In This Issue:

• State Budget In Final Weeks of Discussion & Negotiations
• Congressional Leadership Makes Final Push for PROSPER
• Join the League's June Legislative Webinar
• Federal Grant Opportunities - Presented by Downs Government Affairs
• Upcoming Events

State Budget In Final Weeks of Discussion & Negotiations

On May 11, Governor Brown released the final May Revision of his tenure. He maintained emphasis on his two signature higher education proposals - a new fully online community college focused on innovations in online learning and a new student-focused funding formula – both of which retained prominent investments in the 2018-19 May Revision.

The 2018-19 May Revision also maintains a $46 million allocation for College Promise programs to support local efforts to build a college-going culture with a focus on increasing first-time, full-time students and confronting students’ growing non-tuition costs. Additionally, the May Revision includes funding for two League priorities – a $13.5 million one-time and $5 million ongoing allocation for financial aid technology and modernization, and $6 million one-time for a statewide open educational resources (OER) initiative to reduce students’ textbook costs. Our full May Revision summary is available here.

The May Revision provides roughly $400 million in ongoing resources, much of which supports the transition to a new funding formula. The revised proposal considers many recommendations proposed by the CEO Funding Formula Taskforce, including a two-year hold harmless, calculation of enrollment based on a three-year average, consideration of transfers to any accredited university, and a broader definition of economically disadvantaged, among others. Discussions around a new funding formula have been exacerbated by the fact that of the 72 community college districts, 32 are declining in enrollment and 18 have not recovered past enrollment declines – indicating that many districts are expecting significant budget cuts in 2018-19. Properly structured and adequately funded, a new funding model has the potential to move to a more accountable, equity-focused system that aligns to our longstanding work around success. After approving a series of amendments at its May Board meeting, the League was encouraged by the Administration’s acceptance of key amendments including higher ongoing base funding, maintaining summer shift flexibility for districts, and additional stability provisions that will protect colleges from revenue declines in future years.

Soon after the release of the May Revision, the Senate and Assembly began their subcommittee hearings and took actions reflecting their positions and priorities. Both chambers considered the Governor’s proposals – approving some and rejecting others. Now that the subcommittee votes are complete, differences between the Senate and Assembly actions will be reconciled in the Budget Conference Committee; a committee comprised of select members of the Senate and Assembly. Members of the Conference Committee are expected to be announced by June 1.

Below is a summary of key actions taken by the Senate and Assembly Budget Subcommittees.

Congressional Leadership Makes Final Push for PROSPER

It appears that policy discussions relating to both the re-authorization of the Higher Education Act and immigration reform may result in action on either issue at the end of June. The leadership of the House Republicans are considering whether to take up both the PROSPER Act, which would reauthorize the Higher Education Act, and DACA bills after facing pressure from both moderates and conservatives to take some action on immigration reform.

Below is a summary of both items, the League urges your district to be ready to weigh in and inform your congressional representatives on how any of the proposals will impact the ability of your institution to serve your students.  Below are summaries of the problematic items within PROSPER and an update on activity in congress related to immigration reform.

PROSPER: A Bill that Reduces Student Access, Success and Equity

Earlier this year the House Education and Workforce Committee passed out H.R. 4508, known as the PROSPER Act. While it would re-authorize the Higher Education Act and make some positive changes to how your students would receive Pell Grants, the net result of the bill will hurt your ability to serve your students.  The League will be monitoring developments on if further action will be taken on PROSPER in Washington, so please stay tuned.  Below are the most problematic parts of the bill:

Substantial Increase Liability for Unearned Title IV Funds      
The bill would substantially increase the amount of unearned Title IV grant aid our colleges are liable for when a student receives federal financial aid such as a Pell Grant but withdraws from a class. As open access institutions, community colleges serve populations that often are forced to reduce the number of their classes due to work, familial or other emergencies.  While we strongly believe that colleges should take steps to ensure tax payer funds are used responsibly, PROSPER will place an additional burden on our already thinly resourced financial aid offices.

Elimination of Title III-A: Strengthening Institutions Program
Title III-A is a competitive institutional aid programs that supports colleges that have few resources, serve minority populations or are located in rural areas.  The elimination of this program will restrict the ability of our colleges to make continued programmatic investments that improve student access, success or equity. While supporters of PROSPER claim that this program was eliminated to increase funding for apprenticeship programs, this does not compensate for the loss of resources for institutional aid.

Reduction of Financial Aid Resources for Students
With the goal of simplifying and streamlining financial aid programs, PROSPER eliminates many important financial aid programs that enable our students to attend college.  While the League supports efforts to simplify the federal financial aid system, PROSPER proposes to do it in a manner that will result in a reduction of available resources to your students.  Specifically, it proposes to eliminate:

• Supplemental Educational Propitiating Grants (SEOG).
• In-school interest subsides for low income federal student loan recipients.
• Time based and public services loan forgiveness programs.

Forcing a Vote on Immigration Reform and Codifying DACA

Congressman Jeff Denham has introduced a petition in the House that would push four immigration proposals out of the House Judiciary Committee and force Congress to consider them under the “Queen of the House Rule” – which means that whichever measure gets the most votes would be sent on to the Senate for consideration.  As of the writing of this article, 204 of the 218 members needed for passage have signed on to the petition. 

The four proposals relating to immigration reform and DACA range from being extremely positive to your students to likely having a negative impact on them.  Below are the four likely proposals to be considered:

1. Codify DACA protections, path to citizenship (DREAM Act).
2. Codify DACA protections, path to citizenship, limits sponsorship to parents once DACA recipient becomes citizen, funding for immigration enforcement (but not border wall). 
3. Codify DACA protections, restricts legal immigration and funding for border wall.
4. Proposal for Speaker Ryan to decide.

If the discharge petition is successful and the House considers any of the above proposals, the League will ask your institutions to weigh in on how each one would impact your students.

Join the League's June Legislative Webinar

The League's Government Relations team engages in advocacy efforts at the state capitol on bills and budget proposals that are of critical importance to colleges. Our advocacy efforts are multifaceted and include committee testimony, capitol visits, and in-district legislative meetings. Active participation and engagement from college leaders is the most effective approach we can take.  To ensure that at every step of the legislative process college leaders are aware of the most pressing issues, the League offers a series of legislative update webinars held at key junctures of the process.

Save the dates and join us for the monthly League Legislative Webinars. The next monthly League Legislative Webinar is Tuesday, June 19 at 10:00 AM.

June Legislative Webinar
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
10:00 – 10:45 AM

A Digest of the State Budget Act

Webinar Details
Link: bit.ly/LeagueGRWebinar 
Dial your telephone conference line: 1-913-312-3202
Passcode: 343385

For more information, please contact Lizette Navarette at Lizette@ccleague.org.

Federal Grant Opportunities

Presented by Downs Government Affairs

For a full list of federal grants available to community colleges, visit our Federal Grants page at: https://www.ccleague.org/federal-grant-opportunites

Agency: National Science Foundation
Program: Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure grants
Estimated Total Program Funding: $12,000,000
Closing Date for Applications: June 4, 2018

Program Description: The objective of the Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) program is to develop, deploy and integrate security solutions that benefit the scientific community by ensuring the integrity, resilience and reliability of the end-to-end scientific workflow. CICI seeks three categories of projects: 1. Secure Scientific Cyberinfrastructure: These awards seek to secure the scientific workflow by encouraging novel and trustworthy architectural and design approaches, models and frameworks for the creation of a holistic, integrated security environment that spans the entire scientific CI ecosystem; 2. Collaborative Security Response Center: This single award targets the development of a community resource to provide security monitoring, analysis, expertise, and resources research and education cyberinfrastructure staff, regardless of physical location or organization; and 3. Research Data Protection: These awards provide solutions that both ensure the provenance of research data and reduce the complexity of protecting research data sets regardless of funding source.

• CEO Leadership Academy, June 8-10, Olympic Valley, CA
• Classified Leadership Academy, June 14-16, Ventura, CA
• League  Legislative Webinar, June 19

For more information, contact the League's Government Relations and Communications staff:

Lizette Navarette, Vice President lizette@ccleague.org
Ryan McElhinney, Legislative Advocate ryan@ccleague.org
Laura Murrell, Communications Manager laura@ccleague.org
Gerson Light-Sanchez, Legislative Fellow fellow@ccleague.org