August 6, 2015
Since its inception, C.A.S.H. has partnered with the Green California Schools & Community Colleges Summit & Expo to help provide workshops on pertinent green school facility funding issues.
This year, C.A.S.H. is pleased to announce that, in partnership with the School Energy Coalition (SEC), we will provide two excellent workshops that will include panels of green school facility experts as follows: Continue reading
06/04/15
California STEM Symposium 2015: October 28-30 at the Anaheim Convention Center
The Third Annual California Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Symposium will be held in October and is hosted by The Californians Dedicated to Education Foundation in partnership with the California Department of Education. Continue reading
05/28/15
Today the Legislature met a significant deadline that required them to act on bills with a potential state fiscal impact. Today the Senate and Assembly Appropriations Committees took up the “suspense file,” acting on a number of bills with school facilities implications. When bills are initially heard in the Appropriations Committee, the Committee will often defer action, sending bills to suspense. This is a mechanism whereby each house collects and prioritizes bills with state fiscal implications, acting upon them at a later date. Bills that are “held” in the Appropriations Committee at this point in time will likely not be moving forward through the legislative process for the remainder of the year; they become “two-year bills” with the opportunity to move again at the beginning of 2016. Continue reading
February 19, 2015
On Wednesday, February 18th the Senate Education and Senate Budget Subcommittee #1 on Education held a joint informational hearing on school facilities.
The hearing began with Bruce Hancock, former Assistant Executive Officer of the State Allocation Board, and Bill Savidge, the current Assistant Executive Officer of the State Allocation Board, providing a history of the School Facility Program (SFP) and discussion of current needs to establish a context for discussion.
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February 19, 2015
following is an excerpt from an article by Dan Walters on the Sacramento Bee Website posted on February 17, 2015.
State and local school financing has jumped from $47.3 billion during the first budget of Brown’s second governorship (2011-12) to a projected $65.7 billion in 2015-16 – and probably will go even higher as revenue outstrips current forecasts.
Moreover, Brown is repaying billions of dollars in school appropriations that had been deferred and freeing up billions in previously restricted allocations known as “categorical aids.”
While school officials are gladly spending the extra money, they are learning that it comes with some complicating conditions.
One is the Local Control Funding Formula, adopted in 2013, that diverts much of the new money into extra grants to districts with large numbers of poor and “English learner” students.
February 18, 2015
The Legislative Analysts’ Office (LAO), the State’s non-partisan legislative analyst, has released its analysis of and recommendations for a state school facilities program entitled “The 2015-16 Budget: Rethinking How the State Funds School Facilities”. In their recommendations, the LAO states that, “…we propose creating a new school facilities program that would help address many of the shortcomings of the existing system.” Specifically, the LAO recommends the following changes to the existing state school facility program:
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