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More than a year after California community colleges received $650 million in state COVID-19 relief money, schools have spent less than 20% of it.

Colleges say they desperately need the money, but that they are reluctant to spend it because of ongoing uncertainty surrounding the state’s budget. Namely, they fear they’ll be asked to give it back.

“It’s either feast or famine,” said Dan Troy, an assistant superintendent at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo and a former member of the finance team at the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office.

Community colleges can spend the relief money on a wide range of programs, including mental health services, food pantries for students, technology, and professional development for faculty. But more than $500 million remains unspent, according to the most recent data from the chancellor’s office.

Two years ago, in the 2022-23 budget, California had a projected budget surplus due in part to an influx of federal COVID-19 relief money. The state allocated that surplus to a number of programs and services, including $650 million to community colleges.

Last year, the state had a projected deficit, and Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed asking colleges to return the COVID-19 money less than a year after giving it to them. It was part of a proposed tradeoff so that the governor could accommodate other requests, including an increase in the amount of general fund dollars awarded to community colleges.

The proposal never came to fruition, but the governor did claw back other funds from community colleges in order to close the state’s budget deficit.

The Dovica Learning Resource Center at Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo on Jan. 10, 2024.

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Julie Leopo-Bermudez

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CalMatters

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Now the governor and the Legislature are grappling with a $37.9 billion deficit as they plan the 2024-25 budget. According to the governor’s proposed budget, released last week, the community college system will not face any major cuts this year, though the budget is subject to change before it’s enacted this summer.

“Predictability, consistent funding, I think that’s what most campuses would love to see,” Troy said. His district, which has three campuses in San Luis Obispo County, has spent or signed contracts amounting to $390,000 as of the end of last year, a fraction of the nearly $5 million in COVID-19 funds it received in 2022.

There are other reasons behind his spending decision. Before Cuesta College received its nearly $5 million portion of the state’s COVID relief dollars, it had already received a much larger relief grant — roughly $28 million — directly from the federal government. Troy said his plan was to prioritize spending down federal dollars first, since it’s much more money and needed to be used before the end of last year. Colleges have until 2027 to spend the money from the state.

Uncertainty makes it hard to spend

Across the state, community colleges said financial uncertainty is shaping everyday decisions about spending money they receive from the state.

In South Lake Tahoe, where the cost of housing has become unaffordable for many low-income students, the local community college is building a 100-bed dorm with state construction funding. But inflation led to rising building prices. President Jeff DeFranco said the college initially held back on spending its COVID-19 money in case it needed to use it for the housing project. The final housing estimate came in lower than expected, he said, meaning the college was free to use its COVID-19 funds elsewhere.

More uncertainty followed for Lake Tahoe Community College. Several months after the final housing estimate came in, Newsom proposed that colleges return more than half of the COVID-19 money they had received.

While the final version of the budget didn’t include those particular cuts, the governor did ultimately ask colleges to return more than half of the money they had received for maintenance projects. Colleges that had already spent that money either needed to renege on contracts or pull from other sources of funding to cover the difference.

“I was reluctant to make major commitments to the (COVID-19) dollars for fear that the rug would be pulled out from under us. I was concerned that we’d make commitments we couldn’t keep,” Troy said. Of the $390,000 that Troy has committed so far, most is for a contract with the regional transit agency to provide free bus travel for students. That contract has more flexibility than a traditional contract with a private company.

Sean Runyon, 55, a student at Cuesta Community College, in his home in Santa Margarita, Calif. on Jan. 19, 2024.

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While a small investment compared to the millions of unspent funds, those dollars make a difference for Sean Runyon, 55, who relies on the bus in order to attend classes at Cuesta College four days a week. He sold his car a few years ago in order to help pay for a surgery and can no longer drive because of a related disability.

He’s a single parent of a teenager and survives on government benefits, earning about $1,000 a month, half of which goes to rent. “That $68 dollars is a lot of money,” he said, referring to the cost of a monthly bus pass. Without it, he said, “I’d probably have to stop going to college.” After working as a chef for decades, his goal is to change careers into something that’s less physically demanding, such as counseling for people with substance use problems.

Runyon said he’s grateful for the services that Cuesta College provides and places the blame for the college’s budget dilemma on Newsom and the state’s leadership.

Troy said the recent budget the governor released gives him more confidence to spend down the money he has. “It’s not a great budget by any means, but it’s stable enough that I feel confident committing those dollars.”

He said the college might spend the remaining money on services to support students, such as food pantries and vouchers to offset textbook costs. He also mentioned possible improvements to classroom technology, such as new whiteboards and laptops.

‘Spending a lot of money is a lot harder’

California’s 116 community colleges are organized into 73 independently governed districts, which are overseen by the state chancellor’s office. Spending public money within any of these districts requires various approval processes, which can each take time, said Michal Kurlaender, a professor at UC Davis who studies COVID-19 recovery in higher education. College boards typically make the final call but the state usually requires that faculty, staff, and students be involved too.

“It’s a really diverse system,” she said.

While most colleges have only used a fraction of the state’s COVID-19 dollars, some have already spent it all or committed it all through contracts.

Students leave class at Rio Hondo College in Whittier on Dec. 2, 2022. Photo by Alisha Jucevic for CalMatters

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Rio Hondo College, located in Whittier in eastern Los Angeles County, has spent roughly half of the more than $7 million in COVID-19 relief it received in 2022 and has signed contracts that spend the rest by May, according to Stephen Kibui, the vice president of finance and business for the college. Most of the money is going toward providing low-income students laptops, WiFi hotspots, and software such as Microsoft Office.

The college is not immune from budget fluctuations, though. Last year, when the state pulled back money for maintenance, Rio Hondo was one of several colleges that had already spent the money or signed contracts for projects.

“One of the contracts we’re dealing with now is the roofing of our science building. It’s a three story building and it’s leaking all the way to the second floor,” he said.

He pulled from the college’s general fund in order to keep the project going. Now, the coffers of the general fund are getting low, so he said he’d need to pull from the college’s reserves if anything similar were to happen this year. It would be “unacceptable” and “very punitive,” he said.

Just north of Joshua Tree National Park, Copper Mountain College received the smallest amount of COVID-19 funds in 2022 and spent it all within the fiscal year, said President Daren Otten.

“We’re a small operation,” he said. “We move quickly. Once we realized what the resources could be spent on, we deployed them.” The school used the money to cover debts, such as unpaid course fees, that students had accrued.

However, Otten drew a distinction between his college and many other schools. “Spending a lot of money is a lot harder. Our total allocation was $760,000.” On average, community college districts received more than $9 million in 2022 from the state for COVID-19 relief.

At the start of the pandemic, Kurlaender said college leaders often asked her what to do with all the relief money they received, especially the federal dollars which were even larger than the state’s allocation. She said she didn’t have an easy solution. “The reality is we don’t have a big wealth of evidence of how to deal with something like a pandemic when students are facing this level of disruption.”

Andy Pages drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the seventh inning to give Los Angeles the lead, and the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Wednesday night to clinch their NL Division Series.

The Dodgers won back-to-back games in Atlanta to take the best-of-five matchup 3-1 and advance to the National League Championship Series as they seek to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series.

Pages lined a 3-2 pitch from Robert Suarez up the middle to drive in Teoscar Hernández, who singled off starter Tyler Mahle, and pinch-runner Tommy Edman for a 3-1 lead. Didier Fuentes walked pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker to load the bases. Edman ran for De Paula.

Max Muncy’s solo shot off Raisel Iglesias in the ninth padded the lead and gave the slugger 19 postseason homers with the Dodgers, extending his franchise record.

Dodgers right-hander Tyler Glasnow, making his first start since Sept. 24, allowed only one hit but walked five batters in 4 2/3 innings. After he issued two walks in the fifth, left-hander Alex Vesia ended the inning on Matt Olson’s groundout to second base.

The missed opportunity left the Braves with 18 walks in the series, and none scored.

Glasnow and four relievers combined to give up just three hits. Tanner Scott pitched a perfect eighth before Edwin Díaz got three quick outs for the save.

Mahle, a native of Newport Beach, California, who grew up a Dodgers fan, allowed two runs — one earned — in 6 1/3 innings.

Michael Harris II hit Glasnow’s first pitch for a single before stealing second and eventually scoring from third on a wild pitch that bounced off catcher Will Smith’s chest protector.

The Dodgers pulled even in the second with the help of two Atlanta errors. Shohei Ohtani walked, stole second and advanced to third on catcher Sean Murphy’s errant throw into center field. Muncy’s pop fly into shallow left field was dropped by shortstop Mauricio Dubón for another error, allowing Ohtani to score.

Hernández crashed into the wall while attempting to catch Ozzie Albies’ double off Vesia leading off the sixth. Hernández pointed to his head and neck when talking to an athletic trainer but remained in the game.

Edgardo Henriquez stranded Albies at second. Henriquez allowed one hit in 1 2/3 scoreless innings for the win.

Injury report

Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas was held out after leaving Tuesday night’s 3-1 win during an at-bat in the eighth inning with lower back soreness. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Rojas would not be available off the bench.

Ronald Acuña Jr. started in right field for Atlanta one day after being moved to designated hitter in a late lineup change due to right knee soreness.

Up next

The Dodgers will face Milwaukee or San Diego in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday.

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.

Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.

The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.

Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.

But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”

“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.

Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.

The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fall has only just begun, but it's already time to start thinking about the quintessential winter bug: the flu.

The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.

"There are enough signs pointing in the same direction to make me think, 'OK, yes. This is the start of flu season,'" says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The percentage of people testing positive for the flu in the West has been rising steadily since around the beginning of September, she says. And the number of people showing up in emergency departments because of the flu has also been rising for weeks, she adds.

"It's very uncommon to see flu activity rising this early. It's activity that we might normally see more like November or December," she says.

The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.

"It typically starts in the South and then expands from there," Rivers says. "So two uncommon developments there."

Rivers stresses that the amount of flu activity is still very low in most parts of the country. But that's starting to change as the flu picks up nationwide.

It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.

"That's our best argument for what's going on right now in terms of this early flu season," says Dr. Alex Greninger, a virologist who heads infectious disease diagnostics at the University of Washington. Doctors there are seeing as much flu right now as they usually would around Christmas, and the mutated variant appears to be common, he says.

So Greninger, Rivers and others are urging people to think about getting their flu shot earlier than usual.

"It's crucial that people get an influenza vaccine," says Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this might be a year that people might want to get a vaccine early."

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't been promoting flu shots as it usually does. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, is a long-time vaccine skeptic.

"It is disappointing that CDC is quiet given that flu kills of hundreds of kids a year and can result in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths," says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protest what he called political interference at the agency.

The CDC declined to make an official available to NPR for this story. In a statement, a CDC spokesperson said, "CDC is developing a communications strategy to provide clear, accessible information about influenza vaccination and other critical steps people can take to protect themselves during respiratory virus season. This includes information about the benefits and risks of vaccination to support informed decision-making."
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