A Good News Budget

Governor Newsom signed California's 2019-20 state budget last Thursday. After months of hearings and input from legislators like myself as well as community organizations and education, homeless, and housing advocates, I'm proud to report that this budget will bring great benefits to our schools, families, and communities.

To help communities respond to our homeless and housing crisis, the budget includes $2.4 billion in funds that will go to cities, counties, and community-based organizations to build new affordable housing, expand homeless services, and provide rental and legal assistance to people struggling to stay in their homes.

For schools, the 2019-20 budget contains much higher per pupil funding to put more money into our classrooms, pays down school pension debt, and reduces the pension contribution individual school districts have to make.

Funding in the budget will also help middle-class Californians cover their health care costs. And California families additionally benefit with two more weeks of paid family leave time, more funding for childcare and preschool, and no more sales tax on diapers and tampons.

Here are some additional highlights:

• Boosts funding for higher education so that 15,000 more CA students can attend UC and CSU.
• Increases per pupil funding for our K-12 schools to highest levels in state history.
• Provides more school districts with funds for full-day kindergarten.
• Supports 0-4 early care and education with funding to expand childcare facilities, improve affordability, and support workforce development for childcare providers.
• Makes health insurance more affordable for middle-income families earning up to $150,000 a year.
• Expands CA's earned income tax credit (CalEITC) to 1 million additional Californians by closing tax loopholes for wealthy households and corporations.
• Directs funding to train police on de-escalation techniques to reduce deadly use-of-force incidents.
• Earmarks close to a billion dollars in Greenhouse Gas Reduction funds for no to low pollution cars, trucks, and buses, climate smart agriculture, and healthy forests.
• Increases funding for wildfire response and prevention.
• And saves for the future by increasing CA's rainy day fund and reserves to a total of $19.4 billion.

As a member of the 2019 Conference Committee on the Budget, I also want to thank Gov. Newsom; his staff; and our Senate and Assembly budget staff; as well as everyone who worked on this good news budget.

Sincerely,

Nancy Skinner
Senator, 9th District