit for prior learning and the 2,000,000 ongoing for credit for prior learning, strong supporters of the 120,700,000 for deferred maintenance.
Speaker 4
100,000,000, we'll talk about for the student support block grant later, strong supporters of that as well. And what that means in particular for our system is that they're able to navigate uncertain times that that block grant. So as we're probably all well aware, some of our districts are being impacted in different ways from, you know, just changes in the economy, changes in federal policy, and this helps them navigate those waters. Lastly, what I would say in terms of other asks, you know, just for consideration in the May revision or as we head into the final budget would be as we think about that 100,000,000 potentially providing a cost of living adjustment to the student equity and achievement program, that is our core categorical program. By providing cost of living adjustments on categorical programs, one of the tangential benefits is that it reduces some of the pressure on request to change the 50% law or to revise the 50% law.
And that is because the collective bargaining agreements tend to be position specific. They're not program specific. So as, you know, the the schedules increase over time, it causes a pull from a general fund to support categorical program costs, specifically the the labor costs associated with staffing, those categorical programs. So there is a a tangential benefit to providing cost of living adjustments on our categorical programs. And then one last one that is not before you today, but we remain strong supporters of dual enrollment and the 100,000,000 that is proposed in the k 12 budget to support expansions of dual enrollment.
One key note is dual enrollment not only helps our system in terms of increasing the number of college going students, It also, from what I've heard from districts, helps the California State University and University of California as well as many of those students are also attending those systems out of high school. So there's a real benefit to all three segments from dual enrollment. But with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 1
you. Thank you to all three of you. I'll start with some questions. Let me first ask about the LAO raised the issue of going back and increasing, the enrollment growth allocation. I and I I'm looking at figure two.
I think this was prepared by by the LAO on the breakdown of the new the proposed governor's proposed new ongoing and onetime spending. And the on the one time spending, we the the identify the additional enrollment growth of 1% at a cost of 55,000,000, and then the citation is related to the enacted 2526 budget. I I thought that in the 2526 budget, we we had approved enrollment growth of 1.5%. Did we not do that in the enacted budget?
Speaker 3
So in last year's enacted budget, there were two associated actions. One was to increase the current year target. I believe it was brought up to 2.28%. And then in conjunction with that, there was a proposal to provide an additional 0.5% growth in the budget year. So combined, the amount was higher than 0.5%, but the amount that began in twenty twenty five, twenty six was that 0.5%.
Speaker 4
So so this 1% would be on top of the half a percent that was already provided in last year's budget for a total of 1.5%.
Speaker 1
Okay. And how is it that it's identified as a onetime expenditure, but it's an ongoing program funded group for growth?
Speaker 6
Good morning. Jessica Holmes, Department of Finance. So when we make a current year adjustment, so the we go back and basically amend what we had done in the prior year's budget. We do that on a one time basis. But in this particular case, we are also rolling that $55,000,000 forward into the current year.
We sort of colloquially refer to adjustments in the sorry. Moving forward to the budget year, we colloquially refer to adjustments in the budget year as our ongoing, but the 55,000,000 actually is an ongoing expenditure. It's just a one time in the 'twenty five, 'twenty six year.
Speaker 1
In terms of what the community college system will have available for growth, I think Department of Finance's position is that it's we would consider it a a one per is it a 1.5% growth over the current year numbers, or is it just a pipe point 5% growth over the current year numbers?
Speaker 4
So effectively, it's 1.5% from where we're at today, but that 1.5% is occurring over a two year period. So 1% starts right now in this year and a half percent would start next year. So similar to last year, we, from our system, would say it's a one and a half percent in total ongoing, but 1% is in one time resources that they're receiving.
Speaker 1
So I'm trying to and I heard you state that you submitted some numbers to finance, so maybe there's still some data. I'm trying to better understand because there the the indications are that the growth will be more than
Speaker 1
The half percent, perhaps even more than the combined two year, one and a half percent, because really, in essence, you're only I assume the 1% makes you almost whole for growth, or is it still short of growth?
Speaker 4
It it would still be short. So the governor's budget is based on projections of the twenty five, twenty six year in terms of where we think we will land. We get twenty five, twenty six p one data in February, and we get p two data in June. Our office generally knows a little bit before that June date as well, and we try to provide that those latest data projections to both the legislature and finance so that there's a better sense as we head into the May revision and the final enacted budget as to what the latest and greatest data is showing for our system. So from our perspective, that additional one and a half percent would, you know, start in optimally start in the current year and roll through into the budget year.
And then we would request, you know, half percent or 1% of growth on top of that as an aspirational target in the budget year. The goal being, you know, for us, fund all of the students that we are seeing in our system and ultimately, you know, still provide a stretch goal for the system moving into the next budget year. You know, even beyond that, we would say those are the figures that do not factor in potential policy changes like using the greater of the three year average or the current year FTES or for districts such as Southwestern that are above cap. Victor Valley is another, and above cap means we have a 10% growth cap. So once all the growth formula funding is allocated out to districts, if you still have remaining unfunded growth, but you've received more than 10%, you can't receive additional funding.
That that's in statute right now. But it the the funding and the additional one and a half percent to get us to 3% would address the vast majority of what we're seeing right now.
Speaker 1
But then the LAO brought a point, and I don't know if this is accurate. Did you state that we historically have not funded enrollment growth in the budget year that we are in? Usually, it's just on a going forward basis?
Speaker 3
Correct. So prior to last year's enacted budget, the practice had been that any enrollment growth would be funded for the upcoming fiscal year. Last year's enacted budget was the first time to our knowledge that the state has adjusted the current year target in addition to providing additional funding in the budget year. And the concern that we had raised was just about what precedent that set in sending a clear message to districts about how much growth the state can afford.
Speaker 1
Yeah. That's that is definitely something to think about because that just means if if we don't commit to the growth, that means less students having access. And so it's a decision point that's an important one, but understand why you why why you raise it. Let me now ask about the enrollment cap because, I assume, as presented in there was a bar graph somewhere. It's not a bar graph.
I forget what these are called. But with the enrollment figures, Central Valley, Inland Empire, 15% or greater in terms of of FTE growth, quite significant. And then the others are pretty either not no growth or or very, very little growth. So the issue of this enrollment cap per per district, are we seeing multiple districts, and I would assume primarily Inland Empire, Central Valley having, running into the cap issue?
Speaker 4
Yeah. We are. It it if I recall the data, it is in the single digits in terms of the number of districts statewide, but it is impactful for those districts. And I would say the way the governor's budget approaches, FTES by adding additional resources in the current year and then the budget year does help resolve some of that unfunded growth issue because those districts perceive more this year and ongoing. It reduces, you know, up to that 10% cap.
Then the next year, you can get up to the 10% cap again. So it helps for those districts that are over. That said, our projections of unfunded FTES for, I believe, at seven districts comes in at around 30,000,000 ongoing if we wanted if you wanted to consider lifting that cap and adjusting law, if you wanted to consider adjusting the three year average to the greater of the three year average or current year FTES, we project that to be roughly 54,000,000 ongoing in cost. So, you know, we have looked at it in the background. What does it mean to your your greater point, though?
What does it mean to a district if they don't see those resources? Inevitably, if they don't have locally available reserves or some other funding source, what they have to do planning wise for future years is restrict the number of course sections they can offer, and that's how you you reduce some of your cost. But what that means is you're rationing access to students that could access a course or otherwise access a course they're not able to. And that's one of the the things that we did see in the Great Recession is students weren't able to access all of the courses, so it can impact time and completion. But more importantly, in some cases, if a student can't access the courses that they need to complete, they stop out of our system and may not come back.
So there there are some planning issues that go into this, but we are hopeful that, you know, there is sufficient enrollment growth and, you know, we'll continue as a system to advocate for lifting that cap. In terms of budget control, you ultimately, as as a a legislature and as a state, control the overall amount of growth funding that is provided to our system. So that 10% cap is a cap within a cap. So, you know, there are other budgetary, you know, tools that you would have available to you if you wanted to consider that.
Speaker 1
So you're you're sharing that at the cost of $30,000,000, there there would be seven districts that currently are capped in terms of their ability to serve the students that are enrolled there that could potentially lead to some of those disruptions, which is is what is it then in terms of number of students that we're talking about?
Speaker 4
I would have to get you the exact number of students. I don't have that in front of me at the moment.
Speaker 1
Okay. And one last, I think, question on this front. What does the system do to ensure that, to the concern of just enrolling for the sake of enrolling, that, this enrollment is leading to any set of out number of outcomes?
Speaker 4
Yeah. Certainly, we we attempt to work with districts to have them goal set around vision 2030, both at the district and the college level. Because, ultimately, when they receive resources to support students and to offer courses, it's not just about that access component. It is about the success component. It's about seeing additional students transferred to a four year institution, additional students completing ADT pathways, additional students earning a living wage, seeing further economic mobility, seeing additional students accessing higher education from high schools, dual enrollment.
So we do have them goal set around our vision, and the intent there is to see that we're making progress toward consistently better serving our students and consistently focused on seeing better outcomes for our students. Are we getting perfect outcomes today? Absolutely not. But I can tell you that our system is laser focused on helping our students succeed and trying to get them into a good position within their communities. And that's universal across all districts.
Speaker 1
I I see and I hear the LAO's point on this. I would ask, though, your assistance in in coming forward with a proposal to fund the districts with as it relates to the enrollment cap issue, but ensuring that there's outcomes associated with that in a way that it's not just, again, a a a mass chase of enrolling students for the sake of it. I I think I'd like to to see if if you and the administration will certainly check-in with the LAO, see if there's a way to bring forward a proposal to fully fund that growth, but, again, ensure that it's tied to to some outcomes in some way and some some accountability there. The other question I had is regarding the student equity and achievement categorical COLA and probably other categoricals to the Department of Finance. Has this been reviewed, a COLA for some of these important categorical programs?
If if it has, what is your determination on why COLAs are not necessary?
Speaker 2
Traditionally traditionally, the the student achievement student equity and achievement program hasn't received COLAs. There there are other categoricals that have received those. And so we have been hearing from stakeholders both within the chancellor's office and outside that that is it is desired. Okay. And we can always look into it as part of it.
Speaker 1
Let me ask you. Do we see COLAs some years, obviously not other years, on programs, and it just depends on the length of the that has passed, the time that has passed since the last COLA? Like, how how do those decisions get made as to when COLA is appropriate or not?
Speaker 6
So as as my colleague mentioned, this program traditionally has not received a COLA. So there there hasn't been sort of a sometimes COLA, sometimes not COLA.
Speaker 6
Yeah. We've It's been pretty consistent over the last several years, although I do believe there may have been one or two that have received one time augmentations. But I think, you know, for us, when building this package, we certainly have a limit on expenditure within Prop 98 and the amount available for community colleges. And so the package that we put together maximizes both as much as we can provide in terms of resources for the community colleges as a whole. You talked about the funding cap and funding above that.
I think there are certainly proposals and ways to spend money that create winners and losers. Obviously, the seven growing campuses would benefit from that. The other campuses would not. And so, you know, in trying to build our package, I think we were trying to meet both the needs of the entire system as well as providing some growth for those that are growing, but recognizing that our our revenues are limited. And so in terms of things like discretionary COLAs, that just wasn't something that we were able to do in this package.
Speaker 1
Is remind me I should know this, but there's a lot in the budget. There's a discretionary funding for k 12 under 98. We have discretionary funding here for community colleges?
Speaker 1
A 100,000,000 one time is your discretionary funding this year. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's it for me on this, I believe.
I'll turn it over to mister Feng.
Speaker 5
Thank you so much, mister chair, and really appreciate the chair's comments and uplifting a number of the requests here and up and as well to all the panelists. I wanna follow-up on the question of growth and enrollment growth as well, the chair really teed it up. This is to the chancellor's office. I know we talked about the point 5% last year and the 1% this year. So over two years, it's 1.5%.
But in terms of the growth of the community colleges, especially in a number of the inland areas and other parts of the state, we are seeing significant growth trends. In terms of the percentage increase, you kinda touched upon it, but what is the actual, like, enrollment growth percentage that would it be needed to actually cover actual enrollment growth?
Speaker 4
Yeah. So based on existing law, we would view it as roughly 3%. It it's literally a couple hundredths of a percent below that. And and that's based on our p one datasets. So that's roughly one and a half percent more than has been proposed in the governor's budget, and we put that cost at around 85 to 90,000,000.
I did look up the cost above the 10% growth cap. There's roughly 1,563 FTES above the growth cap system wide. And, again, we put that at roughly 30,000,000 in cost.
Speaker 5
So thank you for that context. And you mentioned that a lot of it is due to dual enrollment and other opportunities as well. And so when we look at the funding for dual enrollment, do you see if that's adequate? I think you mentioned a 100,000,000.
Speaker 4
I think so based on existing law, we can't we with the CCAP program, we can't displace a traditional community college student by increasing dual enrollment. So for many colleges that are experiencing significant growth at the moment, effectively, what that means is whatever base they're serving right now, they're somewhat limited in growing that Sure. Dual enrollment base. Others absolutely have capacity to increase dual enrollment. You know, it would be predicated on getting CCAP agreements in place.
And we had been seeing a significant increase in dual enrollment. So pre pandemic, we were around 30,000 FTES system wide. Today, I believe the projection puts us at about 65,000 FTES, so about 35,000 more dual enrollment students, a roaring success. And for us, our goal is if we could get every high school freshman to 12 units of, you know, transferable credit, You know, that increases timely completion in our four year institutions. It increases college going rates.
So we see this as a real benefit from our system to all of higher education.
Speaker 5
And thank you for that context. And then just as a question, I hear for the districts that are are being held out there hold harmless. Do we have an end date for those districts?
Speaker 2
We're hoping that eventually with COLA's, you know, ongoing, that a lot of these districts that are currently on hold hold harmless will eventually transform over to the SCFF.
Speaker 4
Yeah. If I could be helpful here. So the the COLA effectively stopped being provided on the hold harmless amount this budget year. Yes. So 2526.
There are roughly 13 districts in the state that are on the hold harmless as of our twenty five twenty six p one data run. Of those thirteen, two, we believe, are basic aid districts. So the impact in terms of, you know, fiscal isn't the same for those two districts because they're funded on property tax amounts. That said, there's and and this is sort of, you know, long term state policy direction to us. Of those other districts, we do see a strong correlation between enrollment levels prior to the SCFF and, you know, enrollment levels in those districts today.
So there's a strong correlation there. And, you know, based on state policy, effectively, we've been told over time whether it's stability, which is our version of declining enrollment, or the three year average protections, or even the hold harmless, those are all designed to provide a soft landing for districts that are seeing those sustained declines to adjust their operations to those new enrollment levels. So it's very harsh and very hard for those districts that are on the hold arm list because, effectively, we are asking them to rightsize their budgets to serve the student populations that we have. It's often not of their doing or not because they don't want to serve more students or wouldn't serve more students. Those students just aren't enrolling or may not be demographically in those residential areas anymore.
And it is very tough for those districts to have to take those actions. There are a few that I would highlight for you, though. In particular, there's the prune to grow plan at Peralta Community College District where they have worked with their community. They've worked with their campus community, and they have a plan over time to convert one of their four colleges into a center underneath one of their other colleges. And, effectively, they're consolidating Laney and Merritt, and they would call that Oakland City College moving forward, which is actually a historical name in the district.
But it it is, you know, one example of a district having those tough conversations, working with their community, and ultimately crafting a plan to true up their local budget to match where they're at.
Speaker 5
Well, thank you for that context. It's very helpful. I appreciate the insights there. And then lastly, I just wanted to up uplift the student support of Black Grant. I think that's so critical for our community college districts up and down the state.
That's been an opportunity to really continue to support our most impacted students, most vulnerable students, and I really wanna uplift that request as well. Thank you, mister chair.
Speaker 8
Thank you for being here today and for your testimony. I also took a look at staff's very thorough, agenda and appreciate that, that work that goes into putting those agendas together. Do have some questions, and some of it's still, a little bit higher level. I wanna take us up. Looking at the relatively flat budget for our community colleges tied in with the prop 98 withholding, enrollment growth, also the addition for some of our campuses of baccalaureate programs, what is the outlook for what you're putting together for the budget?
And do you have any thoughts additionally on the prop 98 withholding specifically?
Speaker 4
So we defer on the policy outright to the administration, I think, from our perspective so long as we are funded for whatever the minimum guarantee is at whatever point in time that occurs, I think that is our core focus. We will absolutely acknowledge that those resources could be put to good use, but we also acknowledge that the state is using those resources for other significant priorities as well. That said, we are fortunate in this budget because it is crafted in a way where the traditional split is 10.93% for community colleges, 89 o 7% for, k 12 education. And in the prior year, the administration has actually proposed an 11.26% split, which for us actually means about 391,000,000 in additional resources that are supporting community college investments. So for us, we find this to be a relatively positive package for the colleges.
It is stabilizing. I think our current our current focus, though, is, again, you know, how do we increase growth funding? How do we support a cost of living adjustment for our categorical programs? But the largest feedback that I hear from a lot of our campus community is appreciation for the investments in growth, for the investments in deferred maintenance, for the investment in the student support block grant, investing in the common cloud data platform and credit for prior learning, there's a lot of appreciation for those investments.
Speaker 1
You talked about the outlook, so looking forward. And I think our big focus in building this package was really stability. Certainly, we as as you know, it it would be great if if in education we could just sort of stay in our lane and not have to worry about the rest of the budget, but because of prop 98 in particular, we have a lot of conversations with our forecasting folks about outlook for revenues. And so our focus really in this budget, understanding that just last year, had to take on deferrals in order to maintain funding for both our K-twelve and our community college system was paying off debt, providing new ongoing funds to help all of our institutions deal with rising cost of doing business, providing some funding to recognize that, you know, community colleges, especially if there's an economic downturn, tend to have increases in enrollment, but also ensuring that as we move forward, we're not making decisions that put us in a really difficult position. So to that effect, we do have some one time investments that are ongoing to provide a little bit of a buffer.
Speaker 6
It's not a big one, but it's a little bit of a buffer to ensure that we can continue to to meet our ongoing commitments of that base funding that is so important. But you will also see that we are also trying to make some smaller investments in the future. And so, really, it's a mix. I think in regards to the 5,600,000,000, certainly, and the settle up, certainly, you know, we understand the concern there. One thing I would note, however, is those are one time funds, not ongoing funds.
So we've gotten a lot of feedback from folks about, you know, adding to to folks' salaries or, you know, increasing pay, and and that's really not those funds would not be available for that purpose. And that's not to say that, you know, we don't understand the concerns, but but did just wanna mention that as a as a common piece of feedback we've gotten.
Speaker 8
And and I think that's why I found the LAO's suggestion of putting some of that in the prop 90 eight rainy day fund made a lot of sense to me Mhmm. Because we do have an outlook where there's a possibility that we're gonna really face tougher economic times. And I know the governor has stated directly, in meeting rooms that he doesn't wanna create unnecessary obligations for a future governor Mhmm. To have to then settle up. So hearing these words together may be in different contexts, but certainly hearing them together, I think there's something to be said about putting Prop 98 money where it belongs, even if it's not for ongoing costs to Mhmm.
Make sure that those that are entitled to those funds receive those funds in one way or another. I think a rainy day putting some of that because of the uncertainty around it, putting that in a rainy day fund for prop 98 makes sense. Just as, you know, being fiscally responsible and prudent, we don't wanna end up the same place we were years ago where we over allocated and then have to have those difficult conversations. So I'm very, sensitive to that situation as well. I would like to ask you about SCIF.
Mhmm. I was not very familiar with that funding formula prior to being a legislator. So I I I how effective is that in producing positive outcomes and pushing us in the direction that we wanna go? And is this is there some learning in that that we can apply to t k through 12?
Speaker 4
So I would say the two funding formulas, the LCFF and the SCFFR, they're very similar in construct with the LCFF having base supplemental and concentration grants and the SCFF having base supplemental and success grants.
Speaker 4
I would say on the the, you know, success side of the equation, we've certainly seen increases in our success metrics since the start of the SEFF to today. We can see significant increases in the number of ADTs, increases in transfer overall, and degree completion overall. We can see increases in the number of students completing transfer level math and English. So we are seeing a lot of those efforts. That said, it it usually is all correlated back to enrollment because at the end of the day, we have to have the students enrolled to be able to see those successful outcomes.
The other piece that I would say that we've certainly watched is the equity component of the formula, which is the supplemental metric and ensuring that districts have an incentive to serve those students that are often from those populations that may be less likely to attend higher education or that may have, you know, further economic challenges attending higher education. So from our perspective, it's worked relatively well. I think the distribution of resources, you know, from a a very technical standpoint has worked it the way we would have expected. Are there colleges that disagree with the way the funds are distributed between districts throughout the state? Certainly.
But I would say, you know, overall, it's relatively positive. It's provided significant stability. I think we're the only system of education that has an absolute hold harmless, so we know if you're a district, it will not go below that amount in any given year. But, again, to your point, we would always take it back to vision 2030, which is all of these resources are about seeing the broader long term goals around transfer along back, laureate attainment, whether that's through our system or through our four year partners, you know, and with a specific focus on UC and CSU, I think they, by far, take the majority of our transfer students, and we're highly supportive of our partners. But it's also reducing excess units.
It's seeing additional living wage and economic outcome, and it it's closing equity gaps. So within our vision 2030 plan, it's not just that higher level of serve more students and serve them well. It's also make sure that all students are being served well and seeing those outcomes.
Speaker 8
Thank you. And then my my final question does go back to the dual enrollment component. Do we see our students that are high school dual enrolled with community college, are we able to track whether they're completing their bachelor's degree more quickly? Is is trying to think of the efficacy of the the program or the variety of programs. So
Speaker 4
not to my knowledge, but that should come online shortly with the cradle to career data system and the longitudinal capacities that it will offer us. And by the way, while that is, you know, very much a point in time data system, most of the segments are working in the background to inevitably support real time data through or access to real time data trends through Cradle to Career as well. That's a long term vision. But with that, there are some unique situations where we can absolutely say it does. So, for example, there is a partnership between Bakersfield Community College and McFarland Unified, they have a number of students that outright complete their AA degree while they're in high school and transfer directly into CSU Bakersfield or potentially UC Merced.
So we do know from that perspective, there are situations in which, absolutely, we're positive that it expedites degree completion.
Speaker 8
Okay. And and I would love to see that if if it's ever possible on a granular level between the different varieties of programs because some of them, you know, the dual enrollment's embedded on the high school. Some of them, the kids have to go there directly. There there's a whole variety of different ways we structure dual enrollment. We give local communities that local control to build their own programs.
But I would love to see if there are patterns or trends or something that's more efficacious.
Speaker 8
You don't have to answer that today, obviously, but keep me in the loop. I'm I'm excited to see what's working and what's not. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you, doctor Patel. Let me go back quickly to the student equity achievement category quote. What what is the projected cost of a COLA at the same rate of the 2.4%?
Speaker 4
Back of the envelope math, we put that at around 12,500,000. That's it's roughly a a $500,000,000 categorical program at 2.4%. Okay. That's
Speaker 1
roughly right. And it would you'd actually, obviously, would be seeking this because it's resource intensive as an ongoing augmentation, not a one time.
Speaker 4
That's right. So that is correct. What I would say to that is our official system ask requested 11.6% for COLA, and that was representative of the past three COLAs that had been provided to the system. And the cost of doing that would be 62,300,000.
Speaker 1
Oh, because you were seeking past three. Got it. I see. The program came into existence in 2022. Is that why you went past three?
Or
Speaker 4
I think we were just looking at since the the pandemic, what the cost of living adjustments been. We did not go back to the start of the program. I believe this program originally came to be out of two prior programs, and that was in the, I believe, 1516, or 1617 fiscal year that they came together. Yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah. One thing we haven't talked about today that mister Fang brought up and I think is very important is this conversation, and it was I guess, it was assumed with the topic of enrollment and the decline in some of these and the whole hold harmless. And it's not it's not just happening to some of the colleges. It's happening to some of our universities, and it's happening to some of our k to 12 schools as well. And I think I intentionally, when placing this on the agenda, wanted to to have a deeper level conversation that I think it is something we need to talk about.
I I heard you say testify to us that, which is no shock to anybody, the hold harmless often allows people not to make difficult decisions that need to be made. And we're seeing that certainly at at some CSUs where difficult decisions are probably not being made. And at some point, we probably face the same thing at some of our k 12 schools. So I guess as a parting comment for for this issue, what would you say for your segment particular would be the right approach to ensure that we handle enrollment in the appropriate way, whether it's growth or, you know, in this case, it's the focus is on on on some of the decline to not create any, you know, harm or or to chaos for campuses. We don't wanna do that.
But, to ensure that the right thing is happening with the right sizing of of of what they the realities of their their demographics as you stated.
Speaker 4
Yeah. I would say there there it's a two pronged approach that I'd recommend. You know, first and foremost, the state is providing you with time, time to have the conversations locally, time to develop plans and to make those adjustments. So we're starting to see that across districts. So, you know, I gave the example of Peralta.
We know that in the San Francisco Community College District, they're looking at shifting one of their programs and closing one of their their facilities because the cost of keeping that facility open is higher than the FTES revenues effectively. And then the second piece to that, and I think this is the the important piece, is in buying time, it also provides you with time to think strategically around how can we partner with our schools, how can we partner with our communities, Knowing that there are changes in HR one that that change, you know, work or or, sorry, eligibility criteria, you know, how can we work with our cities and counties to enroll those students and see positive outcomes? So, you know, they're also providing you with time to think strategically around what else can I do to serve the students in my community or the potential students in my community?
Speaker 4
In terms of what they do, no. We don't have specific plans as as to you as
Speaker 1
to required. Continue that conversation with Ray outside of here because in the current year, we did have a requirement for CSUs at the declining campuses to provide some pretty robust turnaround plans. I think they're really well done. But even in some of those plans, they identify they're not gonna hit the enrollment targets that are assumed. And so the decline continues, but at least there's a very transparent public available approach of what they hope to accomplish so that there could be accountability, and also rightsizing that happens along the way to really get to where they they actually think they can go.
And what was really interesting to see is that some of these campuses I think the CSU system was assuming they just hit those enrollment targets the way they fund, but the campuses themselves said, we're lucky if we get there in three years. And in some cases, we're not gonna hit those numbers. And so I think it'd be a a important conversation. Maybe we can have some other time about how do we do the same for some of these campuses.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Happy to have that conversation, but would also note for our system, each local board and each district is having that same conversation.
Speaker 1
Okay. That's it on this item. Thank you. We will hold this issue open, and we will go on to issue number two. If I can ask the panel on issue two to come forward.
Let me get to the right page. Oh, this is a common course numbering. So we'll hear from finance, LAO, and the chancellor's office on this. Again, we've heard from the community as we've heard from the University of California and the California State University system on these two, and we're learning a lot of what's happening and a lot of what's not happening. So I'd love to hear the perspective of the community college.
Department of Finance, do you have any comments on this?
Speaker 2
We don't have any comments, but we'd be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Speaker 1
You. Then we'll turn it over to the community college chancellor's office.
Speaker 11
So good morning. I'm James Todd. I'm the vice chancellor of academic affairs at the California Community College's chancellor's office, and I wanna thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I'd like to start with a student, and if you can imagine for a moment a first generation college student, we can call her Elena. She's majoring in biology.
She's the first in her family to go to college and she's been very intentional about her path. She meets with counselors, she follows her education plan closely, and she takes the courses that she's been told will transfer and prepare her for transfer in biology, in chemistry, and in calculus. And at one point, she even takes a course at a second community college that's nearby that had openings closer to her home over the summer because she's been working and trying to stay on track. From her perspective, she's done everything right. The course has the same name and even now increasingly, it has the same number.
So she assumes something completely reasonable, that the credit she earns will move with her and that it will count in the same way when she transfers. But when Elena does transfer, she learns that one of the one of our courses doesn't apply to her major the way that she expected, and another one isn't recognized the same way at her receiving institution. So the credit moved, but the value didn't. She has to retake coursework, spend more time in school, and takes on additional cost. And so like so many students, she doesn't understand why.
And I can tell you that story go comes over and over to our office and in our campuses as well. Because from her perspective, she did everything right and the problem really isn't Elena. The problem is that in our public higher education systems in California, we don't consistently guarantee credit mobility. Credit that not only not only transfers but transfers with meaning and applicability. That's the problem that common course numbering is trying to solve.
It it was established in AB eleven eleven and it brings clarity to one of the most complex parts of higher education, transfer. It ensures that comparable courses across a 115 California community colleges share a common number so that students can understand what they are taking and, how it should apply as they move throughout the system. And the progress I do wanna recognize across, the California community colleges has been extraordinary. All 115 community colleges have implemented common course numbering. The first courses launched in fall twenty twenty five and in just one term more than 550,000 students enrolled in the first six commonly numbered courses.
Those course courses alone are expected to serve over a million students annually. And across the first three phases that we've planned, CCN is projected to impact nearly 4,000,000 student enrollments. So this is not a pilot. It's one of the largest coordinated academic alignment efforts efforts in the country, and I really believe it's been done thoughtfully so far. CCN focuses on the courses that matter most, the high enrollment transferable courses from the that form the backbone of both general education and STEM pathways.
Roughly 76 high impact courses across 24 disciplines have been developed, which will result in changes to at least 9,000 courses system wide. This includes critical stem sequences, courses like biology, chemistry, calculus, where credit mobility matters most because these are tightly sequenced and directly tied to major preparation. And this work has been done been faculty driven at scale. Nearly 60 or 6,000 faculty have participated through surveys and development and hundreds have worked across the segments, including the CSU and the UC to build these templates. So when we're talking about CCN, we're talking about a reform that is grounded in data, it's built by faculty, and it's been implemented across the entire system.
And I will say community colleges have absolutely delivered on on that promise. But the issue is this and why it matters the most. Common course numbering creates clarity in what a course is, but it is does does not, by itself, ensure that the credit attached to a course a credit attached to that course moves with the full value across systems. And for students like Elena, that's everything because credit mobility is not just about whether a course transfers, it's about these things and I think this is the crux. It's about whether that course fulfills general education requirements, whether it's recognized as transferable, whether it applies to a major, and it keeps a student on track.
And achieving that at scale requires something we don't fully yet have. A clear, robot reliable system level mechanism for articulation and that's the central issue that's before us. And so we're very supportive of moving in a direction that will help us do this. Today, transfer and articulation decisions are still largely made campus by campus and course by course and oftentimes inconsistently. So even with common course numbering in place, there's no fully aligned statewide mechanism ensuring that all common CCN courses will be approved for Cal GADC for general education, be recognized for UCTCA, for UC transferability, and be consistently applied across majors and degrees.
So without that system level articulation mechanism, we cannot guarantee that a commonly course numbered course will produce the same outcome for every student. And that means we cannot yet deliver credit mobility at scale. So it means we're also operating in a system right now that's incredibly and deeply inefficient. Right now, commonly course numbered courses developed by a 115 community colleges must be reviewed separately by receiving institutions. And if you think about that at scale, this is I couldn't believe when I did the math too.
A 115 community colleges sending courses to 22 c CSU campuses and nine UC campuses results in over 3,500 individual course reviews for essentially the same course. 3,500. And that's the current model. So it's duplicative, it's time intensive, and it produces vastly inconsistent outcomes for students. Instead so by contrast, a template based system level articulation approach would allow faculty across segments to agree on the core elements of a course once and apply that decision broadly.
And instead of thousands of repeated reviews, we can create a process where alignment happens upfront, expectations are clear, and outcomes are consistent. It does not eliminate faculty review. It actually makes faculty review more meaningful, more efficient, and more equitable for students. So the consequences of not addressing this are real. Students in California already accumulate more than 20 excess units on average in the transfer process.
That's an average course of near a cost of nearly $66,000 per student. But when you think about that, in STEM pathways where sequences are tightly structured, losing even one course can delay progress by a full year. And when we're talking about 20 excess units, that's almost a year worth of full time work for a student. And taxpayers contribute over a $147,000,000 per core cohort of transfer students for courses that they are forced to retake. And that for me is unacceptable.
We're also seeing early evidence that without consistent alignment, articulation can shift or be lost even for courses that students reasonably expect to count. So the issue before us is not whether CCN is working. I wanna be really clear on that. We've done an incredible amount of work for alignment in getting us as ourselves to this position. Right now, it's whether or not we can put in place the mechanism that allows CCN to work as intended at scale and across our intersegmental systems.
And finally, to be clear, doing so does not compromise academic standards or faculty authority. It this effort is not requiring UC or CSU to change their curriculum, renumber their courses, or lower any expectations. Faculty retain full control over academic judgement. But what this effort does is much more practical. It establishes a system level articulation approach where faculty developed intersegmental CCN templates are used through aligned CalGeTC and UCTCH processes to produce consistent transfer and degree outcomes.
Instead of reviewing the same course hundreds or thousands of times and arriving at different answers, we create a system where one decision can apply broadly and predictably. That is not a loss of academic freedom. It's a shift from fragmented decisions to coherent student centered outcomes. This is also really ambitious. Transfer forming transfer in California, especially for STEM pathways, is complex work complex work.
It requires an incredible amount of coordination across our systems and alignment, a sustained faculty engagement. But that ambition reflects the scale of the opportunity. If we get this right, we'll create something that California has never had. True credit mobility at scale where students can move across institutions with confidence, and their work will carry forward. I'm gonna make a side note on this.
There was a state audit for transfer as well that came out recently over the last few years. We've been working on it. And the number one thing that I think they looked at is how are you examining articulation gaps across your systems? This will fix that. It is designed to fix that of which that audit showed was one of the most important things that we can do for our students to increase equity.
So there's one clear additional event benefit that this reforming proves efficiency with little to no additional investment. By reducing duplication and aligning decisions at the system level, we're streamlining processes, we're reducing workload for UC and CSU faculty, and maximizing the return on the state investment. So we're here to close, finish what we started. We're not being asked to start from scratch. We have an incredible amount already accomplished.
And I'm going to close with where where I began with Elena. She's not asking for a simpler system, she's asking for a system that works and is promised to her. That she's asking that her credits move with her and they don't just carry units, but they carry meaning and they apply towards her degree. Common course numbering will give her that clarity and a system level articulation mechanism gives her credit mobility at scale. And that's what we're really ultimately asking, allowing students like Elena to reach a baccalaureate degree and change the track trajectory of lives like hers.
So thank you.
Speaker 1
K. Thank you. This has been the we've had good input from UC and CSU, but I feel, least in this committee, the most comprehensive reporting. And, and I don't know how I feel about, all those things you just stated. I I I feel hopeful, and and then you say something else, and then I don't feel as hopeful.
So Please. Let's get to the place of where we're always hopeful by the questions that I ask. So CCN to date has three sorry. Six courses, which among the entire community college system and with UC and CSU, you've named and numbered the same. Is that accurate?
Yes. K. And then there's gonna be a phase two, which I believe has been testimony here before by I think you see, he said this coming fall, this phase two. So we'll have eight or is it the phase two a and phase two b that's in our report? Okay.
So Additional
Speaker 11
courses. When we get through that, yes, we'll have they are split up into two pieces. One is phase two a, which will be fall having this fall, and then the next fall will be phase
Speaker 11
our agenda. Section with 36 templates, And then we'll get to 46 courses with 52 templates in phase two b. 42? Yeah. Forty forty six courses with 52 templates.
Some of these have included honor sections and other pieces too that have
Speaker 1
So it'll be like introduction to biology honors? Yes. Okay. That's how you get that's how you get to 46 because
Speaker 1
And then but I heard you say, which maybe some folks, myself included, have have come to learn that even if you have the same named and numbered courses, there are instances I've come to learn, and I think your testimony was was trying to express this, where, particularly, I believe this is the case with UC, but it could be with CSU, that if you did not take the correct sequence or the correct courses, if you're seeking to transfer into particular majors, even if you took the same number of courses, may not apply towards that specific major or may not be helpful in your progress towards that major. Does that happen?
Speaker 11
Yeah. I think there one one thing we're talking about is course level articulation and network, and then we're also talking about program level, which is a different, I think, a different conversation about how our ADTs operate across systems, for example. But the at the course level, until we get to a place back up. If you imagine where we are right now, a course that you assume might transfer in common course numbering may not.
Speaker 1
Yeah. So let's let's pick one because I think this one's probably one very, very common one where you run into this problem. You have calculus one. Yeah. Right?
Yeah. And you've got two versions of that. But
Speaker 1
Let's let's just pick calculus one. If you take a calculus one course at a community college and you then choose to enroll in a UC or CSU that is like, I don't know, an engineering program or any other STEM program, really, this calculus one course you took at a community college may not satisfy the requirements.
Speaker 11
each They may do it differently. Yeah. They may have a different way of deploying it, may have different course outline that they have decided not to articulate our course to count as the as theirs. Yeah. And you end up retaking it.
Speaker 1
Right. You you you it's frustrating. Because it's like, didn't I didn't I take calculus one? You could take calculus one and two, and neither one of those two would count at a UC or a CSU.
Speaker 11
Yeah. So I think this is this this should solve this. So I coming back to the points that I made, we are not asking for our partner intersegmental institutions to change their courses
Speaker 11
To change the numbers of their courses. What we are asking for is a system that will allow all of our colleges and those calculus courses to be granted articulation and to count when they show up so they don't have to retake that class.
Speaker 11
What this mechanism is. This is designed. And so when I said that it would be you know, have one of the most coordinated and impactful practices across the country, we are talking something about something very, very complex and trying to find a system where we can have faculty from all systems get together to design a template and say, if we meet this, we'll accept the course for our for for articulation. Have
Speaker 1
you were you not able to reach a level of agreement where all of the UC and CSU I'm sticking to calculus just to try to keep this simple for us. Degrees that require a calculus intro or calculus one or whatever they call it, were did you attempt to reach an agreement but were unable to among the three segments? Or and so you why do we have a calculus one common course? Why does that exist if it's not really transferable in that way? I I get that if you're not a STEM major, probably, it is transferable for math your math requirement in general ed.
But if you're not, how are were you not able to reach that agreement? Is that what happened?
Speaker 11
I think we're in the process of trying to figure out what the mechanism would be. And if we stay with where we are, it will be the 3,500 reviews that we are talking about that get to inconsistency. It's not that they we don't find ways for these to transfer, and we work very, very well with our math departments across all of our intersegments segmental partners. And I would say they have absolutely leaned in as well. The question is, what's the mechanism to get towards a a full system system level articulation model that will allow all of our classes at the at the colleges be able to align with something that we know will guarantee articulation for students?
Speaker 11
And that is a very, very big lift and a change in the way that we have worked on articulation across our systems for a long time.
Speaker 1
I mean, it seems to me, like, if you, for some reason, do not reach that level of agreement with the segments, then to make sure a student you know, I I had the experience of first generation, and I took a bunch of classes not really knowing just hoping they were my general ed, not knowing, you know, what it would lead to. And I did take up to calculus too and didn't really need it. But and, anyway, the point being, there should probably be for the student, the public facing, there should be, like, a calculus if you're meeting wanna meet a math requirement and a calculus if you're gonna go into a STEM field.
Speaker 1
And, like, it should be very, very clear. Otherwise, we're I don't think we're we're reaching and I I don't I don't wanna speak for mister Berman who has, you know, been the champion on this issue, but I don't know that we're reaching the level of of transparency that was intended, and it's been an expensive, you know, endeavor.
Speaker 19
It it has. I don't wanna just because we're at a point where we need to work and partner on how how to get to a system wide articulation mechanism. I don't wanna our colleges have done incredible amounts of work. I cannot even emphasize just to do one course and get a 115 colleges across our, districts, to all to come together to say we're going to align around this very particular, delivery and transparency of what would be included in a course and then also work across our partners is a very, very heavy lift. So the amount of progress that's been made in identifying the six highest enrolling courses, and then we had a half a million plus enrollments in that in the fall is incredible progress.
Speaker 11
But even with those early phases, we still don't have the consistency that we need, and so we're looking back at phase one, phase two a, and looking at phase two b, looking at phase three, which is starting to get in some of our more complex conversations. For example, I know that you talked a little bit about ethnic studies and having Chicano studies in in the phase three. Those we need those to articulate. We need them to count in the same way. So we need some kind of system to say, this is our standard.
This is this is our north star for this course, and we're all gonna agree it counts if it meets these things.
Speaker 11
And, you know, when we look at our community colleges and we think about the students that are entering them to try to get to a baccalaureate, and so many of them also don't reach that, this is absolutely one of the barriers Yeah. In terms of transfer. Because we do have high admission rates, for example, with some of our our partners, including the CSU. I think it's 90%, but the transfer velocity is not 90%.
Speaker 11
And then students also find out that they don't have things that count in this in the ways they thought they would. Yeah. So this is a mechanism designed to get there.
Speaker 1
I'll ask at another time, but I'd like to see if you have any data on on how often that's not happening in terms of they reach they've taken now 60 plus units, and then it's like, okay. Now I can transfer. And it's like, well, no. No. You can't because, you know, of these factors as it relates to the courses that you took were not the right ones.
When you talk when you when you mentioned Cal Getsi and UCTC, are you referring to, and not having that, what did you call it? It wasn't, authority, but they're not aligned. What was what's the how do I phrase this correctly?
Speaker 11
We want them to be well, I when we talk about CalGACI, for example, it's meeting the requirements for general education transfer for students. So it will count as one of those elements.
Speaker 1
Are you is is what you're testifying here that we don't have certification or verification that all of these are CalGetsy? Yeah.
Speaker 11
Right now, it is campus by camp campus on in terms of articulation, but we also need all systems to lean in together to work on an issue like system wide articulation for for general education. But I also I don't want us to lose sight of, this is not merely about general education. Is about major prep. Yeah. And, that is an in really, really important, mechanism we need to also be working on for students.
Because as we're talking about, for example, calculus, oftentimes that's major prep for STEM and we need that to count in the in in the same way for students like Elena that are looking to make sure their credit mobility isn't just gen ed, but it's exactly what I thought I was taking at the community college, that I can go to community college, get a get make it affordable, and I can, as a first generation student or a working adult in California, get to my baccalaureate in a much more affordable and streamlined way.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Well, I mean, clearly, know our colleague, mister Berman, has been working very hard on this issue. Appreciate his efforts. I think I'm I'm learning more as we have these, and I'm learning more that, in fact, probably more work needs to be done. And at the minimum and I get your point.
It's not just about general ed, but we should absolutely get the general ed figured out. And we should eventually also figure out with those specific, you know, requirements that are campus by campus that is is too it's it's it's too complicated and and for first generation students, it is not accessible, and it's it's it's creating a barrier. So, that'll be for me. I'll turn it over to, first, doctor Patel.
Speaker 8
Wanted to thank you for this robust conversation. As a new member of the legislature, I'm jumping in right in the middle of all these plans and conversations. I can tell you that the community members, the students on the ground are feeling an enormous sense of bait and switch, that they're doing the things they're supposed to do. They're reducing their own costs and obligations to attaining higher education. They're doing the dual enrollment and hoping that that helps them get to their associate's degree when they get out so that they can then be transfer ready to a UC or a CSU.
Speaker 34
And they're finding that that they might have been better off just taking that AP and getting that college credit. And that high school to imagine that high school instruction is at least minimally not equivalent to community college instruction is mind boggling for students. That they could for example, to to weigh in on the calculus example, they can take AP calculus in high school, pass the AP test, and get college credit, but they can't take calculus in community college and have that be transferable is is baffling to people out in community. And I think the calculus example is just one because it's such a fact based, you know, very straightforward piece of instruction. But as somebody member Fang was explaining to me, the same thing happened with ethnic studies, that students would be taking ethnic studies in their community colleges, and those classes would not be transferable towards a degree.
Speaker 8
And we have students that are taking out loans to get these degrees. They're using their Cal grant, and then to find that that is not helping them achieve their goals is heartbreaking. So I I am fully supportive of us tackling this problem and getting to the bottom of it. I think within our initiatives of Cradle to Career and Golden State Pathways, I think there was this commitment that you could do this and be successful and cut down on your time to degree and your and the amount of money that you spend. So thank you for elevating this.
Thank you, chair, for continuing to press on this very important issue for for our future world of work. We our kids need to our students need to have the skills that they need to pursue their dreams. So
Speaker 26
Mister Pham? Thank you so much, chair, and thank you so much to all the panelists, especially vice chancellor Todd. And for the overview, for the insights, the process, and the progress, but also the progress that yet to has been to to be made. And when I first got here, I remember a Pasadena City College professor reached out to my office and had noted that of the 15 ethnic studies courses that were being offered at Pasadena City College, only one transferred to CSU system. And so just hearing that number is just staggering and frustrating Mhmm.
Speaker 5
And something that we had convened both systems, had a lot of conversations around that. I was looking at legislation around that space. As But we continue to look at common course numbering, whether it's a calculus, GE courses, we know that work has been done, but there's still so much to be done going forward. And mister Berman, who's really championed this issue, and the work and efforts that we need to kinda, you just said it, ours all systems need to lean lean in together. And so however we can be helpful in that space to continue to push, really wanna make sure we're seeing a progress on that.
And then I wanna emphasize empathize with all the work that's being done. Obviously, you're working with all the different segments to just come up the curriculum standards to look at the transferability, to look at all the different things that go together in academic senate, you know, have to come to an agreement as well. So there's a lot of different moving parts and pieces, but at the same time, the budget allocation and resources as well to really make sure that we're seeing this through. So the only question I would have is, you kinda touched upon it earlier, but what were some of the lessons that you learned from phase one implementation, and how can we use some of that going forward?
Speaker 11
So I think the the on the student facing side with phase one, I think we're slowly learning how to best broadcast this for students and make sure that it's transparent for them what they are getting in a commonly course numbered course. So part of that is the communication issue. I think with phase one, I think I'll also say I've I've been in this job for a year. Okay. And the first first month or so or two months, my my staff's gonna mean, my they're gonna be up.
I'm not sure I fully leaned into this. I was I I had questions about it. But as they educated me through what was happening on the front end of receiving and working on and identifying where we had articulation gaps and what students were experiencing, I've I've quickly come to understand that this is absolutely a mechanism that we need. We still don't have verification that every one of those phase one courses fully articulates at a system level for students. And so my lesson keeps coming back to how do we verify and know from the front end when we're deploying courses that students are gonna have the same kind of credit value and mobility.
So even being in the trenches and working along our system partners who have asked incredibly good questions, the faculty across all segments have all really had robust conversations about what needs to go into a course and work on individual ways that we apply that to particular disciplines. So I think we've learned a lot along the way about what counts, and I think just now I've I've come to this place where I understand that the the mechanism is the thing that we're we're we're missing. And and a great journey for me too, and I think you've gotten a in 30 everything that I have experienced.
Speaker 5
And thank you for that context. So I think the chair emphasized and doctor Patel emphasized a little bit. Anything we can do to continue to push on this issue to really make sure we're helping our students along their educational journey, especially now even more so in these challenging times. It's, like, critical. So thank you for your working efforts here.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Just in reflection for my colleagues, you know, this issue reminds me of many others in education that I I assume I was not here when this the funding was made available for this expenditure. I assume that the approach at first was trying to force things to happen.
Speaker 1
And there was probably a lot of pushback. They said, just give us some money and we'll figure it out. And here we are five years later, almost $10,000,000 in, and it sounds like we haven't really figured it out. And it's those aren't always the right incentives. Sometimes we have to have some very difficult conversations with our incredible partners in the three segments to to ask to not ask, but to perhaps make them do things that they are uncomfortable with doing.
This may be where this leads at the end of the day given clearly what the short the shortfalls at the moment with with how CCN has has been approved. And not disregarding it. Thank you for acknowledging the work of many people
Speaker 1
Of of faculty and staff that have put in time and effort. But sometimes, unless you have other incentives or other reasons to get us to true and I'm my my new I'm gonna take a phrase from you. The new one should be credit mobility or mobility of students from one place to another in a way that's truly opens up those opportunities, then then we may not be doing the right work. It's good work, important work, and maybe leads to some improvements, but the type of change and improvement and access that we're looking for must be more aspirational and certainly much more significant. So I think this conversation will not end here, but thank you to the panel today.
We'll leave the issue open and appreciate all you being here. We will move on to the next item, which is CalBright. We will hear the proposal for ongoing CalBright College funding. The Department of Finance has brought forward. The LAO will provide some feedback and the California Community College chancellor's office as well.
We'll kick it off with department of finance.
Speaker 2
Yeah. The governor's budget proposes, $38,000,000 additional ongoing funding to, create a total ongoing, amount of 53,100,000 prop 98 funds. And, we have no concerns with the administration's proposal, and I am available to answer any questions you may have.
Speaker 3
Lisa King with the LAL. So with the startup period for Calbright ending the legislature faces a decision about how to fund the college moving forward. We do have a couple of concerns with the governor's proposed approach. First, we don't think the administration has provided a clear rationale for the proposed funding level of 53,000,000 ongoing, which is notably higher than the amount Calvert is currently spending on its operations. Second and more fundamentally, this proposed funding level is not linked to any specific performance expectations for the college.
Speaker 23
This means that it would continue to receive this amount with the annual COLAs moving forward regardless of what happens with its enrollment or its outcomes. This approach to funding CalBright would provide significantly less accountability than the approach the state takes to funding all other community college districts under the student centered funding formula. Given those concerns, we recommend an alternative to the governor's pro proposed approach that would instead involve transitioning CalBright to the student centered funding formula. This alternative would link CalBright's funding to enrollment expectations, provide a known funding rate per student, and also just treat it more consistently with other districts. To allow time for implementation, legislature could begin funding CalBright under the formula in twenty twenty seven, twenty eight while providing some onetime funding in twenty twenty six, twenty seven to sustain its operations in the meantime.
Speaker 3
Now we do see one key limitation to funding Calibright under the formula, and it goes back to an issue we talked about in the first issue of our agenda today. We discussed earlier that the student centered funding formula includes a performance based component, but that component only applies to credit programs, and all of Calbright's programs are noncredit. In the future, the legislature could consider revisiting this broader approach to noncredit funding in order to create stronger incentives for all districts, including Calbright, to improve outcomes in these programs. Finally, we would encourage the legislature to continue monitoring Calbright's performance over the next few years as more information becomes available on its enrollment, program offerings, spending, and outcomes. And to that end, we would just note that there is a statutorily required independent evaluation that is forthcoming in the next few months here.
Thank you, and happy to take questions.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor of finance and strategic initiatives at the chancellor's office. So what we would say here is we support all 116 of our colleges and investments in all 116 of our colleges, CalBright included. CalBright does present opportunities to serve additional students through their model. And I think from our perspective, you know, having an a number of entry points for our students, you know, to meet them where they're at is important.
It's important in our other 115 colleges as well. So certainly support investments in our system, and I would defer to the college for college specific items.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you. Do we have a presentation from Calbrate? Yes. You you weren't on the agenda, but love to hear from you.
Speaker 14
Thank you. Appreciated. Good morning honor morning chair and honorable committee members, and thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I'm Achieve Amenen, president and CEO of Kalbright College, and I'm joined by chief financial officer Ed Lee, our board president Hildegard Aguinaldo, board member Pamela Haynes, and our academic senate and labor representatives. Seven years ago, the legislature gave Kalbright a clear charge, build an educational model and a college that works with and for adult learners and evaluate what works for working age adults.
So today, CalBright represents what California urgently needs, agile institutions that are aligned with evolving economic and social and workforce realities. We equip students with the technical and the durable skills that employers demand across technology, health care, and business while serving as a compliment, not a replacement to our community colleges. And we're delivering results. Over 6,800 students served, awarding more than 2,200 certificates and driving employment gains with median hourly wage increases from 20 to $25 and of over $8,000 annually. Recent gains in enrollment and completions reflect improvements in our student support model, in our program design, and demand among working age adults for our model.
We expect that growth to continue. Today, CalBright serves learners in 57 out of 58 counties, 92% are above the age of 25, three quarters come to us from BIPOC communities, and over 25% are parents or caregivers. Now those are among the nearly 7,000,000 Californians 20 five Californians 25 without a college credential, but also those returning to higher ed after years out of the workforce looking to reskill or upskill. We see that in students like Chris from Sacramento who came to us at came to Calvary after being laid off from retail and rescaled into his first IT job. Luana from Sunnyvale who's a parent that needed flexible online programs for raising her family.
Cynthia from Los Angeles who needed support rescaling after a decade in restaurant work who now is focused on a data focused career. Ahmed from San Diego who's a former bank officer facing downsizing who launched into a new IT career by completing our technology programs. And Richard from Reading, California who brings decades of work experience but needed to show employers he has the skills for today's workforce. Our students are a testament to the need for flexible competency based education that CalBright is built to serve. CalBright is more than online courses.
We remove barriers that often cause adult learners to assume that college is not for them. Students enroll fifty two weeks out of the year. They complete programs at their own pace, and they take pauses without penalty or threat of losing their progress. This model has doubled one year completion rates while allowing learners to adjust for life's challenges, whether it's a sick child or an extra shift at work. Our technology is made by our own engineers for adult learners specifically so it can connect students, advisers, and data, allowing for high touch supports and enabling early intervention.
This work honors CalBright's broader r and d role for the higher education system, continuously testing and evaluating new approaches that can scale to better serve learners. And we are seeing those results. Completion rates rose thirty six percent from 2023 to 2024, and eighty three percent of those students finished within a year. We don't do this work alone. We are collaborating with labor, with business, and with education to produce value for students.
In recognizing the impact of HR one on communities, we're working with Barstow College in LA TradeTech to test basic needs enrollment strategies across rural and urban context. Our partnerships with SCAU, UHW, and Allied Health launching a community health worker program combine a certificate with a health care staffing cooperative to show what's possible when opportunities are codesigned. Our recent Western Governors Partnership allows students to accelerate certificates towards degree programs, broadening options for career advancement, and we're learning with the rural county representatives of of California what's needed to better connect rural communities to education workforce opportunities. We are very grateful for the governor's proposed 38,100,000 in ongoing investment. This validates demand among working age adults and provides resources needed to scale enrollment completions and impact statewide.
Thank you for the opportunity to share our progress, and I welcome your questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. I think we got all the presentations in on this, so we'll turn to committee members' questions and comments. I I wanna ask about the LAO's recommendation on the and and why the administration is not proposing the approach, that has suggested, utilizing SEFF in terms of the number of students being served, which would require, about $28,000,000 in funding this year as opposed to the $38,000,000 that are proposed in the budget?
Speaker 2
I would say that the the two issues that would make transferring this from the ongoing funding to the SCFF would be, one that the LAO brought up with the fact that their courses are noncredit Mhmm. And the other thing being that they're competency based. And so it becomes much more difficult to assign. When you look at the apportionment process, you know, we assign these based on what's called an FTES, a full time equivalent student. And in a competency based program, it it's it's a completely different approach in the sense that there aren't, specific times for courses, you know, and people take they complete a course on their own timeline.
So it it becomes different to some of these people may take an entire year to take a certain course. Some people are gonna be accelerating and taking it less.
Speaker 1
Are are you suggesting that a competency based model of education is more expensive than a traditional based model?
Speaker 2
Not more expensive. It's just harder to measure metrics and what what what is the time in the classroom.
Speaker 1
And and and my question was it relates to serving the number of students at the college. I don't know what what assumptions you made in terms of how many students, but according to the LAO, sustaining the current year spending level to serve the students, I I assume the same number of students. Maybe there's some efficiencies they've found. I don't know if the college do you have a estimate for the number of students that you'd be serving next year?
Speaker 14
Absolutely. I think we can talk about a few things. First, with the full and stable funding, what we are achieving what is known as economies of scale. So what it allows us to do is to right size our footprint coming out of the startup period into a steady state operational environment. What that means is we can we can have planned growth over the next several years.
And I'll and I'll bring in our chief financial officer, Ed Lee, to talk further about kind of the details around
Speaker 1
the future. Many students are you gonna be serving next year? Let's start with that.
Speaker 14
Yeah. Based on our current cadence, we can see with the operational improvements that we have put into place in with the growing efficiencies that we have over the next two to three years exceeding, based on our pattern, upwards of 10,000 learners. And I point to that number because it does reflect a consideration around full funding and our ability to to do that work in line with with planned growth through our next cycle of our strategic
Speaker 1
mission planning. Gonna ask you to be a little bit more clear, and this is not the first time we've we've exchanged this way. I'm trying to understand how many students are we serving Mhmm. With this funding in this year? I wanna know what what that number is.
Speaker 4
So it is my understanding that there's roughly 7,000 students that are being served today. And as we just heard, the projection would be roughly 10,000 that they're looking to serve.
Speaker 1
But I heard over the course of a couple of years. So for 2627, you anticipate 7,000 students.
Speaker 13
Yeah. And I also Ed Lee here, Calvert College CFO. Yeah. On the enrollment front, as president Menon Menon mentioned, I think 10,000 over the next couple of years, which currently we sit at around 7,000. So we anticipate probably in the around the eight or 9,000 range.
Speaker 1
I I don't know how I'm not being as clear, guys. How many students next year do you anticipate enrolling at this college? You keep saying 10,000 students over the next couple of years. That is not my question. How many students next year?
Speaker 13
Yeah. Chair Alvarez, I I did I guess I'll say that on the path the 10,000 in two years, next year, we do anticipate close to eight to 9,000 serving students students serving next year. If it if I may as well address the LEO's recommendation on the 28,100,000. We appreciate the analysis on it. I also wanna add in a few more things that I I think were were not mentioned, which is that, you know, the in the 2425, as we continue to grow, the budget size was about 45,700,000.
Moving forward with the twenty eight point one proposed would actually shrink our budget even further, which was not mentioned. In the current year, we have an approved budget of $43,200,000 Again, this is an intentionally constrained budget. I mean, it the exception, not the norm. When I actually reviewed some of the expenditure patterns over the over the last couple of years for other community colleges, again, we are consistent with the growth pattern over two years from a $45,700,000 budget expenditure size moving into 2627.
Speaker 1
So is the governor's budget proposal forcing you to make cuts, layoffs, reduce number of car course offerings since it's less than your operational amount this year?
Speaker 14
Just just to clarify, the the administration's proposal is is fully funding. What what our chief financial officer was highlighting was the reductions recommended by LEO
Speaker 1
for the next fiscal year. I heard differently that the 45,000,000 is a reduction of your current that's your current spending for the year, and so 38 would reduce it. Can I get the LAO to, comment on this?
Speaker 3
Yes. If I may try to clarify, Kalbright's current year spending level is estimated at 43,000,000. And to Kalbright's point, that is a slight reduction, I think, about 5% over the prior year level. We calculate the 28% by taking the current year spending level of 43,000,000 and backing out the 15,000,000 ongoing that is already provided in the budget for Kalbright. That difference is 28,000,000, and so that is the amount that would sustain the current year spending level into the budget year.
Now this is not a reflection of what its ongoing funding level would be under the student centered funding formula. In order to calculate that, we would need a more reliable account of its FTE students. As the Department of Finance noted, there is still some uncertainty around how established attendance accounting methods would be applied in order to create that count. The numbers we've been discussing, the 7,000 students this year up to 10,000 moving forward, those counts are in headcount and not full time equivalent students.
Speaker 1
So under the FTES count mechanism of counting the cost per student, what would what would be the allocation for a college? And I get it that these are certificated only, not, degrees. What would let's just assume there was degrees if we were just comparing apples to apples. What would be the allocation for a campus of seven, eight to 10,000 students?
Speaker 3
It would depend on how those seven to eight to 10,000 students translate into full time equivalent students. Mhmm. And because we don't have that data, we are unable to calculate an estimate.
Speaker 3
The reason that we suggest the legislature could consider transitioning to CalBright transitioning CalBright to SCFF by twenty twenty seven, twenty eight rather than making this change effective immediately is that it would allow time for CalBright and the chancellor's office to work on a way to apply established attendance accounting methods to CalBright in order to get a more reliable count of its FD students so that we can better answer exactly the question.
Speaker 1
Okay. I think that information is absolutely necessary before we can make a decision. I'm gonna turn it over to mister Fong.
Speaker 5
Thank you so much, mister chair, and thank you so much to all our panelists. On page 22, we have looked at some of the student headcount and award completions. And so following up on some of the comments that the chair made and the working efforts of you know, the Cal Bright's probably most of our IT and business. And what I read on the report on page 21, it says eight weeks to thirty four weeks. Do we have can we explain the status of the remaining six six thousand six hundred and forty one students in 2025?
Speaker 4
Yes. So as you know, because we are flexibly paced models, it means that students can complete at differential times and according to their own available time and and and resources. And so what it means that students continuously enroll, but they enroll and make progress based on kind of that those flexible time frames. So a student in your district starting today and completing in six months is roughly strong a successful outcome just as a student moving through in doctor Patel's district starting today completing eighteen months later also reflects a a success. The the entire design of the college was was meant to allow for that flexibility in time frames to completion, which is a large part of the reason that the learners that we talked about, you know, Luana and Chris and a number of others students that they represent, you know, that this is the reason that college is possible for them.
Speaker 5
And thank you for that information. So during their coursework, is there any check with the students in terms of their progress, and how do you continue to make sure that they're moving towards their certificates?
Speaker 14
Absolutely. We measure a tremendous amount about every learner, and it allows us to understand in any given moment where a learner is in the process what more they have to do if they're showing signals of distress or need for intervention. If I could bring up Bindo, our vice president of research and development, she can walk through exactly the data that's collected about our learners and how it reflects differences in the changing patterns of enrollment and progression that we're seeing for our learners and also how we ensure that those learners are indeed progressing.
Speaker 9
Thank you, president Menon. Good morning, assembly member Fong and other members of the committee. My name is Bin Do. I'm the vice president of research and development, and I'm very excited to be here to share some more insights about how we capture our students' data and and understand their progress and success as they are moving through our college. As president Menon mentioned, our model is, really built to serve a vital bridge between workforce and transition in the economy that is really increasingly, just agile, requires tech forward talent.
And to that end, our programs focuses on industry aligned certifications that ensure that Californians can rapidly upskill and pivot. We mentioned our student, really come from different career and life stages. They're individuals in like, entering into the workforce, early career professionals. There are career transitioners and caregivers
Speaker 5
and parents. The context. Sorry. The question I had is more like, how do we continue to make sure that they move towards completion and sort of get think part of the overview of the No.
Speaker 9
I Thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you. Some of the context here is because we really try to measure based on our students' individual performance and and their behaviors. And so understanding, who we serve, why we serve them is important.
Speaker 18
We have built a data collection system that gathers insights, throughout the end to end student journey. So everywhere from when the students, starts to, to indicate interest at the college to enrollment, going into intake. We understand, why they are here, what they, you know, what kind of hours that they could commit to. We also because we are an assessment forward competency based education, we measure time and velocity to mastering competencies or moving through their coursework. So each of our courses have a series number of modules and assessments that are aligned to it.
Speaker 9
And we really try to understand from multiple perspectives if they are making progress towards mastery and demonstrating those mastery there as they move forward. All of that, again, could happen anywhere within the term, six month term, and as long as they are making active progress engaging with our faculty and staff, engaging with, other programs, that we could indicate, progress and advance them to the the ongoing the next term if they are continuing to move forward here.
Speaker 14
If you'll permit me, member Fang, I'll just add one more thing, is part of how we have built the technology is to empower also our faculty and our staff to be able to understand with with what's happening to the learner. They can see it in the data. So we track the aggregate outcomes. We measure the progression. But also, the folks who are on the front lines of that human connection and engaging with students through the technology have access to that data information.
They can see where a student is. The other thing we've also introduced, which is empowering to our learners, is actually dynamic journey maps. And what that means is when a student logs in, they can see what that structured schedule can look like if they have five hours a week to complete, if they have twenty hours a week to complete. So they they are also they have visibility into into where they are in any given moment, the milestones they've completed, the competencies they've completed. And our learners are giving us incredible feedback about how powerful that is, in self navigating that learning journey in addition to the incredible human centered support and connection that we we have with our students.
Speaker 5
Thank you. And I know, Trevor, brought this up earlier, but I we had a conversation with the LEO on on the CalPrides funding based on the student centered funding formula. What are your thoughts in terms of why shouldn't Cal Bright's funding application be consistent with all of our other community colleges?
Speaker 14
Yeah. I I think it's important to to also highlight Cal Bright doesn't receive a lot of the traditional funding that sister community colleges receive, not just related to SHIFT. And and I'll have Ed talk more about that. But one of the most important things is, you know, I think the principle of SHIFT is is well understood by us and it's something that I personally deeply appreciate it. I have devoted my career to looking at accountability for public funds in higher education.
What we know is that the funding, you know, incentivizing funding based on both enrollments and outcomes as an underpinning of what grows an institution is is a powerful incentive structure. What we need is to be sure that our work our our funding, if it's tied to enrollments and accountabilities, has has a structure that is measured for our model. Our FTES model is based on seat time. Our work is based on progression of actual competencies, actual skills acquired by by their learners. We also our student is all in.
We don't have different programs that are, like, categorical programs funded in different corners of an institution. We are in a position where our our services, our supports are integrated into the experience that a student has alongside their learner journey. It's structurally just a fundamentally different model. And and I'll and I'll take an ad to talk a little bit more specifically about the breakdown of of SHIFT and why it presents a challenge for the model that we've built. So just wanna lean into appreciating the need for accountability and also recognizing that accountability needs to reflect the way our learners actually progress.
Speaker 13
Thank you, president Menon. Yeah. Just highlighting the fact that, you know, we're a skills based program, so the seat time model doesn't really translate well as they're pretty much apples to oranges there. Secondly, I just wanna say as well that the student centered funding formula, according to state law, does allow for it. However, it does not require it.
Right? So I I would say it's it's it's an option that again, we've been talking closely with the chancellor's office around what, you know, the best, you know, kind of formula might look like moving forward for CalBright. And lastly, really, CalBright supports accountability, and we are explore open to exploring what that might look like and what that might look like in terms of what the right formula would be moving forward. So, you know, I understand this takes time to do it correctly, and we are committed to doing that.
Speaker 14
This is really, I will just say, frontiering territory. Nobody is doing what California is doing. California is very much leading the country in this space with the college and with the work that we've done over the several years. I have the privilege and the vantage point of of serving on a number of national boards, the competency based education board, which is really focused on high quality skills based outcomes, as well as the the institution for higher education policy, which is really about researching communities that are underserved communities that are left behind and how we ensure our educational offerings are more responsive to what the needs are for learners today, particularly our adult learners, particularly our learners who don't have other options or other on ramps and find themselves disconnected from access to educational opportunities and good jobs.
Speaker 5
Thank you for that context. And I know Richard talked about it earlier, but this is to the LAO now. The conversation on Calbrides funding tied to the SCIF. We know that all our other community colleges are tied to the student centered funding formula, and we had a conversation about the anticipated funding levels. So I just would love to continue the conversation there and have that conversation between the different institutions here to see what that anticipation of that potential funding level would be if it was to be tied to the student center funding formula.
So I just wanted to put put that for the record. Alright. Thank you. Alright. Thank you.
Speaker 8
Thank you. I do have a couple of questions. Based on the amount of funding you've been given, and it's great that your CFO is here because we can get some numbers. Roughly, with your ongoing operating budget, I understand that it takes money to set a system like this up. So, the investment was a good experiment at the time.
But looking at our ongoing expenses with our ratio to enrolled, students, what as a new legislator, I'm thinking about best ROI and and impacts and outcomes, all of it altogether, especially with tight budgets coming up ahead of us in years ahead. About how much are we spending per pupil? And I know that calculation is not really a fair one to ask you for because they're part time students. It's a certificate program. It's not classroom based.
But in rough calculations, about what are we spending per pupil or per student enrollee?
Speaker 13
Great. Now I I appreciate the question. And when we looked at the data for the latest fiscal year, which is 2425, we determined that the the cost per student was roughly 6,000, again, per enrolled headcount, as we clarified earlier. I want to note that this actually falls below the average as well as the median for the rest of the system, and that might be new news for folks. Again, I did take a look at the enrollment headcount again for all the districts across the system.
And again, I want to emphasize that again, CalBright is the cost per student is below the median and the average. What the LLO brought up in the report, which we appreciate, is I meant and actually, before I get there, I'll say that the cost per student has actually, you know, dropped 70% really since 2020. And what now I understand when you have a start up, right, start up costs are gonna be high in the beginning. Right? I think we all know that.
And they if they are successful, they will go down over time. Right? So I just wanna note that to look beyond a moment in time and to look at the trend patterns there. You know, secondly, the cost per student outcome, which I know the yellow report had, you know, program completion. And we also track that as well, and that's really important for us.
You know, that the program the student program cost per the per program completion cost per student has dropped 85% since 2020. As president Menon mentioned, program completion rates have effectively doubled in the more recent years, and we actually do anticipate that number being below system average quoted in the LLO report within the next couple of years, if not if not sooner. So I hope that's helpful. Think the the trend patterns over time is gonna be especially important, I think, for just Calvert being a startup institution.
Speaker 8
Yeah. And then a follow-up question is, what is again, as I'm trying to just think about the value add that this, system brings to, attainment of degrees of credentials of certificate certifications. What is your budgeting ratio of administrative cost to pupil spending?
Speaker 13
Yeah. It's something we we certainly take a look at as well. I don't have all that specific information with me right now, and it's something that we continually continually look at. I I will say that when we did review, I would say student facing expenditures from the prior fiscal year, we determined that to be approximately 72% of our expenditure line items. And something that we feel really proud about is we, you know, we're really focused on serving our adult learners across the state of California.
Speaker 10
And that's a unique proposition different from any California community college here is how do we do more with less? How do we reach more students with, you know, a budget, frankly, that is you know, the proposed budget out there, I want to be clear, is the average community college expenditure district, again, budget is close to $200,000,000 You know, Calibre is one of the smallest districts in the state of California. And even with the proposed budget amount to reach that 53,000,000, it is roughly one quarter the size of a the average district expenditure size across the state, and yet we serve the entire state. So I I just wanna highlight that as and we are continuing to grow. Right?
Speaker 13
We've grown 10x since 2020. Right? I think the enrollment scaling and reaching more, you know, adult learners throughout the state of California, again, there's there's a lot of momentum right now. We're seeing that velocity just continue to to grow the more we serve, and I think the students are responding. And and I think you're seeing that in the numbers.
Speaker 8
And to our community colleges, feel free to address those two questions. But, also, are these programs post COVID, we've seen a lot of transformation in the way our community colleges can flex and be more available and accessible to diverse student populations. Is any of this something that you could, this level of attention and care for our individual learners, is this something that you could accommodate or incorporate within your own systems and reduce administrative cost?
Speaker 4
Yeah. I don't know that I could say it would reduce administrative cost. There are efforts underway to use competency based education approaches, to use credit for prior learning approaches. What I would say, though, is oftentimes in our system, they're still tied back to that traditional seat based, time based model. But no doubt, to your to your point, no doubt that the proposed funding level per student is higher than most in our system.
But I would take it back to us, you know, that that system level that we've long argued on a per student basis that the community college system receives less per FTES than our sister four year institutions, our our colleagues at the UC and CSU. So we would argue, you know, more globally that, you know, to the extent the legislature could help raise all votes, you know, we'd certainly appreciate that too. And and this could serve as a high touch model that we could say, can we fund every college with this type of resource? I know the realities of the situation are that we can't, but certainly would be an excellent aspirational goal for our system as well.
Speaker 8
Yeah. Thank you for that. I I think it's important that we continue these conversations and are able to make sure that all of our Californians can unlock their potential. Certainly, this is an interesting model with CalBright. I am concerned with the nearly doubling of the budget without a doubling of student population.
So that that does concern me, and I am interested and intrigued to see how we can apply some sort of SCFF model. I don't know what that would look like because clearly it couldn't be, you know, students in seats kind of instruction because these are virtual programs. So it would have to look slightly different what that attenuated or or changed modified model would look like. We would absolutely welcome that conversation. Thank you.
Absolutely. And with that, we will leave this item open for further discussion, and we will now move on to is it panel Common Cloud. Issue four, common cloud platform. And we will have once again, Philip Osborne from the Department of Finance, if you would like to go first.
Speaker 2
Yep. The Let me grab my notes here. Yeah. Let me see. Let's see.
36. Yeah. So the governor's budget proposal proposes 36,000,000 in one time funding and an additional $5,000,000 ongoing funding for a total of 41 in the budget year and then 5,000,000 ongoing. For the common cloud proposal, we support this proposal, and I would, welcome any questions you may have.
Speaker 3
Thank you. So as you may recall, the common cloud data platform was launched by the chancellor's office a few years ago as a demonstration project initially involving a cohort of six district. Last year, the state provided 12,000,000 one time to begin scaling this project across all districts. At this stage, we think it would be premature to provide an additional round of funding in twenty twenty six, twenty seven. And that's because the activities that were funded in last year's budget are expected to last three years, so through twenty twenty seven, twenty eight.
And at this early stage, there is still some uncertainty around how those activities will go, both in terms of their technical viability and, importantly, in terms of the number of districts that will agree to participate. This is the type of project where the benefits will only be fully realized with full district participation. Yeah. At this stage, there is also some uncertainty around the specific cost and scope of any activities that would need to be funded on top of those supported in last year's budget. And so given these considerations, we would recommend rejecting the proposed funding for twenty twenty six twenty seven and strengthening the reporting requirements on last year's funding to extend through the three year expenditure period for those funds.
At that stage, after last year's funding is spent, we think the legislature will have better information to evaluate a future funding request for this project. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Chris Ferguson, executive vice chancellor of finance and strategic initiatives at the chancellor's office. Strong supporters of this proposed investment. What this will allow our system to do is to inevitably have every college on this common approach that allows for real time data flow and really, in in many respects, predictive analytics to be used to understand, you know, what's happening with our students as it's happening to be able to better advise them. We have taken a very systemic approach to building out the common cloud data platform so it builds on top of our existing student information systems and data systems at the local level.
It does not change any of those systems. Effectively, it is it is interfacing with them. It's an API that pulls together, uses data lakes, you allows that information to be available across campuses. And our approach and I think this is probably the most critical aspect for us. Our approach has always been to mitigate risk in building this out.
So we have started as a demonstration project. We've continued with two additional cohorts. This would allow us to get to all colleges in the system. But we we intentionally take that approach because we're trying to mitigate risks. So at a very low cost, we can see, okay, with one, two, three districts, is this working?
Does it work the way we expect? And if it is, then we can expand. And that's been our overall approach. We have provided the Department of Technology with plethora of information showing the planning that went into the development of this proposal and the development of the Common Cloud data platform approach. We think there's a lot of benefit to our counselors, our students, and our colleges as a result.
And with that, we'd be happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Is that all the presentations on this item? Great. I'll turn it over questions to doctor Patel.
Speaker 8
Yeah. I do have a few questions on the common cloud system. How has that pilot been going for those that have started work with that? There were 13 districts that were part of that pilot. And has there been robust communication with those that might be participating in phase two as to what the next steps will look like.
Speaker 4
Yeah. My my understanding is that it has gone quite well that we have a number of districts, not only in that initial cohort, but in subsequent cohorts that have expressed significant interest in moving quickly in this work. I think part of what we see in our system and, you know, what drives this is there are some efficiencies at the local level. So, you know, we've learned from the pilot that it does lead to a reduction of about one FTES position, but really what that means at the local level is they're able to focus on some of those other priorities in their district that they just weren't able to get to. And we know that it means that there could be upwards of a a 50% reduction for some of our ANR staff in terms of being able to advise students.
But taking it back to that student, we know I believe it's roughly 40% of our students take courses at more than one campus. This enables that that counselor to know in real time that that student is at multiple campuses and provide better advice today. And if that student doesn't say that to your counselor on a campus or it hasn't transferred over yet, your counselor won't know that you're taking a course or how it fits into your sequence. So always, we'll take it back to the student focus, and we believe that that, you know, this type of approach, this type of statewide analytics, local analytics, we can better serve our students and better equip our counselors, our faculty, our campuses to serve our students well.
Speaker 8
Certainly, with common course numbering, that would also be helpful to make sure that we're able to counsel our students in the appropriate ways. And it's certainly with, our dual enrollment as well. Those students may, be dual enrolled at different campuses looking at, how that can integrate seamlessly is important. What I will ask is and this may be a really fundamental question. Does the common cloud system require, sites to use the same exact vendors for their programs, or is there flexibility in who they're working with for their IT?
Speaker 4
So it does not change any of the campus vendors or campus programs that they're using today. This layers on top of it's an interface. So if you're using you know, let's say it's company x. If you're using company x today, you can use company x tomorrow. We are vendor agnostic in the approach.
Our design is take what the campuses are using and feed it into that central platform, enable the the development of data dashboards. And this is one of the really nice things on those data dashboards. Irrespective of who creates it, which campus, any other campus would then be able to say, hey. I I want that dashboard too and simply lift and take that and use it too. And it's irrespective of their vendors.
Very, very specific to your question. What we've heard in the background is there's confusion between what was our proposal last year for common ERP and common cloud data system. They're two separate. They're not the same.
Speaker 1
Thank you. And came in a little bit after the LAO's comments, but there are recommendations that the LAO has, particularly strengthening reporting requirements. What is the response from the chancellor's office on this issue?
Speaker 4
Yeah. I I think we we view this approach as low risk at this point. That said, you know, if there is a need for an independent oversight entity or there's additional reporting requested, you know, we'll do what is asked of us, because we believe in this project. We believe in the outcomes for our campuses and our students. So if that is the will of the legislature, you know, we'd certainly look at it.
That said, that is workload to our office, and we just ask that that be considered in the totality of workload, you know, that our office has asked to complete each year.
Speaker 1
And, I I know the LAO probably already made some comments on this, but yours recommendation is that there is, a couple more years worth of reporting requirements on a a periodic basis?
Speaker 3
That's correct. So in last year's budget, the legislature enacted two reporting requirements, a report due January 15 year from the chancellor's office paired with a report due March 31 from the Department of Technology. Our recommendation is to extend those two reporting requirements for two additional years while the chancellor's office continues to spend down the funds that were provided in last year's budget. I think it's important to note that unlike most state agencies, the chancellor's office is not subject to the direct authority of the California Department of Technology, and these reporting requirements are intended to allow the state to nonetheless benefit from the expertise of CDT in overseeing the project. Yeah.
Speaker 1
How how has been the experience with CDT? Because I know this is something the subcommittee focused on the last couple years. How has that experience been for the department in terms of ease of of being able to work and get feedback and all of the things that you've interacted with the department as it relates to this initiative?
Speaker 4
Yeah. They they've requested, you know, a lot of information, sent over a number of questions. We've addressed and responded to all of them as timely as possible. I would say, you know, from a workload perspective, we were probably a week or two later in responding than CBT would have preferred. But nonetheless, they received all of the information requested.
I do not have their specific feedback in house. I don't know if the Department of Finance has received that, but it is my understanding based on our conversations with CDT that they are supportive of moving forward. They do think that we've done our due diligence.
Speaker 1
K. I was gonna ask that. CDT is not here, but maybe finance can help us.
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, Phil Osborne, finance again. I've I've, reviewed the draft, and, I'm trying to hunt down a copy. I think it may be a little late, and, obviously, it's past March 31.
Speaker 2
But the report is due to the JLBC, and you should be receiving a copy. If you haven't if it hasn't been submitted already, it should be shortly.
Speaker 1
Okay. I have not seen it. Anything preliminarily that you're seeing that we should be paying attention to?
Speaker 2
I've only reviewed the draft, so I don't have much to say. But I I would say that the tone and tenor of the of the report were pretty positive.
Speaker 1
We'll wait for the, for the actual letter then to to understand, their assessment. We'll hold the issue open. Thank you to this panel, and we will go on to the title nine update that is required of, all of our segments. And so I think for this, we're gonna have the community college chancellor's office talk about, their updates on implementation and success of title nine, which has been a priority for, the legislature in the last couple of years. Welcome.
Speaker 22
Thank you very much, chair Alvarez and subcommittee members. My name is David O'Brien, and I'm the vice chancellor for external relations for the California Community College's chancellor's office. Pleased to present this brief update to you here today. I won't reiterate what is in the excellent background in your staff agenda here, but do wanna give a special shout out to assembly member Fong and his committee staff at the higher education committee who put together an excellent sort of baseline assessment of title nine across all three systems of public higher education in 2024 that was called a call to action. In response to that report, assembly member Fong authored legislation that asked the chancellor's office to convene a group of stakeholders from across our system and basically look at a representative sample of our colleges and districts to kinda determine what's working in title nine, what some of the challenges are, and what the major policy considerations are that we are putting before the legislature for your consideration.
Speaker 16
So I had the honor of serving as chair of that work group, Asked to do so by chancellor Christian, was happy to do so. Our work group had several meetings over the course of a year, including representatives of faculty, college presidents, trustees, other administrators, title nine coordinators, and very importantly, students. And so long story short, our gender equity report was released December 1 and found that there is quite a bit of variance across the colleges in terms of how they're implementing title nine, how they're dealing with often overlapping or conflicting state and federal requirements, especially given the situation at the federal level where it's become a little bit of a kind of a political back and forth every time partisan control of the White House changes. It seems that the entire national framework for title nine changes with it. And so but, you know, among many other key findings of our report were that many of our title nine coordinators in the community colleges serve in multiple roles, find themselves feeling under resourced, isolated on campus, not having clear guidance from the state level, from our office about which policies need to follow, policies being out of date.
And so among a number of other recommendations that were contained in our report for the legislature's consideration, and we know that there is ongoing legislation on this right now, was, some additional funding for one thing to ensure that all, colleges have a dedicated title nine coordinator as well as some, state operations funding so that the chancellor's office can have something that the other two system offices do, but that we do not, which is a a statewide office of civil rights to provide technical assistance, best practices, and other supports to our colleges. And this was something that was very much very popular among our title nine coordinators when they floated this proposal. The other proposal, which is a little bit broader in scope, but we wanted to provide the legislature with a sort of suite of options, was creating sort of an external authority. It's called the external resolution authority in our report to take on some of the the sort of case resolution, caseload, and work from the Title IX offices so that they can focus more on prevention, campus climate, some of the things that were identified and that our consultants, our Title IX administrator consultants noted can lead to significant improvements on campus.
And so this proposal has made it into legislation that assembly member Feng is carrying as well as a budget request that he's leading. We are happy to continue working with this subcommittee as well as the assembly member's office and the higher ed committee on that proposal because, you know, this is a priority for the chancellor's office. It's critical that we create a campus environment that is safe, inclusive, and welcoming for not just all students, but all of our faculty and staff as well. And so we believe that the recommendations in our work group and the findings can go a long way towards doing that with some support from the legislature.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Appreciate the update. I I wanted to ask a few questions which are consistent with the other Title IX presentations from the other two segments. And and I know that it's a little bit different, and you may wanna actually provide more context to this. But does every campus now have a title nine coordinator, someone who is identified as the lead?
What is the status of that with the community college system?
Speaker 16
Yes. As I understand that every campus has somebody who is designated as a title nine coordinator, what what we do not have is every campus has a full time title nine coordinator, meaning that's their only job. So it is something that does seem to be often added to somebody else's duties.
Speaker 1
K. What was the feedback during the the committee as it relates to that? Is people feeling that they there aren't the caseload does not exist for a full time. What's what's the reasoning with why some choose not to have a either at a district level or a campus level, a title nine coordinator or director?
Speaker 16
Yeah. It seemed to be a couple of things. One of which was insufficient caseload, and it's important to note here that as counterintuitive as it seems when it comes to title nine, you know, incidents of sexual harassment in a campus environment, low reporting is not necessarily an indication of low caseload. Right? Most often, campuses that have low numbers of reported incidents are an indication of a campus climate or culture that is not conducive to students feeling safe reporting or to an infrastructure that's clear about where they can go to the information not being there.
And so and I say this. I'm channeling our consultants here. We worked with the Association of Title Nine Administrators, which is a national group that is sort of consulted on Title Nine at colleges and universities around the country. And they were very, very clear and unambiguous from day one that you want higher numbers of reporting. You wanna see those from campuses because that means that there is a feeling that those things that there's an infrastructure in place to do that reporting and that those that there's a feeling that those incidents can be reported safely.
So that was one thing that we heard that we we needed to sort of process with that caveat was that some campuses were saying, well, the reporting numbers aren't there, which caused us to go a little deeper and wanna look at, okay. Why aren't you getting large numbers of incidents reported? Because based on, you know, the size of some of these colleges, the demographics we were looking at, they should have had higher numbers of reporting. So that was one of them. Another one was just resources.
Some of the smaller, more rural campuses saying, hey. We don't have a lot of resources to do hiring. Some campuses cited as as often comes up in these conversations, the state 50% law because the title nine coordinator is somebody who's considered, you know, nonfaculty, noninstructional staff, so they would count in the denominator of the 50% law in terms of hiring at small campuses. That was a a concern that we heard. So those were a few of the things that we often heard.
Okay.
Speaker 1
I think you you make a good point that, you know, there's some indicators that would point to reporting happening at rates that we are not seeing in some circumstances. And I I'd like to ask just as a follow-up. Sometimes it's maybe the person exists at a campus or has the maybe the title or the responsibility. They may not even have the title. There may be no office with the name on it.
And so I think, as a follow-up, if you could help us identify how is it that a student or faculty or staff at a campus how how are we facilitating them knowing that this resource exists
Speaker 1
Even if there isn't a single person? Given, you know, very real limitations that exist in places like rural areas, I get that. But I think it should be somehow very, very clear that this is something that is available as a resource and and just wanting to better understand in the instances in which there isn't a coordinator, what is the effort that is being made to do that. So
Speaker 16
That that is a very good point, and we're hoping that that improves significantly in the coming years here because we have recently implemented legislation. I believe it was a b 2683, but my brain tends to refresh the numbers every two year cycle. So from a couple of years ago, there was legislation that the legislature passed and the governor signed, that requires information on sexual harassment prevention and title nine services and so forth to be incorporated into student orientation. Now one of the challenges that we tend to see in the community colleges is that because our students are a little bit more sort of transient, not as much of the on campus culture, things like orientation. Anecdotally, I only say this.
I don't have data on this. But anecdotally, we always hear that things like orientation tend to have lower participation rates.
Speaker 16
Right? But we did we do ask every student to when they enroll, I believe, through our system as well to certify that they've that they've been, you know, taken that training and been been made aware of that. And so that's one step. Other steps include you know, I know that some campuses are rolling out things like text message updates to students so that, hey. Here's a number.
If you something happens and you need to report an incident, here's a number you can call. A lot of campuses, when I do campus visits, I always collect if they have, like, flyers, you know, in student areas where students tend to gather a lot, posters, things of that nature. Those are some of the things that are generally considered best practices that hopefully having a little bit more kind of system level support from our offices can push out to the campuses that are all, you know, looking at what works and making sure the students have that awareness.
Speaker 1
Yeah. Appreciate the the chancellors, just like the other two leaders did, report that we received earlier. I I'd asked for, for this next year to just be mindful of that, the visibility of, what is happening. And it'd be interesting to see what your, data shows depending on what what mechanism was used, text messaging or whatever, to see if any of those are successful so that they can be shared as success stories for others to implement similar strategies. Thank you very much.
Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you. That will be it for this item. And we will move on to issue six, which is the student support block grant.
We have the Department of Finance, legislative analyst office, and the chancellor's office once again for this item. It's a $100,000,000 one time proposition 98 proposal to support students and wanna hear some of the specifics on this program. We'll start with the Department of Finance.
Speaker 2
Yeah. As mentioned, the budget governor's budget, proposes $100,000,000 in one time funding, prop 98 general fund for the student support block grant, and, happy to answer any questions you may have on that.
Speaker 3
Lisa King with Yalao. I'll be brief on this item. We think this proposal is reasonable. It would provide flexible funding that districts could use for a broad range of student services based on their local condition. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Sure. Chris Ferguson again for the chancellor's office. Strong supporters of this investment. Would just like to, you know, note that this assist districts in supporting any number of services that may have been impacted by changes in federal actions. So it's not a backfill.
It's supporting the actual services that our students would need on campus. You know, opportunities this allows for include things such as direct aid, you know, such as gas or food vouchers from basic need centers, you know, student emergency aid. But globally, this supports anything from food, housing, transportation, or basic needs, childcare subsidies, assistance for student parents, financial aid advising or academic counseling, legal or other support services, mental health services, job placement services, work based learning opportunities, reemployment support. So the flexible nature of it really allows us to be very laser focused on supporting services for our students and supporting our students across our districts. So just very thankful for the investment.
We do couple this with the request for a COLA on the student equity and achievement program. Often, we say, if we could get ongoing resources, that will help us in many of these other similar cases.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I do wanna ask about the utilization of the 60,000,000 for the previous year and what that went to. We've it's it's something that is of interest if if this potentially we're seeing we can't call it a trend yet, but two years in a row of, block grant funding, in '98, both in k twelve and now, in community college. And, with no restrictions or strings attached for full flexibility of use. But I think it's important for us to better understand what the uses were for.
Do you have any assessment as to how the districts deployed these dollars to to serve students? Is there any category in which there was more significant use of the dollars than others?
Speaker 4
Yeah. I think we don't have any immediate data that we could share on a system wide basis, but we can tell you what districts have asked us if they could use these resources for. So we know they've asked us if it is okay to use them for direct assistance or cachet aid to students. That includes, you know, whether it's basic needs or childcare. We know that they've asked if they can cover health fees for dual enrollment students so that they have access to the campus health centers.
We know that they've asked for supports of financial aid offices to provide additional assistance and guidance to students. This is especially helpful for, say, mixed status students that had some difficulty filing the better FAFSA. They've asked if they can use these resources to support their undocumented student populations who, as a system, we remain incredibly concerned about the impacts to that particular student population given the, you know, federal actions that have been taken under the the current federal administration. We want to remind all of our undocumented students, our AB five forty students, that our institutions remain open and available to them. We have services to support all of our students.
Our programs are inclusive from the start for any Californian that is on our campus. So just know we we support you. We we want you to continue your journey. We want you to start your journey at our campuses, and we're here to support you. And then we'll just close with they've also asked for funding to help with, say, supplemental instruction or tutoring for existing courses to help students continue their journey.
From our perspective, it is a relatively flexible categorical or block grant, but it is not completely flexible. So our initial read of the language was it may be used for, and then it had a list of those specific types of expenditures that I pre or opportunities that I previously noted. And we our guidance has said, this is what the law says you may use it for, and then we listed out all of the potential options. It's very wide ranging, but it's not 100% flexible in our
Speaker 1
And and there is no reporting requirement on what the utilization of the funds was. Correct?
Speaker 3
I believe there is. The districts are required to report annually by December 31 to the chancellor's office and how they're using the funds. And in addition, the chancellor's office is required to support report an interim and final update to the legislature. The first of those updates, the interim report, is due 07/01/2028.
Speaker 3
Yes. And this is on the 60,000,000 that was provided in last year's budget.
Speaker 1
So the reason why it takes two years? I could understand a a full year, but two years?
Speaker 3
The funds provided in last year's budget were given an expenditure period of four years, and so the interim report was set at the middle of that expenditure period.
Speaker 29
Yeah. Anita Lee with the with the Department of Finance. So the interim report for this one is proposed for 12/31/2027. So if we're following kind of the same trajectory, we might have to circle back on the actual expenditure period. But for your question in terms of outcomes and accountability, interim report 12/31/2027 and then December 31 continually until 12/31/2030, which is when the money should be fully expended.
Speaker 3
We have the first annual report due 12/31/2026 with the chancellor's office submitting an interim report to the legislature by 07/01/2028. The annual reports are submitted from the district to the chancellor's office, the interim report, the final report are from the chancellor's office to the legislature.
Speaker 1
Okay. So does that align with what you just heard as being require required of this new funding?
Speaker 3
My understanding is that with the additional proposed funding, some deadlines will be pushed back by one year, but these deadlines also could be discussed as part of the budget process and updated to ensure that the legislature is getting the information.
Speaker 1
And we definitely need to know over the course of how many years this is expected.
Speaker 17
Absolutely. We'll follow-up with staff to make sure you have that information.
Speaker 1
And then some of the services that the chancellor's offer has mentioned and that are identified in the agenda, to me, sound like human resources intensive. And so how are we preventing, you know, starting up certain programs and personnel, human resources dynamics with all of that that may not be funded on an ongoing basis?
Speaker 4
So often what's happening right now because of changes in, you know, various federal policies, really what we're supporting is a continuation of services that would otherwise go away. So what districts will do is they'll understand that their onetime resources, and they will either plan some districts will double budget to assume, okay. We want this to continue into the future knowing that there are onetime resources so the budget is ongoing and onetime knowing that the onetime is then available really for a different purpose
Speaker 4
In their traditional bucket. But they they will definitely take that into account. If I could just quickly comment on the timeline, I think it's designed to support colleges pretty much outright until we might see changes at the the federal level or in federal approach. So we're we're buying time to, you know, help our colleges meet the needs of their students as best as possible.
Speaker 1
What have you identified are the federal cuts that are certain? I know there's a lot of, you know, nervousness and uncertainty on potentially ongoing and court decisions and all sorts of things. But how much certainty do we have that the federal cuts are going to create immediately until further resolution via court order, via further federal legislation?
Speaker 4
Yeah. So, for example, we know over the course of the last year and and, you know, it hasn't changed in in our opinion. We know that from HSI grants, MSI grants, and APZ grants, so these are all focused on supporting, you know, certain types of student groups on our campuses. We know and we you know, luckily, in our state, we focus on inclusivity, but we know that the federal government suspended or pulled back roughly $60,000,000 over five years from our our campuses. We are also being told that while the while congress has provided additional funding in this year's federal budget to support those programs, we have also been hearing that we should not rely on that actually being distributed to our system, that it may or it may not.
So, you know, we're very cognizant that we may also be foregoing other opportunities to support our students in the coming years from programs like MSI, HSI, NEPZ, from, you know, National Science Foundation research grants that we're supporting, you know, certain efforts or certain experimentation efforts on campuses. We know that some of those grants opportunities are going away as well. So it's both, what has the impact been and what could the impact be. To your point, though, you know, we can't say with certainty, absolutely, those resources won't be there. But I think from a planning perspective, if you're a college, you have to plan as if they won't, because you you can't it's much harder to assume in your budget that you will be funded for it, and then it doesn't come through.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And to and to the extent that we have the flexibility built in there to do that, I just the the one concern that I think I wanna acknowledge is that so that it doesn't that it doesn't appear to individual districts that we have just funding to start new things or to do things differently. That may be important too, but that truly the utilization of the resources is to maintain programs. And I don't think that's not a requirement, at least statutorily, in what's been approved or what's been proposed. But I think it's important that we somehow, at the minimum, identify through some reporting mechanism that that's in fact what is being not augmented, but in this case, supplanted until further, you know, notice or decision by the federal government.
So I'd ask you that you we think about how to do that.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Yeah. No concerns, on that front. I think from our perspective, you know, if it let's say the the loss of those federal grants would cause a loss in service and that using these resources or even your campus general fund, we've been very consistent around you know, we are not supportive of supplanting existing resources. This is about ensuring those services remain available because those services may otherwise go away.
And in the event that they're not, you know, it's augmenting on top of
Speaker 1
And last year, we I think the approval was for a 150,000 per campus or per district, not sure, of the 60,000,000. What is this proposal sort of guarantee on a campus level? And then I assume the rest is a portion depending on enrollment, I assume. Is that correct in the proposal by finance?
Speaker 4
I don't recall the specific formula offhand, but there is a formula in law that does require a minimum per campus and uses I believe there are some equity components, within the distribution, but I can get back to you on that. It I do have that. I just don't have it in front of me.
Speaker 3
So we were tracking that last year's allocation went out with a base amount of 150,000 per college and the remainder distributed based on a combination of student headcount and the count of students who are receiving need based fee waivers or nonresident tuition exemptions. That's the equity
Speaker 1
That was the formula that was utilized last year. And is that the finance is that the same proposal being put forward this year?
Speaker 2
The same, proposal in the current trailer bill language that's available publicly.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Okay. No other questions. We'll hold this issue open. Thank you all for your presentation.
We will move on to, issue seven, which is the community college facilities discussion and presentation of the budget. There is an allocation in this year's budget, for for some capital outlay and some, I think, deferred. So we'll hear from the from finance on the proposal, then response from the LAO, and input from the California Community College then. Welcome to, Department of Finance.
Speaker 7
Thank you. Good morning. Ali Wabman with the Department of Finance. The 2026 governor's budget includes 709,000,000 for the continuing, phases of '29, sorry, the construction phases of '29 continuing projects approved in the 2025 budget act. The governor's budget also includes proposals for 10 new projects with a budget year state cost of 27,800,000 and a total state project cost of 399,400,000.
The 10 new projects proposed 2026 include seven modernization projects and three growth projects. In total, all of the twenty twenty five projects and proposed twenty twenty six projects represent just over 1,250,000,000 of the total prop two authority, leaving 249,300,000 remaining for future projects. Thank you, and I welcome any questions.
Speaker 3
So for this issue, I'll focus my comments on the 10 new projects that are included in the governor's budget, and in particular, the scoring system that the chancellor's office used to select those from the broader set of district proposals for 2026, '27. In general, we think that the scoring system the chancellor's office is using is reasonable. It provides a consistent and transparent way to prioritize among proposals. Nonetheless, we did identify four potential issues, and I'll walk through them briefly in a moment here. If any of these issues raise notable concerns for the legislature, you could direct the chancellor's office to adjust its scoring system accordingly and work with the administration to propose a new set of projects.
The first of these issues has to do with the percentage of funding that is allocated each year toward modernization projects. Under the current scoring system, up to 65% of funds each year go toward modernization. However, according to the system's five year capital outlay plan, modernization projects actually account for a higher share of the identified needs, closer to 85%. Our concern here is that if the state does not allocate sufficient funding toward facilities modernization, that could lead to higher future project costs as well as potential programmatic disruptions. The second issue we've identified has to do with the distribution of proposition two funding among campuses.
The scoring system currently doesn't distinguish between campuses that have previously received proposition two funding and those that haven't. And so under the governor's budget, we are seeing that there are several campuses that are receiving multiple proposition two projects and other campuses that are not receiving any. The third issue relates to local contributions. Although the scoring system does provide priority points to projects that have higher local contributions, several of the projects included in the governor's budget are at the lower end of the allowable range. So around 25% of total project costs are being covered with district funds.
Our concern here is just that if local contributions are lower, then the state bond funding doesn't stretch as far. And then the fourth and final issue we wanted to cover has to do with the type of space prioritized. So up until 2020, the chancellor's office used an older scoring system that allocated the majority of funding each year toward instructional space, such as classrooms and laboratories. The current scoring system does not distinguish between instructional and other types of space, and so we are seeing that under proposition two, a somewhat higher share of projects are for other space such as gymnasiums and performing arts facilities compared to previous bonds. I'll conclude my comments there, but happy to take questions.
Thank you.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Certainly supportive of the, investments to support our 29 existing projects that were approved in the 2526 budget as well as 10 new capital outlay projects proposed in the 2627 budget. We'll just highlight that, you know, our twenty six twenty seven five year plan notes identifies needs of around 28,600,000,000 for facilities, identifies around 2,200,000,000 in deferred maintenance needs. So this definitely helps toward addressing those needs. In terms of scoring, the the scoring matrix works with 50% of all the funds going to support life safety projects.
Of the remaining 50%, 65% goes toward modernization, 35% towards new construction. So from, you know, very mathematical perspective, I would say roughly 82.5% of the funding is going toward modernization or replacement projects at the end of the day because a lot of those life safety issues are addressing situations that we're seeing on the campus right now, and the remainder is going to support potential enrollment growth or facilities to support additional academic programming. We also have looked at our criteria to see, you know, about distribution because we do have percentages in our point scoring for rural serving institutions. And we've looked and generally speaking, the percentage of rural serving students and the percentage of bond resources that are allocated towards rural serving institutions roughly aligns. So we did a lot of the the background work that we were asked to do last year to make sure that, you know, we are generally meeting what you would expect where we were asked to, you know, look at our scoring criteria.
We did that. And we do think that it's working relatively well for our system. As it relates to future projects, we do have a new rule. I believe it is going into place in 2728 that authorizes districts to submit one project per campus every other year in an attempt to ensure that we are distributing the resources among the system as best as possible to address any number of needs on our campuses. I would just close with when it comes to matching funds, it's oftentimes that there are districts in the state that may have very little matching fund but great need.
So we've always designed the system around how can we best meet the needs of those districts or other districts that may have matching funds and, you know, stretch those resources as far as possible. We push our districts from the start to value engineer and to be as efficient as possible to get us as far as we possibly can. And just great appreciation again to the committee and to finance for the proposed investments in our capital outlay program. And, certainly, if there were, you know, future bonds to support our facilities' needs, you know, I can say quite confidently, I have no doubt our board would be supportive of additional resources.
Speaker 1
Thank you to all three of you. I just wanna make sure I I'm fully understanding the request. If if you all have the agenda, this would be figure three
Speaker 1
In this item. The so figure three and figure two, which figure three is first and figure two is second. All of the projects that are listed in figure three were funded at some level last year to sort of get these projects started. Is that correct?
Speaker 4
Yeah. Effectively, they're broken out into what I term three categories that you could call them for, but it's working planning, working drawings, and plans, then it's the actual construction phase, and then it's the closeout phase. You know, that that's sort of how I would term it for the most part. I defer to finance, you know, for any other specifics, but, generally, that that's sort of how it works for us.
Speaker 7
Just to echo that that, Ali, with the Department of Finance, that's correct. The initial year is the planning phases of funds, and then construction funding is proposed in the budget based on the project schedule.
Speaker 1
So roughly, just doing really quick count here. Roughly, 30 projects were because last year was our first year of prop two. Right? Okay. 30 projects were funded for, essentially, plans and all that.
That has been completed. And now in the current year for those projects on figure three, we're funding essentially just construction, most mostly, I see. Construction for all of these. And and most of them, with this year's funding, the state's share, if you will, as you follow the all year's column, is is almost fully being met. It's the way I read this.
So that means that for the 10 projects, which are figure two, we are now committing essentially to seeing this through all the way. We're we're funding the preliminary plans and the drawings and all everything prior to construction, and we are essentially committing funding that and then committing for the remainder of the state cost as as as identified in the column of all year's state cost. Is that correct?
Speaker 1
249,300,000. And so this year for new projects, it's 27,000,000 that is being requested?
Speaker 1
'27. Okay. And then if I look at the all year's column state cost, it's still gonna require us to come up with 399,000,000, but we've only got 249,000,000 in prop two.
Speaker 7
assuming the 10 new projects are approved. Traditionally, the precedent is that in future years, the construction continuing phase is approved because the design
Speaker 1
stable. So you're taking into account the $3.09 9. Got it. That makes sense now. Okay.
I wanna go back a little bit to the issue of what types of projects are being funded. We we heard some comments from the LAO on this, particularly non classroom related funding not non classroom related projects. Can you give me an assessment from the chancellor's office on what your view on that is, on what's being funded, and what's what is your breakdown?
Speaker 4
Yeah. I I think from our perspective, if I recall, their concern was with two performing arts facilities that were among the 10. From our perspective, performing arts is an academic program. There are students that use those facilities for learning for those programs. Similarly, last year, the concern was around gymnasiums, but we do have kinesiology programs.
We have other physical therapy type programs or occupational therapy programs that utilize those spaces as well. So, effectively, you know, I would say to I would recommend thinking of it almost as if they're multipurpose facilities. Yes. It is a performing arts facility. Yes.
It was a gym, but they also serve that academic purpose as well. And in our scoring criteria, we try to take that into account. I think the one thing I would say on our scoring criteria is we do work through our participatory governance system with our districts because we want to ensure that there is a consistent statewide approach to all project types, all types of facility requests across all campuses and all districts. So, you know, we try to make sure that it is applied universally and that there are little to you know, no exceptions through our scoring criteria. I would actually say there are no exceptions in our scoring criteria.
The only exception in a facility that I've seen was done through a statute, and that was based on the closure of a facility because of an action by the state architect.
Speaker 1
Let me ask you about one just to get a sense of that decision making and to ensure that I'm understanding. Merced is, in this round receiving or, their proposal puts forward a gym complex replacement. Would this building be Merced's highest need, or are there multiple other like, what is the picture just paint me a picture for Merced just to better understand the decision making there. Did they have multiple requests from multiple buildings, and how did this one rank highest?
Speaker 4
Yeah. I would have to get back to you on the totality of, you know, requests from the district. What I would say, though, is based on the district's submission, this is their highest scoring project. So based on the universal criteria and they they know and they they operate within that criteria. They will know which facility is going to score highest on their campus.
If they did not want a particular facility to move forward in that scoring above another one, they would not submit a project for that facility. They would submit for a different facility knowing that that increases the likelihood of the other facility on their campus.
Speaker 1
Okay. The LAO a few years ago, and I'll turn the question to to the LAO representative, put out a report which I'm gonna not remember very well of the specifics, but, I do remember the the theme, which is as we build new buildings, it was your recommendation that we plan for and perhaps even I think you said this, set aside for ensuring that that building is maintained and operations and and and any necessary repairs are done to maintain and not be found in a state of disrepair that then is more costly. Is that do you recall that report? I don't know if you Yes. Wrote that, but okay.
What are what are we doing with this the use of these bond, proceeds and to align to some of those good practices? Do you do you identify anything in the proposal that would ensure that some of those issues are addressed?
Speaker 3
Yes. So when it comes to the proposition two bond funds, under the current scoring system, after allocating any funding for life safety projects, up to 35% of the remaining funds go toward growth projects. That's projects to add space. And that sort of corresponds to those new facilities that we were describing in the previous report where we had recommended that the state think about budgeting for the ongoing operations and maintenance of those facilities moving forward. I'm not aware of any provisions in proposition two that would do that for the growth projects that are funded here.
I would note that in addition to the proposition two proposal, there is funding in the governor's budget on the support side for deferred maintenance, and, we view that as a priority for one time proposition 98 funding given the backlog of over 2,000,000,000 at the community college system.
Speaker 1
Proposition 98 does allow for community college facilities, but it does not allow for k to 12 facilities.
Speaker 3
Proposition 98 funding is regularly used for deferred maintenance projects in the community
Speaker 1
Just not new. Is that what it is? I I I always thought that 98 could not be used for modernization or buildings.
Speaker 4
So if I could weigh in, historically, the state has not used proposition 98 resources to support facilities infrastructure whether in k 12 or community colleges. You know, to my knowledge, I haven't seen that occurring. There have been, certainly both in k 12 and community college, prior programs or current programs to support deferred maintenance. Prior to the SCFF, there was a specific k 12 categorical pro or the LCFF. There was a specific k 12 categorical program for deferred maintenance that was folded into the LCFF.
For us, it is dependent on the annual budget act to provide resources to support deferred maintenance. I could not speak to, you know, whether facilities could or could not be funded facility construction using proposition 98 resources. But what I would say is globally, the vast majority of proposition 98 resources are supporting direct instruction or direct student support services on campuses. So I wouldn't at least for the community college system, I don't know that there would if if it were allowable, if there would be room to do that under the governor's budget. But, again, you know, would defer to finance and the Prop 98 experts that they have.
Speaker 1
Okay. Well, you might ask that question as a follow-up. So with the 249,000,000 remaining after these commitments, what does the deferred project list look like for community colleges?
Speaker 4
Yeah. We have roughly 2,200,000,000 in deferred maintenance needs across the system. The way we allocate these resources to colleges is on a per FTES basis, and we have effectively functional caps in terms of how big a project can or how much a project can cost to be considered deferred maintenance versus a capital facility project. That's usually the distinction with, you know, the lower cost items being deferred maintenance. I believe it's a little over 1,000,000 is sort of like the threshold.
But what our campuses face is if they don't have resources to support deferred maintenance or they're not able to pull from their SCFF unrestricted general funds to support, you know, maintenance needs, They effectively, those maintenance needs go unfixed.
Speaker 1
And then they become capital outlay projects? Inevitably, yes. How much is the backlog on capital outlay projects?
Speaker 4
So our five year plan identifies 28,600,000,000 in facilities needs. That said, in our five year plan, I would note that for us, the vast majority of our of our facility needs is actually addressed through local general obligation bonds. And if I could just share with the committee, you know, at our sorry. Our February, we do have in process, and we are working on technical assistance. It will be available to all of the campuses or districts statewide.
Our focus, though, is going to be rural serving districts to try and help them have the conversations with their locals, understand what their financing facilities opt options are, you know, within law so that they can have that conversation with their locals and potentially, you know, have success with the local bond campaign.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you all. Appreciate it. I think there's more work here to be done. With that, this issue is gonna be held open, and we will go on to the public comments.
I ask you to come forward and ask you to keep your we did this last week, and it was very successful, members of the public. We believe strongly in all of you that you can get this done in thirty seconds. Name, affiliation, and issue, before us today that you'd like to make a comment on or raise a question. We will get started. Welcome.
Speaker 6
Welcome. Tiffany Mock with CFTA, Union of Educators and Classified Professionals. We support funding for part time office hours, part flexibility for the part time health care program to allow for dental and vision, and we would like full funding for enrollment growth. Thank you so much.
Speaker 30
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez. Tiffany Chabay with NextGen California in support of the governor's proposed 14,300,000 in ongoing funding for the Healthy School Food Pathway program. The nation's first apprent registered apprenticeship program for school
Speaker 1
A second. Because we can't hear you very well. And if I ask people in the room to please keep your conversations, outside the room. Thank you. Please start over so we can hear you.
Speaker 18
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez and member. Tiffany Jemay with NextGen California in support of the governor's proposed 14,300,000 in ongoing funding for the Healthy School Food Pathway program. It's the nation's first registered apprenticeship for school food professionals. This program trains staff to prepare fresh, scratch cooked meals while creating career pathways in a workforce largely made up of women and women of color. Interest has grown from 11 applicants in the first cohort to more than 800 in the most recent, demonstrating strong demand.
By investing in these professionals, we strengthen the workforce and nourish our children. We respectfully urge your support. Thank you.
Speaker 25
Good afternoon. Lizzie Guanzona here on behalf of the office of Kat Taylor and the more than 225 members of the School Meals for All Coalition in support of continued funding for the California Healthy School Food Pathway program. This program builds the critical workforce needed to transform school cafeterias from reheating centers into culinary hubs serving freshly prepared, minimally processed, and California grown meals. By investing in California workers who nourish our students, we help ensure the state's historic commitment to universal meals delivers high quality food students want to eat.
Speaker 16
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez. My name is Michael Stewart, president Calvary College Academic Senate. On behalf of the academic senate, we express our strong support of the governor's January proposed budget and increased budget allocation for Calvary College. Thank you very much.
Speaker 8
Thank you, chair. Mark McDonald on behalf of the Los Angeles, San Diego, and Southwestern Community College districts focusing on student access and success. We'd urge, ongoing money to go to growth the student equity and achievement program. One time money, could go towards the student support block grant and a backfill to the strong workforce program. Thank you.
Speaker 12
Thank you. Good morning, chair Albers and members. Jason Henderson on behalf of the Faculty Association for California Community Colleges. We appreciate the governor's proposal to fund COLA. As the LAO notes, LAO notes, this general purpose funding is critical for districts managing rising costs and responding to local needs.
However, we urge the legislature to go further by ensuring COLA is applied universally across all programs to avoid gaps in student services and faculty support. Additionally, we ask the release of withheld prop 98 funds. We also urge the legislature to establish a stakeholder led work group to reform the student centered funding formula and move toward a model that prioritizes stability over volatility
Speaker 5
Good afternoon, members of the committee. My name is Dominic Boych on behalf of the Associated Students of UC Riverside. While the students are grateful for the ongoing support from the state for basic needs and housing, we strongly urge you to consider the $20,000,000 one time funding for emergency basic needs support. Students are facing rapidly rising rates of food and housing insecurity along with cost of living increases that can cause significant challenges challenges in pursuing education. Basic need centers at UCR are understaffed and underfunded, often leading to significant delays in support for students who need the most.
Speaker 22
This support would increase support for staff capacity, housing case management, and disability services. Very much. Perfect. Thank you.
Speaker 27
Good afternoon, members of the assembly. My name is Shavia Ganna, and I'm representing the student body at UC Riverside. I'm here to urge you to support the 20,000,000 emergency basic needs funding. This would help support food support staff, housing case management, and disability services. As the UC enrollment grows, basic needs is unable to keep up.
Speaker 23
I've seen this firsthand as I frequently use the food pantry and meal support programs. When I go to gain access to these resources, the times are during odd hours, and there are very, very few staff working, all of these producing obstacles and difficulties for students to access these fundamental and very important resources.
Speaker 9
Good afternoon. Andrew Martinez, community college, League of California. We are appreciative of the cost of living adjustment in the governor's budget. We also encourage the student equity achievement investment as well for categorical as well. We are appreciative of the conversation on enrollment growth.
Speaker 24
And also when it comes to one time funds, we encourage additional funds for deferred meetings and the student block grant. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 35
the California Community College Independence Union, many faculty organizations had concerns about the implementation of common course numbering. We hope to see better collaboration from the other segments. Regarding Calibright, we believe it doesn't make sense to fund the governor's proposal. The skip has many flaws, but we agree with the LAO to place Calibright on the same playing field as the other colleges. Also agreeing with the LAO's recommendation not to fund the common cloud data platform request at this time.
Speaker 6
Good afternoon. Sabrina Means here on behalf of Pasadena City College as well as the Institute for College Access and Success or TCAS in support of the governor's proposed 2.41% COLA for the SCFF and select categoricals, the proposed funding for enrollment growth, career pathways, dual enrollment investments, and the 100,000,000 for the student support, block grant. TCAS specifically advocates that some of that funding can go towards, supporting student financial aid administration. And lastly, Pasadena City College opposes the 5,600,000,000 withholding of the prop 98 funding. Thank you.
Speaker 11
Bella Kern, on behalf of Cerritos College, thank you for your support of community colleges and for highlighting a key issue in your analysis. Enrollment is growing, but funding can lag behind the growth. At Cerritos College in Southeast LA County, we are seeing strong growth in both head count and enrollment. For us, that translate directly to student need for classes, counseling, and support. When funding keeps pace with growth, Cerritos College is better positioned to turn student momentum into completion transfer and upward mobility.
Speaker 27
We appreciate the continued commitment to helping colleges meet students where they are supporting their success.
Speaker 10
Good afternoon, mister Terre. David Nevin on behalf of Santa Monica College and El Camino College. Very appreciative of the legislature's and the governor's, committed investments in community colleges. Looking forward to conversations about, increasing the investment in the student support block grant, as well as, the SEA program, receiving a cost of living adjustment. And finally, for El Camino College, we would, greatly appreciate the commitment to the prop two funding, staying in the final budget act.
Speaker 17
Good morning. My name is Donnie Howard. I'm president of CSCA chapter fifty three, Calbright College. We are in strong support of the governor's January proposed budget and the increased budget allocation for Calbright College. Thank you.
Speaker 16
Morning, mister chair. Kat Brackman with the California School Employees Association in support of the governor's proposed funding increase for Cal Bright College. We also support increasing funding for the school student support block grant to 250,000,000 in partnership with the Santa Monica Community College. Thank you.
Speaker 15
Good afternoon. Rebecca Killeen on behalf of the Community College Facility Coalition on the facilities funding proposals. We support the governor's budget on the prop two capital outlay funding. Any changes to scoring criteria should be prospective for a future bond as colleges have planned their project applications based on the existing and current scoring criteria. Deferred maintenance, we support the governor's budget.
We would request additional investments on deferred maintenance if revenues allow, and we're also requesting trailer bill language to remove the funding cap for specific types of projects, including accessibility and seismic retrofit projects. Thank you.
Speaker 36
Good afternoon. Jesse Hernandez de lais on behalf of the Campaign for College Opportunity. Thank you for the productive conversation had today on the state of system wide articulation for common course numbering. A student's ZIP code or home community college shouldn't determine whether a university provides them credit for courses taken at their community college. We urge support for AB two two three six, which would solve this common problem for students so that they can maximize their time at our colleges and universities.
Speaker 28
Students in the state can enhance financial contributions made into higher education, and the state can guarantee our students a seamless transfer transfer experience across our public higher education institutions. Thank you.
Speaker 12
Chair Austin Webster with W Strategies on behalf of the academic senate for California community colleges. We recognize a significant investment made in the common course number initiative, but since 2021, a s triple c has only received $541,000 to support the work needed to complete CCN, and we respectfully request an additional $250,000 one time to complete this work. Additionally, on behalf of the California Community Colleges Association for Occupational Education, we support the system request to restore full funding for the strong workforce program and urge the legislature to consider a COLA.
Speaker 1
I'm gonna ask you to pause and apologize to, the rest of the line. I need to go and present a bill to a committee that's wrapping up. If I do not go there, I will not be able to present. You see there is no other member of the committee, so that means we're gonna take a recess. I will try to get someone here.
Speaker 15
We've asked already to have someone come to continue hearing your public testimony. If they do not arrive, I will come right back and hear the rest of you. We'll recess. We're gonna Good afternoon, everybody. I am back, and I apologize about the we weren't able to find someone to take care of you while I was gone, but I'm back.
Speaker 1
As promised, we'll continue with the, public comments on today's agenda. Reminder, we have, thirty seconds. Thank you very much.
Speaker 13
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez. Cabria Payton on behalf of Ed Trust West. We support the 2.4 COLA along with the 1.5% enrollment growth funding, 100,000,000 for the student support block grant. And on behalf of the data for the people coalition, we support the common cloud data platform. We respectfully ask the legislator legislature to provide 10,000,000 in ongoing support for student financial aid administration and support the 100,000,000 one time funding for dual enrollment.
Speaker 17
Hello. My name is doctor Nicole Rowe, dean of CTE at Palomar College and president-elect for the California Community College Association for Occupational Education. The strong workforce program is critical to student success. However, the $60,000,000 carve out for nursing has reduced flexibility that makes the program effective. This is resulting in reduced access to paid internships and fewer work based learning opportunities, which disproportionately impacts the students who need it most.
We respectfully urge the legislature to fully restore strong workforce program funding. Thank you.
Speaker 3
Good afternoon. Tina Ricaldi, interim superintendent president of Palomar College in San Diego. We're here to ask for fully restoring strong workforce funding, which has been critical to meeting regional workforce needs. The recent $60,000,000 cut carve out for nursing has reduced our flexibility. Strong workforce funding is effective because it is flexible, regionally driven, and responsive.
Speaker 31
We respectfully urge restoration of the full strong workforce based funding so we can continue delivering more and better CTE for California students and economy. Thank you.
Speaker 15
Good afternoon. I'm doctor Amy Schultz, executive dean for workforce and strategic initiatives at Sierra College. I also serve on the board for CCCAOE, the California, California Community College Association of Occupational Education as the, regional vice president for the North Bar North Region. On behalf of, CCCAOE, the North Par North, Regional Consortium, and Sierra College, I, we strongly support restoring the $60,000,000 carve out for, strong workforce. Thank you.
That thank you.
Speaker 33
Good afternoon, Chair Alvarez. My name is Michelle Diaz, and I am the director of Child Nutrition and a graduate of the Healthy School Food Pathways Fellowship Program. I'm a host district for the pre apprenticeship and apprenticeship and have seen firsthand the benefits these programs provide. Through them, I've gained valuable knowledge and skills that have strengthened our school nutrition program and supported my team's professional growth. Our community, my staff, and I are incredibly grateful of these opportunities and respectfully support the governor's proposed funding for this program.
Speaker 20
Thank you. Good afternoon, chair Alvarez. My name is Altelia Campos. I'm a graduate of the pre apprenticeship and a current participant in the apprenticeship for the Healthiest Food Food Pathways program. I'm here in support of the governor's proposed funding of 14,300,000 of going funds for the Healthy School Food Pathways Program.
Speaker 14
Good afternoon, chairman Alvarez and members. My name is Jessica Lopez, and I'm a graduate of both the pre apprenticeship and the apprenticeship for the Healthy School Food Pathways Program. I am here in support of the government's, proposal fund of $414,300,000 ongoing funds for the Healthy School Food Pathways Program. Thank you.
Speaker 27
Good afternoon, Chair Alvarez. My name is Alexis Salazar. I'm a community member who is a graduate of the pre apprenticeship and current participant of the Apprenticeship for Healthy School Food Pathway Program. I'm here in support of the governor's proposed funding of 14,300,000 in ongoing funds for the Healthy School Food Pathway program. Thank you.
Speaker 21
Good afternoon. Chair Alvarez. Martha Gesula here speaking on behalf of Chef Anne Foundation. California has set ambitious goals to move school meals beyond the hidden serve model to fresh, scratch cooked meals, but achieving this requires a skilled workforce. The Healthy School Food Pathway program builds that workforce while supporting districts as they modernize their meal programs.
Speaker 35
To date, it has served almost 1,000 participants with 90% of districts reporting improved culinary capacity and 94% reporting strong staff leadership. Continued investment will allow allowed us to scale these results, strengthening the workforce and ensuring every California thank you.
Speaker 28
Good afternoon, Char Alvarez. My name is Christina Lawson, and I'm a food service director and graduate of the Healthy School Food Pathways fellowship program. Our district also serves as the host site for pre apprentices and apprentices, including both community members and current school food professionals. Through this program, we have seen growth in our scratch cooking efforts, workforce development, local procurement, while creating clear pathways for our team to build skills and advance their careers. Our staff, students, community have directly benefited from this program, and we respectfully support the governor's proposed funding.
Speaker 16
Good afternoon, Jerry Alvarez. My name is Nick Dramis, and I'm the supervisor of culinary operations for Marysville Joint Unified School District. I'm also a graduate of the Healthy School Food Pathways fellowship program. Through that experience, I've seen meaningful pro personal growth alongside deepened district wide commitment to scrap cooking, local procurement, and investing in our team's skills and career advancement. This work is not abstract.
It shows up every day in the meals we serve, the pride displayed by our staff, and the health and engagement of our students and community. I respectfully support the governor for public funding so this progress doesn't pause but instead grows. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 19
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez. I'm Amber Green, director of nutrition services at Marysville Joint Unified School District and a graduate of the Healthy School Food Pathway Fellowship Program. Our district serves as a host site for both the pre apprenticeship and the apprenticeship, providing workforce development essential to supporting universal meals and the work to remove ultra processed foods from school meals. As schools move towards more scratch cooking, this program is educating and preparing current and future workers so they have the skills to complete the specialized work required for scratch meals. Staffing shortages continue to be high, and the healthy school food pathways help bring trained workers to school meal programs.
Speaker 31
Good afternoon, chair Alves. Kyle Hyland on behalf of the Association of California Community College Administrators. First, we strongly urge the legislature to honor the full proposition 98 minimum guarantee and reject the proposed settle up approach from the governor of 2026. And second, while we appreciate the governor's proposed enrollment investments, ACCO respectfully request 3% enrollment growth funding across 2526 and 2627, paired with policy changes to use the higher of the current of three year FPSs and the removal of the 10% FPS growth cap. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Anyone else in the room speak wanting to speak on issues before committee today?
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