Governor Gavin Newsom is proposing $4.2 billion be allocated to California's high speed rail project.
Governor Newsom has been rolling out a slew of new proposals for the state over the past few days, including a project announcement for transportation that would spend a total of $9.1 billion in the next fiscal year. California's high-speed rail would get about $4.2 billion toward finishing the central San Joaquin Valley portion in Governor Newsom's proposed state spending plan.The 119-mile high-speed rail project has been under construction in Fresno, Madera, Kings, Tulare and Kern counties for seven years.
Governor Gavin Newsom also signed an executive order yesterday aimed at easing staffing shortages on California campuses. The order allows schools to give additional hours to substitute teachers and simplifies the process to rehire teachers that recently retired. The executive order ends in March, with Newsom calling it a short-term solution for a short-term challenge.
This order comes at a time where schools and universities have been hit hard by the developing Omicron variant, causing staffing issues for instructors and facility members while also heavily affecting student learning environments and altering return schedules for in-person learning.