Chancellor Goldsmith's Remarks - January 13, 2026 Board of Trustees Meeting

Happy new year and welcome to the Spring 2026 semester! Hard to believe, after 30 years in this education, I never thought I’d see 2026, much less be sitting here. So, for those of you who have also been doing this for a long time, bless you all, and I hope you have a wonderful spring semester.

We’ve had a wonderful opening, if you go on social media, you can see great photos of people engaged and talking and having good convocation and flex days. We are still registering students this week. I want to thank all the Student Services folks for coming together and doing that work. Our enrollment, again, is looking very strong.

Our colleges and district are also in a good place.  We have approved 27 new faculty and 26 new full-time classified professional positions to be able to help this work and make sure our access is still there.  The recruitment process for phase 1 has begun, so I’d like to thank everyone in the Personnel Commission and Human Resources for getting those positions open. You’ll see more of them as time goes on.

Phase 2, as I alluded to last month, we’ve already begun that work this week. We started to look at comprehensive review of Strong Workforce-funded positions, which are federally funded positions, to best determine how these roles might be able to be shifted into Phase 2. We’re focusing on that now, really looking at the  critical piece to ensure continuity of instruction and student services. We want to safeguard these positions, similar to what we did when the federal government withheld designated grant funding for our Migrant Programs, Hispanic Designation Grants, and other federally-funded programs.

Many of us saw the Governor’s proposed budget, which you heard a little bit about today. I’d like to provide a brief highlight as they relate to community colleges as a whole across the state.

The Governor’s 2026–27 budget proposal does provide for stability. I wish there was a bit more in the expansion piece, but it does provide stability for California Community Colleges. We do not see that in a lot of other sectors, so we’re truly blessed in that regard.

In a tight statewide fiscal environment, the proposal protects core funding, supports some enrollment growth, and continues investment in the Chancellor’s Vision 2030 projects.

This budget is not a growth windfall as we had all hoped, but it keeps colleges on solid footing and positions the system to serve its communities well.

The proposal includes approximately $14.1 billion in Proposition 98 for community colleges; this represents an increase of about $1 billion over the prior year. Remember, those are the funds that we share with our K-12 partners.

Importantly, it fully repays prior-year apportionment deferrals, which we’re all excited about. It improves cash flow and financial predictability for the districts.

The budget provides a 2.41% cost-of-living adjustment for community college apportionment and a few select categorical programs and as you know, we have many categorical programs which COLA has never afforded. While helpful, COLA does not fully offset rising cost of operating which remains a concern. We will continue to monitor this and advocate with our elected state officials to increase COLA and increase growth.

The proposal also funds approximately 1.5% systemwide enrollment growth. The intent is that 1% of the growth starts this fiscal year and then will be added on to the  previously growth budget for the last fiscal year. So it sounds bigger than what it is, but we’re going to continue to advocate to make it larger and more affordable and more accessible for the colleges that are growing, like the colleges at State Center.

Overall, the budget signals confidence in the community college system and recognizes our role as a primary access point for higher education and workforce training.

The budget includes $100 million in one-time Student Support Block Grant funding, which I can share we will probably aggressively go after. It provides us the flexibility to address local student needs, whether academic, basic needs, or completion-focused.

The proposal also includes $120 million for deferred maintenance and nearly $737 million in capital outlay funding for new and ongoing campus projects. That funding has particular importance to us here, especially at Reedley College, which will help those projects immensely.

I believe the budget shows that California is relying on its community colleges to deliver a promise of a better future for its students and its communities.

While fiscal constraints remain, the proposal aligns with our long-term goals and avoids duplicative reductions.

We will continue to work with the Administration and the state Legislation to advocate for sustainable funding that matches our local enrollment demand and cost realities that we see.