After a long budget season, the Legislature has returned to Sacramento for the final month of the 2021–22 legislative session. The Senate and Assembly have reconvened with just a few weeks left to conclude their business. Several major education bills have unexpectedly been left behind, while CSBA-sponsored bills will continue to move forward in the weeks ahead.

In the final days before the June 30 deadline to conclude all policy committees, a number of major education bills found themselves caught in the crossfire of a series of contentious education committee hearings. At its June 29 hearing, the Assembly Education Committee, chaired by Assemblymember Patrick O’Donnell (D-Long Beach), opted not to bring two major bills authored by Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge) to a vote.

Sen. Portantino’s Senate Bill 830 would have transformed school funding in California by funding districts based on enrollment rather than attendance, and SB 387 would have required local educational agencies to train their classified and certificated employees that work directly with students on youth behavioral health by 2025. Neither bill included the necessary funding to make their policies a reality at the school district level, and without that funding both bills raised fundamental questions as to whether either policy was attainable. As a result, CSBA had taken an Oppose unless Amended position and was engaging with the author on both bills, which were expected to feature prominently in the Legislature’s final month. Instead, both were held in committee and — since this is the second year of the two-year 2021–22 legislative session — will not move forward.

The choice to hold the bills touched off a heated exchange between the two legislators during the Assembly hearing. The following day, the Senate Education Committee declined to hear three of Assemblymember O’Donnell’s bills, including Assembly Bill 2034, a bill sponsored by CSBA, which would have expanded access to school-based health and mental health services by encouraging more schools to participate in the Local Educational Agency Medi-Cal Billing Option Program.

While AB 2034 was left on the cutting room floor, the majority of CSBA’s sponsored legislation this year has met with success and will be moving forward in the final weeks of the session. A pair of bills that will reform school board special elections and recalls to protect election integrity and improve the information provided to voters, AB 2584 (Berman, D-Menlo Park) and SB 1061 (Laird, D-Santa Cruz), made it through their policy committees and will now proceed to Appropriations committee hearings in each house.

Likewise AB 2295 (Bloom, D-Santa Monica), a bill aimed at addressing both the educator and housing shortages by removing bureaucratic hurdles and increasing incentives for school districts to develop education workforce housing on vacant school property, will move forward for consideration in the Senate Appropriations Committee.

With the final budget and the deadline to conclude policy committees in the rearview mirror, the final month of session will find the Appropriations committees in each house considering their “suspense file.” Throughout the year, the committee sets aside bills with a price tag of over $150,000 into the suspense file, in order to consider their fiscal impact as a whole.

Suspense hearings are conducted without a public vote, providing a convenient place to discard politically difficult bills. Less fortunate legislation may be “held on suspense,” meaning the bill will die in the Appropriations committee. For those that survive, the Legislature will take up all remaining legislation in floor votes of the full Senate and Assembly in a race to beat the clock before the session ends on Aug. 31.

When the clock strikes midnight on Aug. 31, all eyes will turn to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will have until Sept. 30 to sign or veto all bills sent to his desk.