BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 2214
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Date of Hearing: April 12, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON HIGHER EDUCATION
Jose Medina, Chair
AB 2214
(Harper) - As Amended March 28, 2016
SUBJECT: Public postsecondary education: faculty royalty
income disclosure
SUMMARY: Amends the College Textbook Transparency Act; and,
requires the California State University (CSU) Trustees and the
governing board of each California Community College (CCC)
district, and requests the University of California (UC) Regents
to require its faculty members to annually disclose, on or
before April 15, 2017, and on or before April 15 of each year
thereafter, all of the income he or she received in the
immediately preceding calendar year from a publisher,
periodical, or provider of online content for royalties,
advances, consulting services, or for any other purpose.
Specifically, this bill:
1)Specifies that an adopter at an institution of higher
education shall not demand or receive anything of value,
including the donation of equipment or goods, any payment,
loan, advance, or deposit of money, present or promised, for
adopting specific course materials required for coursework or
instruction, except that an employee may receive royalties or
other compensation from sales of course materials that include
the instructor's writing or other work; and, specifies that
receipt of these royalties or compensation is subject to the
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employer's standing policies or collective bargaining
agreements relating to employee conflicts of interest and,
with respect to faculty members of the CSU and the CCC, as
specified.
2)Requires the CSU Trustees and the governing board of each CCC
district, and requests the UC Regents to require its faculty
members to annually disclose, on or before April 15, 2017, and
on or before April 15 of each year thereafter, on a form and
in a manner to be determined by the Trustees, the governing
board, or the Regents, as appropriate, all of the income he or
she received in the immediately preceding calendar year from a
publisher, periodical, or provider of online content for
royalties, advances, consulting services, or for any other
purpose.
3)Specifies that a faculty member, as applicable shall file a
form even if he or she has no disclosable income in the
calendar year; and that a faculty member shall file the form
required under penalty of perjury.
4)Requires the Trustees, community college district governing
boards, and Regents to ensure that the information provided by
the faculty members, as specified, is available to the public
on the Internet Web site of the institution at which the
faculty members teach; and specifies that the information
provided by an individual faculty member shall remain
available on the Internet Web site for as long as that
individual is employed as a teacher at that institution.
5)Stipulates that the Trustees, community college district
governing board, and the Regents, as appropriate, may require,
with proper notice and an opportunity for a hearing, a faculty
member who does not file the information required, as
specified, in a timely manner to pay an administrative fine of
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up to $50.
6)Specifies that the proceeds of any administrative fines shall
be collected by the Trustees or by a community college
district governing board, as appropriate, and shall be
deposited in a fund for allocation, as specified.
7)Requires the Trustees to deposit the proceeds of
administrative fines collected into the California State
University Faculty Royalty Disclosure Fund (CSUFRDF), as
established.
8)Specifies that the monies in the CSUFRDF are continuously
appropriated to the Trustees for allocation for expenditure
for general educational purposes at the campus at which the
faculty member who was assessed the fine is employed.
9)Authorizes the governing board of a community college district
to expend the proceeds of any administrative fines collected,
as specified, for general educational purposes at the campus
at which the faculty member who was assessed the fine is
employed.
10)Requests the Regents to allocate the proceeds of any
administrative fines collected, as specified, in a manner
similar to that of number five above.
EXISTING LAW: Establishes the College Textbook Transparency
Act, which, among others, requires publishers and bookstores
offering textbooks for sale to public colleges and universities
to disclose specified information and requires faculty and other
employees of public higher education to follow specified
practices in the adoption and purchase of textbooks, including,
but not limited to the following:
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1)Consider the cost in the adoption of textbooks;
2)When adopting, an adopter institution of higher education
shall not demand or receive anything of value, including the
donation of equipment or goods, any payment, loan, advance, or
deposit of money, present or promised, for adopting specific
course materials required for coursework or instruction,
except that an employee may receive any of the following:
a) Complimentary copies, review course materials, or
instructor copies. The adopters shall not sell instructor
copies;
b) Royalties or other compensation from sales of course
materials that include the instructor's writing or other
work. Receipt of these royalties or compensation is subject
to the employer's standing policies or collective
bargaining agreements relating to employee conflicts of
interest;
c) Honoraria for academic peer review of course materials.
Receipt of honoraria is subject to the employer's standing
policies relating to employee conflicts of interest; and,
d) Training in the use of course materials and course
technologies. Payment for travel and lodging and or meals
shall be subject to the employer's standing polices
relating to employee conflicts of interest and
compensation.
3)A publisher or campus bookstore shall not solicit faculty for
the purpose of the sale of instructor copies or complimentary
teachers editions of textbooks that have been provided by a
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publisher at no charge to a faculty member or other employee;
and,
4)Any self-published textbook by an instructor for use with that
instructor's class shall be exempt, if the instructor
discloses the publishing and use of those materials to his or
her employer institution (Education Code Section 66406.7).
5)Requires, as of January 1, 2020, any person, firm or
corporation that publishes textbooks offered for sale at the
UC, CSU, CCC or a private college or university to make the
textbooks available for sale in an electronic format (EC
Section 66410).
FISCAL EFFECT: Unknown
COMMENTS: Background. Textbook publishers are required to
contain the cost of postsecondary instructional materials by
doing a number of things including giving students the option of
buying books without additional "bundled" materials and
providing specified information to faculty on the books and
other materials that they sell, including both bundled and
unbundled options, and the net price of each product.
Additionally, the CSU Trustees and the CCC Board of Governors
are required, and the UC Regents requested, to continue to work
with their academic senates to encourage faculty to consider
cost when assigning textbooks, disclose cost and related
information to students, and work with publishers to deliver
cost savings to students.
Need for the measure. According to the author, "Many professors
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require students to buy the book they author, whether or not it
is the more cost efficient or most to-date version." The author
contends that, "Students deserve to have more transparency
within the school system to ensure that costs are as low as
possible."
Additionally, the author argues that, depending on longevity and
previous sales numbers, authors usually receive around 11-15
percent of a book's sales; for a book that costs $181.50, the
author(s) would make roughly $25 per sold copy and for a class
of 30 students a professor could potentially earn $750 per class
and for a larger class size of 125 students, a professor could
make $3,125 per class.
This measure requires the CSU and CCC, and requests the UC, to
have their faculty members annually disclose all of their income
received, in the preceding year, from royalties, advances and
consulting services; and, published said information on the
institution's Internet Web sites.
Policy considerations. As presently drafted, this measure
requires the CSU Trustees and community college district
governing boards, and requests the UC Regents to ensure that
faculty disclosure information shall remain available on the
Internet Web site for as long as that faculty member is employed
at that institution.
Many faculty remain within their campus or system for many
years; potentially, that could lead to many disclosure forms for
each faculty member being added to the Internet Web sites every
year. It is unclear as to whether or not the CSU and CCC or
even UC, have the storage capacity to post faculty disclosure
forms for the entire span of each faculty members' employment.
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Moving forward, the author may wish to consider only requiring
and requesting, as specified, the posting of faculty disclosure
forms to simply cover the most recent past year and current year
during the duration of a faculty member's employment; or, simply
just posting said information only when a faculty member has
something to report.
As presently drafted, this measure allows the CSU Trustees,
community college district governing boards, and UC Regents, to
determine what type of form and manner faculty shall use when
reporting, all of the income he or she received in the
immediately preceding calendar year from a publisher,
periodical, or provider of online content for royalties,
advances, consulting services, or for any other purpose.
According to the CSU, the system currently utilizes a form that
may be able to capture what this measure seeks. However, CSU
employees presently are to complete said form more frequently
then this measure calls. To note, if the CSU determines it will
need to create a new form, Committee staff understands that it
will have to be collectively bargained.
Moving forward, the author may wish to work directly with the
CSU in order to ensure the existing CSU form is feasible in
order to implement this measure.
Related legislation. AB 1582 (Allen and Harper), which is
awaiting a hearing in the Assembly Elections and Redistricting
Committee and this Committee, would, among others, require
public postsecondary educational institutions to disclose items
of value they receive as a result of adopting specific course
materials.
Previous legislation. AB 1548 (Solorio), Chapter 574, Statutes
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of 2007, which created the College Textbook Transparency Act,
requires faculty and other textbook adopters to follow specified
practices in the adoption and purchase of textbooks.
SB 386 (Runner) of 2009, which was held on the Senate
Appropriations Committee Suspense File, would have required
faculty members at community colleges and the CSU, and requested
the UC, to prepare a justification for any adoption of a new
edition of a textbook within three years after the adoption of a
previous edition of that textbook. The justification would have
been required to include a disclosure of any financial interest
of the faculty member related to requiring students to purchase
the new edition of the textbook.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION:
Support
Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association
Opposition
California Federation of Teachers
Analysis Prepared by:Jeanice Warden / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
AB 2214
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