BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 63 Page 1 ASSEMBLY THIRD READIN G AB 63 (Bonilla) As Amended May 28, 2015 Majority vote ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Committee |Votes |Ayes |Noes | | | | | | | | | | | |----------------+------+--------------------+--------------------| |Education |6-0 |O'Donnell, Kim, | | | | |McCarty, Santiago, | | | | |Thurmond, Weber | | | | | | | |----------------+------+--------------------+--------------------| |Transportation |16-0 |Frazier, Achadjian, | | | | |Baker, Bloom, | | | | |Campos, Chu, Daly, | | | | |Dodd, Eduardo | | | | |Garcia, Gomez, Kim, | | | | |Linder, Medina, | | | | |Melendez, Nazarian, | | | | |O'Donnell | | | | | | | |----------------+------+--------------------+--------------------| |Appropriations |17-0 |Gomez, Bigelow, | | | | |Bonta, Calderon, | | | | |Chang, Daly, | | | | |Eggman, Gallagher, | | | | | | | | | | | | AB 63 Page 2 | | |Eduardo Garcia, | | | | |Gordon, Holden, | | | | |Jones, Quirk, | | | | |Rendon, Wagner, | | | | |Weber, Wood | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: Requires the California Department of Education (CDE) to apply to the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for the purpose of creating a specialized license plate program to generate funds for school violence prevention programs. Specifically, this bill: 1)Requires the DMV, after deducting its administrative costs, to deposit the fees collected from the sale of the specialized license plates in the School Violence Prevention Fund, established by this bill. 2)Specifies that upon appropriation by the Legislature, the moneys in that fund shall be allocated to the CDE in order to carry out one or more of the purposes of the School Safety Violence Protection Act, as specified in the Education Code on January 1, 2015, or as determined by the CDE for purposes of school violence prevention. Specifies that the moneys shall be available for both charter and noncharter public schools. 3)Requires the CDE to comply with all the requirements of the Vehicle Code that apply to a state agency sponsoring a specialized license plate program. 4)Authorizes the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to consult with the Board of State and Community Corrections, the State Department of Social Services, and the State Department of Public Health on school violence prevention and intervention in order to carry out one or more of the purposes of the grant AB 63 Page 3 program. FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Assembly Appropriations Committee: 1)Potential one-time special fund costs of approximately $440,000 to DMV to establish the specialized license plate program, including computer programming changes and updating forms. Pursuant to current law, DMV will make computer programming and form changes only after program applications meet a 7,500-application threshold. Therefore, the DMV will incur these costs only if it receives enough applications to require the CDE to implement the program. The DMV will incur minor ongoing costs to continue issuing specialty license plates and renewals under the program. All of the DMV's initial and ongoing costs will be covered by a portion of the additional $50 fee paid for original specialized license plates and the additional $40 fee to renew such plates. 2)Minor costs to CDE to submit the program application and license prototype to DMV, design and print the license plate application, and collect and hold applications and fees until 7,500 applications are received. 3)Potential ongoing revenue to CDE for grants to school districts, from a portion of the additional fees for new and renewed specialty license plates generated after the funding requirements are satisfied. COMMENTS: Background on school safety programs. Prior to the fiscal year (FY) 2009-10, the state provided funding to two categorical programs that focus on school safety and violence prevention. The Carl Washington School Safety and Violence Prevention Act (school safety block grant) provided direct grants AB 63 Page 4 for local educational agencies (LEAs) to devise violence prevention strategies in schools. Funds could be used to provide schools with personnel, including counselors, social workers, nurses, and psychologists; install effective and accessible on campus communication devices; establish in-service training program for school staff to assist school staff in identifying and communicating at-risk children and youth and referring these pupils to counseling; establish cooperative arrangements with local law enforcement agencies; or for use for other strategies for achieving school safety and prevention of violence. In FY 2009-10, the program received almost $80 million. The School Safety Consolidated Competitive Grants consolidated six programs - the Safe School Planning and Partnership Mini-grants, School Community Policing, Gang-Risk Intervention Program, Safety Plan for New Schools, School Community Violence Prevention Training, and Conflict Resolution - into one program. The program received $14.3 million in FY 2009-10. These funds were also used for a contract with the Kern County Office of Education to coordinate trainings for LEAs in various regions of the state on three topics: safe school planning, crisis preparedness and response, and bullying and cyberbullying prevention and intervention. The FY 2009-10 budget agreement imposed a 20% reduction on 39 categorical programs and gave LEAs that received those funds in FY 2007-08 the flexibility to use the funds for any educational purposes from FY 2008-09 through FY 2012-13 (SB 4 X3 (Ducheny), Chapter 12, Statutes of the 2009-10 Third Extraordinary Session). This reduction and flexibility provision is commonly known as "Tier 3" flexibility, which gave LEAs $4.5 billion in additional unrestricted funds. SB 70 (Budget and Fiscal Review Committee), Chapter 7, Statutes of 2011, extended categorical flexibility to FY 2014-15. The local control funding formula (LCFF), enacted in 2013, eliminated most categorical programs and integrated categorical program funds, including the Carl Washington School Safety and Violence Prevention and the School Safety Consolidated AB 63 Page 5 Competitive Grants, into school districts' base grants. These programs no longer exist. What does this bill do? This bill attempts to generate funds for school safety and violence prevention activities through the sale of specialized license plates. This bill requires the CDE to apply to the DMV for a specialized license plate after collecting 7,500 applications. Funds generated through the sale of the license plates will be directed for the purposes established by the School Safety and Violence Prevention Strategy Program, which is a competitive grant program, or other school violence prevention purposes determined by the CDE. Specialized licensed plate program. Prior to 2007, any new specialized license plate required specific legislative authorization. That practice was held to be unconstitutional by the federal courts in that the Legislature approved some of the plates and rejected others, while using no standardized or objective criteria for those decisions. In response to the court decision, AB 84 (Leslie), Chapter 454, Statutes of 2006, established the current specialized license plate program to provide a forum for government speech that promotes California's state policies. Specialized license plates created must publicize or promote a state agency, or the official policy, mission, or work of a state agency. AB 84 excludes private organizations from seeking specialized license plates as a forum for private speech, and thus addresses the court's objection. At least 7,500 paid applications must be received by the state agency before the state agency can notify DMV; this is to ensure that there are sufficient funds to pay for costs that will be incurred by the DMV. According to the DMV, the following plates have been created pursuant to legislation: a) 9/11 Memorial; b) Coastal Commission; c) Tahoe Conservancy; d) Yosemite National Park; e) Arts; f) Veterans; and g) Have a Heart, Be a Star, Help Our Kids. Two plates, Two Pet Lovers and Agriculture, were AB 63 Page 6 developed by agencies pursuant to statutory authority. It is unclear what process the CDE will use to collect 7,500 applications, whether the CDE will be successful in collecting 7,500 applications, or how much money will be generated. A number of bills introduced over the last few years have attempted to re-establish funding for various categorical programs. While the other bills propose to use the General Fund, this bill proposes generating funds though private sources. The author states, "According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, homicide and suicide remain the leading causes of death among youth aged 10 to 24. In addition, a recent study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development found that nearly 17% of school-aged children experience bullying. Nationally this equates to approximately 1.6 million children in grades 6 through 10 being bullied once a week and approximately 1.7 million children bullying other children. Much of this violence is preventable with strategies focused on identifying high-risk individuals, providing early intervention, and supporting communities, families, and those who are exposed to violence or prone to violent behavior." Prior legislation. This bill is nearly identical to last year's SB 544 (DeSaulnier), which failed in the Assembly Education Committee due to a lack of a motion and second to move the bill. The difference is that SB 544 would have directed the funds towards both the School Safety Consolidated Competitive Grants and the School Safety and Violence Prevention Strategy Program. This bill only directs the funds for the latter program, mainly because the statute establishing the School Safety Consolidated Competitive Grants programs were repealed through SB 971 (Huff), Chapter 923, Statutes of 2014, which repealed a number of categorical programs no longer in existence due to LCFF. AB 63 Page 7 Analysis Prepared by: Sophia Kwong Kim / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN: 0000670