CAPITOL UPDATE #30 July 8, 2021

 

NEWSOM RECALL UPDATE
A recall election seeking to remove California Governor Gavin Newsom(D) will take place on September 14, 2021.  Of the 2.1 million signatures submitted by the March 17 filing deadline, Secretary of State Shirley Weber’s (D) office found 1,719,943 signatures to be valid – more than the 1,495,970 necessary. Voters who signed the petition had until June 8 to request removal from the petition.

 

Forty-three signatures were removed during the removal period. The filing deadline for candidates to run in this election is July 16, 2021. As of July 1, 57 individuals had filed to run in the recall election. Among those are former San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer (R), 2018 gubernatorial candidate John Cox(R), former U.S. Representative Doug Ose (R), and Caitlyn Jenner (R).

2021/22 State Budget Highlights (or should we say Lowlights?)
The State budget was adopted by the legal deadline of 7/1/21 in the amount of $214.8 billion.  The budget has expanded programs and the following will have on-going costs to the taxpayers of California. This is just a couple of examples: HEALTH CARE FOR UNDOCUMENTED-In the budget, there is 1.3 billion of taxpayer dollars set aside for undocumented immigrants older than 50 for free health care.

 

This is just a first step for the State to provide universal health care to all.  The program will be administered through Medical.  The Medical plan has already been expanded to cover all residents 26 years and younger whether legal or undocumented. As part of this change, the budget eliminated the asset test. 

 

When applying for Medicaid, an applicant had to show that they were 65 or older and to be low income in order to get free health care.  Another requirement was that Medicaid recipients could not have assets that exceeded $2,000 for a single person or $3,000 for a couple. This has been eliminated, causing approximately 17,000 more people to become eligible at an estimated cost to the taxpayers of $200 million annually.

UNIVERSAL TRANSITIONAL KINDERGARTEN – The program is to be fully implemented by 2025-26. It guarantees to provide on-going Universal Transitional Kindergarten (TK) expanding spending to 2.7 billion.

HOMELESSNESS – The Homekey program has been renewed.  In 2020/21 $800,000,000 was allocated for local government to purchase and convert hotels and motels.  The State was divided into 8 regions and local government implemented the program through grant funding.  It should be noted that the on-going costs are to be absorbed by local government. 

 

To date, the average cost of rehabilitating these is about $148,000 per unit.  For the 21/22 budget, there is an additional $750,000,000 in funding for continued implementation of the program.  There is also $750,00,000 budgeted for support for behavioral health at the County level.

EDUCATION
AB 104 –Education – Pupil retention, grade changes and exemptions (Chaptered 7/1/21)-Existing law contains policies regarding pupil promotion and retention.  This Bill would require a supplemental policy for pupils who, in the 2020-2021 academic year, received deficient grades for at least one-half of the pupil’s coursework (except for students enrolled in grade 12). This policy would require a determination whether or not to retain that student and would include a change in the letter grade in which the pupil received a D or F letter to a “pass” or “no pass” grade. 

 

The bill would require the school to make the grade change whether not the school decided to retain the student.  The California State University would be required to accept the changed transcripts for admission purposes.  Additionally, all pupils who were in their 3^rd or 4^th year and are not on track to graduate would be exempt from any coursework and requirements that are in addition to the required statewide courses and would allow the retained student to complete this coursework to include a 5^th year of instruction. This Bill was signed into Law by the Governor on July 1, 2021, and will take effect immediately.