BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION
Alan Lowenthal, Chair
2011-2012 Regular Session
BILL NO: SB 940
AUTHOR: Committee on Education
AMENDED: April 28, 2011
FISCAL COMM: Yes HEARING DATE: May 4, 2011
URGENCY: No CONSULTANT:Kathleen Chavira
SUBJECT : Postsecondary Education
SUMMARY
This bill corrects technical errors and oversights, and
makes non-controversial and conforming changes to various
provisions of the Education Code and Labor Code.
BACKGROUND
This bill is one of the annual Education Code clean up
bills that makes various non-controversial revisions to
statute. This education omnibus bill corrects errors,
resolves conflicts, and deletes obsolete references that
relate to postsecondary education.
By tradition, objection to any provision by the Department
of Finance, or any of the four legislative caucuses
prevents that provision from being included in this bill.
ANALYSIS
This bill corrects technical errors and oversights, and
makes non-controversial and conforming changes to various
provisions of the Education Code and the Labor Code.
Specifically, this bill:
1) Clarifies that a student who completes the transfer
degree authorized by SB 1440 (Padilla, Chapter 428,
Statutes of 2010) is granted priority in enrollment
over all other community college transfer students
consistent with the current statutorily outlined
enrollment planning and admission priorities and
deems these students to have met the requirements of
an approved transfer agreement consistent with current
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law.
2) Updates obsolete references within the Education Code
and the Labor Code to the "old" Cal Grant Program
which sunset in January 2010 to reference the "new"
Cal Grant program, established in 2000.
3) Corrects an erroneous reference to the percent hours
per week considered a full-time assignment for
community college faculty.
4) Deletes obsolete references to the "Office of the
Secretary of Education and substitutes these with
references to the "Office of the Governor."
5) Repeals various obsolete code sections.
STAFF COMMENTS
1) Technical clean-up bill . This bill is a technical
clean-up of the Education Code focused upon higher
education and a related Labor Code provision. The bill
makes the following changes:
a) Section 1, 3, 5, 8 . In January 2011,
Governor Brown eliminated the Office of the
Secretary of Education (OSE). Various provisions
of law had assigned the OSE responsibility for
receiving various reports. The changes to these
sections delete obsolete references to the Office
of the Secretary of Education and replaces them
with the Office of the Governor.
b) Section 2, 6, 9 . These sections repeal
statutory reporting requirements relative to an
education technology professional grant program,
recommendations on funding priorities for
technology in higher education, and guidelines
for community college design-build projects, as
these reporting requirements have been met and
the code sections rendered obsolete.
c) Section 4 . SB 1440 (Padilla, Chapter ,
Statutes of 2010 ) established the Student
Transfer Achievement Reform Act which requires a
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California Community College district to grant an
associate degree that deems the student eligible
for transfer and guarantees admission into the
California State University (CSU), subject to
specified requirements. This section clarifies
that a student who completes the transfer degree
authorized by SB 1440 has met the requirements
for an approved transfer agreement and is granted
priority in enrollment over all other community
college transfer students consistent with
existing statutorily outlined enrollment planning
and admission priority provisions.
d) Section 7, 11 . These sections update
obsolete references within the Education Code and
the Labor Code to the "old" Cal Grant Program
which sunset in January 2010 to reference the
"new" Cal Grant program, established by SB 1644
(Ortiz, Chapter 403, Statutes of 2000).
e) Section 10. Education Code section 87482.5
was amended by AB 591 (Dymally, Chapter 84,
Statutes of 2008) to increase from 60 percent to
67 percent the proportion of hours per week of a
full-time faculty assignment which an individual
employed to teach adult or community college
courses may teach and still be classified as a
temporary employee. This bill amends section
87844 of the Education Code to delete the
erroneous "60%" threshold cited and to cross
reference Section 87482.5 in order to conform
community college part-time faculty office hour
provisions to current law.
2) Similar legislation . This bill is one of three
Education "clean-up" bills sponsored by the Committee
that make various non-controversial revisions to
statute. SB 941 (Senate Committee on Education) and
SB 942 (Senate Committee on Education), are also
on the agenda for the committee's consideration today.
In addition, SB 292 (Padilla) contains provisions
identical to Section 4 of this bill. SB 292 is also on
the agenda for the committee's consideration today.
SUPPORT
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California State University
OPPOSITION
None received.