BILL ANALYSIS �
Senate Appropriations Committee Fiscal Summary
Senator Kevin de Le�n, Chair
SB 421 (Hernandez) - Examination fees: Grant Program
Amended: May 8, 2013 Policy Vote: Education 9-0
Urgency: No Mandate: No
Hearing Date: May 23, 2013 Consultant: Jacqueline
Wong-Hernandez
SUSPENSE FILE. AS PROPOSED TO BE AMENDED.
Bill Summary: SB 421 establishes a grant program, administered
by the California Department of Education (CDE), for the purpose
of awarding grants to cover the costs of advanced placement (AP)
examination fees and/or International Baccalaureate (IB)
examination fees for eligible economically disadvantaged high
school pupils, as specified.
Fiscal Impact (as approved on May 23, 2013): Cost pressure of $3
million - $6.5 million, annually, in state funds, beginning in
2015-16. While this bill does not specify an amount of grant
funding to be administered, it essentially continues a
recently-sunset grant program for AP examination fees that was
funded at approximately $3 million in the 2012-13 Budget Act.
This bill will create additional cost pressure to add funding
for IB examinations to be included.
Background: AB 2216 (Escutia) Ch. 793/1998 established the AP
Fee Waiver program as a 5-year pilot program to provide grants
to school districts for the purpose of covering AP examination
fees for low-income students. Under this program students who
qualified for the grant were required to pay only $5 of the
(currently $89) examination fee. The CDE would reimburse school
districts for the difference in the cost of the fees based on a
formula tied to poverty levels of the students or the percentage
of the students at the school who are eligible for free or
reduced-priced meals.
That program sunset on January 1, 2013.
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Proposed Law: SB 421 establishes a grant program, administered
by the CDE, for the purpose of awarding grants to cover the
costs of AP fees and/or IB examination fees for eligible
economically disadvantaged high school pupils. This bill
authorizes a school district to apply to the department for
grant funding under the program based on the number of
economically disadvantaged pupils in the school district who
will take the next offered AP examinations and would require
that grants be expended only to pay the fees required of
eligible economically disadvantaged high school pupils to take
an AP or IB examination. This bill would require funding
priority be given to AP examination fees if there is
insufficient funding allocated to the grant program in a given
fiscal year year to cover all eligible fees. This bill also
requires the CDE to make every effort to obtain and allocate
federal funding for purposes of the program before expending any
state funds.
Staff Comments: This bill appears to be modeled after the
recently sunset AP Fee Waiver program; it is virtually
identical, except that is adds IB examination fees to the grant
program. This bill appears to reinstate the sunsetted program,
which creates cost pressure to continue its state funding at the
previous level of approximately $3 million annually. (The
program also receives approximately $7.7 million in federal
funds). By adding IB examinations to the program, which
currently cost $104 per test, this bill could create cost
pressure to increase grant funding to more than twice the
previous amount to encompass two distinct sets of examinations.
The AP Fee Waiver program has been subject to Tier III
categorical funding flexibility since 2009. Thus, money
allocated to schools for that program continued to be disbursed,
but could be used for any educational purpose. Under existing
law, that funding will continue to be flexible through 2014-15.
Enacting a new program creates cost pressure to move that
funding out of categorical flexibility.
Staff notes that as part of the 2013-14 Governor's Budget, the
Administration proposes to restructure the existing K-12 finance
system and eliminate over 40 existing programs. The
Administration proposes to primarily fund LEAs using a new
formula known as the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). The
LCFF would consolidate the vast majority of state categorical
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programs and revenue limit apportionments into a single funding
stream and would eliminate the statutory and programmatic
requirements for almost all existing categorical programs,
including the program which this bill appears to seek to
preserve.
The committee amendments would delay program implementation
until 2015-16.