Publication: Spectrum Television News / Los Angeles

California teachers unions and state legislators are at odds over when students should return to the classroom after a Democratic bill was introduced that would force schools to reopen in the spring.

Toby Boyd, the President of the California Teachers Association, said he responds to hundreds of emails every week from concerned parents ever since the pandemic hit.

“We understand the importance of getting our students back into the classroom and having them there, but we have to do it safe and that’s our number one concern,” Boyd said.

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This December, California legislators proposed Assembly Bill 10, a bill to reopen schools as early as March. However, Boyd believes this date is too soon to be letting children and staff back into the classroom.

“Look at the numbers that we have of infections, the ICU rates, the beds that are not available, the hospitalization, the deaths,” Boyd explained.

Assemblymember Phil Ting is one of the main authors of the bill and is also a parent himself. He says he understands the stress of distance learning that millions of families are facing across the state.

“I just got finished with my parent teacher conferences. The teachers are working extremely hard, but they definitely let us know as parents that they are not going to be able to get through all the material that they normally would in a year,” Ting said.

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Publication: San Francisco Chronicle

A $900 billion coronavirus aid package that Congress passed Monday includes no dedicated money for state or local governments, undercutting hopes that California and many of its cities would be able to close growing budget gaps without major cuts.

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Assembly member Phil Ting, the San Francisco Democrat who chairs the Assembly budget committee, said it was unbelievable that the federal government was not doing everything possible to prevent states and cities from sinking deeper into economic crises.

“State and local governments are the ones primarily providing services to people. During a pandemic, people are relying on their government more than ever before,” Ting said. “The federal government’s responsibility is to be a social safety net during a crisis. That’s why they can borrow money.”

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Yet without new federal aid, California has fewer options for using its $26 billion windfall, much of which must be socked away to replenish state reserve accounts, Ting said.

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Publication: CalMatters

In the five years before the pandemic, low-income Californians had begun to see substantial wage gains, chipping away at the income inequality gap between California’s haves and have-nots that has widened over the past 40 years. But the coronavirus pandemic is “likely stripping away many of these gains,” researchers at the Public Policy Institute of California found in a new report.

The current coronavirus-induced recession has hit low-income workers the hardest, while higher income workers, largely able to work from home, have escaped relatively unscathed. And those acute job losses among low-wage workers — particularly African Americans, Latinos, workers without college degrees and women — have stayed worryingly high through the fall, the researchers found. 

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Last week, Assemblymember Phil Ting, a San Francisco Democrat who chairs the budget committee, announced his priorities for the session. They included transitional kindergarten for all 4-year-olds, more financial aid for college students, more money for low-income families through the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit, and making parents who don’t work eligible for the state’s Young Child Tax Credit of up to $1,000.

“Our major priority is making sure we do everything to get money into the pockets of the most vulnerable Californians,” Ting said. “So many Californians are struggling. They’re on the brink of homelessness.”

Publication: KSRO/Sonoma County NewsTalk Radio

A new state budget blueprint has been released for the 2021-22 fiscal year centered around restoring previous cuts while also providing a lifeline for Californians impacted by the pandemic. Assemblyman Phil Ting, Chair of the Assembly Budget Committee, says many cuts were the result of the federal government not providing additional funding.He says other priorities include preparing for future economic downturns and providing targeted stimulus to help rebuild the economy. Listen here. 

Publication: KPIX-TV/CBS 5

There has been a new development in a series of massive hacks at California’s unemployment department that KPIX 5 first exposed. Now, attention is shifting from the state to Bank of America that distributes most of the money, at last count $105 billion dollars, through debit cards we discovered are vulnerable to hacks. KPIX has received more than a hundred emails from victims. Now lawmakers are taking notice.

From a criminal’s perspective, it’s the perfect scenario: ATMs give out bills and cash is king in the underground economy. KPIX was the first to expose how fraudsters are hacking Employment Development Department (EDD) debit cards and wiping out the benefits of potentially tens of thousands of Californians.

“This is just absolutely unacceptable, that we have a bank that’s not responding. They’re not responding to you. Not responding to me, not responding to the people who they are serving,” said California Assemblyman Phillip Ting.

That was Assemblyman Ting’s first reaction, after watching our reports about rampant hack attacks on debit cards issued by Bank of America, the Employment Development Department’s exclusive debit card provider.

Publication: KQED

A Bay Area lawmaker is seeking to limit the use of natural gas in new public buildings and schools across California in a bill introduced in the Assembly this week.

AB 33, introduced by Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, would only affect new state buildings and public schools by, in effect, requiring electric furnaces and appliances. But it would also prevent utilities from offering its customers subsidies for new gas pipe installations anywhere.

Publication: Los Angeles Times

The new two-year session of the California Legislature began Monday as legislators took the oath of office under some of the most unusual circumstances in state history, quickly compiling an urgent to-do list addressing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on housing, schools and the economy.

Though the agenda for convening newly elected and returning lawmakers was familiar, the setting was not.

The 80 members of the state Assembly held their organizing session seven blocks from the state Capitol inside Golden 1 Center, home to the NBA’s Sacramento Kings. The event marked the first time either house has convened outside of the state Capitol since the building’s six-year restoration ended in 1981.

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Only a few pieces of legislation were formally introduced Monday; most of the work will begin in early January. Even so, the initial legislation offered a glimpse at an agenda to tackle both short-term and systemic problems laid bare by the worsening COVID-19 pandemic and community shutdowns.

Schools

With millions of California children facing the prospect of most or all of the school year being conducted remotely, lawmakers will look for ways to standardize the procedures for when to open and how to provide the money to do so safely.

Assemblyman Phil Ting (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill Monday that would require school districts to reopen campuses when community infection rates drop.

Throughout the fall, school leaders took varying approaches toward resuming limited in-person instruction when their counties moved into the less-restrictive public health tiers established by the Newsom administration. As a result, schools in neighboring communities sometimes made conflicting decisions about whether to open. ...

Publication: San Francisco Chronicle

California’s public schools would be forced to reopen when case counts dip and county officials give the go-ahead under proposed state legislation by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Phil Ting.

The bill would require schools to resume in-person learning within two weeks of their county moving into red, orange or yellow tiers. Most counties have recently returned to the most stringent purple tier due to the new surge.

The bill, if passed, would go into effect March 1.