Banking Development Districts and Financial Education Fund Move Forward

The California Asset Building Program's Banking Development Districts measure, AB 38, and no-cost philanthropic Financial Education Fund measure, AB 597, have again cleared policy hearings in the Assembly.

This is a remarkable event in California asset policy, though these ideas have cleared this same hurdle in earlier sessions. That's because the policy mindset within the Legislature has evolved to the point that concepts like tested models leveraging state deposits to increase investment in worthy communities and encouraging the use of donated funds for financial education are unanimously seen as sensible and sound.

That's how it went, this Monday- unanimous bipartisan support for both policy measures (with one member abstaining).

Just last week, we joined AB 597 author Assembly member Mike Eng and bill partner Controller John Chiang to talk about these financial empowerment issues. And this week, a broad and growing coalition of organizations in support are helping move the bills forward.

Next up: Assembly Appropriations. Those hearings will come in May, and anyone interested in finding out more can contact the California Asset Building Program. And it's not too late to send the Assembly your letters of support.