California's Budget: Craft Your Own

Join Next 10 for a webinar to learn more about the proposed 2024-25 budget and the state's priorities through an interactive exercise that allows you to craft your own state budget.

Register to join the webinar on Thursday, July 25th at 11am PT by clicking the button below:

Registration (gotowebinar.com)

Following large surpluses in 2021-22 and 2022-23 due to higher than expected revenue and federal COVID relief funds, the state faced a projected deficit of $20.4 billion in 2024-25 following the May Revision. This is a result of lower-than-expected General Fund revenue and the expiration of the state and national COVID emergency orders. The Governor and Legislature agreed on a number of one-time and ongoing spending changes to maintain funding for long-standing state priorities—such as healthcare, housing, homelessness, and education—while still closing the deficit in 2024-25. The California Constitution requires the state to pass a balanced budget, so changes have to be made to close the gap.

In order to address the large deficit, the State will commit to a number of spending cuts and delays while also pulling from reserves. The 2024-25 fiscal year began on July 1st.

Major Components of the Final 2024-25 Budget Agreement:

• Reserves
• Withdraws $6.3 billion of reserve funds to help close the budget gap resulting in $22.8 billion of total reserves remaining by the end of the fiscal year
• Spending Reductions
• The budget cuts spending by $16 billion, significant reductions include:
• $500 million from student housing at UC, CSU, and Community Colleges
• $1.1 billion from various affordable housing programs
• $746 million from various healthcare workforce development programs
• Spending Delays
• The budget delays spending by a total of $5.2 billion, significant delays include:
• $550 million for broadband infrastructure expansion
• $524 million in funding for UC and CSU
• Delays a planned expansion of the California Food Assistance Program which provides state-funded food assistance to legal permanent residents that are not eligible for CalFresh
• Maintaining Support for Core Programs
• The budget maintains funding for long-standing priorities, some of which include:
• $115.3 billion in total funds for K-12 and community colleges
• $1 billion to local governments for homelessness funding—tied to increased accountability measures
• $7.1 billion in total funds for behavioral health treatment
• $147 million in total funds to allow California to provide an estimated $1 billion in federal food assistance

While the budget seeks to address the budget shortfall by making a number of cuts from various programs, the legislature has pushed forward a number of bond initiatives that will appear on the November ballot. The following bonds will go to voters to lessen the burden of budget cuts on certain sectors:

• $10 billion bond for school facilities (Prop 2): would pay for repairs and upgrades at K-12 schools and community colleges throughout the state.
• $10 billion climate bond (Prop 4): would provide funding for safe drinking water, flood resilience, extreme heat, and more. extreme heat, and more.

Learn more about the state's priorities and the 2024-25 budget by joining us Thursday, July 25th at 11 am PT for an interactive webinar that will provide an overview of this year's budget process and let you try your hand at creating your own state budget.

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