BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    



                                                                  AB 1821
                                                                  Page  1

          CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
          AB 1821 (Brownley)
          As Amended August 18, 2008
          Majority vote
           
           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
          |ASSEMBLY:  |     |(May 27, 2008)  |SENATE: |37-0 |(August 22,    |
          |           |     |                |        |     |2008)          |
           ----------------------------------------------------------------- 
                    (vote not relevant)
           
           Original Committee Reference:    HIGHER ED. 

           SUMMARY  :  Eliminates, restructures, and reorganizes various  
          higher education reporting requirements of the state's public  
          universities and colleges to provide for more effective,  
          manageable, and transparent reporting to the Legislature.  

           The Senate amendments  delete the Assembly version of this bill,  
          and instead:

          1)Eliminate, restructure, and reorganize approximately 34  
            reports to the Legislature that are required of the University  
            of California (UC), the California State University (CSU), and  
            the California Community Colleges (CCC).

          2)Require, unless otherwise specified, that reports submitted to  
            the Legislature by UC, CSU, and CCC be delivered to the Senate  
            and Assembly budget subcommittees on education, the Senate  
            Education and Assembly Higher Education policy committees, the  
            Legislative Analyst's Office, the Office of the Secretary of  
            Education, and the Department of Finance.  

          3)Authorize, unless otherwise specified, the submission of  
            reports in Portable Document Format or comparable electronic  
            format.

          4)Ensure that the provisions of this bill will not be  
            chaptered-out by SB 1437 (Padilla), pending in the Assembly,  
            which amends the same code section.

          5)Declare legislative intent that:

             a)   The 2009-10 Budget Act incorporate modifications made by  
               this bill to three required reports; 








                                                                  AB 1821
                                                                  Page  2


             b)   Non-codified requests for reports from UC, CSU, and CCC  
               adopted prior to 2008, including provisional or  
               supplemental language in budget acts adopted prior to 2008,  
               have been subsumed, where appropriate, within statute by  
               this bill;

             c)   Nothing in this bill shall prevent the Legislature from  
               adopting new reporting requirements of any kind; and, 

             d)   UC, CSU, and CCC are expected to fully respond to all  
               statutory reporting requirements by the stated deadlines. 

           EXISTING LAW  and the annual Budget Act, via supplemental or  
          provisional reporting language adopted therein, requires the  
          three public postsecondary education segments to report to the  
          Legislature a combined average of approximately 115 reports per  
          year.

           AS PASSED BY THE ASSEMBLY  , this bill clarified that students  
          participating in the Competitive Cal Grant B award program may  
          use a college grade point average (GPA), if they have one, in  
          lieu of a high school GPA.  These provisions were deleted from  
          this bill and added to AB 2260 (Assembly Higher Education  
          Committee), Chapter 235, Statutes of 2008, in order to provide a  
          vehicle to restructure the state's higher education reporting  
          requirements.

           FISCAL EFFECT  :  According to the Senate Appropriations  
          Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.

           COMMENTS :  UC, CSU, and CCC are collectively required to provide  
          an average of 115 annual reports to the Legislature.  Some of  
          these reports have become obsolete or duplicative, while others  
          do not provide clear direction to the segments as to the content  
          or legislative recipients of the report.  Finally, previous  
          budget bill language requires many of these reports, and the  
          applicability of supplemental budget language from previous  
          years is unclear.

          This bill is intended to restructure and reorganize existing  
          reporting requirements to provide greater clarity and  
          prioritization for the segments and more effective, manageable,  
          and transparent reporting to the Legislature.    









                                                                  AB 1821
                                                                  Page  3

          Earlier this year, UC, CSU, and CCC provided lists of their  
          respective reporting requirements to a work group comprised of  
          legislative staff, the Department of Finance, the Legislative  
          Analyst's Office, and the California Postsecondary Education  
          Commission.  This bill includes the work group's consensus  
          recommendations. 

          As noted previously, many of the existing reporting requirements  
          are non-codified.  By moving approximately 25 of these  
          non-codified reporting requirements into statute, this bill  
          provides clear direction to the segments for this group of  
          reports and creates a more manageable system of reporting to the  
          Legislature.  The approximately 10 other current non-codified  
          reporting requirements that are not included in this bill will  
          cease to be active reporting requirements as the result of  
          intent language contained in this bill, relieving the segments  
          of non-codified reporting requirements adopted before 2008.    


          Analysis Prepared by  :    Sandra Fried / HIGHER ED. / (916)  
          319-3960 


                                                                FN: 0007301