Assessing a Shift to Enrollment-Based School Funding

Jan 6, 2026 - Programs That Can Generate More Than One Unit of ADA Per Student. In general, a student cannot generate more than one unit of ADA from attending school for a full academic year. However, state law provides exceptions for some specific programs —such as juvenile court schools and Extended School Year services for special education students —that operate longer than a traditional 180 ‑day school year.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5100

The 2026-27 Budget: Re-Envisioning State Education Governance

Mar 18, 2026 - Considering Adding Legislative Appointees to the SBE. The Legislature could consider adding two legislative appointees to the SBE. These appointees could enable greater legislative oversight of the new governance system and ensure the SBE ’s policies are consistent with legislative intent.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5165

The 2025-26 Budget: Transitional Kindergarten Multilingual Learner Screeners

Feb 26, 2025 - For example, in 2023-24, about 23  percent of the roughly 40,000 English learners in TK were not low-income, and would not have generated supplemental and concentration grant funding if they were not determined to be English learners.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4990

Increasing Transparency of County Office of Education Spending

Mar 14, 2024 - The state could consider soliciting input from COEs and other experts on alternative education or other relevant outcome metrics that could be added to the Dashboard that would be a better indication of performance at COE ‑run schools.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4883

The 2024-25 Budget: Proposition 98 and K-12 Education

Feb 15, 2024 - We find the proposed training funds to be premature since the approved list of screening tools has not been finalized and funds are being added to the block grant earlier than needed under the traditional claims ‑based process.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4839

The 2026-27 Budget: Proposition 98 Guarantee and K-12 Spending Plan

Feb 4, 2026 - The proposal effectively shifts that cost from this year to future budgets —helping address the current budget problem on a one ‑time basis, but adding to the large budget deficits the state is projecting over the next several years.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5110

The 2026-27 Budget: K-12 Proposals

Feb 19, 2026 - LEAs can generate additional funding by building the capacity to be reimbursed for certain health and behavioral health services (funded by Medi ‑Cal or private insurance), or by seeking philanthropic funds.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5131

The 2025-26 Budget: Transitional Kindergarten

Feb 18, 2025 - This $1.1  billion increase consists of two parts: (1) $860  million to support the LCFF funding generated by additional TK students and (2) $206  million for the add ‑on associated with maintaining a 1 ‑to ‑12 adult ‑to ‑student ratio.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4968

The 2025‑26 Budget: Fiscal Outlook for Schools and Community Colleges

Nov 20, 2024 - Outside of government and health care, the state has added no jobs over the past 18 months. Similarly, the number of Californians who are unemployed is 25  percent higher than during the strong labor markets of 2019 and 2022.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4940

The 2025-26 Budget: Proposition 98 Guarantee and K-12 Spending Plan

Feb 13, 2025 - Of  this amount, $860   million is for the LCFF funding generated by the newly eligible students and $206   million is for an add ‑on that funds additional staff. The law currently requires districts to have at least 1 adult for every 12 TK students to receive this add ‑on.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/4963