06/12/2026
🔍 For the third budget year in a row, CA public schools are faced with an attempted manipulation of Proposition 98. This year’s May Revise proposes withholding $3.9B owed to schools, as districts struggle to finalize budgets without fully guaranteed funding, manage rising costs, respond to growing student needs and preserve core educational programs. Prop 98 is a voter-approved constitutional guarantee, not a piggy bank to break into when convenient.
In addition, tonight’s joint proposal by CA State Senate and Assembly leaders to fold non-school based preschool providers into the existing TK–14 Prop 98 allocation (essentially adding a grade level) without new, ongoing and additive funds - this further dilutes the annual guaranteed funding, reducing per-pupil resources in yet another underfunded mandate.
I continue urging our legislators to reject these budget maneuvers and to preserve the Prop 98 guaranteed school funding established by California voters and taxpayers.
