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 _________________________________________________________________ ____ 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. _________________________________________________________________ ____ 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 _________________________________________________________________ ____ 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 SB 361 (Berryhill) Page 3 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. SB 361 (Berryhill) Page 4