BILL ANALYSIS Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair 2385 (J. Perez) Hearing Date: 08/02/2010 Amended: 07/15/2010 Consultant: Dan Troy Policy Vote: ED 7-1 _________________________________________________________________ ____ BILL SUMMARY: AB 2385 would establish the Pilot Program for Innovative Nursing and Allied Health Care Profession Education at the California Community Colleges to be administered by the CCC Chancellor's Office. Under this program, up to five campuses would be selected by the CCC Chancellor to offer pilot programs that test innovative delivery models and expand student capacity in health care occupations for which there is a substantial labor market demand. The program would sunset on January 1, 2018. _________________________________________________________________ ____ Fiscal Impact (in thousands) Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund Pilot project $500 to $1,000, annually General* for five years Evaluation $85 General *Counts toward meeting the Proposition 98 minimum funding guarantee _________________________________________________________________ ____ STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense According to the author, most current associate degree nursing and allied health care profession (i.e. fields in the health profession distinct from medicine, nursing, dentistry, such as kinesiology, audiology, dieticians, etc.) courses are offered over two academic years and require the completion of 70 units in program courses, assuming that the student has met all of the prerequisite requirements and is ready to start the program. The stated goal of the bill is to pilot innovative program delivery and curriculum models to enable students to earn degrees and enter the workforce as quickly as possible and expand the state's capacity to train a qualified health professional workforce without compromising the integrity of program and licensure requirements. This pilot created by this bill would be administered by the Chancellor's Office (CO) of the California Community Colleges and would include up to five campuses. The participant colleges would test innovative program delivery models to expand the capacity to offer health care training for students in occupations for there is strong demand. The bill requires the CO to pursue a variety of funding models to help support the administration and delivery of the programs, and would develop a request for application for colleges to participate commencing on or after the 2011-12 academic year, contingent on resources. Among other criteria, the CO would be required to select, to the extent possible, campuses that geographically distributed throughout the state, and may give consideration to existing innovative programs. The bill states the Page 2 AB 2385 (Perez) intent to have the program funded through a combination of state apportionment funding, employer-based partnerships, federal grants, and philanthropic resources. The CO would provide for an independent evaluation of the program and report findings and recommendations to the Legislature on or before January 1, 2017. Operation of the pilot would likely entail costs of several hundred thousand dollars per campus, likely resulting costs in the millions over the course of the pilot. Assuming a costs of $100,000 to $200,000 per campus each year, costs would range from $2.5 million to $5 million over five years. Additionally, the CO estimates that costs for the evaluation would be approximately $85,000 (one time) while administrative workload would be absorbed within the costs of existing personnel. As specified in the bill, the CO will seek a variety of sources to offset costs.