BILL ANALYSIS
AB 2252
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Date of Hearing: May 5, 2010
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Felipe Fuentes, Chair
AB 2252 (Torrico) - As Amended: April 5, 2010
Policy Committee: EducationVote:6-3
Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program:
No Reimbursable: No
SUMMARY
This bill requires a continuous GF/98 appropriation to the
Superintendent of Public Instruction (SPI), commencing with the
July 1, 2012 fiscal year (FY) and each FY thereafter, in an
amount sufficient to enroll all income-eligible three and
four-year-old children in the state preschool program.
Specifically, this bill:
Expresses legislative intent to impose a tax for purposes of
fully funding all California state preschool programs.
FISCAL EFFECT
Annual GF/98 costs of at least $221.6 million to enroll 58,000
three and four-year old children in the state preschool program.
These children are currently waiting for slots in the program.
These costs would be in addition to the current funding ($438.9
million GF/98) in the state budget.
This bill requires funding for the state preschool program to be
continuously appropriated, which removes legislative discretion
to provide funding for other purposes, including K-14 education.
The governor's January proposed budget provides $439 million
GF/98 for the state preschool program.
COMMENTS
1)Purpose . The state provides both part-day and full-day
preschool programs. The part-day state preschool programs
provide comprehensive developmental programs for three to
AB 2252
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five-year-old children from low-income families (75% of the
state median income). The programs emphasize parent education
and encourage parent involvement. Also, the programs provide
meals or snacks to children, referrals to health and social
services for families, and staff development opportunities to
employees. The 2009 Budget Act provided a total of $439
million GF/98 to serve 117,000 three and four-year old
children in the state preschool program. Of this amount,
$373.4 million are on-going GF/98 funds and $65.5 million are
one-time GF/98 funds. There are approximately 58,000 income
eligible children waiting for slots.
In May 2009, RAND released a report entitled Preschool
Adequacy and Efficiency in California: Issues, Policy Options,
and Recommendations (Karoly), which states: "Although a body
of rigorous research shows that disadvantaged children can
experience sizable benefits in both the shorter and longer
terms from a high-quality preschool experience, California's
system of publicly funded center-based early care and
education (ECE) programs targeted to lower income children is
underfunded. At current funding levels, the system is able to
serve only about half of eligible three and four year-olds."
According to the author, "While efforts show a strong desire
to improve preschool accessibility, there are still well over
300,000 eligible children from low-income families who are
being deprived access to quality preschool care. Over
three-fourths of the publicly funded preschools have waiting
lists. The bottom line is that many parents simply cannot
afford to send their kids to preschool and they rely solely on
our public programs. Clearly, more needs to be done to find
the revenue necessary that will improve access to quality
education for every young child."
2)The California Children and Families Act of 1998 , established
by Proposition 10 are passed by voters in 1998, was created to
provide an integrated, comprehensive, and collaborative system
of information and services to enhance early childhood
development and to ensure that children are ready to start
school. The Act established the California Children and
Families program to promote, support, and improve the early
development of children, prenatal to age five. The Act is
funded by a tax of 50 cents per pack on cigarettes and an
equivalent tax on other tobacco products.
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3)Related legislation .
a) AB 2553 (Brownley), pending in this committee, requires
the State Department of Education, if it commences a
process for the creation of a school readiness data tool,
to establish guidelines and a plan regarding the creation
of this tool.
b) AB 2759 (Jones), Chapter 308, Statutes of 2008,
consolidated the funding of programs that serve children
between the ages of three and five into the California
State Preschool Program. Those programs included the State
Preschool program, the Prekindergarten and Family Literacy
program, and General Child Care and Development programs.
c) SB 1629 (Steinberg), Chapter 307, Statues of 2008,
established the Early Learning Quality Improvement System
Advisory Committee to develop a quality rating scale that
parents can use to identify high quality programs. The
Advisory Committee is required to complete its report and
recommendations by December 31, 2010.
Analysis Prepared by : Kimberly Rodriguez / APPR. / (916)
319-2081