BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
1298 (Hancock)
Hearing Date: 05/03/2010 Amended: 04/21/2010
Consultant: Dan Troy Policy Vote: ED 5-3
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 1298 would allow a school district, for the
2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years, to withdraw from a regional
occupational center or program (ROCP) it jointly operates with
one or more districts only if it is determined by the State
Board of Education that the withdrawal will not negatively
impact pupils from the other participating district(s). The
bill would also require that funds appropriated to districts for
ROCP participation be used in a specified manner. This would
limit the flexibility of districts to use the funds for other
purposes, as provided in current law.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
ROCP No new state cost, but a loss of local
General*
funding and programmatic flexibility
*Counts toward meeting the Proposition 98 minimum funding
guarantee
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STAFF COMMENTS:
Current law provides for the delivery of career technical
education in a variety of manners including Regional
Occupational Centers and Programs (ROCP) which provide training
for students from multiple schools or districts. Current law
also allows for two or more districts to establish a Joint
Powers Agency (JPA) for the operation of ROC/Ps.
Chapter 12 of the 3rd Extraordinary Session of 2009 (SBX3 4)
reduced funding for many K-12 categorical education programs.
SBX3 4 also provided districts, through the 2012-13 fiscal year,
with varying levels of flexibility over the use of funding for
these programs to help local districts manage their budgets in
ways that would help mitigate the impact of the funding
reductions. ROCPs are among the group of categorical programs
for which districts have complete flexibility over the use of
funding. In other words, a local district may take funding
received through the Budget Act for ROCPs and expend those funds
for any educational purpose of the district.
This bill would, for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years,
prohibit districts from withdrawing from JPAs that operate ROCPs
unless the State Board of Education (SBE) determines that a
district's withdrawal would not negatively impact the career
technical education services offered by that ROCP to pupils of
other districts or charter schools in the region. Also, the
bill would require funding received for ROCPs to be expended in
accordance with the regional plan for occupational course
sequences.
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SB 1298 (Hancock)
While this bill does not create any new state costs - districts
will receive the same funding as they would absent the bill - it
does, for the 2011-12 and 2012-13 fiscal years, restrict the
flexibility provided through SBX3 4. A district that desired to
shift funds from this program to stabilize other programs, to
provide career technical education in a more efficient manner
locally, or simply to meet payroll, would only be allowed to do
so if the SBE determined that services offered to pupils in
other districts would not be impacted.
The author's office has indicated that this program merits
removal from the blanket district flexibility provisions of SBX3
4 as ROCP/JPAs are regional entities and that one district's
flexibility should not impact another's program. It is
possible, though, that removing one program from the flexibility
package will create pressure to remove others and ultimately
limit the options districts have to manage scarce resources.