California Governor Gavin Newsom reduced broadband funding by $2 billion in his state budget, which promises to balance the budget over the next two years without raising taxes. The Governor’s revised budget proposal closes both this year’s remaining $27.6 billion budget shortfall and next year’s projected $28.4 billion deficit.
In 2020, Gov. Newsom signed an executive order to deploy affordable and reliable broadband networks throughout California to connect more than two million people that did not have access to high-speed broadband service at speeds of 100 Mbps download, including 50 percent of rural homes.
In 2021, California’s legislature voted to spend $6 billion to expand broadband infrastructure, address affordability, and promote digital literacy. Since then, however, budget shortfalls caused by COVID-19 and a stock market fall have caused a reduction in tax monies.
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