How much federal funding flowed through California’s state budget in 2024–25 by major program (Medi‑Cal, education, transportation)?
Executive summary
California’s enacted 2024–25 budget was a large, complex mix of state and federal dollars, but the public reporting does not provide a neat, single table in the sources supplied that lists “federal dollars by major program” for Medi‑Cal, education, and transportation; instead reporting provides program‑level federal amounts in pieces and broader summaries about federal shares and program totals (limitations noted below) [1] [2] [3].
1. What the official documents say overall about federal dollars in 2024–25
Analysts and state documents describe the 2024–25 spending plan as hundreds of billions in total spending—estimates range from about $279.9 billion to roughly $295 billion in total state and special fund spending—while federal grants and reimbursements are a material but not fully enumerated slice of that total; summaries note that a very large share of federal dollars go to health and human services (nearly four‑fifths, or roughly 78.3%) but do not convert that into a single dollar figure for the fiscal year across all programs in the sources provided [4] [1] [3].
2. Medi‑Cal: large federal reliance but no single federal dollar line in the available briefs
The available reporting emphasizes that Medi‑Cal is the dominant federal‑funded program within the “health and human services” category and that policy levers (like the renewed MCO tax) are used to draw federal matching funds and offset General Fund costs; the MCO tax revenue was expected to be roughly $19.4 billion in tax receipts to support Medi‑Cal and provider rate increases, but the sources provided do not state a single, final dollar amount of federal matching funds flowing specifically into Medi‑Cal for 2024–25 (the LAO and budget materials describe the programmatic mechanics and large federal dependence but do not present a consolidated Medi‑Cal federal total in the snippets provided) [5] [1] [6].
3. Education (K‑12 and higher ed): big program totals, partial federal components
Education under Proposition 98 is reported in the Governor’s materials and other summaries as roughly $109.1 billion (Governor’s January proposal) to a recalculated figure near $123.8 billion in some legislative summaries for 2024‑25—these are total funding guarantees that combine state and federal dollars; the sources note that federal Title I, Perkins, McKinney‑Vento and other federal grant authorities were realigned in the enacted budget and that specific federal grants (for example, federal CalFresh assistance that supports families) are separately identified, but the materials supplied do not isolate a single consolidated federal dollar amount flowing into K‑12 and higher education in the enacted 2024‑25 budget in the excerpts provided [7] [8] [9].
4. Transportation: federal flows referenced but not quantified in these excerpts
Transportation appears in the budget summary as part of core services funded across different funds and bond authorities, and the Governor’s office flagged large federal climate and infrastructure commitments in multi‑year packages, but none of the supplied snippets give a clear, line‑item dollar total for federal transportation funds passed through the 2024‑25 state budget—therefore a precise federal‑for‑transportation figure cannot be asserted from these sources [7] [10].
5. Program examples and partial federal numbers available in the record
Some program‑level federal dollar figures are explicitly cited in the materials: CalFresh is budgeted with $17.2 billion total in 2024‑25, of which about $12.3 billion is federal food assistance (noting that the total includes state and federal splits) [9]; the child‑care slot expansion lists $229 million in total for new slots, including $111 million in federal funds for 2024‑25 [1]; a behavioral health demonstration (BH‑Connect) package lists roughly $7.7 billion in total with about $4.6 billion in federal funds cited in summaries [9]; LAO and departmental writeups also show many smaller federal grants across emergency response and programmatic lines [1] [2] [9].
6. Bottom line, and why exacting totals are hard to produce from the supplied sources
The supplied public summaries and analyst briefs make clear federal funds are central to Medi‑Cal and large portions of education and other human‑service spending (with health and human services taking roughly 78% of federal dollars), and they name specific federal awards (e.g., CalFresh $12.3B federal, child‑care $111M federal) and the MCO tax architecture used to draw matching funds, but they do not provide a single, consolidated table in these excerpts that states “federal funding to Medi‑Cal = $X; to education = $Y; to transportation = $Z” for 2024‑25—producing that exact breakdown would require pulling the enacted budget’s federal fund summary tables or the LAO’s appendix not included in the snippets here [3] [9] [1] [2].