Latest budget plan introduces new attack on Prop 98 school funding
Latest subversion of Prop 98 follows $3.9 billion withholding of funding from public schools
Sacramento, CA (June 12, 2026) — In the final days of budget negotiations, a new and alarming threat to Proposition 98 has emerged: a proposal to fold the non-school based provider portion of the state’s preschool program into the same Prop 98 allocations that have traditionally supported TK–14 public schools.
On the evening of June 11, leaders of the California State Senate and Assembly jointly announced a budget plan that both includes a new provision to fund non-school based preschool providers in the California State Preschool Program (CSPP) under Prop 98 and retains the previously announced withholding of $3.9 billion from public schools. The Legislature is expected to consider the budget plan when it returns from the weekend break on June 15, so the opportunity for public discussion of this major change to school funding and redirection of Prop 98 funds from public schools is beyond limited.
Including preschool within the existing Prop 98 allocation would effectively add another grade level to the guarantee without providing the new and necessary resources to support it on an ongoing basis. While there has been mention of rebenching Prop 98 to provide additional funding, that would only occur in the first year of the shift, meaning future growth in non-school based preschool enrollment would eat into Prop 98 allocations. The result would be simple and devastating: the same funding guarantee would be stretched across more students and programs, reducing per-pupil resources for school districts and county offices of education.
Early learning is essential and deserves strong, stable and dedicated funding. No one disputes that. Yet, Sacramento cannot fund one essential priority by weakening another. It cannot claim to properly invest in children by diluting the school funding guarantee, especially when the most recent proposal is the latest in a series of escalating and unacceptable assaults on Prop 98.
To add insult to injury, the Governor had already proposed to withhold $3.9 billion in Prop 98 funding — itself a violation of California’s school funding law — before the Legislature proposed adding non-school based preschool providers under the CSPP. California schools cannot allow yet another unfunded mandate to be rammed through the Legislature right before a deadline without discussion and without dissent.
First, the state withholds billions in constitutionally guaranteed funding. Then it asks schools to accept an IOU instead of the resources that students, families and educators need. Now, budget negotiators are considering a last-minute maneuver that would permanently weaken the foundation of TK–14 funding by expanding the scope of Prop 98 without protecting the students, classrooms and communities already relying on it.
Prop 98 was written into the State Constitution for a reason. It was designed to be a pillar of education funding: a source of stability, predictability and protection during difficult fiscal times. If the state can withhold guaranteed funds when convenient, manipulate the formula when under pressure and redefine the guarantee in the final hours of budget negotiations, then Prop 98 stops being a guarantee at all.
CSBA urges the Legislature and the Governor to:
- Reject the $3.9 billion Proposition 98 withholding.
- Eliminate any last-minute budget provision that dilutes TK–14 Prop 98 funding by folding private preschool providers into the existing guarantee without new, dedicated and additive resources.
- Restore the full funding owed to schools.
- Honor the voters’ intent and protect Proposition 98.
CSBA is a nonprofit association representing nearly 1,000 PreK-12 school districts
and county offices of education throughout California.
www.csba.org