BILL ANALYSIS
AB 1988
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Date of Hearing: April 14, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 1988 (Hagman) - As Amended: April 6, 2010
Policy Committee: Education
Vote:9-0
Urgency: Yes State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill, in order to avoid financial penalties for not meeting
minimum instructional day requirements, deems the Chino Valley
Unified School District (CVUSD) to have offered 180 days of
instruction for the 2008-09 school year, if the district meets
the following requirements:
1)Operates grades four through six in the Dickerson Elementary
and the Rolling Ridge Elementary Schools for 10 additional
days between June 15, 2009 and June 1, 2011. This measure also
requires these two elementary schools to provide at least 240
minutes for each grade level and day offered during this
period.
2)Maintains at least 75% of the 2008-09 total enrollment for
grades four through six at each school for each of the 10
additional days of operation, as specified.
3)Reaches agreement with the local bargaining units that
represents certificated or classified employees in CVUSD
regarding employee compensation for the 10 additional days of
operation, as specified.
4)Provides a quality educational program during each of the 10
additional days of operation, including offering
standards-aligned instruction provided by highly qualified
teachers and class sizes that are approximately the same as
those provided in the 2008-09 school year, as specified.
FISCAL EFFECT
AB 1988
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This bill proposes to waive fiscal penalties associated with the
Longer Instructional Day and Year Incentive (LIDYI) program for
CVUSD and only require the district to provide 10 additional
days of instruction, whereas existing law requires CVUSD to make
up the 34 days of instructional time it did not provide.
Essentially, this bill allows CVUSD to receive full funding for
not providing the full instructional day as required under the
LIDYI program and determined by the school district's auditor.
Therefore, there is a potential loss of about $7.6 million in
GF/98 savings to the state.
COMMENTS
1)Background . SB 813 (Hart), Chapter 498, Statutes of 1983,
established the Longer Instructional Day and Year Incentive
(LIDYI) program. This program provided incentive funding per
average daily attendance (ADA) to participating districts for
meeting specified minimum instructional day and minute
requirements. Over 90% of school districts, including CVUSD,
participate in this program and receive this funding as an
adjustment to their revenue limit funding (general purpose).
Most school districts receive between $80 and $100 per ADA to
participate in this program.
In order to receive the LIDYI funding, school districts are
required to provide a minimum of 180 days of instruction each
school year and a minimum of 240 minutes of instruction a day
or an average of minutes calculated as an alternative method,
as specified. If districts do not meet these minimum
requirements, severe fiscal penalties are imposed by the
state.
As part of an internal review of the 2008-09 school year,
CVUSD discovered two of its elementary schools-Dickson and
Rolling Ridge-failed to meet LIDYI minimum instructional day
requirements. Specifically, these two schools provided only
170 to 175 instructional minutes on 34 separate days in grades
four through six. Therefore, the schools failed to meet the
minimum for grades four through six. This failure was
confirmed via an audit by the state controller in March 2010.
Statute requires the state to assess a penalty, of
approximately $7.6 million GF/98, to CVUSD for the failure to
comply with the LIDYI program. The school district can either
AB 1988
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pay the penalty or meet the instructional day requirements it
failed to provide.
This bill would deem CVUSD to have offered 180 instructional
days for the 2008-09 school year, if it meets specified
requirements, including providing 10 additional instructional
days (rather than the 34 days it missed) for grades four
though six at Dickson and Rolling Ridge elementary schools
between June 15, 2009 and June 1, 2011, as specified. As a
result, the school district would not pay the $7.6 million
GF/98 audit penalty.
2)Current law authorizes the State Board of Education (SBE) to
waive the fiscal penalties for a school district or county
office of education that fails to maintain the prescribed
minimum length of time for the instructional school year,
minimum number of instructional days, or both. Statute also
specifies the SBE may only grant a waiver if the school or
schools maintain the instructional minutes and days equal to
those lost, as specified.
In order to offer the full 34 days as part of the 2008-09
school year, CVUSD applied for a waiver to the SBE to provide
days after June 30, 2009 (the official end of the school
year). The waiver was denied by SBE. The school district
opened Dickenson and Rolling Ridge elementary schools for 10
days prior to June 30, 2009, which met the provisions of AB 35
X3 (Hagman) at the time (see comment #5 below). CVUSD's
auditor, however, determined these additional days did not
meet the standard for instructional days and disallowed any
credit toward reducing the district's penalty.
Since an auditor determined CVUSD did not meet the minimum
instructional requirements, the district has limited options
to resolve the matter. For instance, the school district
cannot seek a waiver from the SBE at this point because a
monetary audit penalty has been issued. CVUSD could pay the
$7.6 million penalty, appeal to the Education Audit Appeals
Panel, or seek a statutory solution. This bill deems the
district to have met the 180 day instructional requirement for
the 2008-09 school year, with certain conditions, including
providing 10 additional days of instruction.
3)Flexibility to offer shorter school year . AB 2 X4 (Evans),
Chapter 2, Statutes of 2009, allows school districts to reduce
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the number of instructional days from 180 to 175 per year,
without losing LIDYI program funding. Districts have this
authorization through the 2012-13 fiscal year.
4)CVUSD , located in San Bernardino County, enrolled a total of
32,428 pupils in 36 schools in 2008-09. Dickerson Elementary
schools enrolled a total of 247 pupils and Rolling Ridge
enrolled a total of 278 pupils in grades four through six
during this time period.
5)Previous legislation . AB 35 X3 (Hagman), similar to this
measure, was held on the Suspense File in the Senate
Appropriations Committee in August 2009.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081