BILL ANALYSIS
AB 317
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 317 (Solorio)
As Amended January 15, 2010
2/3 vote. Urgency
EDUCATION 10-0 APPROPRIATIONS 17-0
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|Ayes:|Brownley, Nestande, |Ayes:|De Leon, Conway, Ammiano, |
| |Ammiano, Arambula, | |Bradford, Charles |
| |Buchanan, Eng, Garrick, | |Calderon, Coto, Davis, |
| |Miller, Solorio, | |Fuentes, Hall, Harkey, |
| |Torlakson | |Miller, Nielsen, John A. |
| | | |Perez, Skinner, Solorio, |
| | | |Audra Strickland, |
| | | |Torlakson |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Creates an urgency statute that clarifies the
Superintendent of Public Instruction's (SPI) calculation of
funding for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 fiscal year whenever Average
Daily Attendance (ADA) has been materially decreased as a result
of the H1N1 (2009) influenza virus. Specifically, this bill :
1)Deems an epidemic to exist, for the purposes of granting
emergency credit for lost ADA or for meeting the 175-day
school year requirement, as a result of any pupil absence
related to the H1N1 (2009) influenza virus in any public
elementary or secondary school.
2)Specifies that any decrease in ADA resulting from a pupil
absence related to the H1N1 (2009) influenza virus is a
material decrease for the purposes of granting emergency
credit for lost ADA or for meeting the 175-day school year
requirement.
3)Defines pupil absence related to the H1N1 (2009) influenza
virus to include, but not necessarily be limited to, an
absence of a pupil who has:
a) Tested positive for the H1N1 (2009) influenza virus,
also commonly known as "pandemic influenza" or "swine
flu;"and,
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b) Not tested positive for the H1N1 (2009) influenza virus,
but whose absence occurs during an outbreak of that virus
that leads to complete or partial closure of the school, or
to their parents or guardians reasonably concluding that
school attendance would subject those pupils to a
heightened danger of being stricken with that virus.
EXISTING LAW :
1)Provides funding for school districts that is, in part, based
on ADA, where ADA is calculated by dividing the number of days
of attendance for all pupils enrolled in the district by the
number of instructional days in the district's fiscal year
(FY), and a day of attendance is generally defined as a
minimum number of instructional minutes (specific to grade
level) in a classroom setting under the supervision of a
certificated employee of the school district.
2)Authorizes the SPI, for the purposes of calculating funding
whenever ADA has been materially decreased as a result of an
emergency related to fire, flood, impassable roads, an
epidemic, an earthquake, a major safety hazard, a
transportation strike, or an order related to war or civil
disorder, to credit a local educational agency (LEA) with the
approximate ADA that would have been credited to the LEA had
the emergency not occurred.
3)Defines, in regulation, a material decrease in ADA for the
purposes of granting emergency credit to occur when at least
ten percent of the students who would normally attend a school
do not attend on any one day.
FISCAL EFFECT : Potential loss of General Fund/Proposition 98
savings, likely less than $50,000, to continue providing revenue
limit funding (general purpose) to school districts due to H1N1
absences.
COMMENTS : Influenza A (H1N1) virus is the most common cause of
influenza (flu) in humans. Some strains of H1N1 are endemic in
humans and cause a small fraction of all influenza-like illness
and a small fraction of all seasonal influenza. H1N1 strains
caused a small percentage of all human flu infections in
2004-2005. Other strains of H1N1 are endemic in pigs (swine
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influenza) and in birds (avian influenza). In June 2009, the
World Health Organization (WHO) declared that flu due to a new
strain of swine-origin H1N1 was responsible for the 2009 flu
pandemic. This pandemic H1N1 (2009) virus is often called swine
flu by the media.
According to an Oxford University study reconstructing the
origins and timescale of the 2009 flu pandemic, the H1N1 "strain
has been circulating among pigs, possibly among multiple
continents, for many years prior to its transmission to humans."
The report also concluded that the H1N1 (2009) strain was
"derived from several viruses circulating in swine," and that
the initial transmission to humans occurred several months
before recognition of the outbreak. According to the
researchers, movement of live pigs between Eurasia and North
America "seems to have facilitated the mixing of diverse swine
influenza viruses, leading to the multiple reassortment events
associated with the genesis of the (new H1N1) strain."
The virus is contagious and is believed to spread from human to
human in much the same way as seasonal flu, though H1N1 (2009)
is more contagious than seasonal flu and the contagious stage
lasts longer. The virulence of swine flu virus is actually mild
and the mortality rates are relatively low. In mid-2009 the US
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) noted that most
infections were mild, similar to seasonal flu, and that recovery
tended to be fairly quick. The number of deaths from the H1N1
(2009) virus remains a only fraction of the annual number of
deaths from seasonal flu. According to the WHO in November,
2009, "more than 207 countries and overseas territories or
communities have reported laboratory confirmed cases of pandemic
influenza H1N1 2009, including over 7,820 deaths"; WHO has also
tracked more than 622,482 laboratory-confirmed cases of H1N1.
The first case of H1N1 (2009) influenza was detected in
California on April 18, 2009.
Due to the virus' historical origins, including earlier
outbreaks of H1N1-type strains in the 1970s, the CDC has found
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that children have no preexisting immunity to the H1N1 (2009)
strain but that adults, particularly those over 60, have some
degree of immunity. This has created disproportionate impacts
among public school students and has led to greater absences
than generally experienced during seasonal flu outbreaks.
The pandemic nature of the H1N1 (2009) outbreak, the difficulty
in making a symptom-based diagnosis that distinguishes between
H1N1 and seasonal flu, and the time and cost involved in using
laboratory tests to make that distinction led the medical
community in many cases to abandon laboratory testing for H1N1
(2009). In turn, state and county health officials, who are
responsible for issuing proclamations in the event of epidemics,
across the state have reacted in various ways; in some counties
officials have declared a H1N1 (2009) epidemic after flu
symptoms have been noted in the county population, while in
other counties no epidemic has been declared because no
laboratory confirmation of H1N1 (2009) has been made. This
non-level playing field has the potential for creating
inequitable impacts on funding for public schools.
Much of the funding for California's public schools is based on
pupil attendance; as more pupils are absent, funding falls.
Current law allows the SPI, in the event of specified
emergencies or disasters, including epidemics, that lead to a
material decrease in ADA, to credit a LEA with the attendance
and funding that would have been received if the emergency had
not occurred. In the case of absences resulting from illness,
the SPI has relied on state and county health officials'
declarations of the existence of an epidemic to certify that the
absences resulted from an epidemic. Clearly the non-level
playing field created by different decisions with respect to
declaring an epidemic makes the application of current law to
the case of the H1N1 (2009) pandemic problematic. The author
notes that, "Existing state law is inadequate to preserve
funding to schools during this crisis."
In addition, current law and regulation define a material
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decrease in ADA for the purposes of granting emergency ADA
credit to occur when at least 10% of the students who would
normally attend a school do not attend on any one day. The
author explains that, "Thus, large schools can experience
250-400 students who are home ill with the swine flu, but those
schools cannot claim the ADA relief since they have not reached
the 10% threshold." It should be noted that this 10% threshold
does not create a problem for FY 2009-10; on April 28, 2009 the
Governor declared a state of emergency with respect to the swine
flu, thus allowing the SPI to treat any decrease in attendance
as material under current law. The 10% threshold issue will,
however, be relevant in FY 2010-11 if H1N1 (2009) related
absences continue.
This bill proposes to eliminate the inequities that result under
current law and processes with respect to absences related to
the H1N1 (2009) virus by deeming an epidemic to exist, for the
purposes of granting emergency credit for lost ADA or for
meeting the 175-day school year requirement, as a result of any
pupil absence related to the H1N1 (2009) influenza virus in any
public elementary or secondary school, and by specifying that
any decrease in ADA resulting from a pupil absence related to
the H1N1 (2009) influenza virus is a material decrease for the
purposes of granting emergency credit for lost ADA. The
problems in applying current law to the situation that have
arisen with the H1N1 (2009) virus are real, and this bill
provides a valid proposal for mediating those problems; in
addition, by making H1N1 (2009) specific changes, this bill
deals with these issues within existing law and a process that
has been in place for more than thirty years, and allows both
the SPI and LEAs to resolve this issue using that
well-understood, long-used process.
Analysis Prepared by : Gerald Shelton / ED. / (916) 319-2087
FN: 0003586