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

Mar 18, 2026 - Moreover, the Governor ’s proposal likely presents opportunities for efficiencies, such as eliminating the need for two  separate teams dedicated to government affairs and policy analysis at CDE and the SBE.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5165

The 2026-27 Budget: Computer Science Supplementary Authorization

Mar 6, 2026 - However, based on our analysis, the $5,000 teachers receive under the current grants —$2,500 from the state and $2,500 from the district match —are sufficient to cover the costs of obtaining an authorization.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5153

The 2026-27 Budget: K-12 Mandates

May 1, 2026 - State law further requires our office to analyze any new mandates identified by the Commission as a part of our annual analysis of the state budget. In particular, state law directs our office to report on the annual state costs for new mandates and make recommendations to the Legislature as to whether the new mandates should be repealed, funded, suspended, or modified.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5179

The 2026-27 Budget: K-12 Proposals

Feb 19, 2026 - We recommend requiring unallocated funding from community schools grants to revert back to the state at the end of each fiscal year. We also recommend reverting the $485  million currently set aside for extension grants.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5131

The 2026-27 Budget: Update on Local Control Funding Formula Costs

May 1, 2026 - Fiscal Implications Preliminary 2025-26 LCFF Costs Are $2  Billion Below Governor ’s Budget Estimates. As Figure  5 shows, the recent data from CDE shows LCFF costs $2  billion lower than the Governor ’s January budget estimates.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5178

The 2026-27 Budget: Update on Local Control Funding Formula Costs [Publication Details]

May 1, 2026 - In February 2026, CDE certified P-1 data for 2025-26 and annual data for 2024-25. In addition to preliminary ADA, the P-1 data also includes preliminary estimates of total LCFF costs and other associated data. In this post, we describe our findings from the updated data and the fiscal implications of this data on the Governor’s January budget LCFF estimates for 2025-26 and 2026-27.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5178

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

Feb 4, 2026 - In 2019 ‑20, however, the state adopted a new law prohibiting spending reductions after the fiscal year ends. This law allows the state to reduce spending during its first recalculation of the guarantee, but prevents reductions during the second recalculation at the end of the next fiscal year.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5110

The 2026-27 Budget: K-12 Proposals [Publication Details]

Feb 19, 2026 - In this brief, we provide our analysis of several K-12 proposals included in the Governor's 2026-27 budget.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Detail/5131

Assessing a Shift to Enrollment-Based School Funding

Jan 6, 2026 - Overall, our analysis finds that shifting to enrollment ‑based funding would be somewhat more predictable and reduce some administrative burdens for LEAs, but likely would have a negative effect on student attendance over the long run.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5100

The 2026-27 Budget: Child Care and State Preschool

Mar 19, 2026 - Given the state’s fiscal condition, we think this proposal is reasonable and recommend the Legislature adopt it. Based on current information, this reduction would not impact families currently receiving subsidized child care because the state has had unspent General Child Care funding in recent years.
https://lao.ca.gov/Publications/Report/5168