The 2026-27 Budget: Child Care and State Preschool

Mar 19, 2026 - The Governor’s budget proposes to reduce funding for General Child Care slots by $98 million relative to the 2025‑26 budget package. These reductions are mainly due to a decline in federal and Proposition 64 funding in 2025‑26 and 2026‑27 and would eliminate funding for approximately 4,200 slots.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5168

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

Feb 4, 2026 - The risks for 2025 ‑26, however, are still significant. The state will not have complete tax collection data for 2025 ‑26 before adopting the June budget. Moreover, complex accrual policies could assign future revenue gains or losses to 2025 ‑26 after the year ends.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5110

The 2026-27 Budget: K-12 Proposals

Feb 19, 2026 - In 2025 ‑26, the state increased funding to $4.6  billion and made several programmatic changes. One goal of the funding increase was to ensure that 2025 ‑26 Tier 2 rates would be no less than $1,579 per EL/LI student.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5131

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

Mar 18, 2026 - For example, it reviews and approves district applications for certain federal grants, officially numbers all new charter schools, and acts as the state ’s liaison to the U.S. Department of Education for various federal programs.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5165

Assessing a Shift to Enrollment-Based School Funding

Jan 6, 2026 - Based on conversations with the State Board of Education, our understanding is that the state excluded high school absenteeism rates as part of its negotiations with the federal government to ensure compliance with federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requirements.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5100