Bill Text: CA ACA2 | 2013-2014 | Regular Session | Amended
Bill Title: Education finance: payment of state apportionments.
Spectrum: Moderate Partisan Bill (Republican 7-1)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2014-01-16 - From committee without further action pursuant to Joint Rule 62(a). [ACA2 Detail]
Download: California-2013-ACA2-Amended.html
BILL NUMBER: ACA 2 AMENDED
BILL TEXT
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY AUGUST 7, 2013
AMENDED IN ASSEMBLY APRIL 16, 2013
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Members Nestande and Olsen
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Bigelow, Harkey, Maienschein, Wagner,
and Wilk)
(Coauthor: Senator Cannella)
DECEMBER 18, 2012
A resolution to propose to the people of the State of California
an amendment to the Constitution of the State, by adding Section 8.7
to Article XVI thereof, relating to education finance.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
ACA 2, as amended, Nestande. Education finance: payment of state
apportionments.
Existing law establishes the public elementary and secondary
schools and the system of public community colleges in this state,
and provides for a system for their funding. Provisions of the
California Constitution require that a minimum amount of aggregate
funding, calculated as specified, be allocated to school districts
and community college districts unless this requirement is
suspended, as provided . Pursuant to existing statutes, school
districts, community college districts, and other local educational
agencies receive a portion of their funding through apportionments of
state funds made in accordance with payment schedules.
This measure would require that the total amount due for
allocation to school districts, county offices of education, charter
schools, and community college districts pursuant to the
constitutional minimum funding requirement described above for a
fiscal year, as estimated at the time of enactment of the annual
Budget Act for that fiscal year, be apportioned pursuant to statute
during that fiscal year, unless that minimum funding requirement is
suspended for that fiscal year pursuant to an existing
constitutional provision authorizing that suspension
year . The measure would require this estimate to be set forth
in the Budget Bill passed by the Legislature.
The measure would require apportionments of state aid to school
districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and
community college districts to be made no later than the times
specified by the statutory payment schedule that was in effect during
the 2000-01 fiscal year, except that the Legislature may require by
statute that these apportionments be made earlier in the fiscal year.
Vote: 2/3. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: yes.
State-mandated local program: no.
Resolved by the Assembly, the Senate concurring, That the
Legislature of the State of California at its 2013-14 Regular Session
commencing on the third day of December 2012, two-thirds of the
membership of each house concurring, hereby proposes to the people of
the State of California that the Constitution of the State be
amended as follows:
First-- The people of the State of California find and declare all
of the following:
(a) Beginning in the 2001-02 school year as a small and temporary
budget solution, and increasing significantly in the 2008-09 school
year, California has excessively relied on deferring state
apportionments to school districts and community college districts to
balance the state budget. Over ten
Approximately six billion dollars ($10,000,000,000)
($6,000,000,000) is now used as a budget
mechanism to fund other government programs by withholding funds for
our public schools and community colleges and not paying what is owed
to them under constitutional K-12 and community college funding
guarantees, misleading Californians as to the true amount of cuts
forced on schools and the actual funding available to
operate our public schools and community colleges.
(b) The fact that one dollar ($1) out of every five
10 dollars ($5) ($10
) owed to K-12 schools and community colleges is not
paid until after the end of the academic school year has taken a
demoralizing toll on the teaching professions of both systems by
contributing to education program uncertainty and has resulted
in unprecedented educator layoffs over the past decade
. Programs for K-12 pupils have been reduced or eliminated,
including all of the following: career, vocational, and technical
education; university preparation; afterschool programs; sports,
arts, and music; counseling services; libraries; and even core
academic programs. Community colleges college
students have reduced access to courses that students
they need to graduate on time.
(c) California's increasing reliance on the budget practice of
deferring state payments to school districts and community college
districts results in broken promises to voters, students, and
educators because money arrives too late to be used during the school
year and is never recovered for the education of the students for
whom the money was intended.
(d) Because state revenue limit funding is reduced according to
the amount of property taxes collected at the local level,
low-property-tax-wealth school districts suffer more than
high-property-tax-wealth school districts, in that state funding
represents a greater portion of their overall budget. As a result of
these property tax differentials, for some school districts the
amounts deferred represent only a relatively small amount of money,
while for other school districts the moneys deferred are a much
larger part of their budget. This practice ultimately violates the
Equal Protection Clause of the California Constitution with respect
to California's funding of public education.
(e) Cross-year Over the past decade,
cross-year deferrals have directly resulted in reduced local
school district and community college district control over the
maintenance of sound education practices, and have led to inadequate
course offerings, unreasonable class sizes, the deterioration of
education facilities for lack of maintenance funding, and the
depletion of reserves for economic uncertainty because of accumulated
annual funding losses. To make ends meet, school districts and
community college districts have suffered increased borrowing costs
and increased layoffs, and have been forced to take
emergency actions that jeopardize their long-term financial
health.
(f) Eliminating the practice of the deferral of state
apportionments to school districts and community college districts
will improve our children's education by improving school district
and community college district financial health, and reducing the
risk of school district or community college district insolvency or
the disruption of services from emergency budget
cuts to school programs.
(g) This measure will force the Legislature and the Governor to
account for state funding shortfalls in an open way so that voters
can accurately judge what is actually spent on public education
without the mask of budget manipulation. If cuts are made to public
education because of a lack of funding, those cuts should
be done openly and based on the projection of revenue for that year,
and without deferrals that suggest that a promised payment will be
made on some future date that has nothing to do with
is not within the current school year and
is unrelated to current General Fund revenues .
Second-- That Section 8.7 is added to Article XVI thereof, to
read:
SEC. 8.7. (a) The total amount due for allocation to school
districts, county offices of education, charter schools, and
community college districts to meet the minimum funding requirement
of Section 8 for a fiscal year, as estimated at the time of the
enactment of the Budget Act for that fiscal year, shall be
apportioned pursuant to statute during that fiscal year, unless that
minimum funding requirement is suspended for that fiscal year
pursuant to subdivision (h) of Section 8. That estimate shall be set
forth in the Budget Bill passed by the Legislature.
(b) Apportionments of state aid to school districts, county
offices of education, charter schools, and community college
districts shall be made no later than the times specified by the
statutory payment schedule that was in effect during the 2000-01
fiscal year, except that the Legislature may require by statute that
these apportionments be made earlier in the fiscal year.
