Trailer Bills

Although we tend to think of the state budget as a single bill containing a list of all the expenditures authorized by the legislature, there is in fact a kind of master bill and then a whole series of what are termed "trailer bills" that compose the budget. These bills contained detailed modifications of existing legislation or, in some cases, new creations.

When the governor submits a budget proposal to the legislature - as he did last month - there are similarly proposed trailer bills along with the proposed master bill. At this point, of course, these are bills, not enactments. Only the legislature can enact.

If you look at the list of trailer bills that are part of the January 2025 proposal and that refer to higher ed, you won won't find any that refer directly to UC.* However, there is one that relates to community colleges and reflects the interest of the governor (and legislature) in facilitating transfers to UC and CSU. It requires the community colleges to create and maintain a "common cloud data platform" that tracks the academic progress of students, even if they take courses in more than one district, and thus is supposed to facilitate the transfer process.**

Of course, the history of computer system creation by state entities is not a happy one. (Think UCPath!) It is one thing for the governor and legislature to authorize such creation and entirely another thing for it to happen in a timely and on-budget fashion.

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*Proposed trailer bills are listed at https://trailerbill.dof.ca.gov/trailerBill.html. Click on "Education" to see all trailer bills for that sector.

**https://trailerbill.dof.ca.gov/public/trailerBill/pdf/1161.