BILL ANALYSIS
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
2366 (Brownley)
Hearing Date: 08/02/2010 Amended: 04/27/2010
Consultant: Dan Troy Policy Vote: ED 7-1
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BILL SUMMARY: AB 2366 would delay a statutory revision to the
school district Meals for Needy Pupils revenue limit adjustment
until the 2013-14 fiscal year.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 Fund
Restoring MNP $34,000 $34,000
General*
* Counts toward meeting the Proposition 98 minimum funding
guarantee
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STAFF COMMENTS: This bill meets the criteria for referral to the
Suspense File.
School district revenue limits were established in the 1970s in
reaction to the Serrano v. Priest lawsuit that challenged
whether or not the differences in distribution of general school
aid throughout the state was equitable and conducted on a
rational basis. The revenue limit system allowed the state to
achieve greater equalization of general purpose funding per unit
of average daily attendance (ADA) by backfilling local property
taxes with the state's general fund. Ultimately, the court
ruled that general purpose school aid would be considered equal
if base funding fell within a $100 band (this amount is adjusted
for inflation over time) by different school district types
(elementary, high school, unified) and size (large and small).
The state has provided numerous funding allocations to further
equalize revenue limits over time.
In addition to the base revenue limit (BRL), the state funds
several add-ons on a differential basis. These add-ons include
the Meals for Needy Pupils (MNP) program. The MNP provides
about 370 districts with widely varying rates of funding (from
pennies per ADA to thousands of dollars per ADA), though there
is no requirement that any of this money actually be expended on
meals. MNP was intended to backfill local programs overridden
by Proposition 13.
Chapter 374 of the Statutes of 2009 (AB 851, Brownley), among
other changes, reformed the funding of MNP and the Minimum
Teacher Salary add-on by consolidating them into a single
adjustment based on 2007-08 funding rates, as of the 2011-12
fiscal year. The amounts districts would get for these programs
would be fixed as of the 2007-08 fiscal year and grow by the
statutory COLA (if applied). AB 851 also repealed the
underlying statutes for those programs as of the 2011-12 fiscal
year.
This bill is intended to delay the repeal and consolidation of
the MNP until the 2013-14 fiscal year. According to the author,
given the economic downturn, there has been an increase in the
number of pupils qualifying for free or reduced price meals.
Normally,
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AB 2366 (Brownley)
such an increase would trigger additional funding for some
school districts through the MNP. Given the changes made by AB
851, there will be no increase in funding absent the passage of
a bill to modify law.
According to projections provided by the Department of Finance,
delaying the implementation of AB 851 relating to the MNP
program, will cost an estimated $34 million annually for 3
years.