Gov. Gavin Newsom spent much of 2023 promoting a broad overhaul of California’s career training system, telling audiences from West Sacramento to Modesto and Redding that the state needed to do a better job preparing residents for stable, well-paying work.
Two years later, parts of that agenda are moving forward. A new interagency council intended to improve coordination among workforce programs is scheduled to meet next week. The state also is developing a digital “career passport” meant to help students and workers organize their education, skills and work experience in a format employers can use.
But the money behind some of Newsom’s most visible workforce initiatives is tightening as California confronts another budget shortfall. Under the governor’s proposed 2026-27 budget, several job training efforts would receive little or no new funding. The California Workforce Development Board, one of the state’s main agencies for coordinating workforce programs, could lose about 20% of its staff.
Among the programs facing uncertainty are Newsom’s “high road” training partnerships, which were designed to connect workers with careers that offer better wages, stronger retention and employer involvement. Without additional funding, some programs could shrink or end around the time the next governor takes office, or shortly afterward.
The Legislature has approved a budget that largely reflects Newsom’s proposal. The governor has until the end of the month to sign it.
Workforce groups say the timing is troubling, particularly as Californians continue to struggle with high housing, transportation and living costs.
“At a time when affordability is such a massive concern, it feels like we’re focusing on what things cost and not enough on what people can earn,” Julia Hatton, president of the Rising Sun Center for Opportunity, told CalMatters. Her organization trains workers for construction and climate-related jobs and has received nearly $4 million in state workforce grants.
State finance officials say the administration is not abandoning workforce development. At an April legislative hearing, Allison Hewitt, a budget analyst with the California Department of Finance, said the Workforce Development Board’s budget was not being cut so much as returning to a lower level after several years of unusually large grant allocations.
That explanation drew skepticism from Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat.
“You can say that all you want,” Durazo said at the hearing. “But if we’re not proposing funding for that … then you’re basically saying this is gonna be the new policy. The bottom line is without funding, it’s not a reality.”
In an emailed statement to CalMatters, Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for Newsom, said the governor’s workforce plan emphasizes “structural changes to benefit students, which does not always require funding.”
H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Department of Finance, said in the same email that the current budget plan includes more than $250 million in new workforce funding, including for health care and construction programs.
That figure is far below the more than $2.2 billion in new workforce grants California approved in the 2022-23 budget year, when the state had far more money available.
For decades, state and federal governments have invested in job training programs, especially for low-income workers and people without college degrees. Results have often been uneven. Some participants end up in low-wage jobs or positions with high turnover, leaving policymakers searching for better ways to connect training with long-term employment.
California’s high road training partnerships were created to address those weaknesses by focusing on programs that involve employers and lead to jobs with livable wages and career growth. The state began making smaller investments in the model around 2014, according to Stewart Knox, secretary of the California Labor and Workforce Development Agency.
In 2021 and 2022, California dramatically expanded those investments, sending hundreds of millions of dollars into programs tied to construction, health care, technology, public-sector jobs, youth apprenticeships and retraining for oil workers affected by refinery closures.
The results have varied. Some grants helped train large numbers of workers for union jobs, while others produced fewer measurable benefits. In one case, a grant intended to train workers at electric vehicle company Proterra was disrupted when the company shut down before workers could begin.
This year, Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, a Los Angeles Democrat, is carrying legislation that would place tighter limits on how high road training money can be used.
Another bill, by Assemblymembers Isaac Bryan of Culver City and Damon Connolly of San Rafael, would give grantees more time to spend funds intended to help oil workers retrain. According to a bill analysis, about 500 of roughly 1,700 eligible oil workers had participated as of May.
Newsom’s broader career education push formally took shape in 2023, when he signed an executive order calling for a master plan that would reshape how California prepares people for work. Released in 2025, the plan called for better coordination among workforce providers, expanded high road training programs and continued support for youth apprenticeships.
Knox said the state is still in the middle of that effort, even if program funding is less robust than it was during the post-pandemic budget surge.
“We’re definitely not done,” Knox told CalMatters. “We’re kind of mid-stage.”
He pointed to other parts of the master plan that are advancing, including growth in dual enrollment, which allows high school students to take college courses, and efforts to help more students receive college credit for prior work experience.
Palmer said the Legislature’s budget proposal includes additional money for both dual enrollment and credit for work experience. Those dollars, however, come from Proposition 98, the constitutionally protected funding stream that largely supports K-12 schools and community colleges, rather than from the workforce budget.
The Shirley Ware Education Center, a national workforce training nonprofit founded in Oakland, was one of the earliest and largest recipients of high road grants. Since 2017, it has received more than $40 million in state workforce funding and used the money to help more than 5,500 workers move into better jobs, mostly in health care.
“When the state was flush with cash, they put a lot of money into these programs,” Executive Director Rebecca Hanson told CalMatters.
Now, Hanson said, California’s budget deficit makes it difficult to argue for more workforce funding when other essential services also face cuts. Her organization’s high road grant runs through 2027, but she said the group has other funding sources and is accustomed to shifts in state support.
“My hope is that by the time we’re talking about 2028, we’ll be able to find other money,” Hanson said.
Original source: CalMatters
