On June 9th, Governor Jerry Brown and the California Legislature came to an agreement on the state budget for the next fiscal year. Despite the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Education proposing a $73 million increase and the Senate Budget Subcommittee 1 proposing a Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for the After School Education and Safety (ASES) program; the budget compromise between the Governor and the legislature does not include an increase to ASES. After school advocates sought a $73 million to increase the funding rate from $7.50 to $8.50 per student, per day to provide critical relief to programs at risk of closing due to flat funding. The budget agreement includes increases for child care, early education, and K-12 education. In a recent edsource article, Jennifer Peck, Executive Director of the Partnership for Children and Youth outlined, “The Governor and other leaders have failed to see that nothing else we do in our education system to level the playing field for our most underserved students will be effective, if we don’t provide learning opportunities during the hours after school and in the summer.” The legislature will vote next week on the budget plan that starts July 1, 2016.