SearchOn Friday, May 23, 2025, the Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees each concluded the first of two suspense hearings for the year. These hearings were held on the fiscal deadline that all bills must meet to advance for a vote of the full house in the chamber of the legislature that they originated in. The Appropriations Committee suspense hearing process serves as a means to vet legislation with a large fiscal impact, over $50,000 in the Senate and over $150,000 in the Assembly.
Nearly 1,100 bills were considered in the Appropriations Committees and now move on for floor votes for the first time. Below is a summary of the suspense hearings, followed by a list of bills CASBO has been tracking this session, with an update on their status.
|
CASBO Position Bills
For a full list of current CASBO Position Bills, please find them on our website here.
Support/Pass
The bills below are supported by CASBO and advanced out of the Appropriations Committee for a floor vote.
AB 361 (Schultz) Best value procurement: school districts and county offices od education. This bill would expand the best value procurement method for bid evaluation and selection on school construction projects above $1 million to all school districts in California.
CASBO Position: Support
Next Location: Assembly Floor
AB 699 (Stefani) Elections: local tax measures. This bill would expand transparency for local bonds and tax measures while addressing problematic ballot label requirements.
CASBO Position: Support
Next Location: Assembly Floor
AB 1111 (Soria) Pupil transportation: schoolbuses: zero-emission vehicles: extensions: scrapping. This bill expands eligibility for a potential ten year extension of the state’s 2035 zero emission school bus target to include small school districts and adds a lack of charging infrastructure or required maintenance availability as qualifying constraints for an extension.
CASBO Position: Support
Next Location: Assembly Floor
SB 848 (Perez) Pupil safety: school employee misconduct: child abuse prevention. This bill supports the efforts of local educational agencies to foster safe learning environments and would provide additional tools for the prevention of childhood sexual assault and molestation.
CASBO Position: Support
Next Location: Senate Floor
Committee Amendments: Make the development of the statewide system for tracking employee misconduct investigations contingent upon an appropriation and clarify that the CTC shall only serve as the data administrator for records submitted to the data system.
Oppose/Pass
The bills below are opposed by CASBO and advanced out of the Appropriations Committee for a floor vote.
AB 65 (Aguiar-Curry) School and community college employees: paid disability and parental leave. This bill would require a public school employer to provide up to 14 weeks of paid leave of absence for certificated or classified employees who are out for pregnancy-related conditions.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Next Location: Assembly Floor
AB 340 (Ahrens) Employer-employee relations: confidential communications. This bill would prohibit an employer from questioning an employee or employee representative regarding confidential communications between the employee and employee representative.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Next Location: Assembly Floor
SB 494 (Cortese) Classified school and community college employees: disciplinary hearings: appeals: contracted administrative law judges. This bill would require an impartial third-party hearing officer to hear disciplinary appeals of permanent classified personnel at school or community college non-merit districts. This bill also requires the district to pay for the third-party hearing officer, and for the third-party hearing officer to be jointly selected by the district and the classified employee from a list of arbitrators, unless the parties agree otherwise.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Next Location: Senate Floor
Support/Held
The bills below are supported by CASBO and did not advance out of the Appropriations Committee for a floor vote.
AB 964 (Hadwick) Commission on State Mandates: state mandates. This bill authorizes a local agency, at its discretion, rather than repaying the State Controller’s Office (SCO) for a reduced mandate claim reimbursement amount, to instead offset the amount owed by reducing by the same amount an unpaid mandate claim still owed to the local agency.
CASBO Position: Support
Next Location: N/A
AB 1233 (Hoover) Noncertificated employees: applicants: previous employment. This bill would require individuals applying for non-certificated positions to provide the prospective employer with a complete list of every LEA that the applicant has previously been an employee of.
CASBO Position: Support
Next Location: N/A
Oppose/Held
The bills below are opposed by CASBO and did not advance out of the Appropriations Committee for a floor vote.
AB 614 (Lee) Claims against public entities. This bill would extend the statute of limitations for claims subject to the Government Claims Act from 6 to 12 months.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Next Location: N/A
AB-862 (Castillo) California School Dashboard: local control and accountability plans: college and career pathway data.This bill would add the percentage of students who intend to enroll in college or apprenticeship/skilled trade to be added to the College-to-Career Indicator and the Local Control Accountability Plan.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Next Location: N/A
AB 1053 (Zbur) Educational technology: evaluation and selection.This bill requires a local educational agency (LEA) governing board or body to provide for substantial teacher involvement in the evaluation and selection of educational technology required for use by all teachers or paraprofessionals of the LEA, and to promote the involvement of parents and other community members in this process.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Next Location: N/A
AB-1247 (Garcia) Classified employees: school districts and community college districts: contracting out: training requirements.This bill would require that contracted employees at a school district or community college district meet or exceed the minimum qualifications and standards required of direct hires with the same job functions, and requires the district to provide them with the same health or retirement benefit as a direct hire. This bill would also require that classified employees be paid their regular wages for time spent completing a required training.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Next Location: N/A
SB-399 (Niello) School districts: interdistrict transfers. This proposed legislation would require local educational agencies (LEA) to maintain and submit information about interdistrict transfers to the California Department of Education (CDE) by June 30th of each year.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Next Location: N/A
Two Year Bills
The Appropriations Committees also announced bills that will need additional work before they move forward next year, commonly referred to as 2-year bills. These bills will have until January 31, 2026 to pass out of their house of origin.
AB 810 (Irwin) Local government: internet websites and email addresses. This bill would require public entities to move to a .gov or ca.gov domain by no later than January 1, 2029.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Current Location: Assembly Appropriations Committee
Amendments: School districts have been excluded from the bill, however county offices of education still remain in the bill’s current language.
AB 1198 (Haney) Public works: prevailing wages. This bill would require, commencing July 1, 2026, that if the Director of the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) determines, within a semiannual period, that there is a change in any prevailing rate of per diem wages in a locality, that determination applies to all public works contract that is awarded or for which notice to bidders is published after July 1, 2026.
CASBO Position: Oppose
Current Location: Assembly Appropriations Committee
What’s Next
The house of origin deadline is June 6th. Bills will be considered by their full house and must earn enough votes to advance. Most bills require a simple majority.
