BILL ANALYSIS Ó
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|SENATE RULES COMMITTEE | AB 1307|
|Office of Senate Floor Analyses | |
|(916) 651-1520 Fax: (916) | |
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THIRD READING
Bill No: AB 1307
Author: McCarty (D) and Medina (D)
Amended: 9/3/15 in Senate
Vote: 21
SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE: 8-0, 7/15/15
AYES: Liu, Runner, Block, Hancock, Leyva, Mendoza, Monning,
Pan
NO VOTE RECORDED: Vidak
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE: Senate Rule 28.8
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 52-25, 6/3/15 - See last page for vote
SUBJECT: Working Families Student Fee Transparency and
Accountability Act
SOURCE: Author
DIGEST: This bill, requires, in lieu of encouraging, the
University of California (UC) and the California State
University (CSU) to follow specified notification and
consultation timeframes for approving and implementing student
fee increases, and urges the segments to continue to set aside a
portion of fee increase revenues for institutional aid to assist
undergraduate resident students thereby excluding undergraduate
non-resident students.
Senate Floor Amendments of 9/3/15 clarify that institutional aid
generated by a portion of undergraduate fee increase revenues
should be used to assist undergraduate resident students thereby
narrowing the scope of this section to the undergraduate student
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population.
ANALYSIS:
Existing law:
1)Provides that statutes related to UC (and most other aspects
of the governance and operation of UC) are applicable only to
the extent that the Regents of UC make such provisions
applicable. (Education Code § 67400)
2)Confers upon the Trustees of the CSU the powers, duties, and
functions with respect to the management, administration, and
control of the CSU system. (EC § 66066)
3)States that under the Working Families Student Fee
Transparency and Accountability Act (Act), UC and CSU follow
specific notice, consultation, and timeframe requirements when
approving student fee increases. (EC § 66028 - 66028.6)
This bill requires, in lieu of encouraging, the UC and the CSU
to follow specified notification and consultation timeframes for
approving and implementing student fee increases, and urges the
segments to continue to set aside a portion of fee increase
revenues for institutional aid. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires, instead of encourages, all of the following:
a) As changes in mandatory systemwide fees and financial
aid are being considered, the impact of these changes to be
explained to students.
b) Students be consulted via the appropriate statewide
student body associations before increases on mandatory
systemwide fees are proposed.
c) Adequate advance notice to be provided to students
regarding future mandatory systemwide fees.
d) All current and prospective students to be provided
timely information related to student financial aid.
e) The state's public colleges and universities ensure
transparency in the uses of mandatory system wide fee
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revenue and the rationale for implementing mandatory
systemwide fee increases.
1)Urges the CSU Board of Trustees and the UC Board of Regents to
maintain their commitment to institutional financial aid
programs by ensuring at least 33% of fee increase revenues
charged to resident students are set aside to assist
undergraduate resident students and thereby excluding
undergraduate non-resident students from receiving that
benefit.
Comments
1)Need for the bill. Under the Act, UC and CSU must follow
specific notice, consultation, and timeframe requirements when
approving student fee increases. According to the author in
November 2014, the UC Board of Regents passed a 5% per year
increase for a five-year period beginning with the 2015-16
academic year. The author notes, with the passage of this fee
increase, the UC was non-compliant with several statutory
provisions regarding public notice and transparency of
proposed fee increases established by current law.
This bill seeks to ensure that the UC and CSU adhere to
notification and consultation timeframes for increase student
fees.
2)Related Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) report. In March
2015, the LAO found UC to be non-complaint with several
provisions under the Act including: (a) most notification and
consultation procedures and; (b) developing a tuition and fee
policy that includes a list of factors taken into account when
considering an increase. UC did comply with the reporting
provisions by publishing expenditure information and
submitting the required institutional financial aid reports.
According to the report, UC believes it is not legally
obligated to comply because of its constitutional autonomy. To
note, CSU had not increased mandatory systemwide fees;
therefore, was not required to follow consultation or
notification procedures. The report found CSU also complied
with all other provisions.
3)Fee history. The Maddy-Dills Act previously required fees to
be: (a) gradual; moderate and predictable; (b) limited fee
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increases to not more than 10% a year, and (c) fixed at least
10 months prior to the fall term in which they were to become
effective. The policy also required sufficient financial aid
to offset fee increases. However, even with this policy, when
the state faced serious budgetary challenges the statute was
"in-lieued" in order to provide the institutions some
flexibility in dealing with the lack of state General Fund
support. The Maddy-Dills Act sunset in 1996 and since then,
the state has had no long-term policy regarding the way in
which mandatory student fees are determined.
Historically, fees have fluctuated in response to the state's
fiscal condition and the stated needs of UC and CSU, as
negotiated in the budget deliberations. These conditions have
triggered mid-year fee increases in the past. This bill seeks
to provide students adequate advance notice regarding
increases to systemwide fees.
4)Related budget activity. SB 97 (Committee on Budget and
Fiscal Review, Chapter 11, Statutes of 2015) among other
things, states legislative findings relative to the UC Regents
endorsing the framework for long-term funding agreed to by the
Governor and the UC President. The agreement freezes tuition
in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 academic years, and specifies that
the UC will implement reforms to reduce the cost structure and
improve access, quality, and outcomes. The reforms included in
the framework endorsed by the Regents are intended to create
capacity for all campuses of the university to serve more
resident students, including by using funds and existing
resources that can be redirected to higher priorities, such as
those currently being used to provide financial aid to
nonresident students are also available to enable more
residents students to enter the university at all campuses.
Consistent with these legislative findings, this bill
encourages, the 33% set-aside for institutional student aid
must be used to assist "resident students," in lieu of
"students," and thereby excluding non-resident students from
receiving those benefits.
5)Return-to-aid. For many years, UC and CSU have generally
returned 33% of student fee increases to institutional aid
programs. At CSU, the grant program is known as the State
University Grant (SUG). According to CSU, despite losing
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one-third of state funding during the recent economic downturn
the system maintained its commitment to the SUG program and
has done so for more than two decades.
Prior Legislation
SB 1461 (Negrete-Mcleod, 2012), as amended by the Senate
Education Committee, would have limited the amount by which the
CSU Board of Trustees could increase the mandatory systemwide
fees for resident undergraduate students, in a given year, and
requested the Regents of the UC adhere to the same limit. SB
1461 passed out of the Senate Education Committee by a vote of
8-0 in April 2012, but was subsequently held under submission in
the Senate Appropriations Committee.
SB 969 (Liu, 2010) would have placed an upper limit on mandatory
systemwide student fees, not to exceed a fixed percentage of the
cost of education as defined, and would have prohibited annual
mandatory systemwide fee increases from increasing by more than
the implicit price deflator for state and local government for
goods and services. This version of SB 969 combined elements of
SB 969 (Florez, 2010) and SB 1199 (Liu, 2010). The bill was
passed by the Senate Education Committee by a vote of 8-0, but
was subsequently held on suspense in the Assembly Appropriations
Committee.
SB 969 (Florez, 2010) would have placed an upper limit on
mandatory systemwide student fees, not to exceed a fixed
percentage of the cost of education, as defined, would have
prohibited student fees from ever increasing beyond the amount a
student paid at the time of enrollment, and would have
prohibited annual mandatory systemwide fee increases for each
new cohort of undergraduate students at the UC, CSU, and
California Community Colleges from exceeding five percent of the
preceding academic year. This bill's provisions were combined
with those of SB 1199. The combined version was subsequently
authored by Senator Liu.
SB 1199 (Liu, 2010) would have required the governing boards of
the UC and CSU to develop student fee increase methodologies
consistent with specified direction, and would have included
many of the same concepts found in SB 969. The bill's provisions
were combined with those of SB 969 and the hearing was canceled
at the request of the author.
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SCA 26 (Denham, 2010) would have amended the State Constitution
and imposed upon the UC a waiting period of 180 days before
mandatory student fees could take effect and limited annual fee
increases to no more than a cumulative 10% over the preceding
academic year. SCA 26 failed passage in the Senate Education
Committee by a vote of 2-2.
FISCAL EFFECT: Appropriation: No Fiscal
Com.:YesLocal: No
SUPPORT: (Verified9/4/15)
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
California Faculty Association
California State Student Association
University of California Student Association
OPPOSITION: (Verified9/4/15)
University of California
ASSEMBLY FLOOR: 52-25, 6/3/15
AYES: Alejo, Bloom, Bonilla, Bonta, Brown, Burke, Calderon,
Campos, Chau, Chiu, Chu, Cooley, Cooper, Dababneh, Daly, Dodd,
Eggman, Cristina Garcia, Eduardo Garcia, Gatto, Gipson, Gomez,
Gonzalez, Gordon, Gray, Hadley, Roger Hernández, Holden,
Irwin, Jones-Sawyer, Levine, Linder, Lopez, Low, McCarty,
Medina, Mullin, Nazarian, O'Donnell, Patterson, Perea, Rendon,
Ridley-Thomas, Rodriguez, Salas, Santiago, Mark Stone, Ting,
Weber, Williams, Wood, Atkins
NOES: Achadjian, Travis Allen, Baker, Bigelow, Brough, Chang,
Chávez, Dahle, Beth Gaines, Gallagher, Grove, Harper, Jones,
Kim, Lackey, Maienschein, Mathis, Mayes, Melendez, Obernolte,
Olsen, Steinorth, Wagner, Waldron, Wilk
NO VOTE RECORDED: Frazier, Quirk, Thurmond
Prepared by:Olgalilia Ramirez / ED. / (916) 651-4105
9/4/15 18:10:09
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