California Education Interagency Council.

Assembly Member Fong and Senator Padilla advance a measure that would establish the California Education Interagency Council within the Government Operations Agency and create a neutral coordinating office to align education and workforce systems across state government.

The core change is the creation of a cross‑system governance body—the California Education Interagency Council—together with an administrative office to manage its work. The council is tasked with evaluating the changing nature of work and the economy, integrating elementary through postsecondary education with the statewide workforce system, and maximizing the impact of funding to support student pathways to quality work and ongoing adult upskilling. It also envisions regional alignment of education supply with workforce demand and provides a forum to discuss intersegmental and cross‑sector policy issues, including potential changes to graduation and admissions requirements across K–12 and higher education systems. The council’s leadership would be drawn from senior state education and workforce leaders, with meetings subject to open‑meeting rules, and one non‑governmental entity representative allowed on the council. A dedicated administrative entity, the managing office, would carry out the chapter’s purposes and be overseen by an executive officer appointed by the Governor.

Implementation relies on a staged governance and planning framework. The council would convene its first meeting by a defined date and hold subsequent meetings at least twice yearly. Within a year of the first meeting, it would pursue data access agreements to work with data systems that track cradle‑to‑career information, and within a specified timeframe it would adopt a strategic plan followed by a work plan that identifies workgroups and deliverables and engages key legislative chairs and the Governor. A principal advisory committee would ensure cross‑sector participation, including representatives from transitional kindergarten through postsecondary education, workforce practitioners, and, with appointing authority from the Senate and Assembly, additional workforce and business voices. The measure also contemplates biennial reporting to the Legislature and Governor on outcomes and recommendations across intersegmental, cross‑sector, and interagency initiatives, with potential topics ranging from course alignment to adult education and workforce coordination. Contingent on separate appropriations, a faculty and employer advisory committee could be established to advise on emerging skills needs and to promote industry engagement for experiential learning.

Beyond planning and advisory structures, the bill creates data‑sharing provisions intended to avoid duplicating information already available from other sources and to support joint analysis of in‑demand skills and program alignment. It envisions memoranda of understanding with the Cradle‑to‑Career Data System and with the Labor and Workforce Development Agency to enable data access and coordinated planning, with oversight and accountability mechanisms to ensure transparency through public meetings and regular reporting. The measure does not, by itself, authorize general funding, and its operative effect hinges on the enactment of a separate related bill and associated appropriations for the advisory components and data initiatives.