LCFF stands for the Local Control Funding Formula, which went into effect in 2013-14.  It is the mechanism for determining how much funding each school district receives. Effectively, every district is compensated about $8,000 per student as a base grant.  If a student is low-income or an English learner or a foster youth, the district receives an additional $1,600 in supplemental compensation.  If more than 55% of the students in a district receive the $1600 supplemental compensation, then the district receives an additional $4,800 per student after that first 55%. If you would like more information, the Legislative Analyst’s Office (the nonpartisan fiscal and policy advisor to the state legislature) wrote this description.

Believe it or not, before LCFF went into effect in the 2013-14 school year, almost all of California's over 1000 districts had different per student funding. This simplification and the supplemental concentration grants were an important step to both increasing transparency and providing for our most disadvantaged students and communities. Adding a cost of living supplement, as was originally intended, makes sense as the next step.

About 82% ($50B) of total LCFF funding represents the base grants, 10% ($6B) the supplement for student need, and 6% ($3.4B) the community concentration grant.  An additional 2% ($1.4B) is for small schools, busing, and other local issues. Including regional costs would add $1.1B to the $60B total … however … a large chunk of that (over $0.4B) would come out of excess property tax receipts, not the General Fund, reducing the total cost to under $0.7B or about 1% of existing LCFF spending.