Our schools depend on Diablo Canyon tax revenue. Can we count on PG&E? | Opinion
Last week, with little fanfare, two decisions were made with major implications for PG&E’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and local community funding.
In Sacramento, Senate Bill 931 was scheduled for a hearing in the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy. The bill, sponsored by Sen. John Laird and Assemblymember Dawn Addis, reinstates $8 million in annual mitigation fund payments to SLO County and the San Luis Coastal Unified School District until 2030.
Meanwhile, in San Luis Obispo, the county Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to join an organization called Diablo Canyon 2045, an advocacy group lobbying to keep the plant open until 2045. According to its website, many, if not most, of the organization’s members are from out of the area and have no stake in what happens to San Luis Obispo County schools.
Sen. Laird, Assemblymember Addis and others asked the county to postpone joining DC 2045.
One supervisor suggested, however, that the decision had been made before the meeting took place.
“We could have just gone ahead and put the (county) seal up (on the DC 2045 website). We had four (votes) already, but we wanted to make sure we let people know that we were joining this coalition,” Supervisor Dawn Ortiz-Legg said.
Public comment, then, was effectively just a courtesy.
These two actions provide a stark and fundamental contrast regarding Diablo Canyon.
Decisions about the plant’s future can be made in consultation with the community, or they can be made behind closed doors.
They can be made through a public process, or made in secret by those with no stated interest in protecting local revenue.
Plenty of money for PG&E; none for schools
In 2022, when Senate Bill 846 extended operations at Diablo, the legislation also extended and/or created numerous funds to provide PG&E with over $2 billion for management, employee retention, and “volumetric performance” to keep the plant open. However, disbursements to SLO County and our local school district, part of an Essential Services Mitigation Fund, were allowed to expire in 2025.
Withdrawing this funding has caused a major shock to our local school district, requiring substantial cuts to student support services.
Meanwhile, PG&E has made record annual profits since 2022, and collects hundreds of millions of dollars in Diablo-related fees every year. That revenue is orders of magnitude more than our schools have ever received in mitigation funds and property tax revenue.
Throughout 2025, parents, community members, and elected officials reached out to PG&E, asking to discuss potential solutions. Hundreds of parents messaged PG&E executives and stakeholders, including CEO Patti Poppe (whose annual salary is three times what our kids lost), but received only a single form email in response. PG&E has made clear that it will not voluntarily engage with parents and that legislation is our community’s only path forward.
A local PG&E representative put it succinctly to our school board: “There will be no love money.”
We need leaders to advocate for public services
A key challenge for our community is finding vocal advocates who support public services and are not afraid to push back against PG&E. Diablo employees are supported by strong unions that are a testament to the effectiveness of collective bargaining. SLO citizens, too, should have leaders who recognize when the interests of PG&E shareholders conflict with those of local residents, schools and public services.
One of those conflicts is property taxes. Last year, PG&E told the California Public Utilities Commission that the company will not owe property taxes on any of its current or future assets at Diablo. That position should be untenable for our elected officials, and before supporting any effort to extend operations beyond 2030, important questions should be answered:
How will local revenue be protected if PG&E doesn’t pay property taxes? What specific commitments can be made to local schools? How will public services be supported?
What funding mechanisms will remain in place if Diablo operates for decades longer? What funding mechanisms will remain in place if Diablo operates for decades longer?
How much revenue, exactly, can our community count on?
The people who bear the impact of these decisions should not be an afterthought.
We believe our community should advocate both for SB 931 and for long-term revenue protections.
San Luis Coastal Parent Information Network has launched a community letter-writing campaign to support SB 931 as it moves through the Legislature and to Gov. Newsom’s desk. We invite parents, educators, business owners and community members to join us.
If decisions about Diablo Canyon’s future are going to be made in Sacramento, then Sacramento needs to hear directly from the people who live with those decisions every day.
The residents of San Luis Obispo County deserve a seat at the table and a voice that will not be ignored.
Emily Goodman, Ben Lippert and Annie Frew are co-founders of San Luis Coastal Parent Information Network.