BILL ANALYSIS Ó SB 597 Page 1 Date of Hearing: August 19, 2015 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Jimmy Gomez, Chair SB 597 (Huff) - As Amended May 26, 2015 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |Education |Vote:|6 - 0 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |-------------+-------------------------------+-----+-------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill provides a one year extension of the sunset date for the District of Choice (DOC) Program and requires the Legislative Analyst Office (LAO) to complete their evaluation of the program by January 31, 2016. SB 597 Page 2 FISCAL EFFECT: 1)No significant state costs associated with the extension of the DOC program. Local fiscal impact will vary depending on the type of district, the number of students that transfer, and whether or not the student qualifies for supplemental or concentration grant funding under the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). 2)Unknown, likely minor costs for the Legislative Analyst's Office to complete reporting requirements. COMMENTS: 1)Background. The DOC law authorizes the governing board of any school district to declare the district to be a DOC willing to accept a specified number of inter-district transfers. A DOC is not required to admit pupils, but is required to select those pupils that it does elect to admit through a random process and they are prohibited from choosing pupils based upon academic or athletic talent. Unlike the main interdistrict transfer law, the DOC law does not require agreement between the district of residence and the receiving district in order for the DOC to admit transfers. The district of residence has little say in the transfer process, except, districts with 50,000 or less ADA may limit the maximum number of transfers each year to 3% of their ADA and may limit transfers for the duration of the program to 10% of their ADA. Districts with more than 50,000 pupils in attendance may refuse to transfer more than 1% of their ADA. A district of residence may also prevent a transfer under this law if the transfer would have a negative SB 597 Page 3 impact on a court-ordered or voluntary desegregation plan or the racial and ethnic balance of the district. The law also provides DOC basic aid districts 70% of the base funding that the pupil would otherwise generate in the district of residence (the remaining 30% is a savings in revenue for the state). Transfer priority is given to the siblings of transfer students already attending school in the DOC. Students with special needs are admitted despite additional incurred costs, unless the transfer of those students would require the creation of a new program. 2)Purpose. Under current law, districts establish themselves as a DOC by adopting a local school board resolution. The DOC program has faced heavy opposition in the past from districts in declining enrollment that have seen a loss of students to a neighboring DOC district, resulting in a loss of revenue and shifting student demographics. In response to concerns over the program, in 2008 the state began to require DOCs to report the numbers of transfers they accept or deny. Despite this requirement, data has been inconsistently reported. Additionally, a report due from the California Department of Education on the effectiveness of the interdistrict transfer program was not completed due to lack of funding. Another evaluation was due to the Legislature by the Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) on November 1, 2014. Due to lack of data sharing between various agencies, the evaluation did not get completed. The intent of this bill is to extend the sunset date of the DOC program by one year, so that the LAO's evaluation can be completed by January 31, 2016, and the SB 597 Page 4 Legislature will have one more year to gather information before the program's sunset date. 3)Previous legislation: a) SB 680 (Romero & Huff), Chapter 198, Statutes of 2009, extended the sunset and repeal date for the School District of Choice (DOC) program from July 1, 2009 to July 1, 2016 and January 1, 2010 to January 1, 2017, respectively; repealed the prohibition on new districts electing to become DOCs; and, required the Legislative Analyst (LAO) to complete an evaluation of the DOC program and report to the Legislature by November 1, 2014. b) AB 1407 (Huffman) from 2009, was held on the Assembly Appropriations Committee Suspense file, would have extended the sunset and repeal dates for the DOC program for 5 years and required a census report on DOC by CDE by November 2010. c) AB 270 (Huff) from 2007, extended the authority for DOC inter-district transfers from July 1, 2007 to July 1, 2009, prohibited additional districts from becoming DOCs, and required school districts (electing to accept transfers) to maintain records on the number of requests it receives and annually report the number of requests it receives to the SPI. The language in this bill was incorporated into SB 80 (Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review), Chapter 174, Statutes of 2007. d) AB 97 (Nation), Chapter 21, Statutes of 2004, extended the sunset date for one year for the DOC authorization and required the SPI to continue the calculation for the Special Disabilities Adjustment using the current incidence multiplier to allow special education local plan areas to SB 597 Page 5 continue to receive funds provided through 2003-04 until a new multiplier is calculated. e) AB 1993 (Quackenbush), Chapter 160, Statutes of 1993, established school DOC and allowed the governing board of any school district to declare the district to be a DOC willing to accept a specified number of inter-district transfers. Analysis Prepared by:Misty Feusahrens / APPR. / (916) 319-2081