The California Teachers Association filed suit this week against the state, demanding that a court order the release of $3.9 billion in public school funding that Gov. Gavin Newsom and state lawmakers held back in this year’s budget.
The money is guaranteed under Proposition 98, the constitutional education funding formula approved by California voters in 1988. While the funds are supposed to eventually reach schools, Newsom and legislative leaders opted to delay the payment as part of a broader effort to close a significant budget shortfall when they finalized the spending plan in June.
“We are filing a lawsuit to demand the protection of Prop 98,” CTA President David Goldberg said in a statement announcing the legal action. “We are demanding a return of the funds that have been withheld so that our students and communities can be saved from yet another year of devastating educator layoffs and unnecessary cuts.”
Proposition 98 established the state budget as the main funding source for California’s public schools, reducing reliance on local property taxes. It represents the single largest category of state spending, and over the years, governors and lawmakers have found ways to temporarily divert or delay these dollars when the budget doesn’t balance.
The union’s lawsuit also targets an earlier round of withheld education funding — $1.9 billion from the prior budget year that was eventually repaid, but only after a full year’s delay.
California has wrestled with consecutive budget deficits over the past four years, totaling roughly $125 billion, according to Legislative Analyst Gabe Petek. To manage the shortfalls, the state has built up what Petek has described as a mounting “wall of debt.”
Even though overall funding for schools — both state and local — has climbed substantially in recent years, many districts across California continue to struggle financially. Rising personnel costs and shrinking enrollment, which directly affects how much state aid a district receives, have combined to squeeze school budgets even as top-line funding numbers grow.
The timing of the CTA’s lawsuit this week happened to coincide with two other reports raising fresh questions about how the state is spending public money.
A CalMatters investigation by reporter Yue Stella Yu uncovered a long list of budget line items — inserted quietly at individual lawmakers’ requests and passed swiftly just before the Legislature wrapped up its session — that funneled money toward local pet projects with little public scrutiny.
Among them: $29 million to renovate a gymnasium at a Santa Barbara-area college located in the district of Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, $13 million for a farmers market and food innovation center in affluent Marin County, where Newsom resides, and $3 million to upgrade the ballpark used by the San Jose Giants minor league team in Santa Clara County.
In total, these earmarks — inserted with minimal explanation and almost no public notice — amounted to $1.3 billion. Notably, a disproportionate share of the money flowed to some of the state’s wealthiest communities, including Marin County and Santa Barbara, while many lower-income areas saw their funding requests passed over.
Separately, another CalMatters report by Yu and reporter Juliet Williams detailed findings from the High-Speed Rail Authority’s inspector general, who identified nearly $600,000 in questionable travel expenses racked up over a two-year span. The spending reportedly included trips to gyms, a nightclub, an escape room, a tiki bar and a cigar lounge — expenditures the report said had no clear connection to official state business.
“Paying for travel when it is not necessary or when it exceeds what is allowed by state regulations or the contract terms is waste of public funds and is behavior inconsistent with the Authority’s role as the steward of public resources,” investigators wrote.
It’s worth remembering that the rail authority, whose board members are appointed by the governor, is overseeing a multibillion-dollar bullet train project that remains far from finished, with cost estimates that have ballooned well beyond original projections.
Taken together, these three stories — surfacing within days of each other purely by chance — paint an uncomfortable picture: state leaders are holding back money meant for California’s schoolchildren even as taxpayer funds flow toward pet projects and travel expenses with little oversight.
In political circles, there’s a term for that kind of contrast. They call it bad optics.
Original source: CalMatters
