BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 625
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CONCURRENCE IN SENATE AMENDMENTS
AB
625 (Bonta)
As Amended July 1, 2015
Majority vote
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|ASSEMBLY: | 76-0 |(May 26, 2015) |SENATE: |39-0 | (July 9, 2015) |
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Original Committee Reference: ED.
SUMMARY: Requires the State Controller, the Superintendent of
Public Instruction (SPI), and the school district superintendent
to meet before each audit of a school district that has received
an emergency apportionment to discuss the terms of the audit and
the timeline under which it will proceed.
The Senate amendments clarify that the provisions of this bill
apply to audits conducted by the State Controller and avoid
chaptering out changes to the same section of the Education Code
made by the local control funding formula budget trailer bill
(SB 78 (Budget and Fiscal Review Committee), Chapter 19,
Statutes of 2015).
FISCAL EFFECT: According to the Senate Appropriations
Committee, pursuant to Senate Rule 28.8, negligible state costs.
AB 625
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COMMENTS: The annual audits that are required of districts that
have received an emergency apportionment are in lieu of the
annual audits otherwise required. Information provided by the
author's office shows that these audits are usually late. In
fact, of the 38 due dates of audits for five different districts
in receivership, only four have been completed by the due date.
The others have been late by periods ranging from 43 days to 961
days (more than two and a half years). Late audits can cause
several problems for districts, including:
1)A lower credit rating, resulting in higher interest rates (a
credit rating agency did not give the Oakland Unified School
District a credit rating at all, due to the absence of a
current audit).
2)Difficulty in projecting financial needs, because the current
financial condition is not known.
3)Compounded audit exceptions, because problems are not
identified in time to be corrected prior to the next year's
audits.
4)Difficulty in locating old records, especially in districts
that has experience excessive staff turnover due to being in
receivership.
This bill is sponsored by the SPI, whose intent is to establish
communication between the SPI and the Controller prior to an
audit to develop a plan, establish coordination, and help ensure
that needed documentation is available and shared in order to
meet the audit's deadline.
Analysis Prepared by:
Rick Pratt / ED. / (916) 319-2087 FN: 0001143
AB 625
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