California protects education funding

Whew! After months of uncertainty over a multi-billion dollar budget gap, California came through again to protect core funding for public education. The budget for 2024-25 provides increased support for programs such as the Local Control Funding Formula ( LCFF), special education, transitional kindergarten, nutrition, and preschool.

Finding a solution wasn't easy, and other areas of the budget took huge hits. Closing a $46.8 billion deficit required:

• Reducing funding for every area of government expenditure except education
• Draining rainy day reserves
• Delaying spending
• Deferring payments to later years
• Cutting, cutting, cutting

The result is very complex. The new technically balanced budget went into effect July 1, 2024 with machinations only an accountant would love.

Want the gory details? knock yourself out.

Quick budget explainer

Each year, California’s state constitution requires a portion of the state budget to be set aside for K-14 education (that is, K-12 and public community colleges). The protected funds, known as the Proposition 98 minimum guarantee, come to about 40% of the General Fund of the state budget. Overall, the budget for 2024-25 increases funding for education. Here’s the link to K-12 Proposition 98 Funding by Program.

Most of the money in the Prop. 98 education budget is allocated to school districts through the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). This money pays for operating costs like salaries for educators, administrators, and counselors in virtually all California public schools. Costs for transportation and building maintenance fall in this category, too. LCFF funding increased by approximately $983 million over last year.

The budget includes restricted money that must be spent on specific educational programs. These include, for example, American Indian programs, Child Nutrition, Foster Youth, Special Education and arts education.

Want even more nitty-gritty details? Revel in Schedule 6100 of the state budget.

What has been cut?

Funding for education in the 2024-25 General Fund budget was preserved at the expense of cuts in every other area. In combination, K-12 education ($81.5 billion) and higher education ($23.4 billion) comprise nearly half (47%) of the state General Fund.

Although this budget sustains funding for education, a number of significant education-related measures failed to advance. These include the School Facility Aid Program, the California Preschool, Transitional Kindergarten and Full day kindergarten grant program, and funds for Zero-Emission School Buses.

New attendance recovery rule

Unlike most states, California allocates funding to school districts based on student Average Daily Attendance (ADA). When students miss school, districts don’t receive LCFF funding for them.

Because of chronic absences and learning loss, California legislators wanted to find a way to help school districts reduce the absence numbers in the future. Here’s the plan: Beginning in 2025-26, schools will be able to add up to 10 days of attendance recovery time per pupil to offset absences. This includes summer school, intersessional school, weekends, or before/after school. These programs must be taught by certificated teachers, be exempt from minimum day requirements, and be non-compulsory.

A note of caution

Budgets are built on predictions. Will Californians actually earn income and pay taxes at the levels the state Department of Finance has predicted in the budget? No one knows for certain. The state Department of Finance tracks key indicators monthly, relying on information like incoming taxes. In 2024 the budget process was unusually difficult because the 2023 tax filing deadline was substantially extended.

The state Legislative Analyst Office (LAO), a nonpartisan agency independent from the Department of Finance, predicts that the three years ahead could be rough sledding:

Specific education investments

The budget contains significant investments that parents and communities have asked for. Ed100 lessons and blog posts linked below help explain the issues.

How does California pay for schools?

Funding for public K-12 education in California comes from three main sources: state income taxes, local property taxes, and the federal budget, in that order. The portion from each source has varied over time.

State income taxes that go toward education are strongly influenced by the economy, the stock market, and the terms of Proposition 98.

Property taxes that go toward education (and which are included in calculation of the Prop 98 guarantee) were more or less set in stone by voters who passed Proposition 13 in 1978.

Federal funds for public education were temporarily elevated by pandemic programs.

California spending per student on education is basically normal.

California no longer lurks in the basement of national school funding.

California once had about the worst school funding in America no matter how you looked at it. Nowadays, most analysts reckon that California’s education funding, compared to other states, is essentially ordinary. Not at the top. Somewhere in the middle.

More about the Local Control Funding Formula

In the Ed100 blog
What are Basic Aid districts?

LCFF funding is distributed on the basis of student attendance, with some adjustments. School districts, charter schools and county offices of education receive additional funding for low income students, English learners, homeless and foster youth. Here’s a summary of how LCFF works:

• The base funding amount per student in attendance varies a little by grade level.
• Added to that is supplemental funding based on the number of students with higher needs.
• Districts with a very high percentage of needy students get even more support through a concentration grant.
• A recent addition to this is the equity multiplier. This provides additional funding for school sites with prior year non stability rates greater than 25 percent and prior year socioeconomically disadvantaged pupil rates greater than 70 percent.

Not all school districts are part of the LCFF system. It’s instructive to learn about Basic Aid districts, which don’t receive their funding through the formula.

Getting to the source

This rather epic post is only possible because detail-oriented people do the important work of making information available even as it changes through the budget process. If this sort of stuff interests you, here are some resources you should know about:

• California 2024-25 education budget summary
• California State Budget
• California Department of Finance
• California Legislative Analyst Office
• California Budget and Policy Center
• EdSource