Amended in Assembly April 16, 2013

California Legislature—2013–14 Regular Session

Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 2

Introduced by Assembly Members Nestande and Olsen

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(Coauthors: Assembly Members Bigelow, Harkey, Maienschein, Wagner, and Wilk)

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(Coauthor: Senator Cannella)

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December 18, 2012

Assembly Constitutional Amendment No. 2—A resolution to propose to the people of the State of California an amendment to the Constitution of the State, by adding Section 8.7 to Article XVI thereof, relating to education finance.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL’S DIGEST

ACA 2, as amended, Nestande. Education finance: payment of state apportionments.

Existing law establishes the public elementary and secondary schools and the system of public community colleges in this state, and provides for a system for their funding. Provisions of the California Constitution require that a minimum amount of aggregate funding, calculated as specified, be allocated to school districts and community college districts. Pursuant to existing statutes, school districts, community college districts, and other local educational agencies receive a portion of their funding through apportionments of state funds made in accordance with payment schedules.

This measure would require that the total amount due for allocation to school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and community college districts pursuant to the constitutional minimum funding requirement described above for a fiscal year, as estimated at the time of enactment of the annual Budget Act for that fiscal year, be apportioned pursuant to statute during that fiscal year, unless that minimum funding requirement is suspended for that fiscal year pursuant to an existing constitutional provision authorizing that suspension. The measure would require this estimate to be set forth in the Budget Bill passed by the Legislature.

The measure would require apportionments of state aid to school districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and community college districts to be made no later than the times specified by the statutory payment schedule that was in effect during the 2000-01 fiscal year, except that the Legislature may require by statute that these apportionments be made earlier in the fiscal year.

Vote: ²⁄₃. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes. State-mandated local program: no.

Resolved by the Assembly, the Senate concurring, That the
Legislature of the State of California at its 2013-14 Regular
Session commencing on the third day of December 2012,
two-thirds of the membership of each house concurring, hereby
proposes to the people of the State of California that the
Constitution of the State be amended as follows:

First--  

The people of the State of California find and declare all
of the following:

(a) Beginning in the 2001-02 school year as a small and
temporary budget solution, and increasing significantly in the
2008-09 school year, California has excessively relied on deferring
state apportionments to school districts and community college
districts to balance the state budget. Over ten billion dollars
($10,000,000,000) is now used as a budget mechanism to fund
other government programs by withholding funds for our public
schools and community colleges and not paying what is owed to
them under constitutional K-12 and community college funding
guarantees, misleading Californians as to the true amount of cuts
and the actual funding available to operate our public schools and
community colleges.

(b) The fact that one dollar ($1) out of every five dollars ($5)
owed to K-12 schools and community colleges is not paid until
after the end of the academic school year has taken a demoralizing
toll on the teaching professions of both systems by contributing
to education program uncertainty and unprecedented educator
layoffs. Programs for K-12 pupils have been reduced or eliminated,
including all of the following: career, vocational, and technical
education; university preparation; afterschool programs; sports,
arts, and music; counseling services; libraries; and even core
academic programs. Community colleges have reduced access to
courses that students need to graduate on time.

(c) California’s increasing reliance on the budget practice of
deferring state payments to school districts and community college
districts results in broken promises to voters, students, and
educators because money arrives too late to be used during the
school year and is never recovered for the education of the students
for whom the money was intended.

(d) Because state revenue limit funding is reduced according to
the amount of property taxes collected at the local level,
low-property-tax-wealth school districts suffer more than
high-property-tax-wealth begin insert school end insert districts, in that state funding
represents a greater portion of their overall budget. As a result of
these property tax differentials, for some school districts the
amounts deferred represent only a relatively small amount of
money, while for other school districts the moneys deferred are a
much larger part of their budget. This practice ultimately violates
the Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution with
respect to California’s funding of public education.

(e) Cross-year deferrals have directly resulted in reduced local
school district and community college district control over the
maintenance of sound education practices, and have led to
inadequate course offerings, unreasonable class sizes, the
deterioration of education facilities for lack of maintenance
funding, and the depletion of reserves for economic uncertainty
because of accumulated annual funding losses. To make ends meet,
school districts and community college districts have suffered
increased borrowing costs and increased layoffs, and have been
forced to take emergency actions that jeopardize their long-term
financial health.

(f) Eliminating the practice of the deferral of state
apportionments to school districts and community college districts
will improve our children’s education by improving school district
and community college district financial health, and reducing the
risk of school district or community college district insolvency or
the disruption of services from emergency budget cuts to school
programs.

(g) This measure will force the Legislature and the Governor
to account for state funding shortfalls in an open way so that voters
can accurately judge what is actually spent on public education
without the mask of budget manipulation. If cuts are made to public
education because of lack of funding, those cuts should be done
openly and based on the projection of revenue for that year, and
without deferrals that suggest that a promised payment will be
made on some future date that has nothing to do with the current
school year.

Second--  

That Section 8.7 is added to Article XVI thereof, to
read:

SEC. 8.7.  

(a) The total amount due for allocation to school
districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and
community college districts to meet the minimum funding
requirement of Section 8 for a fiscal year, as estimated at the time
of the enactment of the Budget Act for that fiscal year, shall be
apportioned pursuant to statute during that fiscal year, unless that
minimum funding requirement is suspended for that fiscal year
pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 8. That estimate shall be set
forth in the Budget Bill passed by the Legislature.

(b) Apportionments of state aid to school districts, county offices
of education, charter schools, and community college districts shall
be made no later than the times specified by the statutory payment
schedule that was in effect during the 2000-01 fiscal year, except
that the Legislature may require by statute that these
apportionments be made earlier in the fiscal year.