The Brief

California’s community colleges have been trying for several years to offer more bachelor's degrees. This year, they put their hopes in two sweeping bills designed to help them do that. But lawmakers made massive, last-minute changes that prompted the state’s community colleges to now oppose the legislation.

The abrupt change of heart, spurred by new limits on how much the colleges could grow their bachelor’s programs, didn’t influence the outcomes of the bills, Senate Bill 960 by Sen. Christopher Cabaldon, a Democrat from Napa, and Assembly Bill 2694 by David Alvarez, also a Democrat from Chula Vista. Both passed this week by wide margins in the Legislature and now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

In recent years, Newsom vetoed bills that sought to expand the community colleges’ ability to issue more bachelor’s degrees. Still, Newsom’s office was involved in the revision of the latest bills, Cabaldon said in a Senate floor speech Monday.

“This is the first time that we've been able to engage in productive conversation between the houses and the executive branch,” he said.

Combined, the bills introduce new mechanisms for determining when colleges can create bachelor’s degrees and how many they can offer. The new approach has accountability metrics — colleges would be able to offer an additional two to 12 bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028 depending on their students’ certificate, degree and transfer completion rates. No college district could propose more than three new degrees per year and districts would need to prove that there’s a workforce need in their region to justify the creation of a bachelor’s degree. That’s a claim the state's labor secretary would step in to validate if the California State University system objects, as has regularly occurred in the pitched policy disputes between the community colleges and the university.

The rules would apply to new degrees offered after 2028; existing community college bachelor's degrees are grandfathered in. Today, 49 colleges either offer or will soon offer 66 bachelor’s degrees.

Cabaldon called the bills a breakthrough that would bring long-sought clarity.

“This will give us peace,” he said in a phone interview. “That doesn’t mean everybody’s going to agree all of the time, but it does mean the endless war and bickering and fighting and more and more legislation will come to an end.”

Community college leaders said the amendments are too last-minute, too unclear and too complicated, even if they appreciate the effort by the Legislature to wrangle the thorny issues.

“We're being asked to … support a process that is not completely understood or vetted at the last minute, and so that's just not great policymaking,” said Larry Galizio, president and CEO of the Community College League of California, an association representing community college presidents and board leaders.

Why bachelor’s degrees have been so contentious

The community colleges’ sudden shift is another turn in an effort that has produced near-constant turmoil.

Historically, the community colleges and Cal State have clashed over which bachelor’s degrees the colleges can teach. A 2021 state law was supposed to establish peace in the realm, but the colleges and Cal State regularly disagreed on a key concept — degree duplication. That law said the colleges couldn’t create bachelor’s degrees that are already offered by any Cal State or University of California campus, even if a community college is hundreds of miles from the nearest public university.

Colleges and several lawmakers called that an unfair arrangement, since many community college students can’t relocate to a distant university. In some instances, community colleges created those degrees anyway, over the objections of the Cal State system, EdSource reported.

Backers and foes of more bachelor’s degrees at community colleges point to competing data.

A recent report found that 29 of the state’s 116 community colleges are located at least 25 miles from a public university. Their students are “place-bound” or can’t easily move from the area their community colleges serve. Roughly 157,000 students attend these colleges.

Some students say they need their local community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees because local employers want those — certificates or associate degrees aren’t enough. But under existing law, those colleges cannot provide them because a Cal State 500 miles away offers that degree already.

On the other hand, community colleges post low transfer rates — just 21% of students who wanted to transfer do so after four years, the state auditor reported. This may indicate a broken transfer system that could be remedied if more colleges could offer bachelor’s. Or it may demonstrate that colleges aren’t ready to widen their academic offerings because most also post low certificate and associate degree completion rates.

How the bills address duplication

In response, Alvarez and Cabaldon wrote comprehensive bills this year to allow colleges to create bachelor’s degrees, even if they resemble degrees already offered by Cal State campuses. The community colleges were on board with those versions while the Cal State system was opposed; the system instead wanted more streamlined pathways for students to start their studies at a community college and earn a bachelor’s at a Cal State campus. Others in the system have feared that an expansion of community college bachelor’s degrees would siphon away students and crucial tuition revenue at a time when some Cal States are battling enrollment declines.

The new combined bills allow community colleges to propose bachelor’s degrees even if a nearby Cal State offers a similar program, but only if that Cal State program admits fewer than 75% of applicants from that nearby community college three consecutive years. The community college would still need to submit a workforce needs report and be governed by the degree caps also spelled out in the bills. That workforce need could be that employers are having difficulty filling positions that require a bachelor’s degree, the two bills say.

And unlike the current policy, in which there’s no arbiter to settle an impasse between community colleges and the Cal States over duplication, a review by the state’s secretary of labor siding with the colleges would remove the Cal State system’s challenge to the degree. But districts face consequences for being wrong: If the labor secretary sides with Cal State, the district is barred from submitting an application for a similar program for five years.

The community colleges are generally barred from duplicating a degree a UC campus offers. Only written consent from a UC would clear the way for duplication, the bills say.

Why community colleges are now opposed 

The newly created caps on the number of degrees community college districts can offer are a problem for the community college system. Districts will be judged by their student completion rates and how those rates compare to the statewide average.

The bills “would make a district’s eligibility depend partly on how its performance

compares with every other district in the state,” a letter of opposition to Cabaldon reads from Sonya Christian, chancellor of California Community Colleges. “A district could improve its own student outcomes” but still have the same caps apply to them, “or even see its eligibility change simply because the statewide average changed,” she wrote.

Galizio of the Community College League also takes issue with the caps on degree creation. He said in an interview that campuses with low graduation rates typically serve more low-income students, the same students who need more bachelor’s degrees to get a leg up in the workforce.

But not all community college leaders think the bills are bad for their campuses, including Jose Fierro, president/superintendent of the Cerritos Community College District. Based on his college’s completion rates, he thinks he’ll be permitted to add a total of six to eight new bachelor’s degrees starting in 2028. That’s plenty for now, he said. The school has two now and plans to launch more in 2027.

“We are not trying to become a university. It's not our mission. We're trying to align with industry and provide pathways for social and economic mobility for our students,” he said in an interview.

But just because the bills aren’t a problem for him doesn't mean it's not a problem for the system.

“For some of us this is workable,” he said. For other colleges, “this is going to bring some additional challenges.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Since joining the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority’s governing commission nearly two years ago, Justin Szlasa has pushed — often uphill — for stronger auditing, transparency and oversight of the troubled agency.

He visited an approved camping site for unhoused people — and discovered the agency, known as LAHSA, had spent more than a year paying a nonprofit to serve twice as many camping spots than actually existed.

He organized a day-long summit focused on how L.A. could shift its funding of homeless services so that contractors are paid for positive results. And for the past year he served as chair of LAHSA’s audit committee, where he pushed for more independence for internal auditors and pressed LAHSA to finish a years-long audit into its failure to spend $7 million in federal grants.

Last week, Szlasa was removed as chair of the three-member committee, without explanation. The move has generated criticism at a time when LAHSA remains under strict scrutiny — and the threat of losing federal and city funding — just two months before the general election.

“Justin has been the lifeline for any viable future for LAHSA,” said Rick Cole, a former top deputy in the L.A. City Controller’s office, which audits city tax dollars.

“He’s pushed for the kind of transparency and accountability that everyone has wanted from that agency for 30 years,” Cole added. “And the absence of it is what has led to its imminent downfall.”

Although he is no longer its chair, Szlasa remains a member of the three-person audit committee. Losing the position means he no longer has authority to decide when and whether proposals will be scheduled for discussion and action. Szlasa said the chair also takes the lead in overseeing LAHSA’s internal audit staff in between the monthly committee meetings.

In an interview, Szlasa said he asked to stay on as audit chair, and was denied without being given a reason.

“I’m disappointed,” he said. “ I really took a very athletic approach to my work as chair. If we did a good job on that committee, we would be stepping towards the transparency, the accountability, the operational excellence that LAHSA really needs and the citizens of Los Angeles really deserve — whether they're housed or unhoused.”

No explanation for the removal

Szlasa was removed from his post as audit chair at the request of Stephanie Graves, an appointee of L.A. Mayor Karen Bass.

Graves is the new chair of LAHSA Commission, whose 10 members govern the agency. The audit committee is a subset of the larger commission, and its members are tasked with overseeing an annual federally-required audit, as well as internal audits meant to root out oversight problems.

Graves recommended Szlasa’s removal as audit chair last week as part of her request for new committee assignments. The full commission approved her recommendations Friday.

LAist asked Graves why she recommended removing Szlasa. She said it was her “prerogative” as chair of the full commission. She has not explained her reasoning.

“Szlasa continues to be on the Audit Committee and his insights are valuable,” Graves said in a text message.

Stephanie Graves, the newly-selected chair of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) Commission, speaks at the press briefing for the 2026 homeless count results in Los Angeles on July 24, 2026.

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A spokesperson for Bass echoed Graves’ response, saying the appointments in question “are determined by the LAHSA Commission Chair and subject to the confirmation of the full Commission.”

Neither the Mayor’s Office nor Graves have answered whether Bass directed Szlasa’s removal or discussed it with Graves before she made her recommendation.

Bass has directed LAHSA outside of public view in the past, including by ordering it to contract with one of her mayoral transition advisors — Va Lecia Adams Kellum — as a $40,000-per-month consultant to design the mayor’s homelessness program Inside Safe.

Adams Kellum became LAHSA’s CEO just after the consulting contract ended in 2023. She left LAHSA last summer.

Graves also was on the mayor’s transition team and attended a meeting of Bass’ re-election campaign’s finance committee last year, according to a campaign disclosure. Graves runs a PR firm that has taxpayer-funded contracts overseen by Bass and her appointees.

Cole, who also serves as a Pasadena City Council member, said Szlasa’s removal is part of a “cover-up” of dysfunction at LAHSA.

“Mayor Bass hand-picked her choice to head LAHSA, who led directly to its downward tailspin,” Cole said, referring to Adams Kellum. “So it’s not surprising that her appointee [Graves] would be continuing the ongoing cover-up of dysfunction at the agency.”

LAist reached out to both Bass and Graves for reaction to Cole’s comments, but has not received a response.

Fixing 'dysfunction' at LAHSA

Cole said Szlasa has been trying to fix the dysfunction that has led to problems at LAHSA.

Among those problems was $10 million in LAHSA funds alleged to have been illegally pocketed by the leader of a service provider, according to federal prosecutors.

Last week, LAist reported that LAHSA approved at least $3.5 million in taxpayer contracts to that group — Abundant Blessings — even after LAHSA’s compliance team flagged it as “High-Risk” for failing to do its job.

“The failures that [LAist has] been exposing…Justin [Szlasa] has been trying to fix those things since he got appointed,” said Cole, who was high up at the City Controller’s Office when it launched a fraud investigation into a tip that Abundant Blessings was failing to provide the required three nutritious meals per day in Bass’ Inside Safe program.

The Controller’s Office investigators found that “the only food items at these sites were things like Ramen noodles, cans of beans, and breakfast bars,” according to the federal criminal complaint filed this year.

“He’s not a grandstander,” Cole said of Szlasa. “He’s not holding press conferences.  He’s not exposing individual people to ridicule. He’s trying to implement basic systems of data and financial management that a billion-dollar agency desperately needed, and which were grossly lacking.

“To isolate, ignore or punish Justin is so short-sighted."

Commissioner Justin Szlasa at a LAHSA Commission meeting on Friday, April 25, 2025.

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Szlasa said there’s a big difference between being chair of the audit committee and being just a member.

“The chair sets the agenda. And the responsibility and the power to set the agenda sets the tone of the committee activity,” he added.

 “If you're a member of a committee you can make recommendations for what you'd like to see on the next agenda,” he said. “But it's at the chair's prerogative to decide whether or not to put those items on the agenda. So it makes a big difference.”

Szlasa was appointed to the LAHSA Commission by L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger. His replacement as audit committee chair is Charles Stringer, a Bass appointee.

Stringer has not responded to a request for comment.

Pushing for accountability

One habit that has set Szlasa apart: checking things out for himself.

Last year, the commission was asked to renew a contract with a nonprofit to provide meals, security and other services for people at an approved camping site in a parking lot. The morning of the vote, Szlasa visited the site and discovered that for over a year it had only half the capacity LAHSA was paying for.

That judge, David O. Carter, later called the situation “obvious fraud.”

Szlasa asked multiple times for a full commission discussion of what happened with those payments, and that LAHSA’s last two commission chairs did not schedule it.

The two prior chairs — Wendy Greuel and Amber Sheikh — have not responded to requests for comment.

 ”We have to really make sure that we're getting what we're paying for, and I want to see more accountability in that area,” Szlasa told LAist. “When it doesn't work, I want to look at it carefully to understand why it's not working.”

Szlasa raised similar concerns last summer about "master leasing," which Bass championed as an approach to help move unhoused people inside quickly. It involves leasing an entire apartment building — making LAHSA the lease-holder — and then subleasing those units to people who have lived on the streets.

Szlasa said he visited a newly-built site where he was told disabled residents were carried up and down stairs because of broken elevators, with no clear responsibility for who should fix them.

He said he asked LAHSA executives for an accounting of the program, but they never provided one.

It later emerged that more than 250 taxpayer funded units — a third of the total — were sitting empty.

When he hasn’t gotten answers to his questions from LAHSA’s management, Szlasa has filed public records requests.

A February request — into whether LAHSA has been improperly using one funder’s money to cover another’s bills — got no real answer. Six months later, LAHSA said it was still checking whether records exist about the practice, which auditors flagged in 2024 as “misuse” of funds.

LAHSA can’t “produce what I would consider basic financial statements,” Szlasa said.

LAist asked LAHSA management why the records haven’t been provided, and has not received a response.

A spokesperson said LAHSA checks if funds “are available from an appropriate funding source" before paying bills without saying whether the money-mixing has stopped.

Questions continue

At Friday’s meeting, Szlasa asked LAHSA Interim CEO Gita O’Neill why he hadn’t been told of a $1.2 million settlement last fall with Abundant Blessings — until LAist reported it last week.

O’Neill responded that she’d answer later.

She and her chief of staff have not responded to LAist’s questions about whether commissioners authorized the deal.

Separately on Friday, outside reviewers from the accounting firm KPMG told commissioners that LAHSA can’t easily track its own vendor payments.

Rep. Norma Torres of Pomona is calling on California officials to intervene to protect people held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, where federal officials are under orders to improve conditions.

In a letter to California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the state Health and Human Services Agency, Torres on Friday requested more frequent investigations of the facility.

The congresswoman’s ask comes nearly two months after a federal judge ordered immediate improvements to medical care, disability accommodations and daily conditions at the facility. While federal officials have since claimed the privately run Adelanto already meets standards, people detained at the facility continue to report ongoing violations of the court order and conditions they and their attorneys call “inhumane.”

How we got here

U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals have determined that the federal government is responsible for the conditions at the facility, which is run by The GEO Group, a private company contracted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In her letter, Torres asks state and county officials to conduct additional inspections to make sure the facility is complying with the court order. State law gives the California Department of Justice the authority to review conditions at immigration detention centers. It also gives county health officers the power to inspect private detention facilities — powers Torres says have been “underused.”

The letter from Torres said statements from federal officials claiming conditions are adequate at Adelanto demonstrate that the federal government “does not care about the treatment of detainees.”

“In the absence of proper federal oversight, detainees will remain vulnerable to ongoing neglect, inhuman living conditions, and severe medical risks,” the letter states. “That is why I urge you and your staff to continue oversight and conduct additional inspections at Adelanto to help ensure The GEO Group, Inc. improves conditions for detainees.”

State’s history of oversight

In a May 2026 report, the California Department of Justice reviewed conditions at seven civil immigration detention facilities operating in California. An eighth site, Central Valley Annex, began to hold people in April 2026 and is not included in the report.

That state report, based on site inspections conducted the previous year, found conditions had worsened during Trump's second term.

As the report notes, ICE holds itself to two sets of detention standards, the Performance-Based National Detention Standards and the National Detention Standards.

The inspectors identified multiple violations at all facilities visited. Among the "declining conditions for detainees" cited in the report:

• Inadequate medical care
• Delay in medical treatment
• Overcrowding
• Inadequate food
• Excessive use of force by detention facility guards
• Inadequate clothing

The report also found Adelanto was overwhelmed by the rapid increase in people held at the facility in the summer of 2025. Prior to President Donald Trump’s return to office, the number of people held at Adelanto had fallen to just three. By mid-2025, the population surged to 1,570, according to the report.

Medical and detention staffing levels failed to keep pace. As a result, the report says people were unable to access timely medical treatment or screening for health needs at intake.

People held there reported that the facilities were serving undercooked food at inconsistent times, and failed to provide enough clean drinking water.

Facility records and reports from people detained demonstrated uses of force that included “concerning uses of pepper spray.”

The report noted that there have been six deaths at immigration facilities in California between September 2025 and March 2026 — two at the Imperial Regional Detention Center and four at Adelanto. The report attributed the deaths at Adelanto to alleged substandard medical care.

What's next

Esmeralda Santos, a lead organizer with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, said her team has been hoping to see the state take a more active role in keeping people at the facility safe. Santos said the state needs to go beyond doing a “well-written report” on what inspectors find.

“The reports say over and over again that Adelanto is not fit to be caging people,” she said, “but afterwards it doesn't go anywhere.”

She said any new inspections need to be paired with actual accountability.

The Lynwood Library has reopened after its first major renovation in almost 50 years. New skylights brighten the space and there are dedicated areas for teens, kids, studying and community meetings.

“It does give you a feeling that our community matters,” said Danielle Trujillo, who grew up nearby and visited the library often. “That we deserve new books, that we deserve new furniture, that we deserve to be in a space that's welcoming, spacious, and inviting.”

The $8 million project began in 2024 and closed the library for about two years. The branch reopened Aug. 20 and celebrated with a ribbon-cutting Thursday.

“ I'm so happy to have this open, and a place for our community to gather, to connect,” said Lynwood Mayor Gabriela Camacho, who also brought her twins to the library.

Gabrielle Fata and her 3-year-old son Zennett can walk to the library from their home.

“ I just try to get him interested in loving books at a young age, so I just like him being around all the books and all the letters and everything,” Fata said.

Local leaders, including Lynwood Mayor Gabriela Camacho, Assemblymember José Luis Solache, Supervisor Janice Hahn and LA County Library Director Skye Patrick cut the ribbon to celebrate the completion of the Lynwood Library renovation.

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How the funding came together

Supervisor Janice Hahn said she advocated for part of L.A. County’s federal COVID-19 pandemic relief dollars to fund five library renovations in District 4, including the Lynwood Library. The southeast L.A. County city is home to about 64,000 people.

 “I still believe that libraries are a real treasure for communities and schools,” Hahn said. “I know a lot of young people get their information online and are on the internet, but I really believe libraries are still an important part of the fabric of a community.”

The 12,000-square-foot Lynwood Library renovation includes a new area for teens.

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The renovations were originally planned to be completed by November 2025. Hahn said she wasn’t sure what caused the delay.

“Wish it could've been open earlier, but [there] are always construction issues and problems that I think we face with almost everything we try to do in the county of Los Angeles,” Hahn said.

‘A library for the people’

LA County Library Director Skye Patrick said when the Lynwood Library was first built in 1977, the idea was to keep the space dark to preserve the books inside.

“The library is … no longer just about the books.  It's about the people.” Patrick said. “We want the space to be welcoming, we want it to be open, we want it to have a lot of airflow through it.”

 "I like how there's separate sections for different people to do things," said Jennifer Estrada, an eighth grader at a nearby middle school. "There's the study rooms, you could go with your friends or if you just wanna be alone."

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Jennifer Estrada is an eighth grader at Hosler Middle School, less than a mile away from the library, and has started visiting twice a week to study and hang out with friends since it reopened.

“ I feel like it's very open. You could be you in here,” Estrada said.

Trujillo, who is now the adult teen librarian here, said she’s excited to see the next generation embrace the library.

“ I try not to show it as much 'cause I don't wanna scare them away,” Trujillo said. “But I'm really excited that the teens are coming into the space and that they're happy with it.”

"Libraries have transformed from just checking out books," said librarian Danielle Trujillo. "People come in and they hang out with their friends, or they're studying for school."

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Trujillo said in addition to the teen space, the Spanish language and manga collections are also popular.

She said the library also welcomes feedback.

 “If anyone ever wants to come talk to us and share some ideas that they have for the library, we're completely open to that,” Trujillo said.

Fata said her son Zennett’s favorite books skew spooky, including Aaron Reynolds' “Creepy” series and Rhode Montijo’s Skeletown series.

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Visit the Lynwood Library

Address: 11320 Bullis Road, Lynwood
Hours:

• Tuesday- Wednesday: 12 p.m. - 8 p.m.
• Thursday- Saturday: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.
• Sunday- Monday: Closed

Learn more: Website