California has invested heavily in career technical education, earmarking $300 million annually since 2021 to help schools prepare students for jobs in fields such as healthcare, public safety and engineering. 

Yet, over the past five years, more than $115 million of that funding — an average of $23 million per year — never reached schools.

District leaders, advocates and legislators say the shortfall stems from the state’s allocation formula that does not fully distribute the career technical education, or CTE, funds.  

Lawmakers are advancing Assembly Bill 1590 to ensure all available CTE funding makes it to districts going forward. Some relief may come even sooner; districts that applied for funding for the 2026-27 school year will see all of the money distributed.

The bill’s author, Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, D-Stockton, said the current formula for allocating CTE money has left many schools unable to support career education programs. 

“It makes everybody scale back; that makes them have fewer certification programs, fewer learning opportunities and, then, fewer pathways,” Ransom said. “To me, that’s something that needed to be corrected.”

Why millions of dollars don’t make it to districts 

The CTE funding program requires school districts to provide a 2-to-1 match, meaning for every dollar they receive from the state, they must contribute $2. A district seeking $1 million in state funding, for example, must provide a $2 million local match. 

But if districts are unable to meet the match, the money reverts to the state’s General Fund rather than back into the pool of CTE funding where it can be redistributed to districts that could use it. 

That is problematic, some educators and advocates say, because it leaves money on the table even as many other districts have available matching funds for career education programs.

For example, in 2025, Merced Union High School District in the San Joaquin Valley applied for $6.7 million in CTE funding but received $1.7 million — $5 million less despite having the matching funds.

California Department of Education officials said districts often receive less than they request because demand exceeds available funding, the number of applicants changes each year, and the allocation formula, itself. 

It’s a formula that’s been debated many times since CTE money became an ongoing funding source in 2018. The department told EdSource it was determined to be the “most equitable and efficient mechanism” for maximizing CTE funds. 

Educators and advocates, however, say the formula disadvantages smaller districts. The formula recognizes very small districts through its first two funding categories, but once a district exceeds an Average Daily Attendance of 550 students, it is grouped into the largest category, said Nicole Newman, president of the Small School Districts Association. 

Districts with an ADA of 550 to 2,500 face the same challenges as smaller school systems and must compete with a broader range of districts. These districts often have limited administrative staff, a lack of grant-writing resources, difficulty recruiting CTE teachers, minimal access to industry partners and postsecondary institutions, and smaller local tax bases, Newman said. 

“A district with 600, 1,200 or 2,000 students competes within the same funding category as some of the largest school systems in the nation,” Newman said. 

The allocation formula, established by the state superintendent and State Board of Education, distributes 70% of funding based on district size, measured by ADA of students in grades 7-12. The remaining 30% is distributed using factors such as the number of vulnerable student populations, higher than average dropout rates and an area’s high unemployment rate, among others. 

Limited opportunities when funding is left on the table

With CTE grant funding, not only do funds remain unallocated, the money going to districts is not consistent each year. 

In Contra Costa County, located in the East Bay, a consortium of 10 school districts has built a robust CTE network offering about 300 classes and early childhood education apprenticeships, said Hilary Dito, director for college and career readiness at the county education office. In 2025, the consortium received $6.2 million, about $500,000 less than the year before. 

As a result of the drop, the county education office imposed a 17% reduction across the board. The county won’t be able to offer 300 classes next school year. At the district level, some school systems will not hire for positions vacated by retiring CTE teachers. There will be cuts to robotics, culinary arts and digital photography programs.

Dito worries those cuts will limit opportunities for students to figure out what they want to pursue. 

“One of our students from last year, senior year, got into a digital recording arts class,” she said. “Before that, (they) had no clue what they wanted to do. Now they’re at the community college with the same teacher. Without that class, I don’t know if that student would’ve found that path. These are the programs that can change someone’s life.” 

When funding is uncertain or inconsistent, districts struggle to sustain program offerings and create and scale industry partnerships, dual enrollment, internships and job shadowing opportunities, educators said. 

“Stability matters just as much,” said Newman, who is also superintendent of Wheatland Union High School District in Yuba City. “High-quality CTE programs take years to develop.”

Newman said her 1,200-student district would like to expand its agriculture pathway with updated facilities, new equipment and more livestock, but roughly $300,000 in state funding is barely enough to sustain existing programs.  

Immediate, but temporary, relief in sight

Ransom’s bill would require the state to revise the allocation formula so that all CTE money is distributed to eligible districts.  

Districts may see some immediate relief. For the 2026-27 funding cycle, all $450 million available, a one-time increase of $150 million for CTE grants this year, will be distributed to districts. State officials have not explained how that will happen. In previous years, the state has done two rounds of award allocations that still left money untouched. The $450 million is expected to be allocated in a single round. 

“If the dollars are available,” Ransom said, “we want them to reach the programs.” 

By Levi Sumagaysay, Marisa Kendall, Kristen Hwang and Yue Stella Yu, CalMatters

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State leaders are feverishly negotiating with special interests behind a few high-profile measures ahead of a Thursday deadline to withdraw them from the November ballot. Top Democrats have already announced an agreement between Uber and the state’s trial lawyers to pull rival initiatives they had each spent tens of millions of dollars promoting.

It’s a dance that happens every election cycle: Interest groups seeking policy changes spend big on voter initiatives, using them as leverage in exchange for favorable deals from state leaders, who often prefer to reach compromises to kill controversial proposals rather than take their chances with voters. 

Legislative leaders can also place measures on the ballot. By Monday, they had already agreed to an affordable housing bond. They are also expected to approve a proposal to increase the cap on deposits into the state’s rainy day fund by Thursday. 

Here are the highlights:

A deal between Uber, trial lawyers

Uber and California’s trial lawyers have likely avoided an expensive battle ahead of the November election by going through the state Legislature instead of voters.  

Uber had collected enough signatures for a ballot initiative that would have capped attorney contingency fees and limited how much California crash victims could recover for medical costs — and not just those injured while riding in an Uber. Attorney groups had qualified a competing initiative to increase the ride-hailing company’s liability for sexual misconduct against riders and drivers. 

The company and the attorneys reached a compromise in Senate Bill 623, which would cap medical cost recoveries in cases that involve medical liens, which allow crash victims to get medical treatment without paying upfront while their case is pending. It would not restrict lawyers’ contingency fees as Uber had proposed in its ballot measure, which critics said would have made it harder for crash victims to get legal representation. It will be limited to crashes that occur in an Uber or other ride-hailing service.

The legislation would also prohibit attorneys from recommending medical providers with whom they have direct ties. 

Meanwhile, Uber will have to tighten its driver background checks and renew them every year, including rejecting drivers who have been convicted of certain violent offenses or those found guilty of driving under the influence, in the past seven years.

A group of medical providers that spent money against Uber’s initiative did not return multiple requests for comment about the deal. Likewise, the Consumer Attorneys of California, which  had raised about $77 million  for its initiative — almost as much as the $78 million Uber had allocated for its campaign, which also declined to comment beyond a statement it had agreed on with the company. 

It reads in part: “This agreement protects patients from unnecessary treatment or getting overcharged, ensures access to medical care and legal representation, and strengthens safety measures.”

Consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog had also opposed Uber’s ballot measure but said the deal “strikes a fair balance.” 

The bill “doesn’t do harm to the average Uber rider (who has health insurance),” Jamie Court, president of the group, told CalMatters. 

If lawmakers pass the bill and send it to the governor, it would take effect next year.

Affordable housing bond

A record-breaking $11.25 billion affordable housing bond appears headed to the California ballot this November. 

The governor, Assembly and Senate agreed on the language of Senate Bill 417, known as the Veterans and Affordable Housing Bond Act of 2026, which would have Californians borrow $10 billion to pay for the construction, rehabilitation, acquisition and preservation of affordable housing, plus another $1.25 billion to help veterans buy homes. 

If approved by voters, the bond should help more than 40,000 people buy a home, help create or preserve tens of thousands of affordable units and support high-paying construction jobs, according to the Newsom administration.

“California’s future depends on whether people can afford to put down roots, raise a family, and build a life here,” the governor said in a news release. 

A recent report found nearly 40,000 planned units of affordable housing in California are ready to be built but are stuck waiting for funding.

The bond is not officially a done deal. The Legislature still needs to pass the bill by Thursday and the governor must sign it before the housing bond appears on your ballot.

What’s happening with the billionaire tax?

The state’s largest health workers union appears poised to bring its high-profile billionaire wealth tax before voters despite Newsom’s late-hour efforts to strike a deal to remove it from the ballot. 

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West has proposed a one-time 5% wealth tax on the state’s roughly 200 billionaires. If approved by voters, the tax would generate roughly $100 billion primarily for healthcare with some money reserved for schools and food programs, according to SEIU-UHW. 

The union says the money is needed to backfill federal healthcare cuts that forced California to cut its Medi-Cal health insurance program for low-income residents and people with disabilities.

Newsom, who emerged as an early opponent of the tax, steadily ramped up pressure against the union over the past week, joining forces with other labor groups such as the California Teachers Association and healthcare powerhouses like Planned Parenthood and the California Medical Association, which ran digital ads against the tax. Billionaires and Silicon Valley moguls also oppose the tax, which they argue would decrease state revenue in the long term by driving wealthy Californians out of the state.

Last week, SEIU-UHW called on Newsom to accept a 2% version of the tax in lieu of the original 5%, but Newsom swiftly rejected that proposal, calling  it “poorly designed.” 

In a recent interview with The Lever, SEIU-UHW President Dave Regan said Newsom could “pull some rabbit out of the hat” to reach a compromise, but he had doubts. “We’re prepared to go forward, and we will be on the ballot in November.”

Rainy day fund reform

Lawmakers are expected to vote this week to send a proposed constitutional amendment to voters  to increase how much money the state can save in a good financial year.

Currently, the state cannot deposit more than 10% of its general fund tax revenue into its rainy day fund. The proposal, titled “Save for California’s Future Act,” would double that amount and allow the state to use some excess revenues to pay down its $20 billion federal unemployment insurance debt acquired during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The proposal comes as California faces a multi-year budget deficit despite growing revenue, prompting state lawmakers and Newsom to search for long-term solutions to stabilize the state’s finances. California is heavily dependent on income tax and capital gains of its wealthy residents, making the state vulnerable to economic downturns.

CHICO, Calif. (AP) — A shooting at a library in Northern California left two people dead and an 18-year-old suspect has been arrested, police said Tuesday.

Police responded to a 911 call soon after 5 p.m. Monday. Chico police Chief Billy Aldridge said gunshots and screams could be heard on that call from the Chico branch of the Butte County Library. Chico, a city of about 100,000 people, is 150 miles (240 kilometers) northeast of San Francisco.

The suspect fled out the back of the library as officers entered, but additional law enforcement personnel behind the building took the suspect into custody, Aldridge said during a news conference.

“The incident this evening was obviously very sad, traumatic for a lot of people. Very traumatic for our community,” Aldridge said.

The streets around the library were closed temporarily and a family reunification center was set up for the people who were inside the building.

A child was also taken to the hospital with a minor injury.

Police later determined the suspect acted alone and identified him as Bradley Scott Sayer of Chico. He was booked into the Butte County Jail on suspicion of two counts of murder. There was no indication he had any prior relationship with or connection to the victims, police said in a statement. Authorities have not released their names.

A police department dispatcher early Tuesday did not know if Sayer has a lawyer and no one could be immediately reached at the jail. A search of Butte County court records did not show his name and a phone number could not be found for him.

Police said the Butte County Sheriff's Office and the FBI are assisting in the investigation.

All Butte County library branches will be closed Tuesday, officials said.

In a Facebook post, the county offered its “deepest condolences to everyone affected, including the victims, their loved ones, library staff, and all those impacted by this heartbreaking incident.”

It wasn't the first act of violence at a U.S. library.

A man in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was sentenced to life in prison after pleading guilty to fatally shooting a man in a library and another man in a convenience store in 2023. In 2020, a suspect was sent to a mental health facility after he pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing a library security guard in Spring Valley, New York. A teenager who pleaded guilty to fatally shooting two public library employees in Clovis, New Mexico, in 2017 was also sentenced to life in prison.

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The nation’s largest public four-year university may soon be barred from replacing faculty with generative AI as a bill backed by a union of professors comes nearer to reaching the governor’s desk.

Few examples exist of the California State University’s attempting to replace faculty labor with generative AI tools, but the faculty union wants to prevent such efforts from ever getting off the ground. The bill so far has garnered no opposition from lawmakers and may clear the Legislature as soon as Monday.

“We do have some cases of the potential replacement of faculty work by AI, and so I personally am very concerned about closing the barn door after the horse has already gotten out,” said Kevin Wehr, a professor of sociology at Sacramento State, which is part of the Cal State system. Wehr leads the bargaining team for the faculty union, the California Faculty Association.

“We’re trying to keep ahead of a rapidly changing set of technologies,” he said in an interview.

Wehr and other faculty and union representatives Calmatters spoke with are especially alarmed about Cal State because of the system’s growing embrace of generative AI tools. Cal State signed a $17 million contract with ChatGPT last year to provide all students and faculty access to the company’s suite of education offerings.

A survey released by Cal State in the spring found that just over half of faculty reported AI affecting their teaching negatively. Just one-third of students indicated that their professors teach them how to use AI effectively, CalMatters reported. Cal State has since renewed its contract with ChatGPT, paying the company $13 million annually for the next three years, according to LAist. 

Cal State is one of several state agencies flagged in a government report that uses “high risk” AI tools, CalMatters reported. Those include cheating detection software for students taking exams remotely. 

Already, the system’s use of AI is creating tension between faculty and administrators. 

Next month, the state labor relations board will hold a meeting over the system’s purchasing of AI tools such as ChatGPT. The union filed an unfair labor practice charge last year when the system rolled out its new pivot toward AI.

In 2025 the faculty union filed a separate complaint with the labor board that Sacramento State was considering deploying AI chatbots that fed off the course material professors voluntarily submitted, a claim Cal State refuted. The union also contested an administrator’s proposed written recommendation that students seek out mental health support through AI tools in the event campus counselors weren’t available.

Cal State and the union settled the matter in March and the union withdrew its complaint. Sacramento State agreed that it wouldn’t “implement autonomous programs or bots with the primary purpose of performing bargaining unit work or evaluating faculty” without meeting and conferring with the union first.

“Many institutions of higher education are exploring options to integrate AI into their courses and curriculum,” said the bill’s author Sen. Sabrina Cervantes, a Democrat from Riverside, at a bill hearing in June. “In many instances, this has been done without any boundaries or guardrails.”

California Faculty Association represents coaches and mental health counselors in addition to professors. It has donated at least $3.4 million to state legislators and other candidates for state office since 2020. Cervantes has gotten at least $64,650 from the union since 2016, according to Digital Democracy, a CalMatters government disclosure tool.

Cal State has no position on the bill, but the role of AI broadly is a sticking point in ongoing labor contract negotiations between the union and the university system. 

A dispute over bots at Sacramento State

The California Faculty Association filed unfair labor practice charges against Sacramento State with the California Public Employment Relations Board last winter over what it said were campus efforts to replace some of the work of faculty, which the union maintained violated state labor law.

CalMatters obtained these records through a California Public Records Act request.

The union alleged that Alexander “Sasha” Sidorkin, the campus’s then chief AI officer, created a mental health chatbot for students and included a link to it in a resources webpage for students. The complaint indicates that the link was accompanied by the statement, “AI is better than nothing, when a counselor isn’t available.”

In a response, Cal State’s chancellor’s office wrote to the labor board that the union’s claims of unfair labor practices were bogus. Sidorkin didn’t develop any such bots and “there was no implementation of any AI bots to do any counseling work.” 

CalMatters spoke with Sidorkin by phone this week. Prior to the call, he had no knowledge that he was named in the complaint. Sidorkin called the union’s allegation “a misstatement of the fact.” He never created a bot, he said, but merely recommended that students use ChatGPT if they cannot find a counselor.  

Sidorkin, who has a new book out on using AI to teach in universities, said Sacramento State terminated the position of chief AI officer last April during a wave of systemwide layoffs and the campus took down the website affiliated with that role. 

He remains at the university as a professor of education and is a union member. Sidorkin shared a copy of the proposed syllabus language that he archived. He still stands by his recommendation that students be informed in their course syllabus that an AI tool during a mental health episode is better than nothing.

Patrick Oberle, an associate professor of geography at Sacramento State and a union member, said the faculty association took up the issue because it represents counselors who the university could attempt to outsource. CalMatters spoke with him before speaking with Sidorkin.

The union filing also alleges that Sidorkin created an AI-powered tool to interpret the faculty union’s contract with the university system. The union argued this too violated state labor relations law and that the tool itself produced incorrect information. “When the union objected, the CSU ceased use of the contract interpretation bot,” the complaint read.

And Sidorkin solicited faculty for their course syllabi and materials “to receive a customized AI tutoring bot for their classes.” The complaint included an email from Sidorkin to faculty that Sac State leaders told him to retract the request, though he seemingly opposed the move.

“This technology is available on the open market through multiple platforms; however, you will not be able to build them through my office at this time,” he wrote then. He told CalMatters that some 18 professors sent their course material to him the first day he invited submissions.

A human resources director at Sacramento State wrote to a faculty member reassuring her that any bots by administrators need to be bargained over between the union and Cal State “before being used, posted, published, shared, or distributed,” according to a copy of the email.

Sidorkin told CalMatters that the union’s filing the charges was a mistake.

“It’s not a good PR move also on the union’s side because they look like they’re Luddites, and this is not true,” he said, adding that dozens of faculty at Sacramento State alone have developed AI chatbots in support of their courses for students after Cal State purchased ChatGPT accounts for faculty and students last year.

“I am disappointed in my union,” he added.

Faculty fears of AI mission creep

Oberle, the professor, fears that without guardrails, a university could chip away the work of instructors in ways that hurt student learning and diminish the joy of teaching.

One concern? That a campus may encourage professors to shift more of their grading to AI to then grow the number of students per class. That hasn’t happened in a formal way, yet.

That would mean less human engagement with instructors for students. And it could reduce the need to hire additional professors as others retire, which would limit the power of the faculty union.

“We’re trying to accommodate the folks who are deeply opposed to AI’s very existence, and also accommodate the folks that are very excited about all of its possibilities,” Oberle said. 

The point of the unfair labor practice charge, he said, wasn’t to tie the hands of Cal State administrators, but to underscore that using AI to potentially replace labor requires a conversation with faculty. 

More battles over AI in the workplace

Cervantes’ bill is one of several in California aimed at curbing the role of artificial intelligence in the workplace, but others are far more divisive.  Senate Bill 947, would prevent employers from relying solely on AI tools to discipline or dismiss employees. That legislation has the support of labor unions and some nonprofits skeptical of generative AI. Business groups oppose it, including the California Chamber of Commerce as well as ride-hail company Lyft. Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a similar bill last year.

Another, Senate Bill 903, would ban psychotherapists from offering therapy through chatbots and place other limits on the use of AI tools in transcribing patient sessions or communicating with patients. It would also ban bots from making independent therapeutic decisions. The California Chamber of Commerce and California Medical Association oppose it.

“We know technology can augment humans, but it should never replace humans,” said Assemblymember Mike Fong, a Democrat from Alhambra and chair of the Assembly’s committee on higher education, when speaking about Cervantes’ Cal State faculty bill. 

Moments later, the committee voted 10-0 to pass the measure. 

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For the first time ever, Sacramento is set to host the extreme sports competition X Games this weekend at Cal Expo starting Friday, June 26, through Sunday June 28.

This will be the first stop of the new X Games League (XGL) — a co-ed team-based competition featuring four city-branded teams that compete year-round.

Sacramento is the first stop for the new competition followed by Japan and then the MoonBay X Games League championship in New Orleans. The events include skateboarding, BMX and motocross.

X Games Chief Marketing Officer Kevin O’Connor said Sacramento is the “perfect spot,” for the games based on their relationship with the state. California has hosted the X Games more than 20 times in California in cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco.

“We love California, and we think that California has really loved us back,” O’Connor said. “Sacramento also has just a great action sports community, you know, it's a community that loves sport in general, and we couldn't be happier to be here.”

There will also be post-event concerts from electronic artist Kaskade Friday, Grammy-award-winning producer DJ Mustard and EDM artist Subtronics.

Tickets are available for individual, three-day and VIP.

What to expect? 

The XGL will have four teams competing this weekend – Los Angeles, Tokyo, New York and São Paulo. Each team is made up of 10 athletes per team, five women and five men.

They held their first ever action sports draft this summer and will hold a winter draft in September.

Athletes in XGL include skateboarders Gui Khury and Sky Brown for team Sao Paulo, skateboarders Chloe Covell and Davis native Nyjah Huston for team New York, skateboarder Arisa Trew and BMX rider Rim Nakamura and skateboarder Tom Scharr for team Los Angeles. 

Nyjah Huston, of the United States, celebrates after winning the Street League Skateboarding Super Crown World Championship final in Sao Paulo, Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024.AP Photo/Andre Penner
Brady Baker, a BMX two-time silver-medalist and two-time gold-medalist at the X Games, is one of the athletes that will compete in the games this weekend. Baker is an Auburn resident on team LA and will compete in BMX dirt and park competitions.

“It's cool being paired with BMX and skateboarders in the league, and to try and tally points, and get this overall championship, which I believe is for a $500,000 purse split between the athletes,” he said. “We're all trying to get that, that's the goal.”

Baker said the games this weekend feels like a local event. He said he has a few tricks up his sleeve for competition.

“I want to step the bar up like I have every other year,” Baker said while mentioning back-to-back gold medals 2023-2024. “I had to settle for silver in 2025, so in 2026, I'm trying to get that gold medal back.”

Also included in the festivities this weekend is the X Fest, which is an area that will have interactions like a freestyle trampoline zone, according to O’Connor.

“We've got a wake jam with professional wake boarders, and a kind of a jet ski show,” O’ Connor said. “The Sacramento Low Rider Commission is out there, and Velocity Car Club, so we've got some other cool things that are just to make a great day for the family to come out.”

What the games mean locally

The X Games coming to Sacramento is huge for the amateur and upcoming skateboarders in BMX riders.

Former skateboarder Mike Rafter stated in 2006 in the Sacramento News and Review that Sacramento could host the X games. Rafter said Sacramento has always been a breeding ground for skateboarding.

“Part of the reason is because in the 90s, there was a lot of suburban sprawl, which meant they were building schools, churches, hospitals, parks, playgrounds,” Rafter told CapRadio. “Usually when that architecture happens, skateboarders are the first to discover it.” 

He started skateboarding at 14 and he became pro in the 90s, and he participated in the original X Trials in the 1990s. He’s also worked for what is widely considered the biggest skateboarding magazine in the world — Thrasher.

Rafter said the X Games doesn't come to every city and is an event that happens periodically. He said people in Sacramento should go to witness the event.

“There's not a lot of chances for people to see that kind of thing in person, and I don't think people should miss it,” he said. “I would say that if you have the opportunity to get out there [this] weekend and check it out, check it out for as long as you can.”