BILL ANALYSIS
AB 487
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Date of Hearing: April 29, 2009
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Kevin De Leon, Chair
AB 487 (Brownley) - As Amended: April 14, 2009
Policy Committee: Education
Vote:8-0
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill authorizes local education agencies (LEAs) to sell
surplus or undistributed obsolete instructional materials (IM)
and establishes the State Surplus Materials Fund (SSMF),
administered by the Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI),
for the purpose of allocating funds to allow local education
agencies (LEAs) to acquire supplemental instructional materials
or technology-based materials. Specifically, this bill:
1)Requires 50% of the proceeds of any sale of surplus or
undistributed obsolete instructional materials (IM) to remit
to the state and be deposited in the SSMF. This measure
further requires the remaining 50% to be available to LEAs to
acquire basic IM, supplemental materials, or technology-based
materials.
2)Requires any organization, agency, or institution receiving
donated, obsolete IM to certify to the governing board of the
LEA that it agrees to make no charge of any kind to persons
whom the organization gives or lends the IMs.
FISCAL EFFECT
1)No direct state cost. There is a potential for additional
revenue to be expended for the purchase of supplemental and
basic IM. However, the State Department of Education and
State Controller will incur the unknown, GF costs of
administering a new fund, including the disbursement of
funding and auditing the use of these funds.
2)The 2009 Budget Act allocates $333.7 million GF/98 for the
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Instructional Materials Funding Realignment Program (IMFRP)
for transfer to the State Instructional Materials (SIM) Fund.
This represents a 19.8% reduction from the enacted 2008 Budget
Act in October 2008. Of this reduction, 15.4% was reduced
from the 2008 Budget Act in February 2009 and carried forward
to the 2009 Budget Act allocation.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . Statute requires the State Board of Education (SBE)
to adopt IM every six years for use in grades K-8 in the
following areas: (a) English language arts (ELA), (b)
mathematics, (c) science, (d) history/social science, and (e)
bilingual or bicultural subjects. School districts are
required to purchase these adopted materials (as well as
locally adopted materials for grades 9-12) for every student
within 24 months after adoption by the SBE.
Due to the volume of IM that school districts must purchase on
a regular basis, school districts have large numbers of
obsolete materials. Many school districts argue that
districts without storage capacity are limited under current
law with what they can do with these materials. Likewise,
given the state's fiscal crisis, this bill establishes another
source of revenue for LEAs to use in purchasing IM.
2)Current law authorizes school districts to dispose of obsolete
IM in the following ways: (a) donation to any governing board,
county free library, or other state institution, (b) donation
to any public agency or institution of any territory or
possession of the United States, as specified, (c) donation to
any nonprofit charitable organization, (d) donation to
children or adults in the state or foreign countries for the
purpose of increasing literacy, and (e) sale to any
organization that agrees to use the materials solely for
educational purposes.
This bill eliminates the restriction of selling obsolete IM to
organizations that agree to use the materials solely for
educational purposes. Instead, it simply authorizes the sale
of these materials. Also, this measure allows county offices
of education and charter schools to sell their IM. Current
law only provides this authority to school districts.
Statute establishes an allocation of GF/98 funds to LEAs for
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the purchase of IM. Likewise, Proposition 20: the Cardenas
Textbook Act of 2000 (passed by the voters in March 2000)
required 50% of the growth in state lottery revenues allocated
to public education above the amount for the 1997-98 base year
be dedicated to K-14 public schools for IM purchases.
Proposition 1C, before the voters in April 2009, authorizes
the state to borrow from future lottery profits for additional
GF revenue and eliminates the dedication of lottery funds for
IM.
3)SB 4xxx (Ducheny), Chapter 12, Statues of 2009 , waived the
requirement for school districts to provide IM within 24
months of materials being adopted by the SBE for the 2008-09
and 2009-10 fiscal years (FYs).
This measure also established unprecedented fiscal and policy
flexibility related to over 40 categorical programs, including
the IMFRP. Specifically, any LEA that received funding for
specified categorical programs in the 2008-09 fiscal year (FY)
is authorized to use this funding for any other educational
purpose until the 2012-13 FY. The LEA may choose to continue
operating the categorical program that it received funding for
or redirect it for any other educational purpose it deems
appropriate. Therefore, LEAs may redirect their IMFP funding
for another education purpose.
The purchase of IM is a substantial cost for LEAs because
every student needs them. The purpose of these two statutory
changes was to provide LEAs with maximum flexibility in
utilizing the large amount of state GF/98 allocated to them.
4)Does this bill provide an equitable distribution of proceeds
from the sale of IM ? This measure requires 50% of proceeds
from the sale of IM to be deposited into the SSMF and then be
redistributed to all LEAs in the state for the purchase of
supplemental IM, regardless if the LEA sold any IM. The
committee may wish to consider whether or not this is an
equitable arrangement for LEAs. For example, if a particular
LEA is more aggressive in the sale of IM, it still must
deposit 50% of its proceeds in the state fund and another LEA,
who may not have sold as many IM, benefits from their
proceeds.
5)Previous related legislation . AB 2654 (Coto) permitted the
sale of usable surplus or undistributed obsolete instructional
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materials by school districts to organizations that would be
permitted, with an assurance the materials will be used for
educational purposes, to sell the materials for a profit.
This bill was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee in
August 2006.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081