BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SB 884
Page 1
Date of Hearing: August 3, 2016
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Lorena Gonzalez, Chair
SB 884
(Beall) - As Amended August 1, 2016
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|Policy |Education |Vote:|7 - 0 |
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Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No
SUMMARY:
This bill requires the K-12 audit guide to include an audit
procedure for educationally related mental health service
expenditures, and requires the California Department of
Education (CDE) to report outcomes for students who receive
educationally related mental health services. Specifically,
this bill:
1)Requires audit procedures to be included in the K-12 audit
guide to review whether state funding for educationally
related mental health services was used by local education
agencies (LEAs) for its intended purpose in the 2016-17 fiscal
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year. Requires the audit procedures to be included in future
years if recommended by the Controller. Requires the
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI) to ensure any
negative audit findings are corrected, consistent with
existing law.
2)Requires the CDE to create a report on its compliance findings
and corrective action plans related to the provision of mental
health services for students with Individualized Education
Programs (IEPs) using data the department collects through its
verification and comprehensive reviews, including those
targeted and any randomly chosen for review. Requires the CDE
to provide this report to the appropriate fiscal and policy
committees of the Legislature by June 30, 2017.
3)Requires the CDE to create a report on pupil outcomes for
students receiving mental health services through an IEP using
data already maintained by the department. Requires the
outcomes to include all of the following: graduation rate;
dropout rate; statewide assessment results; suspension and
expulsion rates; participation in general education classes;
and postschool outcomes. Requires the CDE to provide this
report to the appropriate fiscal and policy committees of the
Legislature by June 30, 2017.
4)Requires CDE to include a link to the list of family
empowerment centers as part of their existing special
education procedural safeguards maintained on the department's
website.
FISCAL EFFECT:
1)Minor/absorbable costs to the Controller's Office to add an
additional item to the annual K-12 audit guide.
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2)Minor General Fund administrative costs to CDE of
approximately $10,000 to $20,000 to report on compliance
findings and corrective action plans and to report on pupil
outcomes, as specified, since reports are based on existing
data.
COMMENTS:
1)Purpose. AB 114, Chapter 43, Statutes of 2011, repealed the
state mandate on county mental health agencies to provide
mental health services to students with disabilities and
shifted the responsibility to school districts. In January
2016, the Bureau of State Audits released a report, requested
by the author and other members of the Legislature, on the
effect of AB 114 on mental health services for students. The
Auditor evaluated four Special Education Local Plan Areas
(SELPAS) and examined their use of mental health funds,
student performance outcomes, and whether they provided mental
health services to students as required by federal and state
law. The report found that mental health services and the
providers of those services generally did not change and the
number of students who received these mental health services
remained steady or grew. Although most services continued,
the report did find that for 40% of the students that had
changes to their mental health services or their educational
placement, the IEP teams did not document the rationale for
the changes.
According to the author, this bill provides fiscal
transparency of mental health funds by requiring the annual
local audit of LEAs to determine whether the funds were used
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for its intended purpose. This bill will also require the CDE
to create a report on student outcome data with information
provided by LEAs; such as graduation, suspension and expulsion
rates, etc., for children with a mental health service
component in their IEP. By providing statewide transparency of
mental health funding, student outcome data, and information
support to parents/guardians, it is the author's hope that
California can ensure that its most vulnerable children in
public schools are receiving the adequate care and services
they need.
2)Sources of funding for mental health services in schools.
Schools have several options for funding mental health
services to students with IEPs. Resources include state and
federal special education funds, Local Control Funding Formula
revenue, local tax revenue, Medi-Cal funds through the
Medi-Cal LEA billing option program, Early and Periodic
Screening Diagnostic and Treatment (EPSDT) program funds
through partnership with county mental health agencies, and
private insurance. The state audit referenced above found
that LEAs do indeed combine multiple funding sources to
provide these services. The audit provisions proposed in this
bill focus only on state funding provided pursuant to AB 114.
The 2016-17 Budget Act provides $360 million (Proposition
98/GF) and $69 million (federal funds) for services required
by AB 114.
3)K-12 Audit Guide process. Existing law requires the State
Controller's Office, the Department of Finance, CDE, and
certain education stakeholders to propose the content of the
K-12 audit guide for annual financial and compliance audits of
school districts, county offices of education, and other local
education agencies. This bill would deviate from the existing
process and require specific procedures to be included in the
guide for the 2016-17 fiscal years only. Procedures for the
review of mental health expenditures, as specified, could be
included in future years but only upon the recommendation of
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the Controller.
4)Audit concerns. SELPA administrators are concerned about the
ability of the audit to accurately attribute educationally
related mental health services expenditures to the district
level when districts are members of a multi-district SELPA.
Mental health funding is allocated to SELPAs. According to the
SELPA administrators, some SELPAs hold their member districts
responsible for providing all services and flow funds to
districts. In this case, the audit would accurately reflect
expenditures. However, some SELPAs coordinate expenditures
regionally and provide funds to LEAs or vendors on a
reimbursement basis. In this case, all early mental health
service expenditures would be reflected in the SELPA
administrative unit. According to SELPAs, these expenditures
are not reflected in an individual school district audit.
Committee staff has clarified this issue with CDE and CDE
indicates they would track expenditures in both of these
circumstances.
5)Opposition. The Coalition for Adequate Funding for Special
Education is opposed to this bill as they do not believe the
bill is necessary. They state that existing state and federal
special education law, regulation and legal decisions
appropriately ensure that children with disabilities are
provided the strongest education protections and due process
opportunities as compared to other children in our education
system. Specifically, the Coalition opposes the requirement
that the CDE report compliance findings and corrective action
plans related to the provision of mental health services using
data collected through special education verification and
comprehensive reviews. The Coalition does not believe this
will provide an accurate picture of what is happening
throughout the state and will instead spotlight LEAs with
negative findings since these verification reviews are
typically done on LEAs suspected not to be in compliance with
the law. The Coalition also opposes the requirement for CDE to
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report on pupil outcomes. The Coalition believes strongly that
this sets forth an unrealistic expectation that one can
legitimately link a student with disabilities' educational
outcomes with a single isolated service when the student is
receiving multiple services that are typically designed to
work in tandem to address the child's diagnosed disability.
Analysis Prepared by:Misty Feusahrens / APPR. / (916)
319-2081