State plans to reverse Governor Brown's cuts to California's FFA chapters?

Lemoore FFA member Trinity Jones greeted by Assemblymember Rudy Salas last year.

Photo Contributed

But it’s still not certain. However, on Friday, Brown appears to have changed his mind on a section of his 2017-18 state budget proposal that would have cut Career Technical Education funding from K-12 schools. The most notable program to lose funding would of course have been FFA.

And that would have affected over 500 FFA students currently participating in the program at Lemoore High School, not to mention the thousands that participate statewide. Lemoore High School is one of the largest chapters in the state. Lemoore’s program has been around for 88 years, producing record numbers of ag leaders and professionals, in addition to providing leadership opportunities to thousands of students.

For more than a decade, legislation has allocated an annual $48 million to be divided between the California Department of Education and the California Community College Chancellor’s Office. Of the $48 million, $33 million is allotted to the California Community College Chancellor’s Office and $15 million to the California Department of Education.

Local education leaders are buoyed by the reports that Brown may have switched his position. “Career technical programs are a crucial part of a high school student’s education, so it would be a shame for that funding to be cut,” said Lemoore High School Superintendent Debbie Muro. “Those programs teach employability skills that students don’t receive anywhere else.”

Had Brown’s proposal gone through, the loss of funding may also have affected other career programs the school enjoys, including engineering and agriculture academies.

Just three years ago, Brown threatened to cut back important funding to the FFA, but an effort, led in part of Kings County Assemblyman Rudy Salas, pushed back that effort and helped to restore the much-needed funding.

“This time is a little different,” said Lemoore High’s Marybeth Hearn, a longtime agricultural teacher at the local high school. While she’s optimistic about what she’s heard, she’s reluctant to begin celebrating. “It hasn’t officially been resolved,” she said, but she’s hopeful that Salas and other legislators have succeeded in changing the governor’s mind.

She said that if the cutbacks did indeed go through, “it would be detrimental to our program. It’s going to affect conferences, travel, conventions, training and much more,” she said.

On Monday, Assemblymember Salas was joined by student leaders from the Future Farmers of America (FFA) program to advocate for continued state funding before the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education Finance. The committee rejected the Governor’s proposal to shift $15.4 million away from the California Department of Education (CDE) for which career technical education programs like FFA rely.

 “Programs like FFA prepare students to be leaders, equipping them with the skills needed to be successful in today’s workforce,” said Salas. “Today’s action to reject the Governor’s proposal to shift funds away from these programs is an important step help save FFA and other programs that help us grow California’s next generation of leaders.”