BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: AB 189
AUTHOR: Eng
AMENDED: May 27, 2011
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: June 22, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Daniel Alvarez
SUBJECT : Education Funding.
SUMMARY
This bill modifies existing public hearing and reporting
requirements local education agencies (LEAs) must adhere to
in order to participate in categorical flexibility by
requiring LEAs to hold the regularly scheduled public
hearing prior to and independent of a meeting where the
school district or the governing board of the county office
of education (COEs) adopts a budget.
BACKGROUND
Current law, as a condition of receiving categorical
flexibility funds, requires LEAs (at a regularly scheduled
public hearing) to take testimony from the public, discuss,
approve, or disapprove the proposed use of funding and make
explicit for each of the categorical program budget items
the purposes for which the funds will be used.
Statute also requires an LEA to report expenditure of
categorical program funds to indicate the activities for
which these funds are expended. Furthermore, the State
Department of Education (SDE) is required to collect and
provide this information to the Department of Finance and
the Legislature by April 15, 2010 and annually thereafter.
(Education Code § 42605)
Current law prohibits school districts from charging a fee
for an adult education class in English and citizenship or
a class in an elementary subject.
(EC § 52612)
ANALYSIS
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This bill modifies existing public hearing and reporting
requirements local education agencies (LEAs) must adhere to
in order to participate in categorical flexibility by
requiring LEAs to hold the regularly scheduled public
hearing prior to and independent of a meeting where the
school district or the governing board of the county office
of education (COEs) adopts a budget. In addition, this
bill:
1) Requires the governing board if it intends to close a
program funded by a budget item specified within the
categorical flexibility statute, to identify, in the
notice of the agenda of the public hearing or at
another public hearing, the program or programs
proposed to be closed.
2) Requires the SDE to establish a unique resource code
for categorical programs subject to the flexibility
provision and inform LEAs that these funds shall be
considered general purpose nonrevenue limit funding
for the purposes of reporting expenditures. (This
allows existing reporting information to be collected
and provided in a manner that displays the linkage
between an LEA's categorical program allocation and
the LEA's expenditure of these funds.)
3) Authorizes the governing board of a school district to
charge a fee for a class in English and citizenship
until July 1, 2015.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Need for the bill . According to the author,
categorical flexibility has given local school
districts the authority to transfer funds from any of
approximately 40 categorical programs to each local
school district general fund without having to comply
with the statutory requirements of the specific
program. Current law requires a public discussion of
proposed transfer of funds. However, some LEAs claim
compliance at the meeting where they adopt the budget
and do not offer the community a real opportunity to
provide feedback as intended by law.
While categorical flexibility has enabled school
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districts to remain solvent during a time of
unprecedented budget cuts, it is resulting in the
dismantling of the state's core categorical programs,
such as adult education, and regional occupational
centers and programs (ROCPs) which will be extremely
difficult to restore once categorical flexibility
ends.
2) Categorical program funding reductions and flexibility
given to assist school districts and provide greater
local decision-making . SB 4 (Chapter 12, 2009) and
extended by SB 70 (Chapter 7, 2011), authorizes local
educational agencies (LEAs) through the 2014-15 fiscal
year, to use funding for approximately 38 categorical
programs (totaling $4.5 billion statewide) for any
educational purpose to the extent permitted by federal
laws. These measures also deem LEAs to be in
compliance with program and funding requirements
related to the 38 categorical programs, and requires
LEA governing boards to make flexible expenditure
decisions in a regularly scheduled public meeting.
The flexibility granted under SB 4 and SB 70 came as a
result of funding the categorical programs
approximately 20 percent lower for the 2008-09 through
the 2014-15 fiscal years, as well as reductions to
school district and county office of education revenue
limits (the basic general purpose money allocated to
districts).
3) Is spirit of public discussion skirted? Several
categorical program advocates report that districts
are adhering to the statutory meeting requirement at
their governing board meetings when they adopt a final
budget. Essentially, school districts contend they
are meeting the letter of the law when they adopt
their budget, which includes final decisions on which
categorical programs are funded.
Education advocates argue the existing requirement for
discussion at a public hearing is meant for the public
to testify and provide input, which allows governing
board members to weigh the pros, cons, and
consequences of budgetary decisions regarding
categorical flexibility funds. This measure proposes
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to clarify the public hearing requirement in SB 4
(Third Extraordinary Session, Ch. 12, 2009) to ensure
school districts do not use the governing board
meeting where they adopt the final budget as
satisfaction of this requirement.
4) Data on how categorical flex funds are spent is
elusive. With the flexibility provisions, LEAs are
not required to report how much funds were diverted
and to which programs they were transferred. As a
result, there is no data available to discern the
extent to which LEAs diverted categorical funds for
other educational needs or the number of programs that
have been dismantled. The Legislative Analyst's
Office (LAO) has conducted two surveys, in the fall of
2009 and 2010, in an effort to ascertain the effects
of flexibility and other resources in helping LEAs
balance their budgets. The survey results were based
on 382 completed surveys out of the 1,000 school
districts; the respondents represent 58 percent of the
state's ADA. Among the findings in the survey is that
more districts are discontinuing programs in 2010-11
compared with 2009-10, including 7 percent of survey
respondents report discontinuing adult education
programs in 2010-11.
SUPPORT
Asian Americans for Civil Rights and Equality
Asian and Pacific Islanders California Action Network
Asian Resources, Inc.
California Association for the Gifted
California Association of Leaders for Career Preparation
California Correctional Peace Officers Association
California Council for Adult Education
California School Employees Association
California Teachers of English to Speakers of Other
Languages
Get Real Coalition
The Council of Mexican Federations
United Teachers Los Angeles
OPPOSITION
None on file.
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