Newsom promised to help Californians build new careers. Now, the money is running out

Standing in a West Sacramento high school cafeteria in 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom promised fundamental reforms to the state’s job training programs. A few months later, he was in front of a fire truck in Modesto, and later, in a welding classroom in Redding, making the same promise.

It was a “point of pride,” Newsom said last year.

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Now, a handful of those reforms are underway. A new inter-agency council, designed to increase collaboration among workforce providers, is meeting next week. The state is also developing a new kind of digital resume that would help students and workers consolidate information about their work experience and education.

But as the state faces yet another budget deficit, a flagship workforce program could be forced to scale back. One of the state’s leading agencies for coordinating workforce training, the California Workforce Development Board, could lose 20% of its staff.

In the governor’s budget proposal for 2026-27 fiscal year, several workforce programs, including the governor’s “high road training partnerships,” would receive little or no new funding, meaning that they could shut down by the time the next governor assumes office or soon thereafter. The Legislature has already passed a budget that largely accepts Newsom’s proposals, and the governor has until the end of the month to approve it.

Some job training organizations criticized the governor’s proposal to withhold new funding this year.

“At a time when affordability is such a massive concern, it feels like we’re focusing on what things cost and not enough on what people can earn,” said Julia Hatton, the president of the Rising Sun Center for Opportunity, told CalMatters. Her organization trains workers for jobs in construction and climate-related careers and has received nearly $4 million in state workforce grants.

However, in a legislative hearing in April, Allison Hewitt, a budget analyst with California’s Department of Finance said the state is still committed to workforce development and that the board’s budget isn’t being cut, just that it isn’t receiving new funding. The workforce development board received a “surge” of grants over the past few years, and those dollars have been spent so less funding is available this year, she said.

That did not sit well with at least one legislator.

“I mean, you can say that all you want,” said Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Los Angeles Democrat, in response. “But if we’re not proposing funding for that … then you’re basically saying this is gonna be the new policy. The bottom line is without funding, it’s not a reality.”

In an emailed statement to CalMatters, Marissa Saldivar, a spokesperson for the governor, said Newsom’s workforce plan focuses on “structural changes to benefit students, which does not always require funding.”

H.D. Palmer, a spokesperson for California’s Department of Finance, responded in the same email, saying that the current budget proposes over $250 million in new workforce funds, including in healthcare and construction.

Click here to read the full article in CalMatters