blog post Governor Proposes Minor Changes to K-12 Funding Levels By Paul Warren May 14, 2014 Under the governor’s plan, schools would receive about $8,800 for each student—an increase of $780 from 2013–14.
blog post Spending on Corrections and Higher Education By Sonya Tafoya, Sarah Bohn Aug 4, 2016 California spends more on corrections and less on higher education today, in relative terms, than at nearly any point in the past thirty years.
Report School Budgets and Student Achievement in California: The Principal’s Perspective By Jon Sonstelie, Peter Richardson, Heather Rose Jun 24, 2004 School Budgets and Student Achievement in California: The Principals’ Perspective presents the results of school budget workshops with 45 principals from representative schools across the state. Principals were given three different budgets and asked to allocate resources so as to maximize student performance at two schools, one with a more disadvantaged student body than the other. In addition to documenting resource allocation strategies, the report finds that principals associated higher funding levels and student socioeconomic status with better academic performance. It also finds that more than half the principals thought that the disadvantaged school would not meet the state’s rigorous academic standards even with significantly higher budgets. Although allocations and performance predictions differed, the average responses offer tangible and whole representations of what certain funding levels might buy as well as the perceived efficacy of individual resources.
Report Higher Education in California: Institutional Costs By Hans Johnson, Patrick Murphy, Margaret Weston, Kevin Cook Nov 12, 2014 Over the past 20 years, in-state tuition at both the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU) has more than tripled. These tuition increases have led many to believe that spending in the state’s public higher education systems is out of control. However, a closer look reveals that institutional expenditures in the two systems—including faculty salaries and benefits, the largest budget category—have not increased significantly. Our evaluation of both revenues and expenditures shows that recent tuition increases have been driven by dramatic reductions in state subsidies to UC and CSU. In the past, General Fund contributions covered the majority of educational costs. Today, students (often with help from federal, state, institutional, and private grants) pay most of these costs through tuition and associated fees. Better budget data could help policymakers monitor costs and align higher education funding with state goals. But it is clear that tuition at California’s public universities has risen much more rapidly than the cost of providing higher education.
Report Building California’s Future: Current Conditions in Infrastructure Planning, Budgeting, and Financing By Michael Neuman, Jan Whittington Jun 1, 2000 California’s identified infrastructure needs now outstrip available funds. To address this problem, the governor has charged the Commission on Building for the 21st Century with investigating financial options for narrowing the gap between needs and resources. This important and timely charge seems to neglect another important policy consideration: the way infrastructure decisions are made in the first place. In Building California’s Future: Current Conditions in Infrastructure Planning, Budgeting, and Financing, Michael Neuman and Jan Whittington examine California’s decision-making process at the state level. Based on interviews with policymakers as well as a thorough review of laws, rules, and budgets, their study evaluates how state agencies, legislators, and the governor interact to plan, budget, finance, and prioritize infrastructure projects.
blog post Californians’ Priorities for Their New Leaders By Alyssa Dykman Jan 16, 2019 Many Californians are pessimistic about the state’s short- and long-term economic prospects but think education and health care should be priorities.
