BILL ANALYSIS
SENATE RULES COMMITTEE SB 727
Office of Senate Floor Analyses
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UNFINISHED BUSINESS
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Bill No: SB 727
Author: Rosenthal (D), et al
Amended: 8/25/97
Vote: 27 - Urgency
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Senate votes not relevant
ASSEMBLY FLOOR : Not available
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SUBJECT : School finance: days of attendance
SOURCE : Author
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DIGEST : This bill changes the average daily attendance
upon which school districts and county offices of education
are funded from actual attendance plus excused absences to
actual attendance. The bill provides for adjustments to
school finance formulas so that districts and counties will
be held harmless from loss due to the elimination of
excused absences from the attendance count.
NOTE: This language is identical to the language that was
in the 4/17/97 version of SB 804 (Rosenthal) which passed
the Senate 34-0 and was subsequently used as a Budget
trailer vehicle.
ANALYSIS : Under current law, school districts and some
programs operated by county offices of education are funded
on the basis of the average daily attendance (ADA) in the
district or program. The attendance upon which the ADA is
calculated is the actual, physical attendance of pupils
plus excused absences. Absences from school may be excused
-- and, therefore, funded by the state -- for reasons of
illness, medical appointments, attending funerals, jury
duty, and similar circumstances. School districts are not
funded for unexcused absences: truancies or absences for
other reasons such as family vacations.
Typically, absences are excused based on a note from the
parent to the school briefly describing the reason for the
pupil's absence. In the early 1980's, the Legislature
became concerned that (1) poor school attendance, whether
excused or unexcused, tended to increase a pupil's risk of
dropping out of school and (2) the fiscal incentive for
districts was simply to make sure they received the note
from the parent to legally excuse the absence (and,
therefore, receive state funding), rather than to assure
that the absence was legitimate. The Legislature created a
pilot program involving several school districts to
determine whether or not a fiscal incentive could improve
actual attendance. Evaluations by the Department of
Education and the Legislative Analyst concluded that in the
pilot program actual attendance improved by about 3% in
elementary schools and by more than 5% in high schools.
In 1991, the Legislature enacted SB 407 (C. Green) which
permitted school districts and county offices of education
voluntarily to request from the Superintendent of Public
Instruction (subject to approval of the Director of
Finance) to be funded on the basis of:
Actual attendance
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The lesser of (1) the district's prior excused absence rate
or
(2) the statewide average excused absence rate for similar
districts
Thus, a district choosing this funding option could
actually increase its revenue by reducing its rate of
absences, i.e., increasing actual attendance, below its
historic absence rate or below the statewide average
absence rate.
This bill:
1.Repeals the provisions of current law requiring school
districts and county offices to apply, and be approved,
to participate in the alternative attendance accounting
program.
2.Requires that school districts and county offices of
education report the portion of their 1996-97 attendance
that is attributable to excused absence.
3.Requires that the Superintendent of Public Instruction
(SPI) re-calculate the per-pupil revenue limits of school
districts and county offices of education for the 1996-97
year so that the revised revenue limit, when multiplied
by actual attendance, yields the same total revenue as
was actually earned by the district or county using its
un-revised revenue limit and attendance including excused
absence.
4.Allows the SPI to make "compensating adjustments" to
re-calculated revenue limits of school districts, or
county offices, that can demonstrate that the district's
(or county's) 1996-97 excused absence rate was unusually
low due to circumstances beyond the control of the
district or county.
5.Requires that the SPI calculate revised per-pupil revenue
limits for school districts and county offices of
education for the 1997-98 fiscal year, based upon revised
1996-97 revenue limits, to be used as a basis for
calculating actual per-pupil revenue limits in the
1998-99 school year.
6.Requires that, beginning in 1998-99, all school district
and county office of education revenue limit funding be
based upon actual attendance, without including excused
absences, multiplied by per-pupil revenue limits that
have been adjusted as provided in the bill (see above),
to prevent districts from losing funding due to the
exclusion of excused absences.
7.Provides for transition from the use of ADA to actual
attendance in the calculation of "enrollment growth" for
the Proposition 98 guarantee of school funding. By
collecting attendance data according to both old and new
systems in the 1997-98 fiscal year, "old" numbers are
compared to "old" numbers and "new" numbers are compared
to "new" numbers. In this manner, growth calculations
are made so that no artificial financial advantage, or
disadvantage, results from change in the systems.
8.Provides for continued recognition of excused absences as
legitimate reasons for absence with regard to laws
concerning truancy.
Comments
1. Author's Purpose . Staff understands that the author
intends to redirect the attention of school
administrators from "collecting notes from home" toward
improving actual attendance, and to redirect resources
from absence verification and attendance accounting
paperwork, to efforts to improve actual attendance.
2. Financial Impact . This bill attempts to hold school
districts and county offices harmless from financial loss
that might otherwise result from the exclusion of excused
absences from funded attendance figures. Districts that
are able to improve actual attendance rates may realize a
modest financial benefit over time, but districts that
lose actual attendance will not be able to avoid
financial loss by replacing actual attendance with
excused absence "notes from home". Any district whose
attendance rates drop below its historical average level
will experience a revenue loss.
3. Technical Considerations . By basing revised revenue
limits on data collected in the 1996-97 fiscal year, a
year that is almost over, the revision mechanism avoids
potential inappropriate incentives for districts to
manipulate data in order to gain a financial advantage.
The actual first year of implementation of the new system
would be 1998-99, giving all districts and counties
sufficient time to prepare for the change. Finally, by
allowing the SPI to make "compensating adjustments", the
bill avoids the problems that might result from using a
particular year of data in which some districts may have
unique attendance concerns.
4. SB 1452 . This bill attempts to accomplish similar goals
to those envisioned in SB 1452 (Rosenthal) of 1996, which
was approved by the full Senate without a negative vote,
but died in the Assembly last year. SB 1452 attempted to
make the transition between funded attendance, with and
without excused absences, by making adjustments to the
attendance numbers. By contrast, this bill makes one,
permanent, adjustment to funding rates and thereby avoids
the need to maintain historical attendance adjustment
"factors" in future years.
5. Typhoid Mary . The existing system of attendance
accounting was probably devised to prevent schools from
suffering a fiscal penalty whenever it was in the best
interests of all students that an ill student stay home.
Changing to a system that pays only for actual attendance
may create a small incentive to get sick students to
attend, but the bill carefully maintains the law that
declares illness to be a legitimate (not truant) reason
for absence.
FISCAL EFFECT : Appropriation: No Fiscal Com.: Yes
Local: No
$500,000 maximum cost for mandated base-year report.
Unknown increase or decrease in ADA. Unknown district
savings.
The bill requires school districts and county offices of
education to report the portion of their 1996-97 attendance
that is attributable to excused absence. Because this
information is maintained by districts, the actual cost per
district for data processing or clerical paperwork should
be minor. Even relatively minor costs per district, when
multiplied by the 1,000 districts would result in mandated
costs well in excess of the Suspense limit. The
information reported to the Superintendent of Public
Instruction will be used to establish the base year.
Thereafter, ADA will go up or down depending upon actual
attendance. Under this bill the local education agencies
will save resources by no longer needing to verify
absences and will have a financial incentive to improve
actual attendance.
SUPPORT : (Verified 8/28/97)
Western Center on Law and Poverty, Inc.
Little Hoover Commission
Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office
NC:sl 8/28/97 Senate Floor Analyses
SUPPORT/OPPOSITION: SEE ABOVE
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