BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Christine Kehoe, Chair
SB 361 (Berryhill)
Hearing Date: 04/11/2011 Amended: 03/31/2011
Consultant: Jacqueline Wong-HernandezPolicy Vote: Education 8-0
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BILL SUMMARY: SB 361 would extend the the sunset on the funding
formula for the Center for Advanced Research and Technology
(CART) to July 1, 2017.
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Fiscal Impact (in thousands)
Major Provisions 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 Fund
CART funding $1,000 $1,000 $1,000 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.
This bill extends for five years a funding formula for the CART
that entitles it to receive approximately $1,000,000 GF more in
annual funding than it would in the absence of this special
statute.
The CART was established as a charter school in April of 1998 by
a Joint Powers Authority established between the Clovis Unified
School District (CUSD) and the Fresno Unified School District
(FUSD). The CART is a career technical education center that
provides instruction to pupils from both districts and the
pupils spend half of each instructional day at the CART and the
other half in their regular district high school. The CART was
authorized as charter school by CUSD with the two districts
receiving the funding for pupils from their schools and using
those dollars to fund the program. CART teachers were employees
of the districts, not of CART. As charter high schools are
funded at higher rates than the revenue limits of either
district, converting to a charter generated more revenue than
operating as a non-charter.
Current law requires charter schools to enroll pupils in
classroom instruction for at least 80% of the school day, or be
considered "non-classroom based" charter schools subject to
special review and reduced funding. Current law also provides
that school districts and charter schools may not claim general
purpose funding for the attendance of pupils in classes that are
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not under the supervision and control of a teacher that is an
employee of the district or charter school. Current law also
requires pupils to generate funding when engaged in educational
activities under the immediate supervision of an employee of the
charter school.
As a charter, the CART ran afoul of both of these laws in that
the pupils were in charter school classrooms only 50 percent of
the day, although they attended regular high school classes
during the other 50 percent. Additionally, teachers from both
districts taught at the CART so pupils were not always being
instructed by employees of their
home district or the CART charter school. In 2006, the State
Controller's Office (SCO) auditors determined that the charter
school could not claim any funding for that year, or any later
year until the charter school either complied with the law or
was granted an exception. In 2007, SB 345 (Aanestad) allowed the
CART to operate at charter school funding rates (at the 2006-07
level) for the 2007-08 fiscal year to allow time to for a
permanent solution to be reached.
In 2008, AB 2246 (Villines) made the CART eligible retroactively
for receipt of charter school general purpose entitlement
funding for the 2005-06 and 2006-07 fiscal years (for which the
SCO had denied funding), and put in place a new funding model so
narrow that it functionally only applies to the CART. The new
funding model provided CART with similar funding as it would
receive under the charter model, if it were to comply with
charter school law.
While the funding formula is calculated to be cost neutral
relative to what the school had been receiving prior to the SCO
audit, the funding provided in AB 2246 is in excess of what the
pupils would otherwise generate relative to current law. FUSD
and CUSD have revenue limits of approximately $769 less per
pupil than the amount this bill would provide to the CART.
Assuming 1,300 units of average daily attendance at CART, this
bill would cost $999,700 GF annually.
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