Existing federal law establishes the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , known in California as CalFresh, under which supplemental nutrition assistance benefits allocated to the state by the federal government are distributed to eligible individuals by each county. Existing federal law limits a participant who is an able-bodied adult without dependents (ABAWD) to 3 months of CalFresh benefits in a 3-year period unless that participant has met work participation requirements or is otherwise exempt. Existing federal law authorizes a waiver of that time limit upon the request of a state if it is determined that the area in which the individuals reside has an unemployment rate of over 10% or does not have a sufficient number of jobs to provide employment for the individuals. Existing state law requires the State Department of Social Services, to the extent permitted by federal law, to annually seek a federal waiver of the time limit. Existing federal law also authorizes a state to provide, in each fiscal year, an exemption from the 3-month time limit for covered individuals, to the extent that the average monthly number of exemptions in effect during a fiscal year does not exceed 8% of the number of covered individuals in the state. Existing law requires the department to also establish the California Food Assistance Program (CFAP) to provide nutrition benefits to households that are ineligible for CalFresh benefits solely due to their immigration status, as specified. Existing law requires CFAP benefits to be equivalent to SNAP benefits. Under existing law, operative on the date the department notifies the Legislature that the Statewide Automated Welfare System can perform the necessary automation for this purpose, an individual 55 years of age or older is eligible for CFAP benefits, subject to an appropriation. Existing law requires these provisions only be implemented during any period that specified federal benefits are provided. This bill, the California Antihunger Response and Employment Training Act of 2026, would expand CFAP eligibility to include individuals ineligible for CalFresh benefits due to the federal time limits placed on ABAWDs regardless of if they are a citizen or noncitizen and individuals ineligible solely due to their humanitarian immigration status. The bill would also repeal the provisions requiring certain federal benefits be provided in order for CFAP to be implemented. The bill would make related findings and declarations. To the extent the bill would expand eligibility for county-administered benefits through expansion of the CFAP program, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above.
Existing law, the Child Care and Development Services Act, administered by the State Department of Social Services, requires the department to administer childcare and development programs, including, among others, general childcare and development, migrant childcare and development, and alternative payment programs, that offer a full range of services to eligible children from infancy to 13 years of age, inclusive. Existing law requires the department to contract with local contracting agencies for alternative payment programs for childcare services to be provided throughout the state. Existing law then requires alternative payment programs to reimburse childcare providers for providing childcare to eligible children. Existing federal law provides for allocation of federal funds through the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant program to eligible states. Existing law provides for the California Work Opportunity and Responsibility to Kids (CalWORKs) program, under which, through a combination of state and county funds and federal funds received through the TANF program, each county provides cash assistance and other benefits to qualified low-income families. Existing law provides for state-subsidized childcare programs and childcare for recipients of benefits under the CalWORKs program and establishes 3 stages of childcare services managed by county welfare departments and agencies contracting with the State Department of Social Services. This bill would require the department to, no less than quarterly, identify unspent or projected unexpended moneys from subsidized childcare and development programs, as specified. The bill would require the department, to the maximum extent permitted by federal and state law, to redirect and deposit the unspent or unexpended moneys identified to the Alternative Payment Program Enrollment Fund, as established by the bill. The bill would continuously appropriate all moneys in the fund to the department for the purpose of enrolling additional eligible families in alternative payment programs. The bill would require the department to notify each local childcare and development planning council whenever moneys are identified as unspent, or projected to remain unexpended, and are subject to transfer or redirection pursuant to these provisions. By authorizing existing appropriated moneys to be used for a new purpose, and by creating a continuously appropriated fund, this bill would make an appropriation.
Existing law establishes the Department of Housing and Community Development and requires it to administer various programs intended to promote the development of housing, as specified, pursuant to which the department provides financial assistance in the form of deferred payment loans to pay for the eligible costs of development of specified types of housing projects. Existing law sets forth various general powers of the department in implementing these programs, including authorizing the department to enter into long-term contracts or agreements of up to 30 years for the purpose of servicing loans or grants or enforcing regulatory agreements or other security documents. This bill would permit the department to waive payment of residual receipts or minimum annual loan payments used to cover the cost of project monitoring required under a department regulatory agreement, based on the assessment by the department's actual cost in combination with a project's ability to pay.
Existing law, the Planning and Zoning Law, requires each county and each city to adopt a comprehensive, long-term general plan for the physical development of the county or city, and specified land outside its boundaries, that includes, among other specified mandatory elements, a housing element. That law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development, in consultation with each council of governments, to determine the existing and projected need for housing in each region and further requires the appropriate council of governments, or the department for cities and counties without a council of governments, to adopt a final regional housing need plan that allocates a share of the regional housing need to each city, county, or city and county, as provided. Existing law establishes the Local Government Planning Support Grants Program, administered by the department, for the purpose of providing regions and jurisdictions with one-time funding, including grants for planning activities to enable jurisdictions to meet the sixth cycle of the regional housing need assessment, as provided. This bill would establish the Regional Early Action Planning Fund in the State Treasury for the purpose of providing councils of governments, regional entities, and jurisdictions with one-time funding, including grants for planning activities, to enable those entities to meet the 7th and subsequent cycles of the regional housing need assessment. The bill would require the department to allocate funds, upon appropriation by the Legislature, from the Regional Early Action Planning Fund to each council of governments or regional entity responsible for allocating regional housing need that applies and qualifies for those moneys, as specified. The bill would authorize a council of governments or regional entity to expend funds awarded for certain purposes, including for activities that support the development, improvement, or implementation of the methodology for the 7th and subsequent regional housing needs assessment cycles, and for providing jurisdictions with technical assistance, planning, temporary staffing, or consultant needs associated with updating local planning and zoning documents, as provided. The bill would require a jurisdiction that receives a suballocation of funds to only use that suballocation for housing-related planning activities, as provided. The bill would authorize the department to monitor expenditures and activities of an applicant, as the department deems necessary, to ensure compliance with program requirements. The bill would require each recipient of funds under the program to expend those funds no later than 3 years from the date of award of those funds, subject to an extension by the department. Existing law, the Administrative Procedure Act, sets forth the requirements for the adoption, publication, review, and implementation of regulations, including emergency regulations, by state agencies. This bill would require the department, in collaboration with stakeholders, to adopt emergency regulations to implement the above-described provisions. The bill would also make those emergency regulations effective until nonemergency regulations implementing the above-described provisions become effective.
Existing law establishes the California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant Program, administered by the State Department of Education, with the purpose of encouraging, maintaining, and strengthening the delivery of high-quality career technical education programs. Existing law requires, for the 2021–22 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, $300,000,000 to be available to the department, upon appropriation by the Legislature, for the program. Existing law requires a grant applicant to demonstrate a proportional dollar-for-dollar match and sets that amount at $2 for every $1 received from the program. Existing law prohibits an applicant from being awarded an amount higher than the amount that the allocation formula determines the applicant to be eligible to receive under the program. Existing law authorizes a grant recipient under the program to consist of one or more, or any combination, of school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, or regional occupational centers or programs operated by joint powers authorities or county offices of education, as provided. Existing law provides that an applicant receiving a grant from the program in a prior fiscal year is eligible to apply to receive a renewal grant if the applicant's career technical education program continues to meet specified requirements, as provided. This bill would delete the prohibition against an applicant being awarded more than the amount determined by the allocation formula and would instead provide that an applicant receiving a grant from the program in a prior fiscal year is required to receive a renewal grant for at least 3 additional years, as provided. The bill would require the Superintendent to cease distribution of funding and recover previously distributed funding if certain conditions occur, including, among others, that the grant recipient did not implement the program substantively as was initially proposed, as provided.
(1) Existing law establishes a public school financing system that requires state funding for school districts and charter schools to be calculated pursuant to a local control funding formula, as specified. Existing law requires funding pursuant to the local control funding formula to include a base grant that in each fiscal year is adjusted for inflation by the percentage change in the annual average value of the Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Government Purchases of Goods and Services for the United States, as specified. If the inflation adjustment for the base grant for a school district or charter school is calculated to be less than 4%, this bill would require the inflation adjustment for the base grant for a school district or charter school to instead be 4%. The bill would require the State Department of Education, on or before January 1, 2030, to establish and publish on its internet website regional cost adjustment factors in order address regional cost differences in housing and labor, and, commencing with the 2030–31 fiscal year, would require the adjustment to the base grant, whether calculated by the inflation adjustment or 4%, as applicable, to be further adjusted by multiplying that calculation by the applicable regional cost adjustment factor. (2) Existing law requires the local control funding formula to include, in addition to the base grant, supplemental and concentration grant add-ons that are based on the percentage of pupils who are unduplicated pupils, as defined to include English learners, pupils eligible for free or reduced-price meals, and foster youth, as specified. Existing law requires school districts and charter schools to annually report their enrollment of unduplicated pupils to the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as specified, and requires county superintendents of schools to review and validate that pupil data, as provided. Existing law requires pupils who are classified in more than one of these groups to be counted only once for these purposes. The bill would add pupils experiencing homelessness, as defined, to the categories of pupils who are unduplicated pupils for purposes of determining eligibility for supplemental and concentration grants. The bill would place reporting requirements on school districts and charter schools to implement these provisions. By imposing additional duties on county superintendents of schools, school districts, and charter schools related to reporting unduplicated pupils, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. (3) Existing law requires the supplemental grant add-on to be equal to 20% of the base grants, as adjusted, for each school district's or charter school's percentage of unduplicated pupils, as specified, and requires the concentration grant add-on to be equal to 65% of the base grants, as adjusted, for each school district's or charter school's percentage of unduplicated pupils in excess of 55% of the school district's or charter school's total enrollment, as specified. Existing law requires the State Board of Education to adopt regulations that govern the expenditure of funds apportioned on the basis of the number and concentration of unduplicated pupils, as provided. This bill, commencing with the 2030–31 fiscal year, would require the supplemental grant add-on to instead be equal to 35% of the base grants, as adjusted, for each school district's or charter school's percentage of unduplicated pupils, as specified, and would require the concentration grant add-on to instead be equal to 65% of the base grants, as adjusted, for each school district's or charter school's percentage of unduplicated pupils in excess of 45% of the school district's or charter school's total enrollment, as specified. The bill would establish transition adjustments for the 2025–26 fiscal year to the 2029–30 fiscal years, inclusive, to be calculated by the Superintendent of Public Instruction for each school district and charter school based on increased funding that would have been generated by the changes to supplemental and concentration grant eligibility and percentages described above, as provided. The bill would continuously appropriate the moneys necessary to implement those adjustments and would require the Superintendent to add those transition amounts to the school district's and charter school's local control funding formula amounts. The bill, notwithstanding any other law, would require any increase in apportionment to a school district or charter school due to the bill's changes to the local control funding formula to be demonstrated to be used to support additional services for the targeted pupil group. To the extent the bill would impose additional duties on school districts and charter schools, the bill would impose a state-mandated local program. The bill, commencing with the 2025–26 fiscal year, would prohibit each school district and charter school from receiving less state aid under the local control funding formula for the then current fiscal year than they received in the 2024–25 fiscal year under the local control funding formula, as calculated on a per average daily attendance basis. (4) Existing law requires the Legislative Analyst's Office, on or before January 1, 2026, to submit a report to the Legislature on the effects of changing the pupil count methodology of the local control funding formula from average daily attendance to pupil enrollment, as provided. This bill would require the Legislative Analyst's Office, on or before January 1, 2027, to submit a report to the Legislature that studies the impact of the changes to the local control funding formula made by the bill within and between geographic regions of the state. (5) This bill would require the department, on or before January 1, 2028, to develop recommendations for adequacy adjustments to the grade span adjusted base grants in order to address the unique costs for each grade span and to account for the revisions to supplemental and concentration grants described above, and to report those recommendations to the appropriate policy and fiscal committees of the Legislature, as provided. The bill would state the intent of the Legislature to fully transition the local control funding formula commencing with the 2030–31 fiscal year consistent with those recommendations. (6) The California Constitution requires the state to reimburse local agencies and school districts for certain costs mandated by the state. Statutory provisions establish procedures for making that reimbursement. This bill would provide that, if the Commission on State Mandates determines that the bill contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement for those costs shall be made pursuant to the statutory provisions noted above. (7) Funds appropriated by this bill would be applied toward the minimum funding requirements for school districts and community college districts imposed by Section 8 of Article XVI of the California Constitution.
(1) Existing law, the Ortiz-Pacheco-Poochigian-Vasconcellos Cal Grant Program, provides awards to certain California postsecondary students to help pay the costs of postsecondary education. Existing law sets the maximum Cal Grant A and B tuition award amount for new recipients in the 2023–24 award year at $9,358 for students attending independent institutions of higher education. Existing law authorizes community colleges to award an associate degree for transfer, and provides that the Cal Grant A and B tuition award amount for future years for students attending independent institutions of higher education depends on the number of commitments those institutions make to accept associate degrees for transfer. Beginning with the 2024–25 award year, existing law sets the maximum tuition award amount for new Cal Grant A and B recipients at either $9,358 or $8,056, depending upon whether the number of new unduplicated transfer students accepted by those institutions who have been given associate degree for transfer commitments in the prior award year exceeds statutory targets. This bill would set, beginning with the 2026–27 award year, and subject to an appropriation for this purpose, the maximum tuition award amount for new Cal Grant A and B recipients at either $9,708 or $8,056, with the higher amount conditioned on the achievement of the target numbers for associate degree for transfer commitments that apply for the prior award year. (2) Existing law establishes a California Community College Expanded Entitlement Award for students who were not awarded a Cal Grant A or B award at the time of the student's high school graduation but who will be enrolled at a California community college during the award year and meet other criteria. Existing law authorizes a student who receives a California Community College Expanded Entitlement Award to subsequently transfer to a University of California or California State University campus and remain eligible to receive the award. Existing law also authorizes a student who receives a California Community College Expanded Entitlement Award and who subsequently transfers to an independent institution of higher education to remain eligible to receive the award, but only if General Fund moneys over the multiyear forecasts beginning in the 2024–25 fiscal year are available to support ongoing augmentations and actions, and if funding is provided in the annual Budget Act to implement the Cal Grant Reform Act. This bill would instead authorize a student who receives a California Community College Expanded Entitlement Award and who subsequently transfers to an independent institution of higher education to remain eligible to receive the award without the above-described conditions.
Existing law, the Governor's Reorganization Plan No. 1 of 2025, beginning July 1, 2026, eliminates the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency and instead establishes the Business and Consumer Services Agency and the California Housing and Homelessness Agency (agency) . Existing law requires the agency to coordinate with the California Health and Human Services Agency and the California Consumer Protection Agency on various state policies, including housing. This bill would require the agency to create a study on issues impacting pregnant people experiencing homelessness and report the results of the study, as well as recommendations to establish a PINK Alert, to the Legislature by July 1, 2028. The bill would require the recommendations to include how the PINK Alert can meet specified conditions, including that it be a system that nonprofits can opt in to in order to get notifications if there is a pregnant person in need of emergency housing or prenatal services.
(1) Existing law requires the Wildlife Conservation Board to establish and administer, through the Department of Fish and Wildlife, the California Riparian Habitat Conservation Program with the purpose and goal of protecting, preserving, and restoring riparian habitats throughout the state, as specified. Existing law authorizes the board to authorize the department to award grants and loans for the purposes of the program to specified entities. This bill would authorize the board to authorize the department to make those awards to federally recognized tribes. (2) Existing law establishes the Inland Wetlands Conservation Program under the board with the purpose and goal of carrying out the programs of the Central Valley Habitat Joint Venture. Existing law authorizes the board to make grants or loans for the purpose of wetland and associated upland habitat acquisition, restoration, or enhancement to specified entities. This bill would authorize the board to make those grants or loans to federally recognized tribes. (3) Existing law authorizes the department to enter into contracts or other agreements with nonprofit conservation groups or resource conservation districts for the management and operation of department-managed lands. This bill would authorize the department to also enter into those contracts or other agreements with federally recognized tribes.
This measure would urge President Donald J. Trump and Congress to protect and maintain the historic investments made possible by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022.
