Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance, Wednesday, April 29, 2026
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Assembly Budget Subcommittee No. 3 on Education Finance California State Assembly
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 4
Good afternoon. Cassie Mancini on behalf of the California School Employees Association. We would urge the legislature to reject the proposal that eliminates the statutory criteria for differentiated assistance based on student subgroup performance. The current criteria currently prioritize equity when allocating our support resources and ensure that all types of LEAs are subject to the same standards. This proposal would limit the legislature's authority to determine how school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools qualify for DA and allow the state board to establish different standards for each kind of LEA.
Speaker 6
Tiffany Mock, on behalf of CFT, a union of educators and classified professionals, we wanted to echo the comments from CSEA about the current criteria for differentiated assistance and that we reject the we would prefer the reduction of the current governor's proposal and want a different system. Thank you so much.
Speaker 7
Derek Lentz with California County superintendents. I have three quick comments on the system of support proposal. First, we strongly support the universal and targeted assistance proposal. This is very consistent with the shift that county offices have experienced in supporting LEAs towards a more proactive preventative approach. Secondly, we support the three year criteria and think that's gonna be helpful for targeting the LEAs with student groups with the greatest need.
And third, we would urge the legislature to remove the, community schools coordination role from within universal and targeted assistance and leave that as we heard in the last hearing within the, CCSPP program. Thank you.
Speaker 8
Good afternoon, chair. Kathy Mossberg on behalf of the California Association of Food Banks to speak on the school kitchen infrastructure training funding. Just wanna encourage this committee and the legislature to continue that funding into the next grant cycle. With the cuts and snap, the food for all at schools remains, incredibly important to the families and the kids that are served through that, and it wouldn't be able to happen without this these kitchen upgrades and the training that that it provides. So really encourage you and the committee to support this funding.
Thank you.
Speaker 9
Good afternoon. Dan Merwin on behalf of California School Boards Association. We support the changes to differentiated assistance, particularly around the identification and the three year timeline, where that really helps with churn, which kind of diminishes the ability of differentiated assistance to actually assist LEAs. We would flag we would like to have some ability for LEAs to move into differentiated assistance in the middle of that three year term and so that they don't languish. Thank you.
Speaker 11
the California School Nutrition Association. CSNA supports the governor's proposal to provide a third round of kitchen infrastructure and training. The first two rounds of funding have been really, helpful in the field in building out kitchens, and we know there's gonna be more that needs to be done as schools are asked to provide more locally and, like, prepared and grown food. So we encourage the investment in additional kitchen infrastructure funding.
Speaker 12
Afternoon. Anthony Chavez here on behalf of the Partnership for Children and Youth and the California After School Advocacy Alliance, CA three.
Speaker 12
the governor's recommendation, to stabilize tier two rates, and we also urge this body to find a way for more dedicated funds for older youth. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 14
Sarawatches with Children Now working with equity and education management groups raising concerns directly to the State Board of Education relating to their DA proposal that would eliminate the current accountability system's equity guardrails. So we urge that we maintain in any updated system the current equity guardrails focused on closing achievement gaps and opportunity gaps. And we also are strong supporters of augmented support for the expanded learning opportunities program and school meals. Thank you.
Speaker 15
Good afternoon. Jaylen Woodard, a policy fellow with the Alameda County Office of Education. We support the 62,400,000 investment in ELOP to stabilize rate two funding. We also ask you to keep the $13,300,000 in the governor's January proposal for universal and targeted assistance. We support shifting differentiated assistance to a three year cycle for districts and and charters to allow time to address challenges and improve student outcomes.
We also request that DA eligibility remain connected to outcomes for specific student groups.
Speaker 17
Thank you, mister chair. Liz Fenton, on behalf of the office of Kat Taylor, the Center for Ecoliteracy, and over 225 organizations in the school meals for all coalition, we're here in support of item number three. On the agenda, the inclusion of funding for school meals and the kitchen infrastructure and training program in the governor's budget. The programs are a simple and effective lever for the state to address the ongoing challenges of affordability for families in California. Thank you very much.
Speaker 18
Mister chairman, Horacio Gonzalez, on behalf of NextGen California, here in strong support of fully funding school meals for all as well as the $100,000,000 for the kitchen infrastructure program. As federal safety net programs like SNAP begin to contract, providing meals to students where they are, which is in the classroom, will become essential to meeting our goals. And we are in strong support of fully filling these items.
Speaker 19
Good afternoon. Rick Kamarales on behalf of Trust West. Similar to other comments, we have concerns about the proposed trailer bill language that would eliminate the current accountability systems equity gap guardrails, which focuses on improvement systems for student subgroups. We also believe that the key tenant tenants of the accountability system, like the focus on student subgroups and closure of achievement gaps should be codified. Thank you.
Speaker 20
to align our comments with, those of CSCA on item number two for differentiated assistance and also would like to express support for the, changing it to every three years.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Sorry I made you run. For those who didn't get a chance, we will have more public opportunity. I just wanted to, again, acknowledge that we moved this and some of you were already here and give you the opportunity to come first. But if you are on your way running the capital, you will still have a chance to speak on these items after we hear from the issue, each of the issue areas.
So thank you all of you for, for doing that. Let's begin with our first issue to be heard today. This is the expanded learning opportunities programs, program proposals. So the hearing today is really a follow-up on our oversight of earlier this year. How is California creating coherence in our funding?
We are doing a lot of good work, but its funding mechanisms are a little bit not as coherent. And so as we focus better on outcomes for our students, we need to make sure that these outcomes are are maintained, and in fact, the outcomes grow over the course of time. We wanna impact children's education and their pathways to success in life from now, and and these investments are important going into the future. So, really, my sort of thinking of this is in studying the history of the elimination of categoricals and now with very focused initiatives that we are not cutting calling categoricals, but certainly have some resemblance to them. I think we wanna make sure that we we identify those that are being successful and we make them more an expectation and not just a one time opportunity or a something that we may do or may not do.
It is part of a coherent ecosystem of education. And so that's what this conversation on ELOP is about and on differentiated assistance. We'll have some conversation about that as well. So once this hearing on these four issues is concluded, we are gonna moving in be moving into the second part of today, which is on higher education issues just for programming note there. But with that, let's get started with our first panel.
We're gonna hear from the Department of Finance, then the legislative analyst office, and then the California Department of Education, Finance. Welcome.
Speaker 10
Good afternoon. Ilys Perez with the Department of Finance. So the governor's budget provides a total of 4,700,000,000 ongoing proposition 98 general fund to support the expanded learning opportunities program in 2627. ELOP provides year round access to enrichment activities and before and after school supplemental education programs for all t k to sixth grade children in low income communities. This program reached full implementation in 2526 to to to provide children with access to subsidized before, after, and summer school.
Additionally, we wanna note that the governor's budget proposes 62,400,000 ongoing proposition 98 general fund to provide a minimum of $1,800 per pupil in 2627 for LEAs with TK to sixth grade and less than 55% unduplicated pupils, which are known as tier two LEAs. I'll now provide a response to the question listed in the agenda. In response to question one, the 2627 governor's budget proposal is meant to provide stability to tier two LEAs by setting an 1,800 per pupil minimum for the tier two rate. We wanna note that this is based you know, that based on existing law, the tier two rate could exceed the $1,800 per pupil minimum, which is dependent on the amount that's available after funding is allocated to tier one LEAs and as long as the tier two rate does not exceed the tier one rate. This is meant to ensure that any funds that remain after being allocated to tier one LEAs can provide additional support to tier two LEAs and their program implementation efforts.
We are also happy to have further conversations with the legislature about the tier two rate for these LEAs as we work to reach a final budget agreement. And with that, we're available to take any questions.
Speaker 13
Good afternoon, mister chair, members. Don Hoxicletso with the LAO. We recommend modifying the governor's proposal to make the tier two rate fully fixed. The extended learning opportunities program is the state's primary before and after school program. And as you can see on page four of your agenda, it has two different rates that it pays, based on the given district's share of English learner and low income students.
The 2526 budget increased funding for the program to $4,600,000,000, as finance just mentioned, to change the threshold between the fixed tier one rate of $2,750 and the lower tier two rate that fluctuates based on those remaining program funds. This year's proposal is that additional 62 mill $400,000, to set the minimum tier two rate to $1,800 while still allowing it to fluctuate above that level. We think this proposal could be helpful as tier two rate uncertainty can make LEA planning difficult. However, we recommend going further and fully fixing the tier two rate at $1,579, the rate it has been at for the last two years, and not allowing it to exceed that amount. Additionally, we recommend future rate changes be tied to changes in program requirements rather than simply the number of students in the system.
Thank you. That concludes my comments. How do you take questions at the appropriate time?
Speaker 21
Thank you, Kimberly Rosenberger. On behalf of the state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Thurmond in CDE, we are incredibly proud of this program and supportive of continued investments. Our pending biennial report indicates the promise of this program showing across the board improvement in attendance in math scores, targeting our English learner proficiency students, having them college ready. It is clear that this program is working. That'll be out shortly.
But the trends that you're asking for us to report on, do wanna indicate in the questions such as what we see for enrollment and for TK are not ready yet. The legislature in 2023 required us to start collecting that data for the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six school year. Since it's the first school year that we are implementing that, we need to make sure that we're providing the support to the schools to ensure quality assurance and that the data is complete and accurate. We expect to see this around mid twenty twenty seven to give you that feedback, But we we don't have the data at this time on enrollment patterns or on the number of TK and K students that are served in ELOP. In terms of the question around in ACEs with a larger ratio and should ACEs ratios conform to ELOP?
We don't know the numbers, but the ratio for ACEs is 20 to one. And when ELOP and ACEs funding are used, the ELOP ratio is 10 to one. We believe that it's appropriate for ratios to be aligned with what the TK and K standards are, but we have no specific comment on the ratio recommendations. We were also asked about how many ELP sites are double funded with ACEs or twenty first century. I I swear I'm not trying to not give you information, but part of the distinction between ACEs and twenty first century is those are state appropriate dollars.
So we have the site specific information, whereas ELOP is apportionment based, and so the funding is determined at the local level. So we can tell you at the higher macro level of LEA apportionment that 52 LEAs have a combination of ACEs, twenty first century, and ELOP. 475 LEAs have a combination of ACEs in ELOP, and one LEA has a combination of twenty first and ELOP. 23 charters have a combination of all three, two hundred and seventy three charters have a combination of ACEs and ELOP, and zero charters have a combination of ACEs twenty first and ELOP. So I'm gonna add some extra factoids in since I have less than you asked, but we are appreciative of the ability to opt out.
We believe that will improve the audit findings. And at this point, we have seen 51 opt out mostly from charters. And those that are continuing to participate seem to have a better understanding and have engaged technical assistance. So we think overall, we're expecting to see improvements in our findings. The question about all LEAs expected to offer a program other than those that opt out is that tier one, the 55% unduplicated or higher must offer to all students, period.
Tier two LEAs must offer ELP to all unduplicated students. This is where I remind you that at this time, TK has a bit of a barrier because we're not doing the English learner screening so that they are not counted in that unduplicated percentage. So we don't have the numbers yet, but we expect to see some barriers, and that's what we've heard anecdotally for TK. The question of LEAs offering their ELP options to parents. We don't think stronger state standards for parent engagement and program advertisement are needed at this time in order to participate.
They have to offer through recruiting, advertising, publicizing, or soliciting through culturally and linguistically effective and appropriate communication channels. We have seen through feedback and improvement and engagement that this has been taken up and and they're doing well. We think it was a little bit more of a learning curve that we're seeing, and we haven't seen anything that indicates stronger standards or requirements are needed at this time. The question of enrollment versus participation, we are on record as being enrollment across the board. We wouldn't recommend changing this program that does it on enrollment based.
They still need to be able to serve these students. We think it's a better approach. We think it encourages participation and making sure they have the full support needed. So we would discourage shifting to an attendance basis. We found especially during last year with the withholding and concerns around federal services, knowing that we had an enrollment based structure really allowed us to provide additional support and resources for all students.
The LEAs, whether they're utilizing the sliding scale parent fees, anecdotally, yes, we've heard that, but we don't collect that data. And then how are LEAs incentivized to ensure all interested students receive services? The requirement to offer and provide access is reviewed in their annual audit. So that is where we usually find those data points. The audit findings vary, so we don't have one consistent answer.
And then our local resource and referral agencies posting third party ELP options for parents. And what is estimated magnitude of student services for ELP on third party sites? It varies depending on CDE or DSS. CDE collects that third party information from LEAs, including the information and contact information on the site. We post the location information on CDE website and send the locations and contact information to DSS as well.
We continue to have ongoing conversations with our agency partners about ELP, TK, and K programs, but whether these programs should be licensed exempt if they are not located in a school campus. Any program located in a school campus and funded by LEA is license exempt. DSS has asked for ELPEC to be added, requiring CD to annually collect the location and contact information for off-site programs operated by a third party. We collect the data and turn it over to DSS. We have an agreement made with them that they we turn the data to the resource and referral network so that they can help families understand where programs are located.
The Expanded Learning Division sent surveys to all LEAs that received ELP funding, and 1,623, we got about fourteen ninety respond, so a pretty robust reporting. And three twenty eight LEAs reported partnership with a third party off-site provider, and a total of 31,059 students were served off-site in preschool through grade 12. In terms of should ELP statute be adjusted to allow school meal and time and staff to be more inclusive in the ELP offerings, we understand the thought process behind it, but we would discourage that expansion because we believe it's a slippery slope of maintaining the true intent of the program, which is to augment the school before or after. And we think that the instructional window could be affected by this and could undermine the integrity of the program. Are ELOP plans still necessary now that CALPAZ data is collected?
Yes. I know we don't like to hear more reports, but think they're really necessary. They're helpful in our audit findings. They're helpful in providing our technical assistance. And it also ensures that families know who the l ELE is using for their funds and how the students can be supported.
We think the transparency is really necessary for public accountability. With that, I conclude my comments, and we'll answer any questions as needed. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you all for your reports. Let me go back to this last point well, not last point, but in the last comments on question number three. How many ELP sites are double funded? And you actually went through a listing of of schools that are receiving multiple programs
Speaker 1
Or are utilizing multiple programs, ELP, ACES, ELP, twenty first century, and then some had all three programs.
Speaker 21
Yes. So 52 LEAs have a combination of all three. Again, we don't have the site specific breakdown for that. And then 23 charters have a combination of all three.
Speaker 1
Okay. And we don't have data on which students each of those programs are serving?
Speaker 21
Not at this time. We do expect to have more robust data with this coming soon collection, but they we just opened up the reporting requirement, so it will be some time before we have that.
Speaker 1
So in the auditing that is done of ELOP, that's not one of the questions that is asked or I don't know if there's auditing of the ASUS program or the twenty first century program. Who is anybody are we auditing all three?
Speaker 1
Maybe that is a question that's gonna have to be answered another time. I think, obviously, we we've gotta figure that out. Who is being funded utilizing which sources? So do you do you have some information you can provide?
Speaker 23
Jen Taylor with the Expand Learning Division at CDE, and they are audited, and also receive federal program monitoring reviews.
Speaker 1
So Okay. In the auditing, is there any identification of, use of of sources of which students they're serving or anything like that?
Speaker 23
Usually, what we we don't ask specifically about other other funding sources. We're monitoring that specific funding source at a time. However, I do wanna note in the ELO p plans, there is a prompt within the plan that asks about other funding sources related to expanded learning and how they'll work together to build a comprehensive program.
Speaker 1
Do you think there may be a possibility that some, LEAs, school sites, charter schools may be utilizing all three funding sources and identifying the same students?
Speaker 23
Possibly because of unduplicated students are most you know, our students that need the most support. So homeless foster youth students eligible for free and reduced price meal. They would be a priority for ACES, for example, and they're also a priority with ELO p. So this the programs would work in building a comprehensive program to first prioritize those students. So it would be as they go through the comprehensive program, they would be looking at those students first.
Speaker 1
Do do do you at all encourage or is there an effort underway to, and I could be wrong about how I'm seeing this, but to those sites with ELOP tier one that are to serve all students, but even even tier two, that funding from ACES and twenty first century not go to those sites since now they've got funding from the state and that we direct those to other, like, non t k six sites, middle schools, high schools that don't have access to some of this funding? Is there any conversation about moving in that direction?
Speaker 23
Well, it's it's difficult at this point because they it's a local decision for the LEA to distribute the funds to the particular school sites versus ACES in twenty first is funded by the school site level, so it would really depend on the LEA.
Speaker 1
So we're allowing LEAs to send funding to potentially to sites that have twenty first century and ACEs already?
Speaker 1
K. Thank you. That's been helpful in understanding what's happening there. When when do you when will we have information on what exactly is being funded and to which students?
Speaker 21
be having our biennial report, which does show some what we got in the comprehensive data, not site specific, but we'll have the comprehensive data that has, like, the student breakdowns kind of of how many unduplicated are being served, what the homeless percentage is being served, things of that nature. And that'll be out in the next But will early month. Any
Speaker 21
Yeah. For CALPADS data, I think we're looking at mid twenty twenty seven. But to your point earlier about oh, that's part partly because we're doing the quality assurance to make sure that we're do we're providing extensive technical support at the local level to ensure that the data we're getting is complete and accurate so that we're not counting a student three times or using a program to report overreport. So there is a quality assurance that we're working on. We'll take some time to make sure that it goes through.
And so we that is part of the assistance we're supporting at the local level at this time as we just opened up the reporting requirements.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And I don't want to make it appear that we're assuming that this is happening on, you know, regular basis. There could be cobbling of dollars to do different things because that's just the way sometimes this goes. But I think we knowing is important. And if that is happening, that practice should not continue.
We should be maximizing the use of resources to serve as many students, particularly with an ELLP. We have districts that are, like, for example, Sweetwater Union High School District is a very, very large I think it's the largest secondary school district in the whole state. I represent them, and they have no ability. I also represent San Diego Unified, which is k through 12, and they're able to use ELOP funds to support middle and high schoolers. And so that's not a very equitable system.
So information definitely needed there, and I think we'll may need to have a follow-up on that conversation. To the LEO's question point on the fixed tier rate to legislative analyst office, you're suggesting that we statutorily commit to the $15.79 figure. The proposal is 1,800, I believe. Why is there a difference in the conversation that you've had about why that number with finance?
Speaker 13
Well, from our perspective, we're seeing that this is the number that districts have been planning around for the last two years. And in our conversations, I'm I mean, we've always heard
Speaker 13
to be higher, but we haven't heard of a drastic increase of districts that have stopped participating in ELOPs. So to us, it seems like it's a sufficient amount
Speaker 25
I had to recall with the ELA. I was gonna add I think based on our analysis of what the rates actually provide, we think that the $15.79 is more than sufficient to provide the program based on the expectations that the legislature has set. And so I think that's part of the the rationale. And so that's think that's part of why the next part of our recommendation is if there would be increases, we would recommend that they would be based on some clear expectations of what additional programming or requirements would be in place.
Speaker 1
And what is LA what is the finance response to that? Why are why are you proposing 1,800? Is there expectations of more participation of any kind or programming changing, or is this why why raise it from fifteen seventy nine to 1,800?
Speaker 10
Yeah. So, it's some, so partially, it's from, like, feedback from the field and what we're getting in terms of, like, tier two LEAs needing additional support and being able to provide this level of stability so they can, like, have a baseline that they can plan for moving forward since the current approach of, like, just seeing what's left over can be a little bit difficult for them to plan in terms of, like, what they can offer for their program. And, additionally, it's you know, this rate is based on, like, the funding available that we have within the proposition 98 guarantee. But, you know, based on current law, like, we do wanna note that, like, tier two LEAs can receive more than this amount, and that's just contingent on, like, whatever is the leftover funding that would be provided as long as they don't exceed the tier one rate.
Speaker 1
I I I hear what you're saying, but I've also heard and I've heard that that the stability is important. Get that. But I also heard on the tier one needs that they also would like to see an increase to be able and that could also determine potential outcomes of of more students being served. And so I'm just curious on the determination of why one versus the other because potentially a 3,000 are just sticking to the about $200 more, a 2,900, close to 3,000 tier one rate, may result in, you know, more participation, a more integral program. So I'm just curious if it was based on '98 availability and some feedback from the field that they'd like a higher tier two rate that is stable.
Speaker 10
Yes. That's correct. And based on just, you know, the tier one rate, we think that, like, the current rate is sufficient, but we're happy to have further discussions on that as we work to reach a final budget agreement.
Speaker 1
What do we have final numbers on 2425 given that this you know, it could be higher when tier one was $27.50 and tier two was $15.79. Was the $15.79 based on was that based on the leftover funds that then were applied to by tier two, LEAs? Or what was the fifth why was it $15.79 in 2425?
Speaker 10
Yes. That is, to answer that, yes. It is the remaining funds that came back and and raised the tier two amount to 15 Okay. 75.
Speaker 1
And then what we did in the current year is we said, since that's what they used the year before, we should stick to that as being the minimum require minimum amount. Is that correct?
Speaker 1
Given that in 2425, we got that number of $15.79 at the end, is that how we determine 20 in '25, '26 in the current budget that the tier two rate should be $15.79?
Speaker 10
Yeah. That's, that's consistent with the same methodology of just redirecting the funding to the tier two rate.
Speaker 1
And you don't have any data now, and do you expect to have any data? Let me ask first. Do you have any data now on whether the utilization of tier two or the disbursement of tier two is higher than that at this point? Do does the department know, or do you know? Does finance know?
Speaker 25
I think we can we can follow-up with you. I think in terms of spending data, terms of the funding that's been appropriated, I think that is something that there we could follow-up and get you information. I think when it comes to participation data or number of students, that's the area where I
Speaker 1
think Yeah. No. I'm asking about the funding data here. Thank you for clarifying that. There is some available We should know what's been
Speaker 1
Okay. To more accurately be reflected in in whatever we do end appropriating for tier tier two. Okay. I'll turn it over to doctor Patel.
Speaker 5
Thank you. I wanna echo some of the concerns that the chair has raised around how we're funding the after school programs and intervention programs. I also would like a better accounting of the overlap for the schools that do get overlap, whether they're how they're using those funds differently to address the needs of kids. And just the bigger picture around, we're trying to educate the whole child. Right?
Trying to meet their needs from the beginning of the day to the end of the day. And we have already, through LCFF, a pretty significant difference between a base funded district and a concentration funded district. And on top of that, now we're adding these after school programs. And I would love to see what that holistically looks like and taken together what the outcomes look like because we were able to roll that in the LCFF formula. Would we be able to see more consistent ongoing funding and robust programs, as a whole?
Just as a, you know, as as a thought experiment, I think we need to actually consider if if these funds were able to be rolled into the LCFF to begin with, would we see better outcomes, for budgeting purposes? A specific question around those schools that do get twenty first century ACEs, or a combination of that and ELOP, Is there a certain do we see any trends in geographic distribution? Are they focused on our urban schools? Are they meeting the needs of more rural schools, suburban schools? Do we see any sort of geographic clustering in our districts working together to make sure that they're using services appropriately or accessing programs?
Speaker 21
We can get you that breakdown. But, again, the ACEs in twenty first century will have that more specific regional and then on on ELOPs across the board because it's an apportionment. So are you asking specifically for the ACEs 20 century breakdown? Yeah.
Speaker 5
done by LEA, then then those I would love to see or or site specific. Site specific. We can give you that data. Yes. Yeah.
And many of our schools, many of our LEAs have have don't have a dramatic geographic distribution. They're not all Sweetwater and San Diego Unified. Right? They're not all LA Unified. So the geographic distribution, even within LEAs, it would be interesting across California to see which communities are able to access those funds compared to others.
Speaker 21
Absolutely. And and just as a reminder, those two programs do have a supplement, not supplant requirement, which can be a barrier for schools. And so it it helps for the concern about using the funds for the right purposes, but, will also probably inform the regional breakdown.
Speaker 5
Okay. Thank you. And then for the, anecdotal requests that you were mentioning, from LEAs asking for the 1,800 or the increased funds, are they are they ones that are that are able to also access twenty first century and, ACES programs? Just trying to understand with tier two, they also have ACES programs. Right?
Speaker 10
Based on based on the feedback we received, it it is inclusive of of, stakeholders who, are able to access, like, through their programs, both twenty first century and ACES funding. Okay.
Speaker 1
I think we're both trying to figure out the same thing, is what is the appropriate level to fund, programs? Maybe this question may help or may just convolute everything even worse. In 2425, do we have the so we know, I think, by one of the questions that I asked earlier, that the tier two rate became $15.79 based on demand and the funds available. Did we how much was used as I'm asking the question, I think I know the answer, but may maybe not. For the tier one rate, was that was the utilization what was expected?
I mean, if there was leftover, the answer would be no. I guess, how much was you how much was budgeted? Let's start with that. Simple. $24.25.
How much was budgeted for this program? Yeah.
Speaker 25
I believe, LEAs have two years to spend those funds, so I don't think we have final numbers of how much has come back. But in terms of appropriation, I think our understanding was, by design, essentially, all the money gets allocated, because if people opt out, then the rate goes up. So, essentially, all of the money is out in the field. It'll take maybe till next spring when we find out into if there's any
Speaker 1
So what happens then if if we find out that the tier one folks didn't use it? Are we gonna give another check to the tier two folks who only got $15.79 for that year?
Speaker 25
I believe they they they would not. In terms of the if they don't spend it, that's more the funding reverts back to the state later, and then that that can be used for other property purposes.
Speaker 13
I I just to add on to that, I believe that was what happened with money that was unspent from earlier years of ELOP, the first years of ELOP. When that money was unspent, it was then, portioned out to tier two districts, I think, in 2425.
Speaker 25
And I think that was an explicit decision by the legislature in the budget to say whatever amount of unspent funding is available, we wanna also use that. But how does this how does an LEA,
Speaker 1
a charter school, anyone in tier two, know that what that's gonna be? And and to to
Speaker 25
They they know when so the the allocations are based on prior year attendance. So so at the appropriation, when the department makes the appropriation in initially, is a a rate. At that point, in the beginning of the school year, there's a rate that may know what the rate would be, and then they build their program around that. But, again, when we go into next year, the department has to look at what prior year finalized prior year attendance data to figure out what the what's the amount necessary to fund tier one districts before you can
Speaker 1
I'm not I'm sorry, but help me understand. I'm not understanding how we don't know what that is until two years later, but yet we're increasing the rate the year of.
Speaker 25
Yeah. No. We know we know the initial I would say that the we know what the formula per the per student appropriation is going to be. And so that and so that is the the the initial allocations made to the to LEAs or not the initial. The appropriations made to LEAs is based on prior year attendance.
So they do know that. But we passed a budget in June, and the department does those calculations and usually figures that out. It's like July or August. So when we're passing the budget, we don't know what the exact number is. Once that rate has been set, that doesn't change over through that fiscal year.
It'll change next year maybe for next year's allocation, but it doesn't change for this year's allocation. So I
Speaker 1
k. Thank you. Appreciate that. I I think we still obviously need more information on this, but I I think I'm understanding now. So we'll hold the issue open, the questions that we've asked.
Hopefully, we get more feedback from the LAO and Department of Education on the recommendations on also the priority of getting ACEs in twenty first century to the non ELOP, and also what the the numbers are in terms of the expenditures and what's happened with those funds. So we'll leave this issue open. Thank you. Appreciate you all. Move on to our next item, which is, issue two, differentiated assistance and state systems support.
Panel here funding and trailer bill proposals from the January budget regarding the system support and the differentiated assistance for local education agencies. Everybody in the room knows what DA means, but just to be clear, differentiated assistance, if you heard that term, that's what the folks are referring to. We will hear from the California Collaborative of Education Excellence, the Department of Finance, the LAO, and the Department of Education. We'll get started. Welcome.
Speaker 28
Hi. Good afternoon. Steph doctor Stephanie Gregson, deputy executive director from the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, also known as CCEE. My goal and role here today is to explain the complex California statewide system of support as it relates to technical assistance for districts in a clear and concise manner in about five to seven minutes. So wish me luck.
I did bring visuals to help as any good teacher has, something to anchor my explanation. So if you look at the first visual, this is a visual of our California statewide system of support. We have three state level agencies, the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, the California Department of Education, and the State Board of Education that are responsible for coordinating and facilitating all partners within the statewide system of support. We have many lovely partners within the statewide system of support. We have 58 county offices of education.
We have seven geographic lead agencies that are made up of nine county offices of education, and we have over 50 leads and initiatives within the statewide system of support. An example of one of those initiatives is the Community Engagement Initiative and the California Coalition for Inclusive Learning. So that is kind of the overview of all of the partners within the statewide system of support. You can see the little cog there showing that our job and our role is to support all of our local education agencies. If you look at the two next two visuals, and I ask you to look at them together, because they are similar but provide just slightly different information.
Our California statewide system of support district technical assistance is organized just like our multi tiered system of support with universal, target supplemental, and intensive. Within Universal, these are all resources from our state and federally funded initiatives and leads that provide resources and supports to all of our LEAs for free at no cost. And when Universal supports are of high quality and attend to the needs of the districts, they can help support districts in a very proactive manner, which is the goal of universal. When we look at targeted and supplemental, we have three layers within targeted and supplemental right now.
Speaker 28
We have differentiated assistance, which is led and provided by our County Offices of Education. The eligibility for differentiated assistance is one or more student groups not meeting two or more state priorities within an academic year. So that is released on our California dashboard. We also have CALPADS differentiated assistance. For a district to receive CALPADS differentiated assistance, they either missed their CALPADS data submission or have many errors and missed the CALPADS data submission.
Then we have the geographically differentiated assistance, which was new this year, and there is trailer bill language proposing that that will sunset. The geographically differentiated assistance eligibility criteria is one or more student groups in two or more state priorities in three consecutive years. Okay. And that is our targeted and supplemental support for districts and their eligibility criteria. The geographic leads are responsible for providing the geographically differentiated assistance.
Then all the way to the right in the red box is our intensive technical support for districts. That is provided by different partners. So direct technical assistance is the role and responsibility of CCE. I have the privilege of leading that work with our districts and our team. We also have the intensive continuous improvement monitoring with special education that is also an intensive support and that is led by CDE and technical assistance providers.
For direct technical assistance, the eligibility criteria is three or more student groups not meeting two or more priorities in three of four consecutive years. And that is the technical assistance that CCE is responsible for providing. And then all the way in the on the second graph, we have the intervention element, which we don't see as providing support because it is an intervention for districts that are unwilling and unable to implement any recommendations and supports being provided by their county office of education and the California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, and that is a referral for state intervention to the California Superintendent of Public Instruction. That is our layers of support for direct technical assistance, differentiated assistance, and our universal supports. Now on the final visual is our technical assistance support by numbers.
So for charters, we have a 134 a 135 charter schools that are eligible for direct technical assistance and a 138 charter schools eligible for differentiated assistance. On the right hand side, we have districts. We have 560 districts that are eligible for differentiated assistance. They're either in year one or year two of this support. We have 78 districts with geographically differentiated assistance and 53 districts for direct technical assistance.
34 districts are eligible for all three levels of support. The most eligible student groups are students with disabilities, students experiencing homelessness, African American students, and foster youth. So these are our student groups that our districts are struggling and serving across the state. There have been a lot of successes. As you can see, there's a lot of complexities with this system and a lot of districts that are need in need.
There's a variety of context within each one of these districts. So behind these numbers are district staff and members that are doing their best every single day, and there's students behind those as well. And if we think of an emergency room, when we look at our technical assistance, especially in direct technical assistance that I can speak to very well. We have an emergency room where we have broken arms all the way to heart attacks. And this type of support, we have to ensure that we are understanding the type of broken arm that is happening and entering the emergency room, what type of knee support that they need, and provide it to them right away.
So we're meeting the districts where they're at. If they're having a heart attack, that is a different type of support that's necessary to help meet them where they're at and help them grow and improve student outcomes. We have a lot of examples of successes within all of the ranges of support for districts. One great example is the coordination of support between our differentiated assistance partners, our continuous improvement monitoring partners, and our direct technical assistance partners. It is really vital that all three partners in that technical assistance are showing up in a coordinated and supported pathway of support for districts because otherwise, you're having could be up to seven or eight different people asking the district to do 5,000,000 different things and distracting them from the actual change work that impacts student outcomes.
So the successes that we're seeing is when these partners come together and talk and collaborate and align support for one pathway for the district with a common goal and a common outcome and leveraging the strengths of each of the partners for the needs of that district. There's also learnings as well. So I talked about the coordination of support. We also still that is a learning for us as well. There are definite silos within direct technical assistance and differentiated assistance and continuous improvement monitoring.
With all of the partners, there is silos. But we are working on that through intentionally implementing conversations and discussions around how do we break down in silos together to do better for districts because that's ultimately the goal is to do better for districts.
Speaker 1
Gonna ask you to wrap up. I think we're gonna ask you specifics about the work that you do in
Speaker 28
So I'll just close out with saying that deep systems change work requires focus, intention, and time. So the importance of the statewide system of support collaborating, breaking down silos, and integrating to become an aligned pathway of support for each district is critical. Having high quality universal targeted and intensive support is nonnegotiable for our districts, more importantly, our students.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you, doctor Gregson. Move on to the Department of Finance to talk about the specific proposal.
Speaker 31
Alright. George Harris of the Department of Finance. As highlighted by the California Collaborative, the differentiated assistance or DA model and proposed universal and targeted assistance UTA models are deeply embedded within the statewide system. In my remarks, I'll brief I'll briefly speak to how the initiatives are funded and how the proposal to change DA to UTA impacts the system in the budget year and ongoing. The governor's budget maintains the current structure of differentiated assistance in the current year, proposing an increase of approximately 7,800,000 proposition 98 general fund for county offices and lead county offices of education to provide technical assistance to school districts, county offices of education, and charter schools eligible for DA.
This amount represents a $10,500,000 increase for assistance to school districts and county offices and a 2,700,000 decrease for assistance to charters in comparison to the budget act of 2025. This brings total DA funding in the current year to a 126,500,000 proposition 98 general fund. The current year funding level is determined based on the following. One, a base grant of 300,000 to each county office of education. And two, a number of LEAs identified for DA based on a three year rolling average.
And the grant for each school district is identified for either a d for either a thou 100,000, 200,000, or 300,000 depending on the LEAs average daily attendance. And for charter schools, each LEA or each charter identified for DA is a 100,000. Given that this current formula is dependent on the number of school districts and charter schools identified for DA and eligibility for DA changes on a yearly basis with the release of the California dashboard, this existing funding model has resulted in significant fluctuation for COEs and subsequently local education agencies and charters over the past few years. Beginning in the budget year, the governor's budget revises the funding methodology in an effort to, one, provide more stable funding to county offices. Two, strengthen access to universal resources, including those available through the statewide system of support.
And three, ensure that county offices are providing high quality support to all LEAs they serve regardless of DA eligibility. The proposed methodology establishes continuous and stable resource levels for each county office by delinking the LCFF differentiated assistance funding apportionment level from the number of LEAs eligible for DA. Under the proposal, COEs will be responsible for for providing DA to school districts and charter schools on a three year cycle, meaning all LEAs eligible for support will be eligible for support every three years and will receive support for three years. Currently, eligibility is determined annually, and support is provided for two years for school districts and COEs and one year for charter schools. This three year cycle will also align with the three year LCAP and every student succeeds act cycles, bringing further coherence to the system.
The governor's budget proposal provides a broader authority for the State Board of Education to determine the performance criteria for assistance and intervention for local education agencies. Specifically, the proposed trailer bill language deletes the requirement for the criteria to be based on performance by pupil subgroups across two or more indicators or across two or more state priority areas, allows the State Board of Education to adopt unique differentiated assistance and direct technical assistance criteria for county offices, charter schools, and school districts, recognizing the unique challenges facing our county office of education in particular and allows direct technical or direct technical assistance eligibility to be based on factors that demonstrate the LEA is in need of intensive extended support. This proposal allows the state board to implement modifications to DA eligibility criteria for reference education code five two zero six four point five to ensure targeted assistance is focused on LEAs that need it most. In line with the revised methodology, the governor's budget provides a total of 131,900,000 proposition 98 general fund for universal and targeted assistance in the budget year and ongoing. For reference, this is an increase of 13,300,000 ongoing proposition 98 general fund in comparison to the current service level.
This funding will be allocated to county offices in the budget year under a revised methodology compared to the differentiated assistance funding methodology that includes a $500,000 base grant with additional funding being allocated on the basis of each county office of edgy education county operations grant proportionate with their share of statewide ADA and a stability grant ensuring that no county receives less than 87% of the prior year's funding. The twenty twenty six twenty seven calculation also includes a one year hold harmless as part of this transition from old DA methodology to new to ensure no county receives less in the budget year than they are generating in the current year. This methodology also comes includes a COLA for the $500,000 base grant to ensure stable funding over time. This allocation of funds aligns with updates to local education agency assistance and intervention performance criteria that the State Board of Education is required to update pursuant to chapter eight statutes of 2025 a b one twenty one by 07/15/2026. In preparation for this deadline, the State Board of Education has held two study sessions over the past few months.
Last November, the State Board heard an overview of WestEd's report and recommendations on DA, reviewed models for successful continuous improves improvement supports in other states, and heard recommendations from a local county office of education providing DA. This past March, the SB held another study session on DA and heard additional recommendations from the California Collaborative Statewide System of Support core working group and heard from a district superintendent on successes and challenges of DA from a recipient's perspective. Through these in-depth study sessions and public comment, several themes emerged, including that more time is needed across the system to implement real targeted improvement strategies and that there's general support for this three year support cycle. Greater focus would help reduce churn and allow supporters to provide more work and deeply with district, a need to be more proactive with universal supports and shifting from compliance to productive capacity building support, and support for maintaining focus on substance on student subgroups exists along with an all students group when determining eligibility for targeted support. And there's ongoing discussion about how to apply multiple measures for eligibility determinations with an acknowledgement that multiple measures are important.
Currently, the SBE staff are maintaining interest holder input sessions over the next few weeks to get in-depth feedback from our education partners on the various considerations for updating the DA performance criteria. The board will hear update and analysis on these input sessions at the May board meeting in the next few weeks. With me in in the crowd, I have Amber Alexander with the Department of Finance and Katie Hardiman with the State Board of Education, and we're happy to answer any questions at any time.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Who do we have next? I was in the analyst office or go ahead.
Speaker 32
Good afternoon. Sarah Cortez with the LAO. Our key issue with this proposal is that it's coming before the state board needs to update the performance criteria, which is how LEAs are identified as needing support, which is with trailer legislation included in the 2526 budget package requires the state board to update the performance criteria by July 2026. Without details about who would be identified under the updated criteria, we can't assess if the formula provides a reasonable amount. If the structure of the formula makes sense under the new criteria, it's also difficult to assess the merits of the timing and frequency proposed changes without knowing the selectivity of the performance criteria.
We recommend revisiting both the funding and the policy changes when the administration can provide more information about the performance criteria. Based on the statutory deadline for the state board, that would be revisiting the issue during the 2728 budget process. The state board could also finalize its updates early, and the legislature could consider the proposal in May. We also recommend the legislature continue to include language and state law that sets key requirements for the performance criteria. This would ensure that major changes to the performance criteria cannot be implemented in the future without input from the legislature.
That concludes my remarks, and I'm happy to take questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Do we have the Department of Education? Any comments or just here for questions?
Speaker 1
Alright. Thank you. We will have some for you. Let us begin with heard a few notes. I'm trying to understand the three year cycle proposal.
I think the the three year giving three years support, I think that's clear and I think makes sense to me. You wanna make sure that there's some stability. But I think what I'm hearing in the proposal is that LEAs would be analyzed every three years or would be we would not be able to to identify them until three years have passed. Is that the way that the proposal is being presented? Or can and in any given year, can we identify would we be able to identify subgroups from from meeting any number of of of either statutory or otherwise performance metrics, then they could enter and receive assistance?
Or are you are you proposing that that only happens every three years?
Speaker 31
Yes. So it would be a three year window of support, and the and the intent behind that is to make that alignment with the local accountability plan I understand
Speaker 1
the support. I'm trying to I'm I'm trying to understand when someone enters support identified, what how do they have to wait three years?
Speaker 31
So to make sure I'm understanding correctly, so say next year is year one of the cycle. Mhmm. We have our three year win we have our our LEAs that these are gonna be the ones that are in DA for the next three years. So when you're saying in year two, it's what happens if this
Speaker 1
with not with the ones that were identified in year one. Right. Who who is determining what if in year one, my LEA is not does not identified, but in year two and in year three, we see that some of the performance indicators with subgroups is they should be getting assistance. Would they not be able to enter because they've missed their window to enter?
Speaker 31
Yes. That's correct. And we and and I think what's helpful to to clarify some of your concern is that we would be in this new proposal, there's a strengthened level of resources at that general level, that universal level that would then be provided to all all LEAs that would help strengthen their support. So it's while everyone is getting some more proactive supports across the county office's jurisdiction, there is the that more dedicated and targeted support going to those that are NDA.
Speaker 1
I I understand that. But if if the intent is to really ensure that the that there's really focused support with the resources, then the resources should come not from a large pot that's focused on everybody, but from a pot that's focused and dedicated on them. I mean, that's that's the whole intent of this type of level of support. So okay. But I understand it now.
Thank you. I think we may disagree on that, at least the way I'm understanding it, but but I appreciate the help in understanding that.
Speaker 29
Katie Hardin with the State Board of Education. Just wanted to provide a little bit more context in terms of what the board is considering in updating the criteria.
Speaker 29
So, you know, one of the considerations, I think, the board is is considering is using multiple years of data in determining, the the, eligibility. So using two out of three years or three out of the three years data to really be able to focus on those LEAs with the greatest need. So if that's the case, alright, if it's three years of data, we would then look back at the last three years in that three year cycle.
Speaker 1
That that's helpful in understanding what you're thinking. It doesn't, I think, answer the question that I had on when someone could actually enter the systems of support, if you will. But but these are important. What you said is also important because what you are saying my question is gonna be, you know, as a state board, is there any indication of what exactly they're looking to identify in terms of groups or in terms of process. And I think now I understand you're looking at maybe some flexibility as opposed to two consecutive years, two out of three years.
If there are some indicators of student groups not being met, that then they would be eligible, which I think sounds like moving in the right direction because I think you heard the concern from a lot of the testimony earlier that perhaps some group I I don't know that this is not what they said, but I I assume some of the thinking or at least my thinking is some of the student subgroup groups would not be identified and the interventions would not occur, and that's concerning. Because it would be determined based on some methodology that the board would now have authority over that's not statutorily required by by way of the legislature.
Speaker 29
Yeah. On that point, I think the the trailer bill language is really meant to provide additional flexibility and authority to the board and really being able to focus those resources on those with the greatest need. However, we've heard, you know, from the public and from our our board members. In fact, in our last board meeting, there was, you know, great support from many of our board members to maintain focus on student groups. So I think, you know, that is the intent of the board to continue to look at our student groups.
But, again, there's many considerations of how how to do that.
Speaker 1
So just to understand, please, are you saying that the intent from the board is to maintain the current requirements, but all stand it's more like an add on, an ability for the board to determine some other measurement of identifying and allowing for LEAs or charters or others to get the differential assistance above and beyond what's already allowed or or called out for?
Speaker 29
I think a couple of the considerations are, as I mentioned, one, looking at multiple years of data Mhmm. To help hone in on on, you know, those that are kind of the volatility of those fluctuating in and out of DA. The other piece is looking at looking at the dashboard indicators directly instead of the state priority priority areas. Areas.
Speaker 29
And then looking at, you know, the the state indicators versus local indicators
Speaker 1
That that's helpful in the context, but my question and I may not be asking this correctly. Are you saying that what you are seeking, your request in in in really taking statutory authority is what I have the way I'm reading it, and you may be telling me that's not what you're seeking, that it's above and beyond what is already called out for this, thank you, very well presented chart of who qualifies for which assistance. You essentially would wanna create another pathway in by some other metrics that you believe are important to utilize to support and provide differentiated assistance? Or are you are you is the proposal to determine what those are through your own process of these, very important, conversations that you've had now too of, workshops on this? Is it what what exactly is
Speaker 29
I wouldn't say it's another pathway. I think just providing more flexibility for the board given their role in determining the criteria.
Speaker 1
Okay. I'm still not, I think, maybe being very clear with my question. And if anybody can help me ask it better, please do. Because sometimes we get stuck in our in our brains. Do you understand what I'm trying to ask?
Speaker 5
earlier question, I actually would like to seek some clarity on the the three year eligibility window because that also is a concern to me. I understand why we would want to, align with the way the LCFF allocations are in the plan. It's a three year plan. My concern would be with this, gap of students that if we identify a student population that is on the trended pathway towards needing, intervention and support, then they have to wait for their three year window to open, and that would be a concern to me. It would seem we would wanna look at rolling three years because student populations don't necessarily neatly fit into the three year
Speaker 29
And I appreciate that feedback. The board hasn't made a final decision on what that would look like, but I will say the intent of, you know, more having more focus on fewer LEAs in DA would then free up the resources for those universal supports that George talked about to really try to prevent them from even entering DA in the first place.
Speaker 5
So then the DA would be like a a higher bar to enter into Yes. Whereas ongoing supports would be a lower barrier of entry to receive those continually from your Correct. County office of education, for example. That's right. Okay.
Let
Speaker 1
me continue, and you can help me a little bit more a little bit. So I think I thank you because that that further identifies and and helps me understand what is being sought. Let me try one more time on the question I was asking, and I'm gonna be a little bit more blunt trying to be respectful. Are you looking to take over the authority of determining what the subgroups are and what the time frame is, whether it's two years, average of couple of years, two out of three years, whatever that is, or are you seeking to be able to identify additional above and beyond what is already required to be, by current education code?
Speaker 29
Yeah. I think it would be to provide the board with more authority in determining the criteria. We're not proposing to take away any of the subgroups or
Speaker 1
But you could change you you giving you the authority would allow a future state board to to change subgroups, and you that's the authority you're seeking. Not saying that that's what you're going to do, but you are seeking the authority to be able to do.
Speaker 1
I think that's an education code. Okay. Thank you. We can talk more about that. I I really do wanna understand exactly what you're seeking, and there may be a pathway forward.
But I think the way this is presented now may not be, at least from the legislative standpoint, especially in a time when we're talking of a lot of changes with the state board with no legislative authority. We're now that's a bigger change here. Does the LAO and you heard this exchange. Maybe you can help us understand if there's anything that you identified that we said that you may wanna chime in on. Are you
Speaker 32
I would I would just let it highlight our recommendation that because the performance criteria is not set, it's just really hard to talk about this in the abstract of kind of future changes, changes being discussed or considered when in like, previously, when this was proposed or or the first version of differentiate assistance, we had a we had clearly who was identified. We the criteria was set, and we can think about what support they were getting, how the funding aligned, what kind of were the roles of of the different entities. So so I think there is some reason for the difficulty in this conversation is because the performance criteria is not set yet, there's just a lot of questions there to kind of figure out some of these other pieces.
Speaker 1
Okay. Thank you for helping us with that. To finance, I heard a statement, and I just wanna get confirmation. A a charter a particular charter, whether it's a school or a charter network, think, would be considered, like, an equivalent of an LEA. If they the support they receive is a $100,000 base?
Okay. And then I also heard you say that there's a base for, like, full LEAs that is also a 100 I'm trying to understand if it's, like, just one charter school versus an LEA with multiple schools. How does that scale of support make sense? Should there be more towards an LEA with that probably potentially be are serving more students than just one charter school?
Speaker 31
Just to clarify, are you speaking to the the difference between the current year proposal and the budget proposal? Or
Speaker 1
I I heard you state that there's a 100,000 sort of in I think you said base amount for a charter school. Is that in the current proposal or the future proposal?
Speaker 31
Okay. Yes. So in the current year proposal, the way that the funding works is there is a $100,000 grant that is appropriated to every county offices base to every charter that is eligible for DA. They get they receive a $100,000.
Speaker 31
And that's dependent on the LEA's average daily attendance. Okay. So in the budget year proposal, what we are suggesting is that because the focus is on universal support to all students throughout the county's jurisdiction, because that's the emphasis of the model, the focus or the determination for funding should be based on average daily attendance within the jurisdiction of that county, not necessarily on specifics, local education agencies, charter school, school sites. Okay. So that's the intent for that change.
Speaker 1
I I have interest in that because questions, but do have interest in that because as I've come to learn, this is on an LEA basis, not a school site. So we have an LEA with a couple of schools that are not performing. They may not be eligible or are not currently may not be eligible currently to receive any of this assistance. Is that correct?
Speaker 31
In the current proposal, yes. But in the budget year proposal, because universal assistance is received to all LEAs, then they would be receiving that universal assistance, but not the targeted.
Speaker 1
Is there a requirement that the assistance be provided to those specific schools within that within that county?
Speaker 31
Yes. The budget year proposal for universal assistance, it is required to be served to all local education agencies free of cost within that county's jurisdiction.
Speaker 1
What is the specific focus on those that need real assistance, the the type of assistance that's outlined in the
Speaker 31
The tar the the differentiated assistance targeted. So that it varies. I think when it comes to differentiated assistance, part of what happens with that county office is that they go through root cause analysis and needs assessments and really trying to get to the layers of what that specific school site needs and what their highest level of support is needed to actually improve student outcomes. So whether that's an a greater emphasis on teacher coaching, whether it's more, site pulling kids to have one on one tutoring sessions, like identifying where the greatest needs are specific to that LEAs, how they determine, at the differentiated assistance level, what support is needed to improve outcomes. So it unfortunately does vary based on each school site, but because of that variance, I think that's why we're trying to reframe how targeted assistance is applied across the state.
Speaker 1
Okay. I'm going to I have one final thought which I can end, but I'm gonna turn it over now to doctor Patel.
Speaker 5
I have a few questions. Some of them are kinda basic. One of them is looking at the student subgroup categories for which outcome data is reported. I'm looking at the agenda. It's an ongoing concern of mine.
I had some work on the API commission, the state commission. I'm very concerned about the the limited data disaggregation capacity of the Asian category, and the high likelihood that we'll be missing students that are in a subcategory that might need differentiated assistance. And I'm wondering whether there's any plans of further disaggregating that to make sure all of our students that need assistance are getting served.
Speaker 31
So, while while it could be helpful to have a wider range of racial and ethnic identities based on which data are collected, it is unfortunately not possible to disaggregate the racial and ethnic subgroups further. And the administration actually does We we recognize that these subgroups may be smaller and cause an LEA to not meet that end size subgroup requirement to actually get the real supports that they need. And one of the things that we've been that hasn't happened in these ongoing discussions is consideration for a new all students subgroup. And this also is in alignment with the WestEd report on differentiated assistance that came out is that this all students subgroup could help capture when certain groups are not included in these larger groups that in terms of maybe not in the reporting, but in real life that are a part of these ethnic groups and racial groups. So this all student subgroup would help capture and it would help them be included in DA, recognize support for universal assistance, and and so on.
Speaker 5
Yeah. I'm not quite understanding how the all category would help this specific subcategory, but I will say that I have an assembly bill eighteen eighty seven that will provide some capacity to actually realize some of the disaggregation of that data. I look forward to having the governor's support on that later. Wanna make sure that we are supporting all the students that need the support. Looking at the statewide COEs, we see that there is a fixed amount in twenty twenty five, twenty six, the budget act for county offices of education.
It's 119,000,000 for this purpose, it says. And then it goes on to say that we're gonna expand the amount of support for county offices of ed from 300,000 to 500,000. I just want to have a finer point on, is that so that they can provide the more generalized support at the lower tier level? Is is that like a is that cost basis? Do we are we already anticipating that they're gonna need $200,000 more per COE to deliver at that lower threshold, lower intervention level?
Where did that calculation come from?
Speaker 31
Yes. I'm happy to take that question as well. So with the $200,000 increase so with the because of the bulk of funds are based on ADA throughout the county office, we wanted to be respectful to the actual new workload that is gonna happen at every county regardless of the size. So that $200,000 grant increase does come alongside this new requirement to have universal supports that are gonna be proactive across the county office. So so yes.
Speaker 31
Yes. It it wasn't it was an intentional inclusion related to the new workloads.
Speaker 5
Excellent. Also acknowledging that every county office of ed, serves a very different number of students, but you're saying that is the baseline threshold amount that every COE needs to just run its operation?
Speaker 1
Yeah. Just I think I'm having trouble with the concept of giving the achievement gaps that exist with different groups how nonfocused if we provide support to everybody, that's what I equate to nonfocused, not lack of caring, but just the way this proposal, I understand it, how we're going to reach the specific students that need the help. And I'm I'm just not I'm not hearing it, seeing it, or understanding it for some reason. And I think that's what this shift could lead to, and I'm concerned about that. So I think I wanna put that on the record in addition to the other concerns I've expressed on not being able to identify in a mid cycle, which appears to be the proposal, and then the complete giving over of authority to the board, which, you know, may be intentioned in the way that's aligned with the legislature today, but in the future, may not be.
So, those are my concerns on this issue. I see no other, questions from my colleagues, so we will hold this issue open. Thank you. You all helped us understand this a little better, but we have more work to be to to be done on this. Let's move on to issue three, please, with the panel on this to come forward, Department of Finance, the LAO, and CDE once again.
This is on the Universal Schools meals and kitchen infrastructure proposals that are in the January budget. And we will start with the Department of Finance to present the item. Welcome.
Speaker 22
Good afternoon, chair and members. Shadi and Arie of the Department of Finance. I'll first begin with an overview of the universal meal program projections and then move to the kitchen infrastructure grant program. The governor's budget includes 1,800,000,000 proposition 98 general fund in twenty twenty six, twenty seven to support the universal school meals program. The program established in twenty twenty two, twenty three aims to improve children's health and learning, reduce stigma around free meals, and combat childhood hunger by providing access to high quality school free meals per school day for all t k through 12 students.
These resources support a projected total of 910,000,000 meals in twenty twenty six twenty seven and is inclusive of a 2.41 COLA, which added 22,000,000 ongoing proposition 98 general fund. The governor's budget estimate reflects a decrease of approximately 70,000,000 when compared to what was projected at the 2025 budget act due to actual meal counts coming in approximately 50,000,000 meals lower than what was estimated at the budget act. The reduction is due to rightsizing costs to align to revise projections that incorporated six months more of actual meal counts and not due to reduction of service for students. These governor budget estimates assume that there will be some continued growth in meal counts before leveling off with anticipated growth drivers including the continued ramp up of breakfast programs since prior to the universal meal implementation, not all schools offer breakfast programs and an increase in meals served due to increased awareness of the program and a higher quality and larger variety of meal offerings as a result of recent investments in both kitchen infrastructure and freshly prepared meals. Now I will turn to the kitchen infrastructure grant program.
To date, the state has invested approximately 910,000,000 one time proposition 98 general fund to support kitchen infrastructure upgrades, equipment, food service staff training, and related school nutrition activity. The governor's budget builds on these prior investments by proposing an additional 100,000,000 ongoing 100,000,000 one time proposition 98 general fund for a fourth round of grants to expand the kitchen infrastructure and training grant program to more schools and help schools provide more freshly prepared meals with locally grown ingredients to students. While the Kit Kat grant has historically supported the implementation of universal school meals, These funds are intended to provide additional flexibility for schools to meet student needs. Like previous kit grants, funds can be used to support kitchen equipment, infrastructure, and staffing and training for food service workers. However, given the federal policy impacts, the proposal also allows funds to support resources and implement innovative strategies to increase access and participation of meal programs for students who are or may be experiencing food insecurity.
The grant will be structured similarly to the most recent twenty twenty five round and will be awarded on a competitive basis to schools under the following prior prioritizations. High poverty schools as defined by schools operating under the federal community eligibility provision are provision two, schools that were not awarded previously kick funds, and schools that have spent a majority of their previously awarded kick grants but would like to would like additional funds to do further kitchen infrastructure grades. This funding reflects the administration's commitment to improving access to and quality of meals served to students in California. That concludes my remarks, and I'm joined by my colleague, Paula Ting from DORF, a financer. Happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 32
Good afternoon. Sarah Cortez with the LAO. We recommend rejecting the fourth round of kitchen infrastructure and training funds because the second and third rounds, which is 755,000,000, are still being spent or still being awarded. Given the wide range of allowable uses, there's cooking equipment, service equipment, refrigeration, training, staffing costs associated with procuring food, it is really difficult to say what the unmet need is. If the legislature provides funding in the future, we recommend funds be restricted for specific goals set by the legislature and that data is collected to measure progress towards achieving those goals.
That concludes my
Speaker 21
Kimberly Rosenberger with CDE. We're appreciative of the continued investments for our universal meals and kitchen infrastructure. And we did a UC Berkeley Nutrition Policy Institute was funded by the state of California study and capture the opportunity challenges and impacts. It's currently administering a twenty twenty five follow-up survey, and LEAs have until 05/01/2026, so soon to complete. And we anticipate preliminary results, but we have from our 2021 and 2022 surveys and some outside surveys indicative of the needs both on deferred maintenance and where the investments are.
And I think it's important to note that when we had our 2022 kit study, what was really telling was that they used them on not infrastructure, but big purchases. But with each big purchase, they had to do some kind of maintenance improvement or repair, and it's largely because as determined in a 2022 survey of school nutrition, our school kitchens aren't really set up for scratch cooking. They don't really have the infrastructure. So it's not that there isn't a need. It's just that it's such a large undertaking that many are focusing on the short term investments of cooking equipment purchases, refrigeration and storage, service equipment purchases, and transportation.
We don't think that indicates a lack of need for investment of deferred maintenance. It's simply addressing the now versus the long term term investments. However, we have seen from these from our 2022 report an increased meal service efficiency, increased lunch participation, increased meal service capacity, breakfast participation, and menu variety. The benefits are are evident, even with those short term investments, but there's also the schools are facing the reality of higher cost and inflation. And so, for instance, with the the $20.21 dollars, there wasn't a time sensitive spending, and so we did see them sit on dollars to kind of look for, repair and investments, to save because they were inevitable that they would need those dollars.
We do think the funding needs are there, but with the variability and the lack of reliability, schools sometimes are thinking of both a long term, short term investment strategy. When we there's also the 2020 study on UC Berkeley Center for Cities and Schools that indicated that California schools don't have the equipment and aren't designed to scratch cook. That doesn't mean that the desire is not there as we can see by the participation we've had in the school programming. We are expecting to get more data in, but there was an extension through June, so we won't have that until later this year. The barriers that exist to school construction and bond funds for better supporting kitchen renovations are the same to what we're facing in California as a whole.
Delays in local approval, state architect need, procurement delays, outdated electrical, and high cost of construction being one that often has to be remedied even with short term purchases such as refrigerators. There's competing priorities within LEA for bond funds and kitchen updates are often deferred. So school needs are ongoing funding. We don't think that by continuing to invest, these dollars won't be used. It's just that a lot of the planning and need that goes into this are multiyear.
And so, to further restrict those funds would prevent the kind of long term investment needed to have kitchens that are serving, the kind of food and the kind of, scratch cooking that the legislature so desires. We also wanna note that in light of HR one reductions to the social safety nets, including food programs, the increased role of schools providing food for students is something we expect to see in 2027. We have 62.5 of our 5,700,000 public school students eligible for free and reduced price meals. We don't see that declining despite declining enrollment. Our school nutrition programs are essential to ensuring nutrition security for students.
And, again, when we saw the withholding of funds and, you know, federal tactics to go after certain targeted demographics, Schools were the hub to ensure that students were fed, that families knew that they had a warm meal for their their children, and, we think these investments go a long way in not just supporting the community, but also improving student outcomes since they aren't hungry. While we must work within the parameters of the federal requirements for the National School Lunch and School Breakfast Programs, there are actions that schools can take, including implementing shared tables, partnering with community organizations, looking at school bell schedules, and ensuring adequate seat time and other meal service streamlining. That concludes my remarks, but I'm happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Appreciate you. Appreciate all three of you. Let me ask a question that came to mind. Well, one on the data.
So because I heard a couple of dates. You heard the LAO, I think, appropriately identify that we don't really know the needs. There are some funds that have not been utilized. Department of Education mentioned some reason as to maybe why the that has been the case. And then in our question of trying to identify what what what are our needs, where are we headed, what are we trying to solve for, it sounds like the department says, Department of Education said there's a 05/01/2026 sub what data will be available that will help us, better assess the situation?
Speaker 21
So the the National Nutrition Policy Institute received funding to report on opportunities, challenges, and impacts, outcomes of the universal school meals. So that will be preliminary results be this summer.
Speaker 1
Will just so I have expectations that are correct, will this is this a any will this be an assessment of where we stand when it comes to kitchen facilities of California's public schools?
Speaker 21
I think it will largely be on the the, like, meal quality, meal participation, salary, benefits. The deferred maintenance wasn't an included data piece in that I
Speaker 34
Hi. Kim Prinzel, Department of Education Nutrition Services. So the Nutrition Policy Institute, they will it's a kind of a landscape evaluation. So they'll look they've looked at the 2223 school year and the needs there, and then they will repeat that. And so May 1 is when that evaluation closes, and they expect in the summer that they'll have those results.
So they'll ask similar questions, as Kimberly had reported out on on some of the areas and the needs, that schools have around equipment, staffing, and training. And I'll just add, if you, think about where the state is going with eliminating ultra processed foods of concern, but also thinking about the cost of putting a fully nutritious complete meal in the hands of a student, that it's it's very costly with inflation and utility cost, equipment cost.
Speaker 1
I I fully get that. Thank you. But I this is a program to fund the infrastructure Yes. To allow for that. And so I'm trying to understand, what this is going to get us and how much of the problem that exists with the lack of infrastructure will be solved with this funding given the already pretty substantial investment, which I believe is important.
But I think we also should know what what are we where are we headed?
Speaker 34
Right. So, there is a value that these are competitive grants that started in 2025 for the KIPP funds and requirements to have spent a certain percentage of their previous KIPP funding. But there is if you look at some of the kitchens and the age and the size, in order for them to continue to gear up for serving all of the meals of breakfast and lunch each and every day. They simply don't have some of the space or the facilities or the equipment. And if they have multiple sites and they're trying to do more scratch cooking, they need to expand those those kitchens.
So the money doesn't go
Speaker 1
I'm not I'm not disputing that all those needs exist. They absolutely do. I'm trying to understand how much do we know of what that need really is. How many kitchens need to be expanded? How many need to be upgraded for the right, even probably electrical Right.
Whatever systems that a kitchen needs? Like, what what what do we know about this?
Speaker 21
So we do have some information, but I think the question you're asking about the June is, we are gonna have data after May revise by starting around June on how the 2022 funds were spent. We have gotten out of the 1,000 plus participants about a 174 that have reported their expenditures already, and we expect around June to see a much more robust increase. But to the 174, there is a consistent theme of of the four categories of allowable use. New purchases are the priority over repairs. But with those new purchases, there's often it's often coupled with infrastructure improvements.
So they're, like, chipping away at some of the repairs with those big investments, but the majority of their spending is on the the cooking equipment, the service equipment. But, again, this is of the 174 out of a thousand. So right now, we're seeing a pattern, but that could change later this summer when we get greater numbers of reports.
Speaker 1
Remind me of the eligibility for this as the LEA or the school side have to meet some criteria.
Speaker 22
Are you you're speaking to the governor's budget proposal to correct? Yes. So the for this round, it's mirrored similarly to the 2025 or the the most recent round. And so our prioritization for for this round is, again, high poverty schools, so schools that are under the community eligibility provision or provision two, as well as schools that have not previously been awarded kit grants to prioritize them as well. And then subsequently after that, schools that have obligated the majority of if they have received kit funding have obligated the majority of the award that they have received.
Speaker 1
So I'm curious, and you can add more to that, but I'm curious then of the 134 schools that you do have data on, are we seeing the utilization by the schools that are intended, these high poverty schools, the schools with need, or is it going to the other categories in this waterfall?
Speaker 21
Can you speak to the one seventy four? Of the the the one seventy four that if reported, I don't
Speaker 34
have that breakdown with me, but we can certainly get that to you. But since priority was given to those schools with community eligibility, they would be the higher need schools.
Speaker 1
Right. But I think there's also others that would qualify according to what finance just testified. So Yes. Priority was there, but if they don't have the resources, because oftentimes as we see those schools don't have the ability to either do bonds or whatever Mhmm. Then I'm curious as to who's who's taking advantage of the, which I'm glad people are, but which which schools are we seeing?
The simple thing is it serving its intended population. So did you wanna add something from finance?
Speaker 35
Yes. Thank you. Paula Tang with the Department of Finance. I just wanna add to what my colleague said. So she had mentioned the prioritizations.
But under the the current, proposal, low local educational agencies that operate a federal school breakfast program or a federal national school lunch program would be eligible for the funds.
Speaker 1
K. K. And still interested in the interaction of of who is is opting in. Okay. I think that is it on oh, one question I had.
Food pantries, are they allowed? We're seeing that k community colleges are really doing, I think, a really it sounds like a pretty good job of making that, an option on campuses. Is that allowed with these funds, utilization of these funds to provide for pantries?
Speaker 22
Correct. So under the governor's budget proposal, there is language to allow for innovative strategies to support students who maybe or are food insecure. And so the allowable the allowable language of that will be up ultimately up to the determination of what schools are able to up up to the determination of the department, but innovative strategies is the language that would allow that.
Speaker 21
There are restrictions federally on grab and go meals that we would have to comply with if we are Okay. Commingling the funds. And so that often presents barriers to certain innovation because the state dollars alone usually aren't sufficient to fund the meal entirely, and they do rely on federal dollars, which have greater restrictions.
Speaker 1
Okay. I would I would be interested in further exploring that and understanding that there's limitations because and, again, don't know because, well, we don't have the data, so we can't we're all, I think, making some assumptions here. My assumption would be if there's a school who cannot, for some reason, afford, have the resources to do a whole kitchen upgrade and would not be participating from that program, perhaps one thing they may be able to do is it's lower cost barrier entry barrier would be a pantry. But, again, if there's other limitations to getting food, maybe not. So I I'd like to explore that a little bit further to better understand.
Did you wanna add something?
Speaker 35
Yes, please. And Paula Ting with the Department of Finance. I just wanna add. So this proposal, for the kitchen infrastructure grants is funded by proposition $98. And so I think the intent while the federal programs do have those restrictions, the administration's intent is that this funding is more flexible.
So if there are innovative strategies such as a food pantry, then our goal is to help provide that funding for school schools to implement.
Speaker 36
Mister Feng. Thank you so much, mister chair. And just wanna amplify the chair's comments around innovation here. So I appreciate the comments here from all our panelists. We know that a number of our chem colleges are meeting students where they are, serving over 2,000,000 students, a lot of food insecure students.
And past couple of years, I've had a chance to visit their food pantries at Rio Hondo College, at East LA College, Valley College, a number of community college institutions. And with the expansion of dual enrollment programs and other opportunities, I think, anything we can do around innovation around prop 98. So I just wanna amplify the chair's comments.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Thank you, mister Fong. We'll hold this issue open. Thank you all for being here. And we just just for purpose of transparency, we have non presentation items today, education trailer bill proposals that are listed on the agenda and a budget change proposal, two of them also listed on today's agenda.
We will hold those issue open. And now we will take any public comment. Anyone who did not get a chance to make a comment earlier on these items that we just heard, you're able to come forward now on any of these issues that we just discussed. We'll give you a thirty second opportunity to do so. And then we will take a very, very, very brief recess to go on to part two of today's hearing.
Welcome.
Speaker 37
Hi. Thank you. Good afternoon, mister chair and members. Erin Taylor with political solutions on behalf of the Girl Scouts of California, standing in strong support of the administration's proposed investment in the expanded learning opportunities program, which plays a critical role in ensuring California students, especially those in underserved communities, have access to safe, enriching, and developmentally meaningful experiences beyond the traditional day. Through Girl Scouts After School Clubs, we are proud to partner with school districts across California to offer programs that complement in school learning while focusing on leadership development, STEM exploration, life skills, and community engagements.
These clubs not only align with e l ELOP goals, but also expand access to experiences that empower youth, particularly girls, to discover their strengths and build skills. Thank you.
Speaker 38
Hi, everyone. My name is Nora Stewart speaking on behalf of Friends of the Earth and a coalition of over a 100 school districts and nonprofits. I just wanted to speak to item three, universal school meals and kit funding. Friends of the Earth, we offer free technical assistance and support over a 100 districts in California to expand their plant based organic and local meal offerings, and we strongly support the continued funding for universal meals and kit. This committee is correct to identify school meals as a critical part of the social safety net, especially in light of h r one and other changes.
Speaker 38
Just one thing, our coalition supports assembly member Robert Garcia's budget request for a $1,000,000 one time general fund.
Speaker 39
Good afternoon, chair members. My name is Natalie Shin here on behalf of Californians Together. We support the vision of shifting eligibility for DA to three years and aligning with LCAPs, have but significant concerns about the proposal striking the eligibility requirements. We align our comments with our equity and management partners and wanna emphasize that any new criteria should be focused on student growth and closing achievement gaps. The criteria must include indicators like the English learner progress indicator and growth model to fully track the progress of English learner students and reclassified students.
Thank you.
Speaker 40
Good afternoon, chair and members. Keshav Kumar with Lighthouse Public Affairs on behalf of the Plant Based Foods Association. We just wanted to bring attention to the fact that due to federal changes, we can now offer plant based milks as an option in schools, and, assembly member Robert Garcia has a $1,000,000 request from the general fund to offer that to 10 different school sites. We're hoping this committee will consider that. Thank you very much.
Speaker 41
Good afternoon, chairmember. Sam Nasher here on behalf of the Los Angeles County Office of Education. We support the governor's proposal to invest $1,000,000,000 into community schools. However, the proposed budget trailer bill risk reducing funding for the highest need schools, including over 230,000,000 in losses for Los Angeles County. We urge you to protect the strong 65% poverty threshold and hold harmless schools serving the highest need students.
We also ask you to maintain equity guardrails and differentiated assistance and assure community schools funding remains dedicated. We've submitted a detailed budget letter to the committee to outline these concerns or recommendations. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Anyone else on part one of today's hearing? K. Thank you all. I appreciate all the testimony. We will take a few minute break.
We'll re be right back, and we will begin with part two of today's hearing. Recess. K, everyone. Good afternoon. Calling back to order the assembly budget subcommittee number three on education finance.
Thank you very much. This is part two of today's, hearing. So I'll ask the panel for we have two issues before us today. We'll hear from California State University in the first one and the University of California in the second one. So I'd ask the first panel to please, come forward.
We have had conversation in this committee in the last several months on the issue of enrollment and certainly been focused on the issue of decline of enrollment in at several of the CSU campuses. We have seen since then since we first began this conversation, turnaround plans as requested required, I guess, by the legislature last year in the budget that was approved. Some of those enrollment or turnaround plans identified continued decline of targeted enrollments at several campuses. However, we have a opposite effect happening at other campuses, primarily geographical by nature, not, I think, by design, where Southern California campuses are experiencing high demand and acceptance rate acceptance rates that are are much lower than other campuses. And so that obviously signals there's still a desire by Californians to attend our wonderful and successful and stellar CSU system, but perhaps they don't have opportunities to enroll at some of these campuses because of the way that enrollment targets have been established by the CSU system.
So with the conversation today we wanted to have was about how we do that, how we ensure that more Californians who are seeking to attend some of these very high sought out after institutions have an opportunity to do so. So we've asked both systems to come forward to have that conversation with us today. So let's begin with folks from, regarding the CSU issue. We will hear from the Department of Finance, legislative analyst office, CSU, and then CSU, in that order. So finance, we'll start with you.
Good afternoon, chair
Speaker 16
Alvarez, assembly member Fong. Alex and I have Velasquez with the Department of Finance. The administration does not have a comment on this issue. However, we're happy to answer any questions related to the governor's budget proposals. And that concludes my remarks, but I'm happy to take any questions.
Speaker 42
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez and assembly member Fong. Natalie Gonzales with the legislative analyst office. This item focuses on options for providing one time funding to CSU campuses that have relatively large amount of enrollment growth, including options to expand enrollment in health care programs. We have two initial comments. First, we'd encourage the committee to keep in mind that enrollment growth is an ongoing cost.
Once a new enrollment slot is filled and the associated staffing is hired, ongoing out year cost pressures are created. Second, with projected out year deficits on the horizon, we'd caution against launching new programs or notably expanding existing programs, including in the health care fields. Ramping up programs one year then withdrawing funding the next could be disruptive. Thank you, and happy to take any questions at the appropriate time.
Speaker 43
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez and assembly member Fong. I'm Mark Martin representing the CSU. As was stated, we're here today to talk about enrollment and health care workforce programs and how one time funding might be helpful in both of those areas. So I'm gonna give an update on enrollment, what we're working on and thinking about over the next couple years with enrollment, and how we could use one time funding to support that work. My colleague, Nathan Evans, will provide some information on health care workforce programs that we are developing that one time funding could help accelerate.
I do wanna make one pitch quickly for one time funds for facilities. You've heard it all from me before, but we do have $8,000,000,000 in deferred maintenance and $31,000,000,000 in capital outlay plans. A lot of those facilities issues are access issues. We we we have plans for more buildings that would help increase stem and health care programs and a lot of buildings that are at less than capacity because of deferred maintenance issues. But on to enrollment.
Overall, I think you know enrollment is very strong at the CSU. We've had three years of growth. We're now actually over our funded enrollment target. We've beat the last three years of budget act targets, we're on track to meet the governor's compact goals. We appear likely to grow by about 12,000 FTE in this current year, in a year in which we received no new ongoing funding, and we, expect to end the year at our highest FTE level in history.
But as you know, this is this enrollment is uneven across the system, and it presents problems at both ends. The universities that have lost enrollment over the last few years see less tuition revenue and are struggling to meet costs and increase outreach and reform programs, to attract more students. Those that are over, capacity are struggling to meet all student needs. And so the system is working hard to address both extremes and balance the needs of all universities. It should be noted that all campuses, big or small, high demand, or seeking more enrollment are all struggling to meet costs.
And we distribute funding to address all kinds of issues, including utilities, employment employee health care costs, facilities, insurance, etcetera. So there are lot of fixed costs on all campuses that we're struggling with. Underenrolled campuses, as the chair mentioned, have developed turnaround plans, and those campuses are doing extensive outreach, reforming academic programs, and focusing on retention. Most of these campuses expect to grow FTE over the next three years, and for month for many, their enrollment targets will be reduced, and they are assuming flat or reduced general fund. The goal is to get most of these campuses back to or very close to their, to being funded for actual enrollment.
Overendrolled campuses are receiving support in several ways. Our reallocation plan is shifting ongoing state funding to these campuses. For the budget year for 2627, another $26,000,000 will be moving from five campuses to 12 campuses. This will complete a three year plan that has has shifted nearly 90,000,000 in ongoing funding. In addition, the chancellor's office has distributed one time funding to 10 universities during this the past two years, totaling $40,000,000.
The idea is to use one time funding to supplement the reallocated ongoing funding as we work to close the funding gap in the system. One time money has allowed the universities to increase courses, including expanding summer. Some of the universities are using one time money to pay faculty to or who are retiring to kind of stay on as part time faculty for a few more years. So they found creative ways to use that one time funding to meet student needs in any given year. So that's kind of where we are.
Now I'll talk a little bit about where we're going. Assuming the governor's budget level of funding, we will use state funding to add about 3,500 FTE in 2627. That should allow us to hit or come very close to the governor's compact goal, around access. And that funding would be distributed after the budget is signed, and our priority would be to provide the funding to the overextended campuses. So for 2627, we will shift the final portion of this 90,000,000 reallocation to over enrolled campuses and distribute about 58,000,000 to those same campuses to support growth.
In the meantime, most of the, under enrolled campuses expect to increase enrollment without additional state funding. This would be our plan for 2627, and given the timing of the budget cycle, it'd be difficult to make major changes to that plan for the budget year. And we do wanna talk, to the subcommittee and the legislature about the longtime LAO recommendation around talking about enrollment in budget year plus one, just because of the, obvious kind of challenge between the admission cycle and the budget cycle that is never aligned and always difficult for us. So I do hope we can talk about sort of the next few years as we talk about this. Next week, our board will discuss a new strategic enrollment management framework.
This is the first system wide enrollment plan the CSU has ever had. This will be our guiding document for the next several years and is an overall framework and philosophy on enrollment as we continue to face demographic changes, emerging state workforce needs, and changing student demand and needs. This plan will also consider regional enrollment trends and drivers as CSU's universities serve regions, and regions have significant differences, including the number of traditional college age population, college going rates, economies, workforce needs, adults with some college but no degree, cost of living, housing, etcetera. So there'll be a real significant regional focus. This is a significant effort and aligned with the CSU forward strategic plan, which is moving the CSU to be more innovative in the kinds of programs it offers, how it serves different types of students across the state, and how it evolves to better meet state workforce needs.
In fact, state workforce needs will be a key consideration as we determine future enrollment distribution. Reallocation will continue in some way in the future. The goal is balance across the system with enrollment funding tied to actual enrollment. This imbalance started before COVID, was exacerbated by COVID, and will take time to resolve, but we, we will work to resolve that. In addition, I would say one time funding would be helpful to provide the high demand campuses some relief in 2627.
One time funding can continue to help as a bridge between the current state of enrollment funding across the system and our efforts to better align funding and actual enrollment. One time investments can help campuses in the short term meet the needs of students and the state by adding courses, expanding summer, or some more supporting other efforts like equipment needs to ensure that students remain on track for timely graduation. I'm happy to answer questions about any of this, but I'll now turn this over to doctor Evans who will discuss other options for one time money that could support the creation or expansion of health care workforce pro programs that we know the state badly needs.
Speaker 24
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez and assembly member Fong. Thank you for the opportunity to offer my comments. As, was shared, my name is doctor Nathan Evans. I serve as associate vice chancellor for academic affairs. And today's hearing is intended to consider how some one time support could, help the CSU increase enrollment and specifically asked us how such support could facilitate workforce oriented expansion, especially in both physical and mental health care.
And truly, that is the exact question for this moment. Such investments would be fully consistent with the c s with CSU forward. As shared by chancellor Garcia with his committee in February, our new strategic plan commits the system to flexible career integrated learning pathways, stronger transfer and credit mobility, affordability and access, and statewide workforce impact. It frames the CSU as California's socioeconomic mobility engine and emphasizes that when California needs workforce solutions, the CSU can mobilize collectively across our 22 universities. We take that commitment seriously, and and I offer four opportunities immediately that this type of investment could deliver on that objective.
First would be expanding nursing opportunities, specifically RN to BSN and concurrent enrollment pathways. CSU already has a strong statewide platform. Nursing programs at 20 universities award more than 3,000 bachelor's in of science in nursing degrees a year. And as validated by the collaborative regional work in LA County last year, the fastest near term growth opportunity is through expanding associate degree to BSN and concurrent enrollment between community colleges and CSU because those pathways are more scalable and less constrained in other models. These two plus two transfer models honor and build upon the more than 80 community college programs and leverage our existing RN to BSN paths as the most effective or most cost effective model for students and the state.
Second, another opportunity would be to expand certified wellness coach pathways. Building on recent investments by the California Department of Health Care Access and Information, HCAI, This is a smart, scalable, undergraduate oriented growth strategy because it creates accessible entry to behavioral health fields and workforce, and it can directly connect to our strategic plans goals around flexible pathways, career relevance, and economic mobility. The programs also create clear on ramps to graduate education in fields like social work and other adjacent areas while helping campuses respond quickly to state workforce demand. That's a kind of stackable design is exactly what the direction of CSU forward and our engagement of employers points us toward at this moment. A third opportunity would be resources to expand capacity in psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner preparation.
This is a graduate level investment, so it'll affect fewer students than undergraduate nursing programs, but it addresses a high need workforce shortage and can be intentionally aligned to our undergraduate programs. The EDD projects nearly 49% growth in nurse practitioners in California by 2023 by 2033. Growth in graduate programs must be targeted in demonstrated areas of workforce need, as is the case in this critical area. And finally, an investment in developing a multi campus physician assistant consortium. This is another graduate degree opportunity, but an important one.
The use of physician assistants is a key strategy for our health care partners to meet health care demand, particularly in rural communities. PA roles are expected to grow by 30% in the next few years in California, and CSU Forward emphasizes leveraging system scale, cross campus coordination, and resource sharing. A PA consortium model fits that framework perfectly because it lowers duplication, builds shared infrastructure, and allows our campuses to move together in response to state workforce needs rather than each campus trying to solve it alone. All of these is areas of critical need and concern for Californians. Growing our health care and mental health care workforce presents a pragmatic and principled strategy for investing in CSU enrollment.
The four examples I shared are poised to be accelerated, creating the ability to enroll more Californians in programs that support our students, their families, and their communities. Because graduates from these programs and from the CSU more broadly stay in California, serving their neighbors and powering the state. The need is real. The LA County Nursing 2035 report, a shared project between the CSU and the 19 community colleges in LA County, showed right now there are fragmented ADN to BSN pathways, faculty shortages, and an imbalance in clinical placements that are favoring private institutions. That report recommended strengthening transfer routes, expanding pub public capacity, and investing in clinical placements.
California doesn't need to invent new strategies. We need to scale and accelerate the right public ones. So thank you for consider considering these examples of health related and workforce aligned programs. Mister Martin and I would welcome the opportunity to hear your thoughts and address any questions you might have.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Let me start with the LAO, because in previous, hearings, we've heard the your input on making budget decisions based on enrollment, on enrollment goals or enrollment numbers. We've talked a little bit about that, but we haven't, I think, gotten into real detail. Can you provide some context as to when you provide that as a recommendation, what what you what you mean by that?
Speaker 42
Yes. Natalie Gonzales with the LAO. So when when we make our recommendation regarding providing funding specifically for enrollment, we look at the the CSU's funded level and then how many additional students we would set as the target and then using the marginal cost formula to find to determine how much funding would be needed to fund those additional slots. And then that funding would go specifically to enrollment, and and that's kind of how we think through the enrollment funding. It's separate from a just general base unrestricted base increase.
Speaker 1
And that's just to remind me and or correct me if I'm wrong on this. You take the marginal cost takes into account all costs and also cost increases through CPI index or some other index inflationary index?
Speaker 42
Yes. I would defer to CSU specifically about what is in their marginal cost rate, but the rate that we take is produced by CSU, but we take the state share of it. K.
Speaker 1
I think your colleague may wanna provide some context to that question as well. Welcome to the table. And that's what I thought I had understood the last time. I think I may have asked this question.
Speaker 26
Yes. Jennifer Pichela from the legislative analyst office. So the marginal cost was agreed to by the LEO Finance and CSU way back when. You could update it, make some refinements to it. But in essence, it is trying to capture what the additional cost is for adding a particular student.
So it has a faculty element, academic support Mhmm. Physical plant maintenance element, a wraparound student support that goes beyond just academics like the library.
Speaker 1
So if we were to use that mechanism, formula, if you will, given the additional funding in the bud proposed budget, what would that equate to in terms of growth on enrollment?
Speaker 26
Yes. And I don't know if this would be helpful, but under the governor's budget, he funds CSU for 2.1% growth.
Speaker 26
So our and CSU says that that governor's budget target of 2.1% is a bit high. They think they can grow, but they don't think they'll reach that that target. So we would recommend you go with either what CSU thinks it can do, which is about 1.4% growth, which is similar to UCs, or you go a little bit lower. And the reason we suggest you at least consider going a little bit lower is that high school grads are projected to go down this spring.
Speaker 26
And so that pressure that would normally be there isn't there. So we did provide staff some cost estimates if you wanted to be at any of those levels. So 2.1, 1.4%, all the way down to 1%. And you can, the costs are somewhere, like, you don't have to add anything until you have to add something like 30,000,000. It's a little bit complicated as to why you don't need to add anything, but if you're interested, we can walk through that.
Speaker 43
Yeah. I'll make a couple comments just on the marginal cost. I I would just note, and I think you see us said this too. We do hope at some point in the next few years, we can revisit the agreement because I think that was made in the nineties maybe, and we've just essentially been adding inflation. Mhmm.
We do now have basic needs services. We're trying to improve and increase STEM programs, health care programs. So we have a lot we have a lot more services that we're providing students, and we have more costly programs. Mhmm. And so, anyway, just as an aside, we would love to revisit that at some point in the near future.
That may
Speaker 1
be a project for all of us in the future for sure. To the this 2.1 versus 1.4, if you just to clarify, you believe your growth will be 1.4%, closer to the 1.4% in terms of enrollment?
Speaker 43
Yeah. I I think our our budget plan is is about 1%, which was, you know, the plan we developed in the fall. We've grown so much in the last three years that I think it would be difficult to grow much beyond that in the next year. Mhmm. But we're certainly open to to talking to the legislature about, what you feel like.
Think but we are kind of on track to, grow enrollment at the campuses that have high demand, reallocate funding to those campuses. Obviously, the lower campuses that have struggled over the last few years are also trying to grow too. So And I
Speaker 1
was gonna ask you about that because the turnaround plans identifies what they hope to to do and compare to to their targeted numbers. And and some believe they'll be hitting that number sooner than later, and some are not gonna be hitting it. And, and maybe this is the moment to just make it perfectly clear. We're not looking to to eliminate funding to go to the target level because I think there may be some confusion about that. There needs to be a certainly some sort of of of glide or, you know, off ramp to make sure we don't completely disrupt what's happening at campuses.
But I do think we need to start to recognize the reality of what even the turnaround plans identified as lower than what may be targeted enrollment projections. So with that context, trying to understand how the 1% growth around there by a 2.1%, so twice as much is being provided, How is that calculate like, what is being funded additionally with that with that additional percent if it's intended for growth, and yet we're not gonna see that growth?
Speaker 43
Well well, I I think what our our plan you know, we we have about $325,000,000 in sort of mandatory cost increases that things like health care premiums, or insurance, utilities, etcetera. So that's, you know, kind of those are the kind of mandatory costs we have to pay for regardless of how much the state provides us. In addition, we have, the the board has identified priorities around employee compensation. We have open contracts with all of our labor partners, and we wanna make sure we, go to the collective bargaining table and and provide fair salaries and wages for our employees. We have strategic plan initiatives, some of which I've talked about over the last couple months in terms of changes in in programs and different bachelor's degrees and that kind of thing.
And then we do have enrollment as a as a priority, but I do think we are the the challenging thing, I think, around enrollment targets over the last few years is that we've had sort of multiple targets. We have the governor's compact, which sort of wanted wants us to grow 1% a year for five years. We, however, that sort of started in a year when we had lost significant enrollment sort of coming out of COVID and with the community college enrollment decline. We have had numbers in the budget bill that were multiyear targets to get us back to kind of above where where we had fallen down. And then we have our kind of historic tracking of state funding and our enrollment.
And so we CSU believes we are now gonna end this fiscal year sort of about 3,000 FTE above our sort of funding level for enrollment. And so we are, aware of that too, and and so we feel like the kind of 1% growth is sort of the appropriate amount to do in this coming year.
Speaker 1
Okay. Let's talk about the strategic enrollment framework and trying to understand the conversation that the board will be having around this issue. Three years ago, certainly as I was sort of getting started here, there was a plan put forward, which plans have to be adjusted and and I get that, on reallocation, many of the trustees stated, you know, some hard difficult decisions, but need to move in the direction of rightsizing where 10% or more below prior year targets would receive would see a reallocation of of of funding, and some of that has happened. I I'd like to I say that because I'd like to better understand this strategic enrollment framework and whether that commitment will remain to that approach, or are we seeing a are we gonna be seeing a change to that approach?
Speaker 43
Yep. The the reallocation plan was, as you mentioned, a three year plan that goes through the the budget year. What we will be doing this summer and fall, I think, is is the board will start in in May talking about this framework and continue that discussion through the summer. And so I think I'm not sure I can tell you exactly how this will will play out, but I think the the framework will allow us again, this is sort of the first time we've had this system wide enrollment plan. We I think for decades, CSU sort of had every campus was sort of slowly growing.
Some were bigger, some were smaller, but it was all kind of going in the same direction. Obviously, we're now in a much different place where we do need to think more about the system and where enrollment funding should be distributed based on kind of the regional needs of the of the of the area. And so I think that will be the focus. I do like I said, I think there will be reallocation as part of that conversation. I think if you look at the turnaround plans, there are several campuses that are assuming sort of a continued lowering targets.
As they grow enrollment and their target reduces, the goal, obviously, is to get to a place where they're kind of even. And so that's the conversation that I think will happen this summer and fall.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I asked that question, because, one of the one of the comments was made that to the extent the legislature is interested in one time funding for 2627, given that you've already got, you know, and, again, not in any attempt to create disruption in in acceptance as and enrollment is already sort of set. But if there was one time funding for growth for those five campuses that that you've identified yourself and that the data shows, One time funding as was stated reminded we were reminded by the LAO is is not ongoing. So students aren't students for one year, students for four years, in some cases. Ideally, years in some cases, two because we're transfer students, in some cases longer.
So I'm trying to understand if the legislature were to identify one time funding for 2627 for growth in the high demand campuses, whether there'd be the commitment from the CSU to ensure not in 2627, but in '27, '28 for one example as an example, just because I have this one up, Channel Islands, is a smaller size, but they have a negative 649 less students than the targeted is what their turnaround plan identifies. If you it's that's I believe the marginal cost, we're talking about about $10,000 per student is what we it's a rough estimate. So we're talking about, in this case, 60 is it 6,000,000 $64,000,000? So I'm trying to understand if if we make that decision this year in this budget, will the CSU then ensure that the campuses have the ongoing resources with the commitment of even just taking the the the turnaround plans and the I think there's a delta there. Will that be identified as so that so that the campuses can make those decisions, not based on a one time, one year allocation, but knowing that that growth will actually be there.
Because what I'm hearing from campuses, we have limited amounts of resources to grow, and therefore, we cannot accept more students even if more students would like to come here. And that's I do not wanna get the CSU in the place where we hear from our families on the UC system that, you know, they're they're not being they're not able to get into the the system for any number of reasons. So do you think that will be part of the conversation? What kind of commitment could be made that if there is one time resources that the ongoing resources will follow?
Speaker 43
Yeah. I think the the idea of of one time funding is to help us as sort of a bridge. We know these campuses that are overextended have student needs and capacity issues, and one time funding can help them sort of address that in the next year or two as we work on, you know, reallocation and and talk about that. Obviously, we we are very concerned about the sort of enrollment challenged campuses and their ability to to to meet their costs and and and and expand you know, do all this work on outreach and and new programming. That that takes resources as well.
So we are trying to to work on this as a long term strategy. So I think that would be considered.
Speaker 1
K. I think one additional step that would be important is to understand with all of these, I I we we could probably just figure it out with a little bit of time here, but and I I didn't do this ahead of time, but identify what these the still what the difference is from targeted enrollment to actual enrollment even in the in the best case scenarios, that's what these turnaround plans would deliver. And, again, still seeing some some shortcomings in in meeting the targeted enrollment. And so being mindful that that all those things need to be addressed, that there are some costs that are unavoidable, that all of that happens, still, there needs to be that commitment that if the decline is is is happening and the growth is happening in other places, that you are fully funded to be able to accomplish that. So that's something that I hope to see in the reallocation conversation as part of the the strategic enrollment framework that you all will be discussing.
I would hope that you share with your board that there is some interest in one time funding to achieve the gap for those growth campuses in this one year, but that means there needs to be that commitment for the ongoing funding in the following year. So let me now ask about these high demand thank you, Nathan, for being here. I know there's been some talk about some partnerships, but this is this is something that I'm interested in understanding what investments need to be made to in those I think there was four or five particular sectors that you mentioned in order to accomplish that. Like, what are we talking about?
Speaker 24
No. I appreciate the question. Again, Nathan Evans, CSU office of the chancellor. The the four examples I shared, two were really focused at the undergraduate level where, as we've talked about more holistically, enrollment opportunities. Certainly, is at the undergraduate level In the nursing space and I I use the work that's been accomplished in LA County in partnership with the 19 community colleges in LA County as a an example of what we need to do collaboratively across the state, not just in nursing and health care, but in other, economic domains, other workforce needs.
Because it really mapped out what are what are the realities today in terms of the number of students completing RN programs at community colleges or CSUs or independents. Where are the transitions happening from those two year programs to four year? What are the constraints? And so just as using that as an example, the the RN that many students would complete at a community college to a BSN or to CSU is by far the most efficient and cost effective way for students to get to the BSN. Sometimes that's immediately after they do that or many times that's in partnership with our major health care employers.
So there are RNs because what our health care employers are sharing is individuals enter the nursing field and they burn out within two to three years and see significant attrition. So having that sort of I won't say guarantee, but that understanding that as part of your employment at Kaiser Permanente or Cedars Sinai or, in this case, in the LA Basin, that there's that partnership and your ability to step into a CSU program, that can really only grow once we know that there's enrollment growth to support upper division nursing programs. We don't have the same constraint that you do at a lower division clinical capacity. Much of that growth is online. So just that knowledge that there are resources, new FTE enrollment funding to support specific programs in our RN to BSN programs would be one clear signal of that.
The other programs are in are in various levels. I used the example of, the investment that was made by HCAI several years ago that allowed 11 campuses to develop new specializations in either human development or social work that are sort of frontline mental health workers, with a sort of integrated way to continue, onto a master's of social work and that type of thing. Again, there are other campuses beyond those 11 that we think there are great opportunities across the state, and that one time funding could support startup in each of those just as the HCAI funding. So I use those as just a couple examples of how some one time funding could accelerate that work.
Speaker 24
roughly? I don't have the exact figures, but, typically, that would be 20 to 25 students new students entering those programs per year.
Speaker 1
Okay. K. The reason we wanna talk about that is, you know, the next item is you see, and there are some requests budget requests on, again, very workforce deficient programs or high high demand, I guess, I should say. And and we wanted to give the same opportunity for the CSU system to see if there are potential opportunities to identify other programs and invest in similar way. So anything else that you may be able to provide on that front before batch budget action concludes, I'd be appreciative of hearing what that would be.
Speaker 36
Thank you so much, mister chair. And question I had was around a onetime investment. I know the chair emphasizes as well. The possibility of the onetime investment to support expansion and support expansion at Pomona, San Luis Obispo, San Diego, Sacramento, Long Beach, number of campuses. But, really, last year, I had a chance to take a tour of CSU Pomona and just really meeting with leadership there and meeting with the faculty and the staff.
That's a campus that on our chart here on page three has shown the largest growth. But at the same time, we know that a number of campuses are struggling, so I'm glad to I'm glad. But the turnaround plans and other things that are in place, I look forward to future conversations around that as well. But to follow-up on the chair's comments around what would it take to effectively support the growth and expansion of a onetime investment, is there a number that, is out there?
Speaker 43
Yeah. That's a good question. I'm not sure I have an exact number. I think we would be happy to talk with the legislature about what's available and what what would would work. We were we have been providing the kind of higher demand campuses with $20,000,000 in each of the last two years.
And that, I think but I'm not sure that would be the appropriate number going forward, but that's that's what we have done in the last two years. Just a a side note on the turnaround plans, I do wanna note that we these plans obviously are plans. They're three to five years here. They had to make assumptions. We hope all of these campuses grow enrollment faster and more than their their planning, but they but they were asked to be sort of reasonable what they think they can achieve.
And so these plans will evolve over the the next few years. We're having continual meetings with the campuses throughout the year to talk about their progress and where they're going. And so just I wanted to add that too. But yeah. And just
Speaker 36
to get the CSU's commitment as well on this is if there was a onetime allocation for investment on the expansion request, How will CSU continue continue the momentum with the core funding in the future?
Speaker 43
Yeah. I think we're you know, CSU is all about access. That is our our mission, and we would like to continue that. I think this conversation here is the same conversation we're having internally about how to balance the needs throughout the state and how to serve every region, how to make sure the campuses that have lost a lot of tuition revenue are still able to thrive and provide higher education in all areas of the state. But we do know you know?
So I think the the system wide framework here will be the vehicle that will help us have this conversation going forward and and sort of set the course for the next few years. And thank you
Speaker 36
for that context. Appreciate that. And the final question I had is on the health care workforce training programs that are are being uplifted. We know with the cuts coming with HR one, it might exacerbate all the health care issues in our communities across the state. And, really, I think that's gonna be even more important to have a robust health care workforce going forward.
And so you see any projections or any numbers in terms of what we may need, and how can CSU meet that demand?
Speaker 24
You know, I think similarly, we'd be happy to continue the discussion with the legislature. You know, we have looked at sort of scaling costs at different like I said, much of what I described, we're building in over time, but this would allow us to accelerate some of that, to to your point, to address some of the most immediate needs. So we'd be happy to to sort of provide some concepts around the four I I shared as well as some others that might certainly impact the health care workforce across the state.
Speaker 36
And thank you so much, mister Evans. And then earlier in your comments, you mentioned the LA Regional Consortium, the 90 community colleges. Can you elaborate in terms of what those partnerships are?
Speaker 24
Absolutely. And and I wanna acknowledge the tremendous partnership of the the 19 community colleges that are part of LARC, partnered with the CSU and the five CSUs that are in LA County. And we we all had skin in the game in trying to assess the current reality of the nursing workforce in LA County, worked with national experts in sort of mapping that, surveyed the major employers. I I referenced some several of them earlier and really developed a comprehensive plan, acknowledging sort of what the challenges were, what the realities are, and not only for each of the educational segments and the employers, but also the citizens, in this case, of LA County, where the majority of of degrees being awarded are often coming from for profit institutions in in LA County. And that the pathways via the community colleges to the CSUs as well as UCLA also has a nursing program and and the non, the nonprofit independents really are much more cost effective.
So, identifying opportunities like the need for some type of intermediary to help, sort of bridge higher education to the workforce. So our our colleagues at Kaiser Permanente or Providence HealthCare or Dignity Health don't have a 100 institutions coming at them looking for clinical placements to sort of stand up those needs. So that was one area. Better mapping sort of consistent associate degree to bachelor's degree. You know, for example, even in LA County, the number of units required for the associate's degree varied by more than 20 units across the 19 community colleges.
Having greater sort of consistency even in the two year space would allow greater throughput to the four year institutions. And and so just a range of different examples that that have come forward. Our group continues to meet and are now moving that to the implementation phase, pursuing not only opportunities like this, but also philanthropic and other regional support to advance some of the recommendations.
Speaker 36
Appreciate the context there, and I look forward to future conversations around that. And so thank you so much to all the panelists here for all the various updates. Thank you, mister chair.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Just to, like, confirm on the reallocation that's happening in 2627, are we I view this has been stated before, so I just I have notes on the old plan. It's not gonna be the 5% reallocation for those that are 5% or more below the target. Right?
Speaker 43
It is moving 5% of FTE. I think the, the lab the the first two years of the plan moved 3% per year, and then this coming year, it's 5%.
Speaker 43
Yeah. I'm not sure exactly the percentage. I mean, I it's it's coming from five campuses. So I think those are the the campuses that are, yeah. I I believe that's right.
5% or higher under underneath, and it's it's moving to 12 campuses that are over their target.
Speaker 1
So, like, in and I just scrolled through all the plans, now I'm in the San Francisco one. It's a 56 or 26.7, 5,800 under target. So roughly $58,000,000. We would expect they're definitely 5% below the target. We would expect a 5% reallocation from their campus budget.
Speaker 43
Right? Yeah. The the the dollar amount that's moving out of that campus is 10,400,000,
Speaker 1
And that reallocation is happening with the other campuses that I don't have before me, but I know that there's growth in several of them. Right. I think Fullerton, Pomona, San Diego
Speaker 1
San Marcos. Yeah. K. And and and the the 20,000,000 one time allocations done in the in previous two years, is that being considered as well, like, to continue that practice?
Speaker 43
I don't think we we that is not being considered right now. I think we'll you know, we obviously and once we get the kind of budget in in at the June, the the process typically isn't there will be a a memo that will go out in July that will sort of distribute funding. And I and I think the decisions will be made then about About much, but I but I would say I think the the two years that we've provided sort of this one time funding, that that has been difficult. Those that's money that could be going to deferred maintenance or other things. And so I think there is there is not that plan for 2627 as of right now.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And by the way, should have acknowledged because you did as well the deferred maintenance issue, very real. And there's another conversation that we're hoping to move forward to address some of that because, yes, the more we use from the general fund to pay for that, the less goes directly to students. So I thank you for reminding us and acknowledging that. So the so just to clarify, that's a determination to be made in but it would not apply to 2627 enrollment because by then, it's too late.
Speaker 43
You'd apply it to this point, we're not planning on another round of one time funding in 2627. We provided it in '24, '25, and 2526. In part, you know, particularly in 2526 when we've received no, you know, no new ongoing funding, that was
Speaker 1
It would have been more challenging to do so. Yeah. Yeah. But this next year, a proposal anyway, does you know, you do receive the increase. And so potentially when you just you make a budget for the next year, something that would be considered.
K. Okay. We will, I think, continue this conversation. Thank you. Appreciate all of you for your presence.
And we will now continue on to issue number two, which is the UC proposals on some enrollment opportunities for new programs. And I'd asked the Department of Finance to come forward, the legislative analyst office. Yes. And several representatives from the University of California. I will allow you all to strategically speak in the order you need to.
But we do have four of you, so let's be mindful of that and focus on our conversation. I think we're gonna have a conversation also about common course numbering following up, excuse me, on the conversation we've had prior. So finance, do you wanna go first?
Speaker 16
Yes. Allison, I have Velasquez with the Department of Finance. Similar to issue one, the administration has no position on this item, but happy to answer any questions related to the governor's budget proposal. Thank you.
Speaker 44
Good afternoon, chair of ours. This is Florence Bouvet with the legislative analyst office. So the agenda identifies several, new UC proposals for your consideration, and we have three initial overarching comments. The first is that several of the UC proposal before the committee appears to use one time funding for purposes that are ongoing in nature, and the clearest examples are the student disability service programs and the health professional program expansions. With projected out year budget deficits on the horizon, we would caution against launching new programs or program expansions absent of clear out year funding plan.
If the state were to face budget deficit over the next few years, the legislature could be placed in a position of withdrawing support for from a program that has just been established or expanded. The second comment is that even proposals described as one time funding for one one time purpose may entail some ongoing cost. For example, the ASIS proposal that restores features that were previously existing, including, for example, the major exploration tool
Speaker 44
would be an example of a a proposal that has ongoing maintenance and support support cost. So the committee may wish to ask why that function, for example, was discontinued, and if it were reestablished, what the ongoing cost would be. More broadly, for each of the proposals in front of before the committee, we would recommend that the committee ensure that it has a clear understanding of the proposed purpose of the funding, whether that that purpose is one time funding or ongoing, and how any ongoing cost would be covered if the state budget were to tighten in the next few years. And our last comment is just a reminder that if one time funds were available in the budget, we would recommend the legislature prioritize retiring the UC and CSU payment deferrals. Those deferrals were adopted in the 2526 budget and continue to create out year budget pressure for the state.
If additional one time funding were available beyond that, the legislature could consider capital renewal project at CSU and UC. And we believe that using one time funds for deferral pay down and capital renewal would better align the funding source with the purpose the purpose of that funding and help bolster the state's fiscal resilience. That concludes our comments, and I'm happy to take any questions.
Speaker 30
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez. I'm Seiya Vertanen for the University of California. On behalf of the University of California's faculty staff and our 300,000 students, I would like to thank you for all the attention you've given to our funding needs this year. Receiving the full compact funds is imperative for our campuses to be able to provide the instruction and services that our students deserve. And I appreciate your consideration of providing us the compact funds.
I would also like to note following up on the previous discussion that while the governor has given the University of California a an enrollment target, we have now exceeded that target by about 5,000 students. So, our campuses are growing our enrollment in a very robust way which is also part of the reason we need that, compact funding. We're here today to discuss with you several programs that can expand enrollment, improve student experience, and benefit the state of California. And I'd like to turn it over to my colleague now.
Speaker 45
Thank you, Sia. Good afternoon, chair Alvarez. I'm doctor Dina McCray, the associate vice president for academic health sciences at the University of California. Thank you for this opportunity to speak regarding our request to strengthen the California's health care workforce in service of the state's communities most in need. The University of California is home to 21 health science schools spanning seven professions.
The UC regions requested 5,500,000 in ongoing funds to establish and sustain enrollment growth for four new health professional programs at UC Davis, UC Berkeley, UCSF, and UC San Diego, each designed to directly address California's most critical workforce shortages in the communities with the greatest unmet need. We're grateful that the subcommittee is considering providing $11,000,000 in one time funding to help us launch these programs. These programs are modeled on the UC Medical School's prime framework, programs in medical education, which has produced physicians dedicated to underserved communities for over twenty years. Consistent with the governor's multiyear compact with UC to support high demand health care pipelines, we have extended this proven model to additional health professions. When fully implemented, these four programs will train approximately a 120 new health professionals annually, each committed to practicing where Californians need them most.
I'm gonna briefly summarize how each of these four programs will address our state's health care needs. I'm gonna start with oral health care needs in California. Only thirty six percent of Californians report having adequate access to dental services. Some communities experience greater access problems than others. Dental practices remain concentrated in middle and higher income areas.
For our Medi Cal patients, nearly eighty percent of California dentists will not take their insurance. The UCSF School of Dentistry's DDS Aspire program builds on UCSF's existing curriculum and prior one time state funding to recruit and graduate dentists committed to serving high need communities such as in the San Joaquin Valley. At full enrollment, the program will train 42 new dental students annually at a cost of 1,900,000 ongoing, one third of which will support student financial aid. Regarding our pharmacy workforce needs, pharmacists are often the most accessible point of entry into the health care system, uniquely positioned to improve vaccine uptake, medication adherence, and chronic disease management. But there's a growing shortage that exists, particularly near the California Mexico border where migrant and immigrant populations face significant barriers to care.
The UC San Diego SCAGS School of Pharmacy's Prime Rx program understands the critical need to recruit and train future pharmacists who are committed to serving these vulnerable communities and delivering critical, preventive, and disease management services. As one of the top pharmacy schools in the nation, UCSD School of Pharmacy has the faculty, the infrastructure, and deep community partnerships in place perfectly positioned to launch and sustain PrimeRX and address health disparities in California's border communities. The program would enroll 40 PharmD students at a cost of 1,800,000 ongoing, 60% of which supports student financial aid. Our state also has gaps in eye care. The prevalence of visual impairment and blindness is projected to double by 2050 driven by an aging population and deep inequities in access to eye care.
The demand for eye care is rising, but the workforce supply is not keeping up. There are four counties without any eye care provider at all, Alpine, Sierra, Inyo, and Mariposa. Without intentional investments, this mismatch will exacerbate access gaps, particularly in rural and low income regions. UC Berkeley School of Optometry is home to the only public optometry school in the state and is ranked number one in the nation. Its OD access program will recruit and prepare optometrists dedicated to delivering high quality vision care in underserved communities, enrolling 20 students annually at a cost of 900,000,000 ongoing, one third of which would be directed towards student financial aid.
Last but not least, veterinary medicine. Veterinarians are California's frontline defense against zoonotic disease, food safety failures, and biosecurity emergencies. But California has the lowest number of veterinary graduates per capita among states with veterinary schools. A projected shortfall of approximately 200 large animal practitioners by 2030 poses serious risk to public health and to California's agricultural sector. Dairy products and cattle are top commodities generating billions in revenue each year for the state.
UC Davis, the only public veterinary school in California and the top ranked school in the nation, wants to establish DVM Serve to recruit and retain veterinarians in rural and agricultural shortage areas, including the Central Valley, Northern Rural California, the Inland Empire, and Imperial Valley. The program would enroll 20 DVM students annually at a cost of 900,000 ongoing. Critically, UC Davis will contribute 38% in tuition coverage. This investment is not just about training students. It's about expanding a health workforce dedicated to providing care to communities across the state.
The need is documented. The model is proven. Faculty expertise, institutional infrastructure, and community partnerships are already in place across all four campuses. With this investment, the University California can launch programs that will train more than a 120 health professionals annually, each with a deep and enduring commitment to serve the communities that need them most, reducing health disparities, strengthening public health infrastructure, and delivering meaningful lasting returns to the people of the state. We respectfully ask for your support and welcome any questions.
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Appreciate that presentation. I think we're now gonna hear from doctor David Voltz on the omnipourse numbering proposal.
Speaker 30
Sir, if I may quickly review the artificial intelligence, the other proposals in your
Speaker 30
I'll I'll try to be brief. For the record, Seiya Vertenen for the University of California. The second proposal in front of you is for $10,000,000 in one time funds for an artificial intelligence initiative. AI represents unprecedented opportunities and challenges for our institution, our state, and society from how we teach and research the future of work. UC's 10 campuses, six academic health centers, and three affiliated national laboratories provide an opportunity to leverage our collective data and computing power at a massive scale to address significant real world problems.
The University of California has been a leader in defining AI landscape from precision medicine and robotics management. In addition to research and innovation and the difficult and pressing problems, we'll we will adopt our curricula to equip today's workforce as well as the next generation with the fluency to navigate AI augmented world, ensuring that the economic medicine opportunities created by this technology are accessible to the diverse population of our state. In addition, we will ensure that our faculty and staff have the tools and resources to augment the critical work that they do for the University of California. Historically, our work has been characterized by specialized research at individual campuses, and we now want to move beyond individual campus efforts to leverage our collective knowledge at a massive scale. And the third proposal in your agenda is for $10,000,000 in one time funds for student disability services.
Every UC campus has a disabled student services office, and approximately eleven percent of UC students receive accommodations for a disability. The percentage of students with disabilities has been growing much faster than the overall UC student population. The population of students with disabilities registered with the UC Disability Support Service Centers increased by hundred and ninety percent between 2014 and 2021, demonstrating higher rate of growth than the population of their non disabled peers, which grew at 17.5% during the same period. With this growth, campuses have struggled to meet students' needs. In January 2024, the UC system wide advisory group on students with disabilities released a report outlining recommendations to address specific ways the university could support students with disabilities.
If the university is provided funding, this work group report will serve as a guidance for meeting student need. Because these are one time funds, campuses would focus on assistive technology and digital access as well as temporary employees such as ASL and braille interpreters and translators. And the fourth proposal in your agenda is for $4,000,000 in one time funding for proof of concept work. This proposal would address the gap in funding that exists between academic based discovery, like the basic research and UC academics do, and commercial application of these discoveries. This gap in funding is sometimes called the valley of death, and it's very real for our entrepreneurs.
UC researchers, on average, create five new inventions per day. Among universities, the University of California ranks first in the nation for patents granted. However, in rankings of technology transferred to businesses, no UC campus ranks in the top 10, and only two are included in the top 40 nationally. The proof of concept fund is intended to catapult promising early stage research to license ready technologies that can either be licensed to existing companies or support the formation of spin out companies that are mature enough to attract outside funding for successful translation. The proposal in front of you would build on previous work from a UCOP funded pilot from 2023, which provided 2,000,000 to campuses and resulted in 17 successful companies being formed in California.
Thank you for your time today. Thank you for letting me read that.
Speaker 1
Appreciate that. I think we'd like to hear on this proposal for common course numbering given that it's been a important topic for the committee this whole entire year.
Speaker 46
Good afternoon, chair Alvarez. I appreciate the opportunity to speak about ongoing intersegmental efforts on common course numbering or CCN. My name is Dave Vols. I'm a professor at UC Riverside and currently chair the UC's board of admissions and relations with schools, otherwise known as BORS, a system wide academic senate committee that oversees all matters and policies specific to undergraduate admissions across the UC system. As a faculty member for nearly seventeen years, I've had the privilege of educating and interacting with thousands of undergraduate students, including many transfer students from the California Community Colleges or CCC system.
Moreover, I've had the opportunity to mentor, guide, and support transfer students outside of the classroom. And based on my experience as a professor and as a transfer transfer student myself thirty years ago, I'm sensitive to the challenges that students face when attempting to transfer from a community college into a four year university, as well as the import importance of ensuring that students are sufficiently prepared and set up for success within upper division coursework after transfer. For these reasons, I have a strong interest in providing the academic senate leadership on efforts including CCN to help decrease inefficiencies and streamline transfer admissions within California. Over the last couple of years, the CCC's Academic Senate convened discipline specific CCN faculty work groups that consisted of intersegmental faculty who were charged with developing CCN templates for courses within the humanities, social sciences, and STEM. CCN templates complain contain essential information about the description, content, objectives, outcomes, methods of evaluation, and representative text for courses that are common across all 115 CC campuses.
Once developed and approved, a CCN a system wide CCN template is then used by curriculum committees at each of the 115 CC campuses to develop course outline of records or course that outline a single that align within with a single approved CCN template and define the expected content and objectives for a course regardless of who teaches the course. Based on the existing process for articulation review, CCN templates within phase one were reviewed reviewed last year using course as the basis for articulation determinations. As a result of these articulation approvals, 14 templates from six courses within Phase one represent more than 1,500 courses currently offered to students at the CCCs as of fall twenty twenty five. Roughly 80% of these courses were approved for Calgethse areas, meaning that students enrolled in any of these courses can transfer general education units to any UC or CSU campus regardless of which community college the course was completed at. Last year, the CCC chancellor's office communicated the desire for a single CCN template rather than a 115 course to serve as the basis for articulation review for a CCN course.
However, at that time, it was unclear whether existing CCN templates contain a sufficient level of detail to determine whether CCN courses meet the standard for baseline transferability to the UC and CSU. Therefore, UC determine what information gaps on a CCN template, if any, have the potential to drive articulation denials. We then work directly with the CCC's academic senate leadership to identify what modifications would be needed to increase the chances of articulation approvals without having to rely on cores, while at the same time ensuring that CCN templates were not prescriptive to the point that they encroached on academic freedom for CCC faculty. CCN faculty work groups then reviewed and when needed upgraded the phase three templates Based on this proof of concept using revised phase three templates, we concluded that current and future CCN templates have the potential to serve as the basis for system wide articulation review and determinations, if enough detail is included, to meet articulation standards for UC's baseline transferability. Therefore, as a result of the tremendous amount of progress and effort that the CCC's Academic Senate and CCN faculty work groups have made over the last nine months or so, the UC is now in the process of working with Academic Senate leadership within the CCC and CSU systems to develop a unified intersegmental vision and process for articulation review of system wide CCN templates that mirror the existing workflow and process for articulation review.
In closing, over the last year, we've had an incredibly productive faculty driven intersegmental negotiations and partnerships that have one, resolved information gaps within CCN templates. Two, significantly increased the chances of articulation approvals on the basis of CCN templates. And three, developed a system wide articulation review mechanism that builds upon existing processes and ensures that the core serves as a default for review in the event a CCN template is not approved for articulation. As a result, I'm optimistic that we're moving in the right direction and that our efforts will significantly streamline transfer of courses and corresponding units from the CCs to the UC and CSU, resulting in positive impacts for transfer students in California moving forward. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Appreciate that. I wanna start by saying thank you to doctor Voetz for coming and talking about this. The first sort of basic question is is the request inclusive because CSU came before us a few weeks ago and made a a good point. They were gentle in making it, but that a lot of this work is happening with not a lot of resources.
And so when we heard about this from you, we were interested in hearing more. Does your proposal include resources that may be needed by all segments to do this work?
Speaker 46
I mean, I'm I'm speaking on behalf of the academic senate. I know, I mean, Yoon Woo, is going to speak to, requests specific to assist, which is critical Okay.
Speaker 46
success of CCN. Okay. Because that's really where the rubber sort of meets the road in terms of articulation and and communicating to students that the courses that they're taking can actually transfer.
Speaker 1
Can you can you Yes. Rather than give a presentation to answer that question just because of time, the question that I asked on the proposal is for assist is where did it go?
Speaker 47
Yes. For the record, Hanmi Yoon Woo with the University of California. The the request for ASSIST as the official statewide database for online resource and transfer articulation is intersegmental, so it's equally funded by the three public segments as well as the state is is funding the members of the AICCU
Speaker 1
to participate. This 10,600,000, we have a staff comment in the agenda of you see provided a copy of a $10,600,000 request proposed by the regions to facilitate the common course. That request, it can maybe help me understand what that request is from who to where and includes what?
Speaker 47
It's for for three enhancements, student facing enhancements to the assist system, which would be for the statewide system for so it would benefit all the Okay. System as well as
Speaker 30
Chair Alvarez, the funds for the assist system flow through the UC budget. The three segments, UC, CSU, and community colleges contributed that routine maintenance. This funding request is for system upgrades, one time technology upgrades for assist for student facing interface.
Speaker 1
Okay. Got it. Thank you. Let's move on to the other proposals. I have specific questions, but to wrap this up or try to, one of the concerns we identified in the committee hearing with community college as we had them present on common course numbering is the multiple different articulation requirements, if you will, from UC depending on which school, depending on which program within a school.
That's really was I'll just tell you the highlight for me of the how complicated it is for a student to navigate, particularly with CSU, the ability to to transfer, and and also it it appears that's translated into the ability to do a common course numbering system that is achievable given the different requirements. And, you know, not don't even explain to me as to why why UC does that. There's there's reasons faculty make decisions about what the requirements are for their programs, but that seems to me to be a complication of common course numbering that you have to deal with.
Speaker 46
I mean, I guess the way I would respond to that is, as it is right now that each of the community college campuses submits a course outline of record, which is more detailed than a CCN template. And when they submit that, they route it through the chancellor's office within the the community college chancellor's office, and then that goes to UCOP. And there's a team within UCOP that makes an articulation determination for baseline transferability that are based on the faculty driven criteria on the UC side. But that determination at the UCOP level, that's a system wide baseline, transferability determination. And then from there, it goes to the, to the campuses, the CSU campuses, as well as the individual UC campuses.
And and they, you know, they have the opportunity to review that as well. Mhmm. But from what I understand, at least on the UC side, is that, you know, the vast majority of of course, the course outline of records, if they're approved system wide, then they're usually approved at the campus level. And so what we're working on right now with I'm working with senate leadership on the CCC and the CSU side to envision, like I mentioned in my testimony, a unified intersegmental vision of how the CCN template articulation process would occur in terms of the review. And a lot of it just piggy piggybacks on on the existing process for the course outline of record.
But the key difference is that we're including basically a fail safe mechanism that would still rely on these course outline of records because they're gonna continue to be submitted. And so if a CCN template, for whatever reason, if there's not enough detail or whatever, ends up being denied for articulation, then the default would be back to the COR, the core, for that particular campus, for that student that's taken that course at that campus. So they'd still be able to transfer. It just wouldn't be on the basis of that CCN template. But I guess what I wanna
Speaker 1
They would be able to transfer let me ask this because I I think this is where we got caught up with them. They'd be able to transfer, but if the major required a different type of I think we used in that case, we used calculus, I think, as if they they transfer, but they didn't take the right calculus. Therefore, they need to take another calculus to meet the requirements of that major. Is that a scenario that is possible?
Speaker 46
Yeah. Potentially. But but I think, you know, the CCN templates definitely help resolve that issue because it is a single unified template that's system wide, not only within the California community college system, but also ends up being system wide in terms of the transferability, assuming assuming that the campuses are on board with that. But I guess, you know, one thing I wanna communicate too is that, you know, I think we there was this question about whether there was enough detail on the CCN templates for the articulation folks to be able to make a determination. And that's where we ended up working with the academic senate leadership on the CCC side, over the last nine months or so, really to figure out kinda where that sweet spot is in terms of ensuring that there's enough information on the CCN template without without going to the point where you're effectively just replicating the core, but also without going to the point where you step on the toes of the CCC faculty in terms of academic freedom.
And we figured that out. And we've already done a well, UCOP has already done a preliminary review of phase three templates after these sort of negotiations and us trying to figure this out. And and and a large majority of the CCN templates based on these revisions would would be end up receiving articulation.
Speaker 1
I I'll I'll just characterize, and I may be mischaracterizing or misunderstanding and characterizing incorrectly. There seems to be still a little bit of a snag in all of this from what we're hearing from from from others. I would also like to acknowledge the fact that you have all invested a tremendous amount of time and your talent, and it's very appreciated. I think that's that should be commended, but it it it always seems like there's still a lot more left to do, which is, you know it's okay. You're up for the challenge, but I think the expectation was that this would be a little further along than what what what it is, where it is at the moment.
And the concern is, like, we're not moving fast enough or we're not somehow getting to the goal with the the type of expediency that was desired when the legislation was brought forward. So I think my point here will be, you know, it'd be good to know what other tools slash resources are necessary to accomplish accomplish that goal and ask you to to keep us informed about that. But appreciate you being here, and thank you. Let me now ask about the health profession program expansion requests, particularly, and to be mindful of everybody's time, I'm gonna focus my attention on those. We were told at some point that this was a an lemon $11,000,000 one time expenditure.
I heard today the testimony, it's a $5,500,000 ongoing expenditure. So let's start with clarifying whether it's onetime, whether it's ongoing. I know the dollar amount is 5,500,000. I you add those up, that's what you get to. So that's not in question.
It's whether one time or ongoing.
Speaker 30
Thank you, chair Alvarez. The UC regents approved a request for $5,500,000 ongoing for these programs because they are students who would start, and then we would hope to admit new classes and continue the programs indefinitely. We were told that there the committee may be willing to consider one time funding for us. So we looked at what what do we need to launch these programs.
Speaker 30
And it was approximately double the funding but over a more extended period of time. So, four years, that would allow us to get those programs off the ground, admit students into the program, and then by the time the funds were expiring, we would have enough data to start showing some success to the legislature and have a discussion about making those funds ongoing. Okay.
Speaker 1
So you would still expect, on go if if this is an investment that we decide to make, it would still require ongoing expenditures at some point in the future?
Speaker 1
And, I ask that because I know in other instances, you're able to be provided with one time funds. You get a program up and running, and then it sort of is, lack of better term, self sustaining. But these, you're saying, are not programs that would be self sustaining.
Speaker 30
We we would try to fundraise for them in order to reduce the need for future state contributions. And if we were able to be do that successfully, we might have enough to continue the programs without coming back to the state.
Speaker 1
Okay. I won't ask you to give me a response now, but I'd like to know what a 11,000,000 one time expenditure over four years means in terms of rolling out these four programs. I assume you'd have to do some phasing in or maybe some go first and others go next. You can respond to that. Another time I'd like to know more specifically about I'm obviously very interested in the UCSD program, but the question here is not just of this program but of the others.
Actually, it was founded very interesting in the testimony by somebody who stated, and I wanna be corrected if if I misunderstood, there are four counties where there is no
Speaker 1
Optometrist? Like, what what is what is that? Can you clarify what you mean by what you said with that so that it's
Speaker 45
in the market? Four counties without any eye care providers, and so it's Alpine, Sierra, Inyo, and Mariposa.
Speaker 45
to finance? Optometrists. So anyone who's going to address the eye care needs and because of our aging population Yeah. Unfortunately, our workforce supply just cannot keep up with the growing demand.
Speaker 1
So, obviously, a very compelling reason to support, the intention of the program. What I'm curious though on is whether it's that or the UCSD Prime Rx program, or, you know, any of the others which are targeted to serve very underserved areas. How do we how do we assess whether that outcome was met or not? You can't force people to stay or go work in particular communities.
Speaker 45
So to your point, we have evidence that shows if you recruit from that community, say you you start, having pathway programs and exposing high school students to the profession, and then you track them, you provide support and guidance along the way, they become part of your health professional school. They're from there. They've trained there. They have ties there. They're more likely to stay there and provide care to those communities.
Speaker 1
So in the case of the optometrist, that would be a program through Berkeley, I believe?
Speaker 1
You would be obviously, they'd be Berkeley students. I assume there'd be some campus education.
Speaker 45
So they're gonna be outreaching to community colleges, all of the communities in the areas that are underserved. Uh-huh. Again, trying to recruit from that area cause it's more likely they will return and practice.
Speaker 45
They're also gonna find training sites. The evidence shows that if they actually train in the community and develop ties with everyone there, they're more likely to stay there. So we're basing all of these programs on evidence and proven models.
Speaker 1
Sounds sounds right. I'm just curious how if I'm if if I'm explaining this to someone who wants to know exactly how this you're gonna recruit students who are local to any of those four counties targeting those, you're going to create some partnerships locally, students are still gonna go away, right, to Cal?
Speaker 45
So there's gonna be a mix of curricula. So they're still determining exactly where and how they would have the curricula implemented. However, yes, we have the excellent Berkeley faculty who have the expertise and ability to train all of these students, but then their clinical experiences will be out in the in the communities.
Speaker 1
I don't know the the the you know, the sequence for an optometrist because that's not the field of study I've ever researched. You go to get your bachelor's degree, then you go and get a
Speaker 45
postgraduate degree. Optometry degree. It might be easier if I use an example, a proven model. So, for example, our San Joaquin Prime, San Joaquin Valley Prime program within the medical school that's sponsored by UCSF. So we have medical students that may do didactics, and they're in the regular classroom setting, but then we start integrating them with the community.
So they are from the San Joaquin Valley. They're they've gone through their education, and then they go into the community based clinics
Speaker 45
And so they get all their experiences there, and then it's more likely that they're gonna stay and do the the rest of their residency and then also Yeah. Stay
Speaker 1
What what I was wondering though, if you don't have an optometrist in any of those four counties, I assume they require some supervision, who's gonna supervise
Speaker 45
And so that's part of what the funding would go towards is identifying faculty. So there is such a huge need, and faculty is a a challenge in terms of finding the right supervision. You're absolutely right. And so there's a lot of people who are using their work time just to network, and then they're trying to incentivize individuals to go out into those shortage areas and then become faculty and develop training.
Speaker 1
How many there's a 120 total in the four proposals, but how many in the in the iCare program, access?
Speaker 1
The funding request is a $9,000,000. Let's just round it up to a million. For 20 students, it's 50,000.
Speaker 45
optometry tuition for optometry is I have it right here. For a first year student, it's typically $51,000.
Speaker 30
Chair Alvarez, the state subsidy that we're requesting would be $45,000 per student.
Speaker 1
K. And on the Prime Rx one, it's I think you said a cohort of 40 students annually?
Speaker 45
It would end up being for the PrimeRX, it would end up being 40 students. Correct.
Speaker 1
Okay. Okay. And if you receive the funding, how quickly would these programs be up and running?
Speaker 45
So for DDS Aspire, they did get one time funds, and then they're starting 10 students this '26. The rest of the prime programs would start '27. K.
Speaker 1
presenting that information, that data. We will continue the conversation, I think, on this front and see if there's opportunities for supporting some of these programs in these very, very needed parts of California. So thank you very much for bringing that forward. That will be it on this issue. We will hold it open.
Now take public comment on anything in this part two of today's agenda. Welcome you to come forward. State your name and affiliation, and happy to take your public testimony.
Speaker 48
Good afternoon, chair and members. Vincent Rosso. I'm here representing the University of California Student Association, but also here speaking on behalf of our counterparts at the UC Graduate and Professional Council collectively representing over 300,000 students across the University of California. We're here just, you know, in really strong support of the legislature fully funding the compact for the University of California system. Appreciate your time.
Thank you.
Speaker 49
Good evening. My name is Iman Majid, director of fiscal advocacy for the California Community College of Chancellor's Office, here to express our support for UC's 10,600,000 budget request for ASSIST. ASSIST is a critical and most important tool that is helping advance transfer reforms, including AB nine twenty eight and common course numbering. At the same time, we would emphasize that common course numbering is already well underway with prior investments supporting implementation across all higher education segments. The proposed assist investment will strengthen data transparency across individual institutions.
This complements but does not replace a b twenty two thirty six, which focuses on establishing a system level articulation solution. Both approvals will help reduce, student confusion.
Speaker 27
Good afternoon. My name is Kenya Juarez. I'm here with California Faculty Association. I'm one of the student interns, and I am from CSU East Bay, one of the smaller campuses. I'm here to really urge you guys to oppose the further funding of the the re reallocating between campuses as it hurts campus' ability to rebond and grow coming from a smaller campus that will be significantly impacted by this reallocation of of fund funding.
I find it very personally, and I know it's gonna impact us more than it already has. On my campus, there has been programs that have been cut because of the lack of enrollment, which also stops the support and, you know, that students get already, which is cutting the amount of students that they accept into these programs, which only hurts our university even no even more because of the funding. Unlike largest CSU campuses, smaller campuses do not benefit from this economic of scale. Even modest enrollment loss credits significant campus dis this stabilization that can include the layoff of faculty and staff, which we already have seen, especially on my campus. For smaller campuses, layoff staff and faculty simply may not return.
The loss of institutional knowledge and student support capacity has long term consequences for student success. Thank you.
Speaker 33
Good afternoon. Mario Herrera with the California Faculty Association. Just wanted to highlight, the issue of campuses that have experienced funding reallocation, from their campuses, due to not meeting their goals. Right? They still have students that they have to serve.
And these cuts, we believe, do not take into consideration economies of scale. For example, San Francisco and some of the more rural campuses experience higher expenses due to their location or labor. We would also point out that even k through 12 systems acknowledges minimum funding models that recognize the need to serve students where they are even if enrollment is lower than it's expected. For these reasons, you know, we really have concerns about any further reallocation. We think it would hurt students, and it would cost jobs.
We appreciate your time.
Speaker 1
Thank you very much. Any other comments on part two of today's agenda? Seeing none, we're adjourned.
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