BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 597
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Date of Hearing: August 19, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
SB 597
(Huff) - As Amended May 26, 2015
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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