BILL ANALYSIS                                                                                                                                                                                                    Ó




                   Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
                           Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair


          SB 1456 (Lowenthal) - Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of 
          2012.
          
          Amended: April 26, 2012         Policy Vote: Education 9-0
          Urgency: No                     Mandate: Yes
          Hearing Date: May 14, 2012      Consultant: Jacqueline 
          Wong-Hernandez
          
          This bill meets the criteria for referral to the Suspense File. 

          
          Bill Summary: SB 1456 establishes new requirements to be met in 
          order to receive a Board of Governors (BOG) fee waiver at the 
          California Community Colleges (CCC). This bill also recasts and 
          revises the Seymour-Campbell Matriculation Act of 1986 as the 
          Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of 2012, and establishes 
          new requirements that CCCs must meet to receive matriculation 
          categorical funding.

          Fiscal Impact: 
              BOG fee waiver mandate: Potentially significant costs to 
              expand CCC administrative duties under the BOG fee waiver 
              program. The BOG fee waiver program is an existing 
              reimbursable state mandate on CCCs, and this bill would 
              expand the administrative activities related to that $21 
              million mandate.
              Matriculation / Student Success changes: Unlikely to result 
              in direct state costs. The imposition of additional 
              requirements for students to receive BOG waivers may result 
              in General Fund savings if the total number of BOG fee 
              waivers issued is reduced.

          Background: Existing law requires that the CCCs make available a 
          variety of "matriculation services" to students in order to 
          ensure that students receive educational services necessary to 
          optimize their opportunities for success. Matriculation services 
          are funded through a categorical program, and the requirement to 
          provide them is only operative if funds are specifically 
          appropriated for these purposes.  

          SB 1143 (Liu) Chapter 409/2010 created the CCC Student Success 
          Task Force (SSTF); 20 individuals (community college chief 








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          executive officers, faculty, students researchers, staff and 
          external stake holders) who spent a year researching, studying 
          and debating the best methods to improve student outcomes at the 
          CCCs. According to the SSTF report, which was unanimously 
          adopted by the BOG in January 2012, it was their goal to 
          identify best practices for promoting student success and to 
          develop statewide strategies to take these approaches to scale.

          The SSTF produced 22 specific recommendations and the report, 
          per the requirements of the legislation, was presented to the 
          Legislature at a joint informational hearing of the Assembly 
          Higher Education Committee and the Senate Education Committee in 
          February 2012. The BOG will implement SSTF recommendations 
          through regulatory and statutory changes, as well as system-wide 
          administrative policies.

          Proposed Law: This bill contains statutory changes necessary for 
          implementation of some of the SSTF recommendations. It recasts 
          and revises the Seymour-Campbell Matriculation Act of 1986 as 
          the Seymour-Campbell Student Success Act of 2012, and 
          establishes new requirements that CCCs must meet to receive 
          matriculation categorical funding. Included in those 
          requirements, are increased eligibility requirements for 
          students seeking BOG fee waivers.

          Staff Comments: This bill implements some of the recommendations 
          of the SSTF, in an effort to better and more efficiently serve 
          CCC students. Its provisions alter the current matriculation 
          program to focus on specified goals and outcomes, and to update 
          terminology. The changes to the matriculation program would stay 
          within that categorical program budget, and the bill provides 
          that it is only operative if funds are specifically appropriated 
          for it. The SSTF focus on these student services, and the 
          service goals prescribed in the bill, are likely to increase 
          cost pressure to increase funding for these activities. If 
          successful, these activities may increase student success and 
          efficiency moving through the CCCs and reducing overcrowding in 
          the long term.

          This bill would add requirements for students to be eligible for 
          BOG fee waivers, beyond simply self-certifying their household 
          income and filling out the form. While those additional 
          requirements are yet to be determined, they will include 
          identifying a certificate, transfer, or career advancement goal, 








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          and meeting academic progress and unit standards. Enacting 
          additional requirements will likely increase the existing 
          reimbursable mandate paid to the CCCs for BOG waiver-related 
          activities. For example, if CCCs have to verify that a student 
          meets the academic progress standards (whatever they end up 
          being) in order to renew a BOG fee waiver, that process would be 
          a new mandated duty on CCCs. The current mandate costs the state 
          $21 million; thus, even a 1% increase caused by these new duties 
          would result in $200,000 in new costs. 

          The revenue loss caused by BOG fee waivers is backfilled by the 
          General Fund. To the extent that the new requirements to receive 
          a BOG fee waiver result in fewer of them, there will be direct 
          General Fund savings.