BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 275
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 8, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
SB 275 (Hancock) - As Amended: July 3, 2012
Policy Committee: Education Vote:9-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill, beginning with the 2015-16 fiscal year (FY), requires
the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to apportion
Regional Occupational Centers and Programs (ROC/P) funding to
each county office of education (COE) in order to facilitate
coordination between COEs, school districts and joint powers
agencies (JPAs) for the development of career technical
education (CTE) programs. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires COEs to receive the same relative proportion of ROC/P
funding school districts and JPAs located within its
jurisdiction received in the 2014-15 FY. Further requires
COEs to allocate these funds in the same relative proportion
to districts and JPAs as occurred in the 2014-15 FY.
2)Authorizes local education agencies (LEAs) to form regions for
the purpose of developing and maintaining CTE programs and to
utilize funding from the following four programs for this
purpose: (a) ROC/Ps, (b) Specialized Secondary programs, (c)
CA Partnership Academies (CPAs), and (d) Agricultural CTE
Incentive Programs. Further requires these funds to only be
expended to ensure the development and maintenance of high
quality CTE programs.
3)Specifies (in the absence of a regional agreement) funding
allocated for Specialized Secondary programs, CPAs, and CTE
Incentive programs only be used for the purposes of these
programs.
4)Requires the governing board of an ROC/P, as a condition of
receiving funding, to develop a plan for establishing a
sequence of courses by July 1, 2015, as specified. Further
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requires programs to collect and report data, as required by
the State Department of Education (SDE), for the purpose of
developing an accountability measure to determine the quality
and effectiveness of a study or sequence of CTE programs
funded under these provisions.
5)Requires the SPI to align accountability measures for ROC/Ps,
the Agriculture CTE program, and CPAs into a uniform
accountability metric, as specified.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)GF administrative costs to SDE, likely between $220,000 and
$420,000, to develop accountability measures required by this
bill. These costs are associated with conducting committee
meetings and LEA training sessions on the accountability
measures.
2)The 2012 Budget Act allocates the following funding for the
programs specified in this measure:
----------------------------------
|ROC/Pa |$384.7 |
| |million |
|--------------------+-------------|
|CPA programb |$21.4 |
| |million |
|--------------------+-------------|
|Agricultural CTE |$4.1 million |
|programsb | |
|--------------------+-------------|
|Total |$410.2 |
| |million |
----------------------------------
aIncluded in categorical flexibility.
bNot included in categorical flexibility.
*Amounts include 19.84% program reduction.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . The author contends that LEAs, under the state's
categorical flexibility provisions, have severely reduced
spending and implementation of ROC/Ps and other CTE programs.
She further contends that without accountability provisions
for these programs, LEAs will cease to operate them once
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categorical flexibility ends in the 2014-15 FY. Specifically,
the author states: "Despite the importance of CTE programs,
these funds are at risk of redirection if no state
accountability system exists for those programs. ROC/Ps and
other CTE programs are integral to K-12 education, and cannot
be eliminated or redirected without creating irreparable harm
to the comprehensive instructional program that we should be
offering our students. The approach offered by Ýthis bill]
both protects a valuable resource for the state, its CTE
programs, and allows local needs to be used as the basis for
structuring those programs at the regional level."
2)Categorical flexibility . As part of the February 2009 budget
package, SB 4 X3 (Ducheny), Third Extraordinary Session,
Chapter 12, Statutes of 2009, provided LEAs with unprecedented
fiscal and policy flexibility related to over 40 categorical
programs, including the ROC/Ps, between the 2008-09 FY and the
2012-13 FY. Specifically, any LEA that received funding for
specified categorical programs (i.e., ROC/Ps) in the 2008-09
FY is authorized to use this funding for any other educational
purpose until the 2012-13 FY. The LEA may choose to continue
operating the categorical program it received funding for or
redirect it for any other educational purpose the LEA deems
appropriate. SB 70 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review),
Chapter 7, Statutes of 2011, extended this flexibility until
the 2014-15 FY.
The CPA and Agricultural CTE programs are not part of the
current categorical flexibility provisions. Instead, the
funding for these programs is required to be spent according
to statutory program requirements.
3)Does this bill make funding and programmatic decisions for
three CTE programs prematurely? This bill modifies the
manner in which ROC/P funding is allocated and locks the state
into an allocation amount for three CTE programs: ROC/P, CPA,
and Agricultural CTE programs. Currently, ROC/P funding and
programmatic requirements are flexible (under categorical
flexibility) until the 2014-15 FY. Likewise, school
districts, COEs, or JPAs that operate an ROC/P, CPA, or an
agriculture CTE program receive their funding directly.
Under this measure, the state is required to provide these
three programs the same amount of funding they received in the
2014-15 FY and allocate it to COEs (regardless if that is the
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entity that receives the funding currently). Given the
volatility of the state's fiscal crisis, it is unclear the
need to make significant fiscal and policy changes to programs
that would not take effect until the 2015-16 FY.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081