BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                           Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair

                                          SB 361 (Berryhill)
          
          Hearing Date: 05/26/2011        Amended: 03/31/2011
          Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Education 8-0
          
















































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          BILL SUMMARY: SB 361 would extend the the sunset on the funding 
          formula for the Center for Advanced Research and Technology 
          (CART) to July 1, 2017.
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                            Fiscal Impact (in thousands)

           Major Provisions         2011-12      2012-13       2013-14     Fund
           
          CART funding           $1,000     $1,000      $1,000    General*

          * Counts toward meeting the Proposition 98 minimum funding 
          guarantee              
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          ____

          STAFF COMMENTS: SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED

          This bill extends for five years a funding formula for the CART 
          that entitles it to receive approximately $1,000,000 GF more in 
          annual funding than it would in the absence of this special 
          statute. 
           
          The CART was established as a charter school in April of 1998 by 
          a Joint Powers Authority established between the Clovis Unified 
          School District (CUSD) and the Fresno Unified School District 
          (FUSD). The CART is a career technical education center that 
          provides instruction to pupils from both districts and the 
          pupils spend half of each instructional day at the CART and the 
          other half in their regular district high school. The CART was 
          authorized as charter school by CUSD with the two districts 
          receiving the funding for pupils from their schools and using 
          those dollars to fund the program.  CART teachers were employees 
          of the districts, not of CART.  As charter high schools are 
          funded at higher rates than the revenue limits of either 
          district, converting to a charter generated more revenue than 
          operating as a non-charter.

          Current law requires charter schools to enroll pupils in 
          classroom instruction for at least 80% of the school day, or be 
          considered "non-classroom based" charter schools subject to 
          special review and reduced funding. Current law also provides 
          that school districts and charter schools may not claim general 
          purpose funding for the attendance of pupils in classes that are 









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          not under the supervision and control of a teacher that is an 
          employee of the district or charter school.  Current law also 
          requires pupils to generate funding when engaged in educational 
          activities under the immediate supervision of an employee of the 
          charter school.  

          As a charter, the CART ran afoul of both of these laws in that 
          the pupils were in charter school classrooms only 50 percent of 
          the day, although they attended regular high school classes 
          during the other 50 percent. Additionally, teachers from both 
          districts taught at the CART so pupils were not always being 
          instructed by employees of their 


          home district or the CART charter school. In 2006, the State 
          Controller's Office (SCO) auditors determined that the charter 
          school could not claim any funding for that year, or any later 
          year until the charter school either complied with the law or 
          was granted an exception. In 2007, SB 345 (Aanestad) allowed the 
          CART to operate at charter school funding rates (at the 2006-07 
          level) for the 2007-08 fiscal year to allow time to for a 
          permanent solution to be reached.

          In 2008, AB 2246 (Villines) made the CART eligible retroactively 
          for receipt of charter school general purpose entitlement 
          funding for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 fiscal years (for which the 
          SCO had denied funding), and put in place a new funding model so 
          narrow that it functionally only applies to the CART. The new 
          funding model provided CART with similar funding as it would 
          receive under the charter model, if it were to comply with 
          charter school law.

          While the funding formula is calculated to be cost neutral 
          relative to what the school had been receiving prior to the SCO 
          audit, the funding provided in AB 2246 is in excess of what the 
          pupils would otherwise generate relative to current law. FUSD 
          and CUSD have revenue limits of approximately $769 less per 
          pupil than the amount this bill would provide to the CART.  
          Assuming 1,300 units of average daily attendance at CART, this 
          bill would cost $999,700 General Fund annually.

          Amend per author to add a co-author and make technical changes.











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