Where the Money Goes: Healthcare, Education, and Food

VOTE YES ON PROP 40

Vote Yes on Prop 40. Protect care, invest in public needs, and make the spending purpose explicit from the start.

The facts at a glance

After administrative expenses, 90% of Prop 40 revenue is directed to healthcare. [1]

Education and food assistance share 10% of Prop 40 revenue after administration. [1]

Prop 40 money cannot replace existing state funding for the designated purposes. [1]

Most of the money goes to healthcare

The Billionaire Tax Health Account receives 90% of the amount remaining after administrative expenses. Authorized uses include protecting Medi-Cal and other coverage for low- and moderate-income people, supporting safety-net providers, and preventing or reducing facility closures and cuts in services. [1]

These are practical priorities: coverage, places to receive care, and services people can actually use. The statute does not require voters to assume all of those purposes are interchangeable, but it makes each an eligible use of the account. [1]

The other account supports education and food assistance

The remaining 10% goes to the Education and Food Assistance Account. The text names kindergarten through grade 14 (community college) public education and food programs including CalFresh, the California Food Assistance Program, CalFood, and universal school meals. [1]

This is a shared account. The measure does not promise 10% to schools plus another 10% to food, or guarantee a fixed portion to each named program. Legislators must allocate within the designated purposes. [1]

A simple illustration of the split

For every $100 left after administrative expenses, $90 would be allocated to the healthcare account and $10 to the education-and-food account. This illustration explains the allocation rule; it is not a revenue forecast or a promise of a particular payment to an individual provider. [1]

The difference matters when reading a headline number. A projection of total gross receipts is not the same as the amount ultimately available to a particular hospital, school district, or food program.

New money cannot be used to replace existing support

Section 16355(d) bars using reserve-fund appropriations as a justification for reducing, eliminating, or failing to increase other state appropriations for healthcare, education, or food assistance. It also expressly prohibits supplanting existing state funds for those purposes. [1]

In everyday language: the measure is intended to add resources to the response, not give the state a reason to take an existing funding stream away. That safeguard is part of the text, not merely a campaign promise. [1]

The fund can operate across years

The Legislature may appropriate up to $22.5 billion annually from the healthcare account and up to $2.5 billion from the education-and-food account, while retaining money in reserve when needed to further the measure’s purposes. Those are spending limits, not guaranteed amounts collected in every year. [1]

The annual reporting provisions require information about revenues, balances, proposed allocations, and past expenditures. A fund can therefore retain resources for later needs while remaining subject to the specified reporting duties. [1]

The school-funding question needs the right comparison

The official summary states that these new receipts are exempt from the constitutional school-funding requirement known as Proposition 98. That is a feature of this measure’s allocation, not something to hide. It is also not a provision directing an equivalent amount to be cut from today’s school budgets. [1][2]

The linked school page explains the difference between the allocation in this proposal and what a hypothetical differently designed tax might send to education. Voters deserve the actual comparison—not a number stripped of what it measures.

A few more answers

People and organizations backing a Yes vote

Keep reading

CHECK THE EVIDENCE

Sources behind this page

Each reference identifies what it establishes. A cited agency or researcher is not automatically a campaign endorser.

Vote Yes on Prop 40.

Vote Yes on Prop 40. Put new resources toward healthcare, classrooms and food—with the purposes written into law.

Help pass Prop 40 →   Explore all topics →