This month, budget hearings are set to begin as the California Budget Subcommittees of the Legislature look at the Governor’s January budget proposal. Each subcommittee will start hearing the respective issue areas that they have jurisdiction over.
For education this means that Assembly Budget Subcommittee #2 and Senate Budget Subcommittee #1 will start examining the Governor’s proposal for funding Proposition 98. The Governor has proposed to increase Proposition 98 funding by $7.8 billion for schools and community colleges. Specifically, $5 billion will be for programmatic increases and $2.8 billion will be for retiring existing debt. The legislative analysts office has examined all of the Governor’s proposals and published recommendations on all of them.
As budget hearings begin, another issue is gaining steam in Sacramento: Should the state propose a school bond?
It is well accepted that school districts and charter schools throughout the state are in need of facility assistance. The administration has been resistant to legislative efforts to sponsor a school bond while members of the legislature have introduced two measures to place a bond on the ballot. Additionally, a coalition of school builders and construction officials have submitted a $9 billion proposed bond to the state and are beginning to gather signatures to get it qualified for the ballot. They will need to gather 366,000 signatures to get it on the ballot.
It is unclear if this is a serious effort (because the bond campaign would cost millions of dollars and everyone is not on board yet) or if it is an effort to force the state to place a bond on the ballot by applying additional pressure to state officials. What is clear is the fight will only intensify over the next few months as we go through the budget hearing process.
Check back for more details and legislative updates.
Month: February 2015
Join us on Wednesday, February 18th at 9:00 a.m. Pacific / 12:00 p.m. Eastern for our webinar, “Building a Growth Strategy: Start-up, Growth, Maturity.”
We will cover a variety of challenges charter schools face at each stage of growth. Our speakers will outline stages of growth from start-up to expansion to maturity and highlight the challenges schools experience at each stage. Our panel of experts will offer best practices from their experiences.
REGISTER TODAY!
Speakers:
Marshall Emerson, CEO, I CAN Schools
Marshall is co-founder of I CAN Schools, overseeing seven charters and more than 2,400 students. I CAN began in 2010 and the schools have been one of the country’s most successful charter school concepts in closing the achievement gap for low-income students.
Stuart Ellis, President & CEO, Charter School Capital
Stuart is co-founder of Charter Schools Capital, the nation’s leading provider of growth capital and facilities financing to charter schools nationwide. The company has provided in excess of $800 million in support of more than 450 charter schools educating 450,000 students.
You’ll learn:
- Best practices for growth and replication
- Funding options specific to your growth stage
- Lessons learned from charter school leaders
What attendees have said:
A similar presentation was held at the 2014 National Charter Schools Conference to a standing-room only audience and was rated as a top 10 session out of 200 offered. Below is feedback received from attendees:
“It was beneficial to hear other school leaders explain how they overcame the same challenges that my school is currently facing.”
“Once I understood the different stages, I could see that our school was in expansion stage, but our organization was still making start-up stage decisions.”
REGISTER TODAY!