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Cal. Const., art. XVI, § 8.5 · Article XVI. PUBLIC FINANCE

Cal. Const., art. XVI, § 8.5

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) In addition to the amount required to be applied for the support of school districts and community college districts pursuant to Section 8, the Controller shall during each fiscal year transfer and allocate all revenues available pursuant to paragraph 1 of subdivision (a) of Section 2 of Article XIII B to that portion of the State School Fund restricted for elementary and high school purposes, and to that portion of the State School Fund restricted for community college purposes, respectively, in proportion to the enrollment in school districts and community college districts respectively.

(1) With respect to funds allocated to that portion of the State School Fund restricted for elementary and high school purposes, no transfer or allocation of funds pursuant to this section shall be required at any time that the Director of Finance and the Superintendent of Public Instruction mutually determine that current annual expenditures per student equal or exceed the average annual expenditure per student of the 10 states with the highest annual expenditures per student for elementary and high schools, and that average class size equals or is less than the average class size of the 10 states with the lowest class size for elementary and high schools.

(2) With respect to funds allocated to that portion of the State School Fund restricted for community college purposes, no transfer or allocation of funds pursuant to this section shall be required at any time that the Director of Finance and the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges mutually determine that current annual expenditures per student for community colleges in this State equal or exceed the average annual expenditure per student of the 10 states with the highest annual expenditures per student for community colleges.

(b) Notwithstanding the provisions of Article XIII B, funds allocated pursuant to this section shall not constitute appropriations subject to limitation.

(c) From any funds transferred to the State School Fund pursuant to subdivision (a), the Controller shall each year allocate to each school district and community college district an equal amount per enrollment in school districts from the amount in that portion of the State School Fund restricted for elementary and high school purposes and an equal amount per enrollment in community college districts from that portion of the State School Fund restricted for community college purposes.

(d) All revenues allocated pursuant to subdivision (a) shall be expended solely for the purposes of instructional improvement and accountability as required by law.

(e) Any school district maintaining an elementary or secondary school shall develop and cause to be prepared an annual audit accounting for such funds and shall adopt a School Accountability Report Card for each school.

Notes and commentary — not constitutional text

History

Sec. 8.5 amended June 5, 1990, by Prop. 111. Res.Ch. 66, 1989. Effective July 1, 1990.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CONS&sectionNum=SEC.%208.5.&article=XVI
Text hash
sha256 40b74b73cc905e4c309f66aba293727a1e32a3665959648eb1c96f1419d7ee63
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

This section cites

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Cited by 12 provisions

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