Sen Bill Dodd, D-Solano, announced Tuesday that his bill to protect school funding already impacted by the coronavirus pandemic from being further harmed by potential wildfire-related power shutoffs has cleared the Assembly Committee.

“Considering the financial challenges posed by Covid-19, it is especially important that we protect critical funding sources for our public schools,” he advised in a press statement. “They should not lose money because PG&E or another utility has responded to the threat of wildfire by shutting off their power lines. This bill would make schools whole if they are forced to endure another outage.”

California public school funding is based on average daily attendance, reported three times a year by school districts. Under current law, if schools are forced to close because of a public safety power shutoff, they could lose part of their expected allocation. Senate Bill 884 changes that by authorizing the state to backfill average daily attendance money.

Source: Coronavirus: Bill to protect school funding advances – The Reporter