July 20th, 2021

__SALUTATION__

The Legislature has passed the Build Back Boldly budget for the fiscal year 2021-22 to combat homelessness, improve broadband access, and strengthen prevention and response efforts to wildfires, all while setting aside a historical reserve of $25.2 billion.

This budget also provides relief for families, small businesses, and nonprofits, who have suffered tremendously through the pandemic. The budget increases child care access by adding over 200,000 new child care slots, over the next four years, and enables rate increases for child care and state preschool providers. This investment will fairly compensate providers that deliver vital services for families.

Additionally, the budget provides record investments of $93.7 billion in K-14 schools, including providing professional development for teachers; funding expanded afterschool & summer school enrichment programing; and launching the Universal School Meals Program to cover the costs of offering breakfast/lunch for all students. All three segments of higher education will also see an increase in funding and students and families will benefit from investments in the CalGrant and Middle Class Scholarship program.

The investments in this year's budget will benefit the entire state. I am especially pleased with the funding dedicated specifically to our community. I encourage you to read below to learn more.

For additional information on the California State Budget, please visit the website of the California Department of Finance (http://www.ebudget.ca.gov/).

Sincerely,

Monique Limón
Senator, 19th District

Key funding in the budget includes:

Economic Relief

• Approves the Governor's Golden State Stimulus 2 to provide $8.1 billion in direct relief to Californians with income of up to $75,000. This will provide Californians with payments of $500, $600, $1,000 or $1,100, depending on their filing status. The California Franchise Tax Board says the Golden State Stimulus II checks will start going out in September 2021.
• $330 million one-time for the Employment Development Department (EDD) to address delayed caseloads due to the COVID 19 pandemic.
• $5.5 million to EDD to develop a direct deposit option for EDD benefits.

Healthcare

• Expands Medi-Cal eligibility to all income eligible Californians over 50 years of age.
• $300 million annually to build the foundation for a 21st century public health system to address preventable death and disease, reduce health disparities, and support an agile public health workforce.
• $12.3 million to support activities that promote awareness of Alzheimer's disease and programs that seek to improve care, perform research, and train caregivers.

Housing & Homelessness:

• Provides $100 million in 2021-22 to expand CalHFA's homebuyer assistance program and begins the process of developing the California Dream for All First Time Homebuyer Program.
• $1.75 billion to alleviate the backlog in affordable housing construction and $300 million for the preservation of existing affordable housing,
• $130 million for the development, maintenance, and preservation of farmworker housing.
• $3 million to the Department of Community Services and Development for Farmworker Resource Centers.
• $600 million for planning and implementation grants to help local governments plan for and meet their climate and air quality goals under their Sustainable Community Strategies.
• $80 million over three years to fund legal aid services for renters and homeowners to avoid eviction and foreclosure.
• Appropriates $12 billion in new funding for homelessness programs over the next two years, including $1 billion in flexible local government funding to address homelessness.
• $50 million to the Homelessness and Coordinating and Financing Council to provide grants to address encampments for persons experiencing homelessness and to transition individuals into permanent housing.
• $25 million to support aging veterans and veterans with disabilities who have experienced chronic homelessness.

Education

• Adopts a phase in approach of optional universal Transitional Kindergarten (TK), with full implementation by 2025-26, when all 4-year olds will be eligible to enroll in TK.
• Provides an ongoing increase to the statewide base rate for the Special Education program. Additional $260 million ongoing is provided to fund special education services for 3 to 5 year olds.
• Pays off $11 billion of Prop 98 deferrals for K-12 schools.
• $1.5 billion for a new Educator Effectiveness Block Grant available over five years to provide professional development for teachers, administrators, and other staff.
• $1.3 billion for various teacher recruitment, retention, and professional development programs.
• Provides increased funding to the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) to restore base funding.
• Provides the UC with $15 million ongoing funding and $15 million ongoing at CSU to support student mental health services.
• $68 million to increase resident enrollment at UC by 6,230 students, and launches a new five-year program to reduce nonresident student enrollment at UC Berkeley, UCLA and UC San Diego by 18 percent.
• $81 million ongoing to increase CSU undergraduate enrollment by 9,434 slots.
• Creates a new $2 billion fund for CSU and UC facilities and for student housing at California Community Colleges, CSU, and UC.
• Provides the California Community Colleges with an increase of $371 million ongoing for a five percent cost-of-living adjustment. The budget also provides $1.45 billion to fully pay down California Community Colleges deferrals.
• $100 million ongoing to increase the number of full-time faculty at California Community Colleges and $10 million ongoing and $90 million one-time to increase part-time faculty office hours.
• Provides $155 million ongoing to end the age and time out of high school eligibility requirements for California Community Colleges students applying for Cal Grant. This bill also increases the Cal Grant B Access Award for California Community Colleges students to $1,648. The bill also provides a cost of living adjustment to the private nonprofit colleges Cal Grant tuition award of $9,084.
• Modernizes the Middle Class Scholarship (MCS 2.0) to cover non-tuition costs for students with the goal of ultimately becoming a Debt Free grant.

Local/Senate District 19

• $5 million to support the design and construction of an Aquatics Center in South Oxnard.
• Over $1 million to support the properly decommission of the abandoned Venoco oil and gas pipelines in the City of Carpinteria and Santa Barbara County.
• $1 million to the family justice center in the City of Ventura.
• $10 million to support the implementation of the new access program at Hollister Ranch.
• $300,000 to the City of Goleta for signaled pedestrian crosswalks.
• $50,000 to the Beach Erosion Authority for Clean Oceans and Nourishment for analysis of options for aligning regional sediment management and sea level rise adaptation, on behalf of the California Coastal Sediment Management Workgroup.

Broadband

• $6 billion over a multi-year period for broadband infrastructure and improved access to broadband services throughout the state.
• Provides $439 million one-time to support library infrastructure grants for maintenance, capital projects, broadband, technology upgrades and for purchasing of devices.
• Provides $50 million to support local library infrastructure; $35 million to support local projects to expand broadband access and upgrade equipment to access high speed connectivity; and $389 million to support library facilities, technology infrastructure upgrades and devices for loaning and lending.

Water & Environmental Protection

• $3 billion for water and drought resilience.
• $3.7 billion over three years to make climate resiliency investments.
• $30 million to the Coastal Commission for sea level rise local assistance grants.
• $650 million for drinking water projects and $650 million for wastewater projects.
• $40 million for the park Outdoor Equity Grants Program.
• $200 million for local park grants.
• $3.7 million for integrated pest management grants.
• $50 million for the Healthy Soils Program.
• $200 million for other agriculture items, pending future legislation.

Fire Prevention/Emergency Preparedness

• Over $1 billion for wildfire prevention and response, resource management, resiliency measures and prepositioning.
• $150 million for fairground and community resiliency and evacuation centers.
• $162 million to the Office of Emergency Services for the state's share of response and recovery costs for disasters.

Small Business & Nonprofits

• Provides $1.5 billion in small businesses and non-profit grants.
• Over $49 million to GO-Biz to provide grants to small nonprofit performing arts organizations.
• Provides relief for museums, independent venues, and other live events who have been impacted by the pandemic.
• $50 million for micro-businesses grants, includes $150 million to create the California Venues Grant Program, which provides tax credits that support small business hiring and the hiring of homeless individuals.
• $814,000 to support improvements and maintenance of the State Grants Portal.

Seniors:

• $50 million one-time to help older adults and people with disabilities access technology.
• Funding to support older adult programs, including senior nutrition programs, legal services, fall prevention and home modification, aging and disability resource connections, and family caregiving support.
• Ends the 7% cut in in-home care services (IHSS) to elderly and disabled Californians.

Other:

• About $300 million to help food banks address the overwhelming need brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and operate in the 2021-22 fiscal year.
• Augments the county veteran service officer program by $5.4 million ongoing, for a total of $11 million ongoing.
• $5 million to the Commission on the Status of Women and Girls to support regional women and girls commissions.
• $95 million to the California Travel and Tourism Commission to promote travel and tourism.
• $10.3 million for the Gun Violence Reduction Program to support county sheriff's departments conducting activities related to the seizure of weapons and ammunition from persons who are prohibited from possessing them.
• $10 million to provide grants to family justice centers throughout the state.