In April, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his lawsuit against the Trump administration to block cuts to the AmeriCorps, while saying he supports California’s paid “service” program, in which individuals get paid for giving their time to provide “community service” such as “taking climate action.”
Now, Newsom is scaling back his plans for the program’s growth as the state faces a $11.9 billion budget shortfall and Republicans criticize the program as a paid, political jobs program unfairly described as volunteering.
“We fully support volunteers who generously give their time to serve our communities, but that’s not what this is,” State Sen. Minority Leader Brian Jones, R-San Diego, told The Center Square. “The California Service Corps is a paid jobs program wrapped in the language of volunteerism, and now the Newsom administration is suing to keep federal dollars flowing to what is essentially a publicly funded workforce advancing his political agenda.”
Payment and benefits vary, though the California Climate Corps pays an up to $33,000 stipend for the 11 month program, plus $10,000 towards tuition or student loans, forbearance on existing student loans and interest during the program. Also included are childcare assistance, and food stamps.
The California College Corps also provides around $10,000 per year for low-income full-time state college students for volunteering to complete 450 hours of service for local organizations approved by their colleges.
Newsom’s office has noted that with 10,000 “members,” the California Service Corps program is the largest such government program in the nation, and is even larger than the federal Peace Corps that trains and deploys Americans all across the world.
California has lost nearly 200,000 private sector jobs since January 2023, only offset by the creation of even more taxpayer-funded jobs.
Notably, half of the funding for the College Corps goes towards administrative overhead, leading the state-funded Legislative Analyst’s Office to question the program’s effectiveness.
“Of the proposed $84 million ongoing for the program in 2026-27, California Volunteers estimates that $45 million would be used for administrative costs (rather than direct student financial aid),” wrote the Legislative Analyst’s Office in a report on the original January budget proposal. “Of the $45 million, about half would be for administrative costs at the state level (through California Volunteers) and half would be for administrative costs at the campus level.”
“Under the Governor’s proposal, California Volunteers would have about one-third the amount of staff as [the California Student Aid Commission, a financial aid program for individuals who cannot get federal aid, which largely applies to illegal immigrants], despite College Corps equating to less than 3 percent of the state financial aid that CSAC administers,” continued the LAO.
The LAO recommended not growing the College Corps program from its average of $75 million per year to the governor’s earlier proposed $84 million, and instead providing $63 million for the program.
The LAO also recommended rejecting the governor’s earlier proposed $5 million “belonging” campaign to “to better connect Californians to their communities,” saying it’s “unclear what specific problem the proposal is attempting to solve” and that it’s “unclear what programs the proposal would support or how specifically funds would be used.”
After the Trump administration sought to cut 85% of AmeriCorps workforce, California co-led a lawsuit to stop the ordered layoffs, with Newsom saying he’s suing to “defend thousands of hardworking service members and the communities they serve.”
