California universities have been striving to expand in-state enrollment, but Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget cuts could force universities including UC San Diego and San Diego State University to roll back services and staff, and shelve plans to admit more California students.

The governor’s budget plan includes a $272 million General Fund reduction for the University of California system in 2025‑26, or 5.6 percent of its state funding. And it calls for a $375 million cut to California State Universities next year, for about a 7.4 percent cut to its state support. It would also postpone a 5 percent annual funding boost that the state promised both systems.

What This Means for San Diego Campuses

Because of that, “UC will be required to do more with less,” Ian Klein, a senior analyst with the state Legislative Analyst’s Office, told me. That could mean a system-wide hiring freeze while the university is increasing enrollment, along with larger class sizes, fewer course offerings and reduced student support.

UC San Diego could lose much more beyond the state cuts, as the federal government slashes research dollars, our Jakob McWhinney reported last month. Its losses could range from $75 million to more than $500 million annually –  a 2.5 to 12.5 percent cut to its total budget  – UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla warned.

San Diego State University is likewise bracing for lean times. In a message to faculty and staff March 20, President Adela de la Torre said the university would try to reduce management positions by 3 percent and announced a “hiring chill, effective immediately.” That affects staff and management positions starting now, and tenure-track faculty positions starting in 2026-27.

“This effort is designed to help us meet budget reduction targets while preserving and protecting our current workforce and priorities,” she wrote.

San Diego State has some one-time funding it will draw on next year, and it plans to cut travel and other expenses. Nonetheless, it’s facing a potential $44 million deficit over the next three years, she warned.

But Jackie Teepen, a spokesperson for the San Diego State chapter of the California Faculty Association, said the budget crunch is a matter of priorities, saying that spending on instruction has declined, but construction projects, executive salaries and consulting contracts are still costly. 

“Don’t be fooled by the chancellor’s and CSU administrators’ claims of austerity,” Teepen said. “We have the money; they have simply chosen to spend it on themselves.”

Cal State San Marcos will see cuts of $12 million and lose another $7 million it expected from the 5 percent annual increase, university President Ellen Neufeldt told me. 

“We’re talking about not having enough advisors, enough counselors, enough staff across the board,” she said. 

The university is trying to protect core classes students need to graduate, she said, but they may have fewer options and time slots.

“We’re doing our very best to offer the courses that are needed,” Neufeldt said. “But in many cases instead of it being offered twice a year it’s offered once a year. We don’t have the dollars to expand the schedule.”

Cuts could come at the expense of California students. The cuts come as California campuses are trying to enroll more California resident students. Out-of-state and international students pay higher tuition, so the universities have welcomed them for both academic and financial reasons. But as admissions have become tighter, campuses have faced pressure to open more seats to in-state students. 

They’ve already done that, and actually exceeded their targets, with each university system adding about 3,000 more California students than expected this year.

The state directed the UC system to boost in-state undergraduate enrollment by 2,927 students this year. The University of California reports that it has more than doubled that, with 6,209 more California students, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

CSU has similarly boosted enrollment of California students, adding 9,326 more in-state students this year: almost 3,000 more than their goal of 6,338 California students.

That’s likely to slow down next year, de la Torre wrote. This year San Diego State has funding to add 301 California students this year, but it doesn’t plan to enroll any more in-state students next year, because of budget cuts.

The state wants the Cal State system to enroll 10,000 more California students in each of the next two years, but the legislative analyst office recommends that they freeze that for now.

Cal State San Marcos already serves predominantly local students from North County and Riverside County, and eight out of 10 graduates stay in the region, Neufeldt said. The cuts could squeeze programs in nursing, teaching, engineering and mental health that are key to the San Diego workforce.

“This is about our students in the region having access and the ability to complete (degrees) here,” she said. “But it is also about the economic longevity of our region.”

Tuition hikes will soften the blow… sort of. In a good news/bad news equation, rising tuition rates in both the UC and Cal State systems will offset some of the cuts.

At UC campuses, undergraduate tuition will rise from $13,146 this year to $14,934 next year. That will add back $241 million, slashing the net cuts to about $30 million. 

In the Cal State system, tuition is set to increase 6 percent annually through 2028-29, climbing from $6,084 this year to $ 6,450 in 2025-26. Those increases, plus some extra state spending for pension and retiree health benefits, will result in a net increase of $66 million for the next fiscal year. But, that’s spread out over more students, so per student spending will still drop by about 1 percent. 

For more on higher education funding, read these CalMatters stories on the Cal State and UC budget cuts. 

California Students Eligible for CalKids College Funds: Thousands of San Diego students are eligible for up to $1,500 in CalKIDS Scholarships, through a state college savings program. It has over $148 million in scholarship funds that students can use for college tuition, books, supplies, and computer equipment.

Sanctuary State Reform Bill Fails in Committee: State Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones protested that Democratic colleagues who voted down his bill to tighten California immigration “chose to side with violent offenders over the safety of Californians.” Jones’ bill would have required local law enforcement to cooperate with ICE for illegal immigrants convicted of serious and violent felonies. Without that coordination, immigration officials will conduct broad sweeps, with “collateral arrests” of law-abiding immigrants, Jones argued.

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.

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California’s troubled fire insurance market has pushed increasing numbers of homeowners onto the state’s high-risk FAIR Plan. In San Diego alone, FAIR Plan coverage quadrupled over the last few years. 

A pair of lawsuits filed against major insurers last week claim that was by design. 

Two lawsuits allege that the top 25 insurers conspired to eliminate standard insurance policies, in an effort to boost profits and shed risk. That left homeowners to seek coverage under the state’s last-resort insurance plan, which offers lower coverage at higher premiums. 

“By colluding together to cancel existing policies and refusing to write new ones, the insurers were able to force property owners onto the FAIR Plan,” the law firms who filed the suits said in a statement. 

One lawsuit represents Los Angeles homeowners who suffered damages from the Palisades and Eaton Fires in January. The other makes claims on behalf of hundreds of thousands of California homeowners “who were forced to pay exorbitant rates for inferior coverage after the insurers’ misconduct forced them to obtain limited coverage from the FAIR Plan,” the firm stated. 

Homeowners were cornered, with no choice but to accept less coverage while “defendants used the plan to raise, fix, maintain and stabilize premium prices for those thousands of consumers,” the complaint stated. 

The American Property Casualty Insurance Association, a trade association representing insurers, denied any wrongdoing by its members. Its chief legal officer, Stef Zielezienski, argued that the problem stems from “deteriorating conditions in the California property insurance market” and said the “suits defy logic (and) advance meritless claims.”  

How we got here: California established the FAIR Plan in 1968 as an insurer of last resort for properties in high fire risk areas that private insurers won’t cover. The plan offers homeowners a temporary safety net until they can get traditional insurance coverage, with the goal of reducing the number of people who depend on it. 

Instead, Fair Plan coverage has increased, as insurance companies have withdrawn from California after a series of catastrophic wildfires. Statewide, its policies doubled between 2020 and 2024. In San Diego County, they quadrupled during that time. 

The lawsuits claim insurance companies took advantage of the crumbling insurance market, using California’s high-risk pool to charge higher rates while insulating themselves from liability. 

The companies “turned the stopgap protective purpose of the FAIR Plan on its head,” the lawsuits stated. “It did so by subverting the FAIR Plan into an instrument to collectively enhance Defendants’ profitability while shifting vast amounts of fire liability exposure back onto consumers.” 

To help pay billions of dollars in claims from the L.A. fires, the FAIR Plan will impose a special charge of $1 billion on insurance companies, who will in turn pass $500 million onto homeowners, including those with traditional plans. Most policyholders in California will see an extra charge on their insurance bills. 

“As a coup de grace, the FAIR Plan has already announced that half of the losses incurred as a result of the wildfires will be charged back to the consumer marketplace,” the lawsuit stated. 

Could San Diego homeowners be affected? I contacted the law firms who sued the insurance companies to find out what these cases mean for San Diego homeowners on the high-risk state plan, but they didn’t respond. 

However, they argued in court filings that the alleged conspiracy could affect homeowners beyond those who lost property in the L.A. Fires. 

“A more hidden—but just as collectively injurious—aspect of Defendants’ scheme 

is the billions of dollars that have been siphoned from the pockets of homeowners who were 

spared from the recent wildfires, but are still paying inflated rates for deficient coverage,” the lawsuit on behalf of all FAIR Plan customers stated. 

San Diego County’s reliance on FAIR Plan policies has soared, as policies roughly quadrupled between 2020 and 2024, from 9,670 to 37,375. That’s the third highest number in the state, after Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties. 

A year ago, I reported on State Farm’s decision not to renew thousands of policies in California, including 2,000 in San Diego. The affluent community of Rancho Santa Fe was one of the hardest hit, along with rural areas in Alpine, Chula Vista, Jamul, Lakeside and El Cajon. Some of those homeowners likely turned to the state high-risk plan when their policies expired. 

Whatever their outcome, the lawsuits highlight the problem that the state’s last-resort insurance plan has become the only option for hundreds of thousands of California homeowners. 

Also on the Fire Insurance Front  

The nonprofit Consumer Watchdog sued the California Department of Insurance and Commissioner Ricardo Lara last week, challenging the $500 million in surcharges that California homeowners will have to pay to help cover liability from the L.A. fires. 

Consumer Watchdog denounced the assessment as a “bailout” for insurance companies. It says the surcharges were announced without the opportunity for public comment and claims FAIR Plan statutes don’t allow companies to shift costs to consumers. 

A proposal to stabilize the FAIR Plan is moving forward. Assemblymember David Alvarez’ bill would authorize the FAIR Plan to request the California Infrastructure and Economic Development bank to issue bonds in cases where catastrophic events strain the plan’s ability to pay claims. It passed the Assembly floor earlier this month.  

DUI Case Becomes Rallying Cry for Immigration Bill 

State Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said the early release of a man who killed two Orange County teenagers in a DUI crash makes the case for his proposal to scale back California’s sanctuary law. 

Oscar Eduardo Ortega-Anguiano, who pleaded guilty to two counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated in 2021, could be freed after serving three years of a 10-year sentence. He is also accused of illegally entering the country after being deported twice. 

“California’s sanctuary state policies and soft-on-crime approach are to blame,” Jones said. 

In February Jones introduced a bill to prevent cities and counties from restricting local-federal cooperation on immigration matters beyond what the current sanctuary law allows, and require law enforcement officials to cooperate with federal officials on immigration cases involving serious crimes. 

Bill Essayli, a former Republican Assemblymember for Temecula who was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California earlier this month, vowed to prosecute Ortega-Anguiano. Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would coordinate with ICE. 

California Makes #4 World Economy: California is now the fourth largest economy in the world, Newsom announced Wednesday. With a Gross Domestic Product of $4.1 trillion, it surpassed Japan and ranked behind only the United States, China, and Germany 

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

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Local leaders are putting the brakes on a South Bay landfill project that’s been in the works for a decade and a half.  

Fifteen years ago, a ballot measure proposing plans for the East Otay Mesa Recycling Collection Center and Landfill passed with 84 percent of the vote.    

Now, state Sen. Steve Padilla says voters weren’t well-informed about plans in an area that already faces severe pollution. He’s calling for restrictions, including additional public hearings and assurances that the landfill won’t worsen environmental conditions in nearby communities. 

Padilla introduced a bill that would ban the state from issuing a waste discharge permit for a landfill until the local agency that oversees waste facilities has held a public hearing on the project and certified that it won’t harm an environmentally burdened community. 

“In our community, a brand-new landfill is currently being planned near the Tijuana River — one of the most polluted waterways in the state and the nation,” Padilla said in a statement to Voice of San Diego.  “SB 594 would give communities like ours that already face excessive levels of pollution the opportunity to have their voices heard when a landfill is proposed in their backyard — even when developers have taken steps to avoid local review.” 

What are the environmental risks? David Wick, president and CEO of landfill developer National Enterprises, Inc., said Padilla’s proposal is overkill, because his company is already undergoing exhaustive environmental review.  

Before the company can start construction, their project must pass muster through the California Environmental Quality Act and National Environmental Policy Act, both of which require public comment. Plus, it needs water, air and waste permits from numerous state and local agencies.  

Wick said there’s no evidence trash from the site would pollute the Tijuana River Valley and said the greater risk would be killing his project. 

“What’s occurred is the existing three landfills in our county have become mountains of trash,” Wick said. “That is the existing hazard. That is the environmental injustice.” 

County supervisor candidate and Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre, who has long battled the Tijuana River sewage crisis, is backing Padilla’s bill, saying South Bay can’t sustain any potential pollution from the proposed landfill. 

“Putting it within the boundaries of the Tijuana watershed and exacerbating the threat that the Tijuana River poses for the entire South Bay is ludicrous right now,” she told me. 

She said the landfill would displace sensitive habitat and disputes Wick’s claim that it wouldn’t harm the Tijuana River Valley. 

“As long as it’s within the boundaries of the watershed itself it does have the capacity to drain into the river,” Aguirre said.  

Does San Diego Need More Space for Trash? Opponents also argue that the new landfill isn’t needed. State environmental laws brought waste disposal down by almost a quarter between 2025 and 2020, the county reported in 2022. 

A letter from CalEPA to Padilla last year stated that the region has enough waste disposal capacity for the next 15 years. It estimates that increased conservation, recycling and composting should keep trash under control until 2053.  

The landfill could be a dividing issue in the race for San Diego County Supervisor District 1, where Aguirre is competing against Chula Vista Mayor John McCann.  

McCann thinks the region needs the new facility. He points out trash collection rates are rising, and the existing Otay Mesa landfill is set to close in 2030. 

“As we are seeing major trash rate increases in San Diego, without being able to build a state of the art environmentally safe landfill, located away from neighborhoods, residents will see trash rates skyrocket and the community will lose hundreds of local jobs,” he told me. 

This is Padilla’s second stab at restricting the project. Last year he proposed a similar bill, more specifically targeted at the East Otay Mesa project. It would have prohibited a regional water board from issuing a waste discharge permit for a new landfill in the Tijuana River Valley. 

That bill failed on the Assembly floor near the end of last year’s legislative session, amid a feud with Assemblymember David Alvarez, who said he wanted the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board to have the final say on the landfill. 

Oddly, votes in favor of that bill were more than triple those against it. So how did it fail? Twenty-eight Democrats voted in favor of Padilla’s restrictions, and Alvarez and seven Republicans voted no. The rest of the Assembly didn’t vote, leaving it short of a majority. 

This year’s bill passed the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality on April 2. If legislators bother to vote this time and it passes, it would apply to the East Otay Mesa facility and other potential landfills in high pollution areas. 

In Other Tijuana River News: The Tijuana River gained a dubious distinction as the second most polluted river in the country, the nonprofit American Rivers announced this week.  

“The polluted water in the Tijuana River aerosolizes as sea spray, polluting air quality,” and increasing health problems and emergency room visits among nearby residents, the organization stated. 

It’s a political issue as well as a public health problem, the organization wrote in a statement about the list, calling on the Trump administration to declare a federal emergency for the river. 

San Diego County Board Chair Wants to Tap Rainy Day Fund 

San Diego’s State of the County Address is typically an ode to the county’s accomplishments on issues such as homelessness, housing and mental health.  This year’s address by Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer was more like a rally for MAGA resistance.  

Our Lisa Halverstadt reported on the speech, held at the San Diego Natural History Museum in Balboa Park. Lawson-Remer threw shade at oligarchs and billionaires, and called for the county to dig into its reserves to make up money lost to drastic federal spending cuts. 

She wants to use more than $100 million in reserves to fund a new county public health lab and clean up sewage pollution in South Bay. Any chance at reserve spending will probably depend on the outcome of the District 1 Supervisor race, which will determine which party controls the board. 

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

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Last year the Environmental Health Coalition received a $20 million grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to improve air quality, build green spaces and add electric transit to some of San Diego’s most polluted neighborhoods. 

Organizers were excited to get the award, which supplemented state funds for projects in Barrio Logan, National City and other communities exposed to pollution from truck traffic and industrial pollution. 

Everything went as expected on the start date Jan. 6, but by Jan. 28 the payment system for the grant was frozen after President Donald Trump cancelled climate action funding.  

“We are incurring costs, but we are unable to tap into the funds that are contractually obligated to us,” Amy Castañeda, policy co-director for the coalition, told me. “We continue to spend money with no hope that the funds will be reinstated.” 

Attacks on climate action: San Diego organizations are grappling with Trump’s plans to claw back federal climate funding and attack state greenhouse gas reduction laws, in a blitz that leaves local climate goals in doubt. With San Diego cities already falling behind on their targets, however, it might also provide cover for those shortfalls.  

On Jan. 20, Trump signed an order cancelling federal funding for climate programs and compelling production of oil, gas, coal, nuclear and other energy sources.  

Then he signed another this week that takes aim at state climate programs, including California’s cap and trade, the state’s market for reducing greenhouse gases.  

Legal experts say the attempt to kill state climate laws is an overreach that’s likely to fail. California’s cap-and-trade program creates a market that limits overall greenhouse emissions, but lets companies buy and sell carbon credits. The state uses that money to pay for renewable energy, alternative fuel transportation and other projects. 

Carbon credit auctions have brought in $28.3 billion to the state Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund since the program started in 2012, according to the California Air Resources Board. Nicole Capretz, CEO of Climate Action Campaign, said this is Trump’s second stab at ending the program. 

“He already tried to dismantle California’s cap and trade and he was unsuccessful,” in his first term, she told me. “I think California is feeling pretty secure in their cap-and-trade law. It is a massive revenue generator for the state and funds a whole suite of programs.” 

But reversing funding approved during the Biden administration is trickier. Trump’s day one order calls for “terminating the Green New Deal” by halting grants for electric vehicle charging stations and other infrastructure authorized in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act and the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. 

It’s been an ordeal for the Environmental Health Coalition, which has struggled to access money, plan projects, manage staffing and even communicate with the EPA. 

For a few weeks in February and early March the funding was restored, Castañeda said. Then it shut off again. The EPA project manager for the grant has cancelled every monthly check-in. 

“We’re doing the work but have zero communication and we’re in limbo now,” Castañeda told me. 

The coalition has contacted local lawmakers and is asking state officials to backfill the missing money with funds from Proposition 4, the $10 billion state climate bond measure that passed in November. If the coalition can’t get grant funding restored, they’ll have to look at staff cuts, Castañeda said. 

“We’re considering layoffs, we’re considering furloughs and staff time reductions, because we cannot sustain that big a hit,” she said. 

Local governments and advocacy groups have challenged Trump’s authority to cancel spending Congress authorized, arguing that only Congress – not the president – has the power of the purse. Those cases are making their way through the courts, but in the meantime, Trump is slashing staff and funding at federal agencies. 

“This is more of a bullying tactic than anything else, meant to silence, to intimidate, to chill any new actions on climate,” Capretz said. 

What does this mean for public climate action programs in San Diego? Those include the city’s Climate Action Plan, the county’s Regional Decarbonization Framework, which lays out countywide choices for transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, and many other municipal climate action plans. 

I called San Diego County Board Chair Terra Lawson-Remer, who has been leading the county’s climate action efforts. Her office said she didn’t have any comment; things are moving too fast and she’s waiting to see how it shakes out. 

Environmental leaders say the cuts could throw a monkey wrench in local efforts to slash greenhouse gas emissions, which are already behind schedule. The Climate Action Coalition’s annual report card grades the county’s nine biggest cities on their climate progress. It gave mixed reviews last year. The report card urged cities to set annual benchmarks for greenhouse gas reductions and noted that California needs to triple its rate of greenhouse gas cuts to effectively fight climate change. 

San Diego has done a good job promoting renewable energy through community choice programs that offer a greener portfolio of energy sources than utility companies, Capretz said. But it’s behind the curve on electrifying buildings, switching to electric vehicles and cutting the amount that people drive. 

Could the Trump onslaught offer cover for cities to let their climate plans slide? Maybe, Capretz said. 

“It would be an excuse not to take action because of the threat by the federal government, or it could dampen political will,” she said. 

But she thinks California’s vast size and economic clout give us options. 

“California is going to have to invest more into climate solutions and backfill what the federal government will say it won’t fund,” she said. “We should have more ballot measures and redirect more funding so we don’t slow down progress. If you’re the fifth largest economy in the world you can act independently.” 

How are Education Cuts Landing in San Diego? 

Our education reporter Jackob McWhinney and investigative reporter Will Huntsberry attended a San Diego event with Education Secretary Linda McMahon, who insisted that the elimination of the federal Department of Education means cuts to bureaucracy, not school funding.  

Last week, McWhinney wrote that UCSD could lose hundreds of millions of dollars from Trump cuts to higher education. The administration is slashing research grants for clinical trials on HIV and AIDS, and studies on how domestic violence affects pregnant women. That’s on top of the state’s plans to cut 8 percent across the UC system. All told, UC San Diego could lose half a billion dollars, UCSD Chancellor Pradeep Khosla warned. 

For more on the school front, check out this CalMatters story on California’s lawsuit to reclaim hundreds of millions of dollars in pandemic education funds that the Trump administration cancelled.  

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

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For more than half a century the California Environmental Quality Act has been the centerpiece of state efforts to protect communities from air pollution, traffic congestion and sprawl.  

Local lawmakers from both sides of the aisle think it’s time to revamp it. 

They want to dial back the way the law, known as CEQA, is applied to housing projects, arguing that anti-growth groups use it to delay construction of new homes, even if there’s no real environmental risk.  

“The process known as CEQA has been weaponized by people who don’t want to see projects built, to threaten to halt projects, to delay projects,” Assemblymember David Alvarez told me.   

He’s one of the authors of a bill, AB 609, which would exempt housing development projects from CEQA requirements to speed housing construction in California. The exemptions would only apply to projects 20 acres or less, in urban areas or within city boundaries. So mega-housing tracts on hundreds of acres in the backcountry wouldn’t get a pass. 

One of its other authors is Buffy Wicks, an Oakland Democrat who led a legislation package to fast track housing construction. Wicks has been on a tear to slash state regulations and released a report on her findings last month. CalMatters’ reporter Ben Christopher took a closer look at those bills in this article last week. 

Even lawmakers who have made environmental protection their signature issue say CEQA is sometimes deployed in ways that undermine sustainability. 

“In the past there was a mindset that thou shalt not touch CEQA, that it is a Holy Grail, and I reject that,” state Sen. Catherine Blakespear, chair of the Senate Committee on Environmental Quality, and former mayor of Encinitas, told me. 

The Story of CEQA: The debate over the act is part of a broader conflict between state housing policy and local land use authority. Our Tigist Layne explored that tension in her story about how Encinitas city leaders are battling what they consider “overreaching” state housing laws. 

Today, CEQA’s defenders are largely Democratic, but its original proponents were Republican. In 1970, then-Governor Ronald Reagan signed the act, a year after former President Richard Nixon passed the National Environmental Protection Act.  

CEQA requires state agencies and local governments to analyze and disclose significant environmental effects of a proposed project, describe ways to minimize those problems, and identify alternatives to the project. 

Environmental groups often invoke the law to protect sensitive habitat or species in wilderness areas. And they say it’s crucial to fighting urban environmental issues including air pollution, climate emissions and transportation problems.  

For instance, developers of an apartment building that’s likely to generate more traffic might have to pay for road improvements to prevent that impact. Builders of a housing subdivision may need to suppress dust to protect air quality during construction. 

Use or Misuse?  But developers and business groups complain that it can also be a roadblock to construction of new homes and infrastructure. 

As housing prices soar and homelessness grows, California has fallen far below the number of homes it needs to build each year.  

“The housing shortage of 2.5 million has led to there being nearly 200,000 homeless people in the state, 80% of low-income households cannot afford the rent without sacrificing other basic needs, and only 1 in 6 households can afford the median priced home,” Wicks’ report states. 

Between 1990 and 2021, San Diego County permitted 93,000 new homes: only about a third of what it needed to accommodate population growth during that period, the county stated in its August 2024 Housing Blueprint. 

Senate Minority Leader Brian Jones said he’s firmly on the side of local land use control, after serving on the Santee City Council and working in commercial real estate. But he thinks cities that want to build new homes are being held hostage by court challenges under the law. 

“Across the board I am opposed to the way CEQA is being used in California to prevent development,” Jones told me. “When a local city council votes to approve a project, it is my opinion that they are voting based on what they are hearing from their constituents, and what they want in their community. And then some law firm or environmental group sues under CEQA and holds it up for a number of years.” 

Blakespear is on the same page as her colleagues. Although the law aims to ensure safe, sustainable development and public access to government decisions, people sometimes subvert that, she said. 

“I believe we do need CEQA reform and we need CEQA exemptions and need to have CEQA used for the purposes it was designed for, which is environmental protection and transparency,” she told me. “CEQA has been used to stop projects, to delay projects, to make them enormously more expensive, and that is a misuse of the law.” 

Other Ideas to Speed Up Housing Construction 

Alvarez introduced another bill, AB 610, which would lock rules in place within city housing elements. He said it would provide certainty to builders that the regulations in effect when they receive their permits don’t change after they start building. 

“What often happens is once that project gets approved, literally on the next day cities can turn around and add more restrictions” he said. “This says, once you create your document, you can’t add more rules.” 

Blakespear said the state needs to be smarter about its regulations. It should focus on getting more housing, clean energy and broadband on the ground, instead of enforcing bureaucratic to-do lists. 

“We need things to work better, we need things to be built faster, and we need to reduce the use of process at the expense of results,” she said. 

Jones wants to ramp up production of building materials such as cement, timber, asphalt, iron, steel and glass within California, to make housing construction faster and less costly. He thinks the state should strengthen local governments’ land use authority and set them up for success. 

“Communities should decide how to grow, but with that comes the responsibility to ensure there is enough housing for all Californians,” he said. 

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

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Last week President Donald Trump signed an executive order to shut down the federal Department of Education, in what he said was an effort to return authority to states. 

But California leaders don’t know exactly what that means for the department’s programs including K-12 services and student financial aid. And they’re not sure what the state can do to ensure that schools have support and college students can get loans and grants. 

Trump maintains that the Department of Education isn’t equipped to handle the $1.6 trillion in student loans that it processes, and said he would move the loans to the Small Business Administration. There aren’t any details about how that transition would work or how the Small Business Administration, which faces its own staff cuts, would handle the additional responsibility. 

‘A Lot of Unknowns’  

The White House didn’t respond to my questions and the press line for the Department of Education was out of operation. I contacted a number of local state lawmakers and education officials about the changes. The few who responded said they have more questions than answers. 

“There are just a lot of unknowns at this point,” said Chris Jonsmyr, a spokesperson for Assemblymember David Alvarez, who is trying to create a new university campus in Chula Vista. 

“For instance, it is unclear to us why the DoE is being eliminated — what benefit does its elimination provide to students throughout the country? Who will manage national data collection on the effectiveness of schools and education strategies? Why are we continuing to pay a secretary of education if they are shutting down the department?” 

Universities and colleges are also watching and waiting, officials said. 

“Palomar College continues to run through scenario planning to ensure we can mitigate any impacts to our current and future students,” spokesperson Julie Lanthier Bandy said in an email to Voice of San Diego. 

The University of California system isn’t anticipating disruptions to student aid including the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA, Pell Grants, work study and student loans, spokesperson Rachel Zaentz told me in an email. 

She said they’re calling for investments to federal aid and are confident students won’t lose funding. 

“While individual financial aid offers are subject to change, we do not expect the recent announcement about the U.S. Department of Education to impact our ability to award and disburse financial aid to our students,” Zaentz stated.  

Likewise, the Cal State system said they’re counting on business as usual for financial aid in the next academic year.  

“There haven’t been any federal actions at this time that lead us to believe that there won’t be federal aid for 2025/2026,” Cal State spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith said. 

Bentley-Smith said Cal State campuses partner with a state program called Cal-SOAP that helps students and families with financial aid and “hopefully minimizes the need for students and families to contact Federal Student Aid.” 

Education Advocates Warn of Harmful Cuts 

Some education advocates take a dimmer view of the changes and are sounding alarm bells about potential problems. 

They warn that dismantling the department would make it harder for students to borrow money for college, and cause chaos in a financial aid system already prone to glitches. They also say cuts to federal funding for students with disabilities and low-income school districts would harm education for vulnerable students. 

The federal Department of Education manages $151 billion in student loans in California, said 

Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers. It also administers $3.1 billion in Pell Grants: federal grants to low-income students that don’t require repayment.  

As the Trump administration attempts to dismantle the department, it could threaten students’ ability to pay for college, he said. 

“We’re worried about data being lost, students not getting information they need, the information not being processed correctly,” Freitas said.  “I believe students will experience lack of loan access, colleges will not allow students to sign up for classes, students will experience a lot of chaos at their colleges. It will have a chilling effect on people wanting to go to college.” 

Freitas thinks the end game is to privatize student loans instead of offering them as a public service. Forbes magazine agreed, noting that Trump’s executive order suggests that’s the plan.  

“The Department of Education is not a bank, and it must return bank functions to an entity equipped to serve America’s students,” the order states. 

If that happens, Freitas said, California could potentially create its own state-run system to preserve public student loans. But that would take years to establish, and would probably require a bond measure to finance it. 

Trump’s order could also cut programs at K-12 schools by eliminating $2.2 billion for California schools in low-income areas and $1.6 billion that the state receives for special education, Freitas said. 

Some Are Looking to the Courts  

While Trump framed the decision as an executive order, many organizations are challenging his authority to unilaterally dismantle an agency that Congress created. 

Earlier this month a coalition of states including California sued to block the elimination of the department and mass firing of its employees. They argued it would impair administration of student loans, disability services and other functions. 

On Monday the American Federation of Teachers and several public school districts filed a similar lawsuit against dismantling the department, claiming the executive order is unlawful. 

The federation also filed a lawsuit last week over the elimination of a student loan system that allowed people to make payments based on their incomes, or to use public service loan forgiveness programs designed for teachers, nurses and first responders. 

Those lawsuits will determine whether Trump can single-handedly gut the department, or whether Congress must weigh in, Freitas said. In the meantime, there’s not much that state leaders can do. 

“Only Congress can change this,” he said. “So without that fight in Congress, really what we can do is take it to the courts or take it to the streets.”  

Battle Over Trash in Tijuana River Valley 

State Sen. Steve Padilla made a second stab at blocking a planned landfill near the Tijuana River Valley, with a bill to tighten the approval process for new landfills in areas with high pollution burdens. 

Padilla said the county approved the landfill through a ballot measure 15 years ago that skirted typical environmental review. The new landfill, he said, “would be built less than two miles from the Tijuana River, squarely in the River’s already severely environmentally distressed watershed.” 

His bill would require public hearing for landfills proposed in high pollution areas, and would require local agencies to prove it’s safe before the state issues a waste discharge permit.  

Padilla tried to block the landfill last year, but his bill never made it to a vote. 

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

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Students who enroll at the future UniverCity at Chula Vista will be able to earn a nursing degree from San Diego State University. Or they could get a public health degree from UC San Diego, or gain professional certificates in healthcare, business or technology.

There may also be options to pursue degrees from Cal State San Marcos and even study with Mexican universities.

The campus, which opens its first building this year, will offer a novel approach to higher education, as a hybrid institution offering degrees from the University of California, California State University and California Community College systems.

Assemblymember David Alvarez has made the campus a top priority since he was elected in 2022. I asked him why it’s needed and what the next steps are to build it.

“There is no four-year degree program in the South Bay,” Alvarez told me. “Chula Vista is the largest city in California without a four-year institution.”

Discussions about that educational gap have been ongoing for decades. In 2006 a group of California education leaders and local officials proposed building a university and research park in Chula Vista, to improve higher education access and promote economic development. 

By 2014 the city acquired nearly 400 acres of land for the new campus. But in 2017 the state Legislative Analyst’s Office concluded that there wasn’t enough enrollment demand for a single UC or CSU campus. So proponents agreed on a multi-institutional campus, focused on training students for crucial jobs.

“The only way to make an argument that a university was needed here was to demonstrate that there were workforce needs that weren’t being met,” in fields such as healthcare and nursing, Alvarez said.

He took up the torch in 2022, passing legislation that reserved the land for university use and getting $25 million for the Millenia Library, a library and classroom complex. It’s scheduled to open this year as the first building of the new higher education campus. Additional classroom buildings, housing and retail space are in planning stages for later years, Alvarez said. 

The first group of 30 nursing students will begin their studies in the fall, said Sonja Pruitt-Lord, interim vice provost for San Diego State. They’ll pursue Doctor of Nursing Practice degrees, to become clinical specialists, healthcare administrators or nursing professors.

While students will still attend some classes at the main campus of San Diego State, they’ll do clinical training at nursing simulation facilities in Chula Vista, she said. Those are rooms furnished with medical equipment and mannequins that simulate childbirth, heart attacks and other events.

“It’s state of the art nursing spaces,” Pruitt-Lord told me. “It’s designed in such a way that they look like hospital rooms.”

In fall 2026, another group of 50 San Diego State students working on a bachelor of science in nursing will start in Chula Vista. The campus will also offer a joint program with Southwestern College that will allow students to become registered nurses through the community college and then take upper division coursework in Chula Vista to complete bachelor’s degrees.

“We have a critical nursing shortage in the state of California and the country,”  Pruitt-Lord said. “Southwestern College has an amazing nursing program, so this is an opportunity to partner with them. 

More groups of San Diego State nursing students could enroll in the following years and the university will consider adding degrees in disciplines such as public administration, homeland security and other healthcare and technological fields, Pruitt-Lord said.

Also in 2026, UC San Diego would offer a pilot program to 30 students working on bachelor’s degrees in public health, UC San Diego Chancellor Pradeep Khosla said in a report to the legislature in February. 

Plus the campus will host extension courses from both universities. Students could earn certificates through UC Extended Studies in fields such as lactation consulting, accounting or early childhood education. San Diego State may offer courses through its Global Campus expansion program for students working toward degree programs, or professional certificates in areas such as project management, human resources and cybersecurity.

Cal State San Marcos may offer degrees in healthcare, conservation and resource studies, or film and media arts. And Mexican universities could provide U.S. students the chance to earn international degrees, Alvarez said. 

While the shared campus is unusual, it’s not unheard of. Alvarez and his staff visited Auraria Campus in Denver Colorado, which hosts Community College of Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and University of Colorado Denver. 

Getting the different higher education systems to line up in Chula Vista will be key, Alvarez said.

“My job is to get these segments to learn to work together, to be collaborative,” he said. “We need to learn to work cooperatively in government generally, but certainly in education, because we don’t have the resources to do things entirely on our own.”

Lawmakers Enlist New EPA Chief in South Bay Sewage Fight

California U.S. Reps. Scott Peters and Juan Vargas and Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff asked federal Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin to visit the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant to see how the cross-border sewage crisis is affecting San Diego communities.

“Since 2018, more than 100 billion gallons of toxic sewage, trash, and unmanaged stormwater have flowed across the United States-Mexico border into the Tijuana River Valley and neighboring communities,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter Tuesday.

The same day, Imperial Beach Mayor Paloma Aguirre learned that the EPA had rejected her request to declare the Tijuana River Valley a Superfund site. It was the second time Aguirre had made that pitch, but the EPA responded that there was no new information to support superfund designation.

Related: Politico did a story Friday about how the issue is getting attention in D.C. “The issue grabbed EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s attention earlier this month when a construction incident in Mexico sent untreated sewage into the Tijuana River. Since then, he has publicly pressured America’s southern neighbor to focus on the problem — and pay for it.”

The report claims Zeldin has demanded daily reports on the problem. 

Lawmakers Blame Newsom for Plastic Problems

Gov. Gavin Newsom isn’t doing his job to cut plastic pollution, state Sen. Catherine Blakespear said. Blakespear has made plastic waste a signature issue, passing a law last year to close loopholes in California’s plastic bag ban. 

She and other lawmakers are criticizing Newsom for what they consider his failure to enforce an earlier law that requires producers to make sure all single-use packaging and plastic utensils sold in the state is recyclable or compostable, and that two-thirds of that is recycled.

Blakespear said Newsom is failing to make sure that plastic producers “take responsibility for the end-of-life management of their plastic.”

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org.

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For newly elected Assemblymember Darshana Patel, a Poway school board seat offered a primer on elected office and how state government affects local agencies. 

“The school board is an excellent microcosm of the challenges, opportunities and joys of a community,” she told me. “I had to make tough choices. It taught me some of the nuts and bolts about being in elected office (and) how politics at the state level impact us on the ground.” 

I talked to Patel about her background, legislation and the top issues she plans to address, including affordability, public safety, healthcare and schools. 

“People are very concerned about not just rising costs of housing, but also utilities, insurance and education,” she said. 

Patel, a Democrat from Rancho Peñasquitos, won an open seat in Assembly District 76, defeating Republican Kristie Bruce-Lane to fill the seat left by former Assemblymember Brian Maienschein, who termed out of office last year. The district includes the cities of Escondido and San Marcos, San Diego neighborhoods including Carmel Valley, Rancho Bernardo and Rancho Peñasquitos, along with unincorporated areas such as Del Dios, Elfin Forest, Black Mountain Ranch and Rancho Santa Fe. 

Patel won a seat on the Poway Unified School District Board in 2016 and was re-elected in 2020. She previously worked in oncology research for the biotechnology firm Genentech. There she researched a cancer treatment that uses antibodies to attack cancer cells and deliver chemotherapy drugs. Besides contributing to new therapies, she said the experience offered insight into how organizations can get results. 

“It was there that I really learned what a good employer could look like, what collaborative problem-solving could look like, really tackling complex issues as a team,” she said. “I really enjoyed being part of the group to bring life-saving oncology therapies to market.”  

In 2016 she won a seat on the Poway School Board, and said her role in public education provided a study in managing budgets. Most school districts spend about 85 percent of their money on staff salaries and benefits, and another 10 percent on overhead, leaving a small margin to work with, she said. So, state rules or programs without money attached can throw a monkey wrench in school funding.  

“I’m taking these lessons learned with me when I advocate for public education,” she said. “Is this an unfunded mandate or underfunded mandate?” 

On Patel’s agenda for this year: Several of Patel’s bills tackle education issues. One would close a loophole on violent threats against schools and other places, making it a crime to threaten a location such as a school, daycare, workplace, university or place of worship. 

That sews up a hole in the law, which now only penalizes threats against individuals, rather than public places where many people could be at risk, she said. The idea for the bill came from a threatened attack against Shoal Creek Elementary School in San Diego, while she was a trustee on the Poway School Board. 

“I saw firsthand the fear and intimidation in my community, alongside the aftermath of reduced attendance rates and dwindling trust,” she said. 

Another education bill would streamline the process for earning dual credentials in special education and single or multi-subject credentials, to meet the growing need for special ed teachers. She also wants the state to offer health insurance for adjunct instructors at community colleges, recognizing that many adjunct teachers work a full course load split over multiple colleges, but don’t get healthcare in their split roles.  

Patel is also looking at public safety measures, including a budget request for a new CalFire helicopter for the region and a bill to tighten safety standards for battery storage facilities.  

On the healthcare front, she’s monitoring Palomar Health, a North County public healthcare district that has faced scrutiny for its contract with a private nonprofit healthcare company, Mesa Rock Healthcare Management, Inc., which critics say reduces public access and oversight. The health district was also the target of a cyber attack that knocked out its patient medical records, phones and online portal for several months last year. 

Patel sent a letter with fellow Assemblymember Tasha Boerner and state Senators Brian Jones and Akilah Weber to Palomar Health about organization’s lack of transparency, its financial crisis including a reported $165 million loss last year and $700 million in outstanding debt, and a California Fair Political Practices Commission investigation into potential conflicts of interest in the formation of Mesa Healthcare. The lawmakers said the healthcare organization should put the brakes on any other changes until those are resolved. 

Patel said she’s also watching spending under Proposition 1, last year’s state bond measure that authorized $6.4 billion to build mental health and addiction treatment facilities and housing for homeless people. She wants to see more treatment beds in San Diego, increased local treatment options and peer-to-peer resources.  

“How do we make sure that the services meet what people want?” she asked. 

How California Failed People Most at Risk from Wildfire 

State lawmakers met this week to discuss how local notification and evacuation systems fell short in various wildfires, leaving elderly, disabled and non-English speaking people in danger, CalMatters reported.  

The discussion was timely, since many of the people who died in the recent fires in Los Angeles were older residents and people with disabilities. Those included Altadena residents Anthony Mitchell Sr. and his son Justin, who had cerebral palsy.  The two died waiting for assistance to evacuate. 

But the audit the lawmakers reviewed didn’t consider those cases. It was prepared in December 2019 to assess preparedness for vulnerable populations during three of the deadliest wildfires at that time, but was shelved when the CovidOVID-19 pandemic hit. 

“Four years ago, the state auditor issued a stark warning: California was not prepared to protect its most vulnerable residents, even in a disaster,” said Assemblymember Rhodesia Ransom, a Democrat from Stockton. “Yet today, we confront the same harsh realities … California is still not protecting the most vulnerable residents from disasters.” 

Local governments are primarily responsible for emergency response, but the state auditor noted that the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services failed to provide necessary resources to help counties with planning — including some measures required by law. 

San Diego County residents can check the local system, Alert San Diego, for wildfire and other emergency updates, and register their cellphones to receive notifications.  

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

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Correction: This story has been updated to correct the number of deed-restricted units in San Marcos.

State Sen. Brian Jones terms out of office next year, and three candidates are vying to take his place in San Diego’s 40th Senate District. 

San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, a Democrat, and San Marcos City Councilmember Ed Musgrove and Kristie Bruce-Lane, both Republicans, have announced campaigns for the seat. 

Jones, now senate minority leader, has represented the area since 2018 and said District 40 represents a “unique mix of different regions … including East County, North County, and the City. It truly represents everything San Diego has to offer.” 

It includes the cities of Escondido, San Marcos, Poway, Santee and parts of San Diego, along with unincorporated communities including Fallbrook, Bonsall, Valley Center, Ramona, Alpine and Descanso. 

Voters in the purple district are split nearly evenly between the parties, with 207,298 registered Democrats, 206,455 registered Republicans and 141,316 voters listing no party preference.  California Target Book, which analyzes political races, noted that President Joe Biden won the district by 6.6 percent in 2020 and Kamala Harris led by 3.8 percent in 2024. 

Ed Musgrove was elected to the San Marcos City Council in 2020 and represents the city’s fourth district, which includes Twin Oaks Valley. He previously worked for the San Diego Sheriff’s Department for 25 years as a patrol deputy, traffic investigator and detective before becoming Sheriff’s Captain for Santee.  

Musgrove said he wants to improve transportation and favors small, flexible “microtransit” services such as public vans or small buses, over large transit projects.  

“There’s a critical need for infrastructure” in the 40th District, Musgrove told me.  “There needs to be a return on our investment from the gas tax for road maintenance and expansion.” 

With 3,000 deed-restricted units, San Marcos offers a model for other California cities, Musgrove said, arguing that California should speed up home construction by cutting red tape. 

“If our target really is more affordable housing, then we need to reduce the cost to build,” Musgrove said. “It is always going to be expensive in California; it always has been, because people want to live here. But we’ve driven out that middle class.” 

Jones is endorsing Musgrove for the seat, saying “Ed has continued to prioritize safety, local control, balanced budgets, and strong education and economic opportunities.” 

Marni von Wilpert represents San Diego’s northernmost Fifth District, which includes Carmel Mountain Ranch, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Peñasquitos, Scripps Ranch and other neighborhoods.   

Before her election to the Council, von Wilpert worked for nearly seven years as a deputy city attorney, litigating “environmental polluters, companies that didn’t pay their workers, and businesses that cheated customers.” She also previously worked as an attorney with the Associate Labor Council and National Labor Relations Board and spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Botswana during the AIDS crisis. 

Von Wilpert chairs the city’s public safety committee, where she said she pushed to purchase an additional wildfire helicopter, and then to increase pay for its pilots. She said wildfire prevention would be one of her top priorities if she’s elected to the state Senate. 

“I want to make sure we prioritize this as a state and that other communities aren’t left vulnerable like what we saw in L.A.,” she told me. 

Von Wilpert said she would also work toward better results from state homeless and mental health programs.  

“I’d like to work on implementing these big ideas we hear from Sacramento,” she said. “Care Court was a great idea to help people with untreated schizophrenia or substance use, but we’re not seeing that on the ground. We’re not getting the results that were promised.” 

Kristie Bruce-Lane ran for California’s 76th Assembly seat in 2022 and 2024, and lost to Darshana Patel in November. Bruce-Lane didn’t respond to my requests for comment. 

Bruce-Lane is a former Olivenhain Municipal Water District board member, who founded the Thumbprint Project Foundation, which helps homeless children who have been impacted by domestic violence, according to her campaign website. She is also a member of the Salvation Army Metropolitan Board and the Impact Committee that focuses on people experiencing homelessness.  

Bruce-Lane’s website said that in Sacramento she would fight “Suffocating regulations and ever-increasing tax rates.” 

Is there anything you’d like to know about this race? Or do you have a tip? Email me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

Carl DeMaio Loses Assembly Budget Committee Seat 

On Monday, Assemblymember Carl DeMaio emailed supporters that he had lost his seat on the Budget Committee in what he called “unacceptable retaliation.” 

DeMaio said he was kicked off the committee because “Gavin Newsom didn’t like me exposing wasteful spending and corrupt use of taxpayer funds.” He pointed to social media videos like this one as the reason he was removed. DeMaio didn’t respond to my requests for comment.  

Nick Miller, spokesperson for Speaker Robert Rivas, said the speaker routinely switches committee assignments to ensure that “members are in a good position to collaborate.”  

Collaboration wasn’t DeMaio’s strong point in Rivas’ view.  

“When members use the committee process to grandstand, to go off topic and to create performative videos that they put on social media, where commenters target staff and members use them for personal fundraising and financial gain, that’s the type of chaos we see in Washington,” Miller said. “And there’s zero tolerance for those political games in Sacramento.” 

Budget Committee chairwoman, Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, told the Sacramento Bee that she wasn’t part of the decision to bump DeMaio, but didn’t disagree with it. 

“He has his fan base – and they love this aggressive, got-you, bullying type of behavior – and they think that acting like a tough guy shows respect and authority, just like the way the President treated Zelensky,” she said. “And I absolutely disagree with it.” 

DeMaio was reassigned to the Governmental Organization Committee. He pledged to “DOGE California,” and asked supporters to chip in for that effort. 

Issa Pitches a Nobel Peace Prize for Trump  

Fresh off the disastrous Oval Office meeting on a Ukraine peace deal, Rep. Darrell Issa of San Diego called for Trump to win the Nobel Peace Prize. 

The talk devolved into a shouting match, as Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for refusing to sign a deal for Ukraine’s mineral resources. Trump’s actions, Issa argued in a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, have led to “cooling tensions, establishing dialogue, and encouraging the flourishing of freedom.” 

Although European leaders and others were dismayed by Trump’s shift toward Russia following its invasion of Ukraine, Issa argued that Trump’s tough-on-Ukraine position demonstrated his “national resolve of peace through strength.” 

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

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If you’ve followed news reports about federal funding cuts, you’re probably confused. If it’s any consolation, public officials are just as baffled. Lawmakers and administrators are trying to make sense of what’s at stake for California. 

It’s almost certain public healthcare could lose billions of dollars, along with education and highways. But the exact dollar figures are just guesswork. 

“We can’t say with any specificity how much or where that would affect California’s budget,” H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for the Governor’s Department of Finance told me. 

I contacted San Diego’s state senators and assembly members and most didn’t respond. The ones who did acknowledged they’re in a waiting game. 

San Diego County is also in the dark. “At this time the County is unsure of the scope of impacts to Medi-Cal and other programs and services,” county spokesperson Sarah Sweeney said in an email.  

We do know how much money California has expected from the federal government for programs including schools and healthcare. We know what’s on the chopping block, but not how much will be scrapped. 

Big Cuts to Health and Education 

The cuts driving headlines this week are outlined in the House GOP budget resolution, approved Tuesday. Senate Republicans approved its own budget bill, and the two congressional bodies will have to hash out their differences. The House budget calls for at least $2 trillion in cuts over the next decade, and orders congressional committees to find those savings. Almost half of that – $880 billion – would fall to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid, the healthcare provider for low-income families, children and people with disabilities. The House budget would also slash $330 billion from education and $230 billion from agriculture, which includes food assistance.  

Federal funds make up about a third of California’s total $500 billion budget for this fiscal year, Mary Halterman, an assistant program manager with the state Department of Finance told an Assembly budget subcommittee last week.  

The biggest chunk of federal money goes to Medi-Cal, the state’s version of Medicaid, which provides healthcare to about 15 million people, or more than a third of Californians. Total funding for the program in 2025-26 is $188.1 billion, including $83.6 million in state funding and  the rest covered by federal funding.  

State officials don’t know how much is at risk, Palmer said. But federal cuts to Medi-Cal could force the state to reduce the amount it reimburses medical providers, the number of people eligible for Medi-Cal or the scope of services it covers. Cal Matters’ Ana Ibarra looked at what that could mean for children, seniors and people with disabilities in California. 

The Center for American Progress published a projected breakdown of how much Medi-Cal reductions could cost each congressional district. In San Diego County, it estimates cuts could range from about $1.3 billion for Rep. Mike Levin’s district in North County and Orange County, where 103,393 people are enrolled in Medi-Cal, to more than twice that, or $2.7 billion for Rep. Juan Vargas District in South San Diego, home to 215,770 Medi-Cal recipients. 

Schools K-12, University of California and California State Universities, and the department of transportation, Caltrans, also get billions of dollars in federal funding. That money is up in the air.  

It’s unclear how much California will eventually lose, but the state won’t be able to make up the difference. “We’ve made it clear that we’re not in a position to backfill lost federal funds at this point,” Palmer said.  

What other federal money is at stake? There are also the well-publicized and bewildering cuts by Elon Musk’s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency,) including contract cancellations and layoffs at federal agencies. News organizations have fact-checked Musk’s claims about DOGE efforts and found that many of the purported savings don’t add up.  

These cuts don’t directly affect California’s budget but have led to termination of about 30,000 federal employees throughout the country and funding loss to agencies ranging from National Parks to Veterans Affairs. Those purges might not last; on Thursday a federal judge in San Francisco found that the mass firings of probationary employees were probably unlawful. 

There’s another category of cuts that’s currently on hold. The federal Office of Management and Budget last month tried to freeze $3 trillion in federal grants, arguing that “the use of Federal resources to advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies is a waste of taxpayer dollars that does not improve the day-to-day lives of those we serve.” A federal judge paused that order a day later, after a group of nonprofits and nearly two dozen state attorneys general sued to block it. 

All of those efforts to slash spending leave state and local governments uncertain about how much federal funding they stand to lose, and how they can adapt to steep cuts. 

“It absolutely is a situation that is very much in flux, not only from the standpoint of the Trump administration to freeze federal funds, but also in terms of what Congress may or may not do regarding their budget resolution,” Palmer said. 

Clearing Homeless Encampments 

The state and cities should work together to clear homeless encampments near highways, state Sen. Catherine Blakespear prosed in a new bill. 

Her bill would require Caltrans to draw up plans to clean up encampments, convene advisory committees and make it easier for the agency to get assistance, Blakespear said in a statement. 

In 2023 the city of San Diego passed an “Unsafe Camping Ordinance,” that bans camping on public property if shelter is available, and outlaws it all the time near schools, transportation hubs, parks and waterways. The ordinance got mixed reviews, with reports that encampments had declined in some areas such as downtown, Balboa Park and around schools, but appeared more numerous around freeways and along the banks of the San Diego River. 

Last year Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order requiring California state agencies to clear camps on state property, and encouraging local governments to do the same on city and county land.  

Blakespear said her recent bill would help speed that along: “SB 569 establishes a state process for local governments and Caltrans to work together to more effectively clear encampments and direct the unsheltered to the shelters and services they need.” 

The Sacramento Report runs every Friday. Do you have tips, ideas or questions? Send them to me at deborah@voiceofsandiego.org. 

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