BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2445
Page 1
Date of Hearing: April 1, 2014
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Das Williams, Chair
AB 2445 (Chau) - As Introduced: February 21, 2014
SUBJECT : Community colleges: transportation fees.
SUMMARY : Specifies that a California Community College (CCC)
district governing board is authorized to enter into a contract
to provide transportation services to students and employees if
a majority of the students of that district, or individual
campus of that district, vote to approve the transportation fee.
EXISTING LAW authorizes a CCC governing board to charge the
district's, or campus of the district's, students and employees
for transportation services, provided that a majority of a CCC
district's students and/or employees vote to support a
transportation services fee before a fee is charged to any group
of students and/or faculty not using the service; establishes a
maximum transportation service fee amount of $70 per semester
and from $35 per intersession.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown. This bill is keyed non-fiscal by
Legislative Counsel.
COMMENTS : Background . AB 2812 (Higher Education Committee),
Chapter 954, Statutes of 1998, authorized CCC districts, upon a
majority vote of students or students and employees, to charge a
fee to students or students and employees in order to cover the
costs of contracted transportation services. A majority vote of
the students of the district is required, at minimum, every 10
years (the maximum length of the transportation services
contract). Elections are required to be publically noticed and
open to all students. Under AB 2812, low-income students were
exempt from paying the fee.
As a result of the increase in student utilization of
transportation services and an increase in the CCC Board of
Governors Fee Waiver recipients who were exempt from paying the
transportation services fee, Los Rios CCD faced rising numbers
of users and falling fee revenues. Without the ability to
divide the fee among all students, including low-income
students, Los Rios CCD was concerned that the transportation
AB 2445
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service fee would increase to the point that students would
likely not have voted to continue transportation services. In
2006, AB 1968 (Leslie), Chapter 560, Statutes of 2006,
authorized Los Rios Community College District (CCD) and Rio
Hondo CCD to include low-income students in the fee. In 2008,
with Peralta CCD governing board members and student leaders in
conversations with the local public transit authority to
establish transportation services similar to those at Los Rios
CCD, AB 1980 (Swanson), Chapter 145, added Peralta CCD to these
provisions. AB 774 (Cook), Chapter 253, Statutes of 2009,
authorized all CCC districts to include low-income students in
the fee.
Purpose of this bill . Existing law allows a transportation fee
program to be established for a "campus" upon the favorable vote
of the students. However, the Education Code states that any
election to implement such a program must be approved in an
election by a "majority of the students of that district." This
makes it unclear if districts can provide transportation
services to a single campus with a vote of just that campus or
if they need a vote of the entire district. This bill would
allow transportation fees to be adopted with the approval of
students at either a campus or district level, as applicable,
providing more flexibility for multi-campus districts to provide
transportation services to individual campuses.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
Community College League of California
Los Angeles Community College District
Rio Hondo Community College District
South Orange Community College District
Yosemite Community College District
Yuba Community College District
Opposition
None on file.
Analysis Prepared by : Laura Metune / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
AB 2445
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