03.26.10: Legislative Update
By David Walrath
The SSDA co-sponsored Senate Bill 898 passed the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday. The bill would establish small school minimum funding grants for after school programs. The bill next will go to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The SSDA supported SB 1051 that would allow school employee volunteers to continue to administer diastat to students suffering an epileptic seizure was not passed by Senate Education Committee. Prior to a ruling by a nursing board that only nurses could administer diastat, school employees had been allowed to administer the medication for the past ten years without adverse incident and to the benefit of pupils. The bill was held for further consideration after nurses, teachers and classified employee unions opposed allowing school district volunteer employees to continue providing this medication.
The SSDA supported AJR 31 passed the Assembly Education Committee. AJR 31 urges the federal government to honor its commitment provide the 40% funding of excess costs required for serving individuals with exceptional educational needs. Currently, the federal government provides 17%. The new federal budget proposal does not include an increase to that percent funding.
The Legislature passed and the Governor signed Senate Bill 70 and Assembly Bill 6 of the Eighth Extraordinary Session that would reduce Proposition 98 minimum guarantee calculations. The legislation reduces state General Fund revenues through reductions in gasoline’s sales taxes and reducing personal income tax revenues trough a new homeowner tax credit.
Register to attend the SSDA Legislative Action Day on April 14, 2010. We will be lobbying the Legislature for small district revenue limit deferral relief (Senate Bill 1136), explaining how the current funding cuts are affecting small school districts and explaining how the additional Governor’s budget cuts will affect your school district.
For more information on the free Legislative Action Day, please email Dave Walrath at dwalrath@m-w-h.com
For your information, following is a draft letter on SB 1136:
The Honorable Dave Cox
Member, California State Senate
State Capitol, Room 2068
Sacramento, CA 95814
Senate Bill 1136 (Cox)
Position: Support
Dear Senator Cox:
The _______________ School District supports your Senate Bill 1136 to help very small school districts. SB 1136 would provide some relief from excessive state aid deferrals to small districts with small budgets. Currently, the deferrals exceed our reserve for economic uncertainties and, therefore, require our district to make further program cuts in order to cover expenditures during the state aid deferral.
For the ______________ School District in 2009-10 the deferrals will be $____ which is __% of our district’s budget. We are a small district with a $____ statutory reserve for economic uncertainties. The reserve is for addressing cash flow, but it is not sufficient to meet the deferrals that are currently occurring and those that are proposed for 2010-11.
Current law has a policy to exempt small counties from some different state aid deferrals. Current law, however, requires a small school district to be subject to state takeover in order to be waived from state deferrals. State takeover is too extreme a situation for a deferral waiver and provides no relief for a small district.
SB 1136 proposes that middle course between no deferral and total deferral, where a very small district is still subject to a deferral but the deferral amount is limited to the statutory reserve for economic uncertainties. The __________ School District believes this is an equitable compromise that will meet the Legislature’s original intent to help very small districts with small budgets but still provide for state cash flow needs.
Thank you for your support of small districts.
Sincerely,
Following is a draft resolution on SB 1136:
WHEREAS the State of California has initiated numerous state aid deferrals to funding for school districts; and
WHEREAS the proposed 2010-11 deferrals could reach up to $2.5 billion at any time during the fiscal year; and
WHEREAS small school districts do not have large budgets and financial cushions to meet deferrals; and
WHEREAS the _____________ School District has had to make significant program reductions by ___________ (fill in program deductions); and
WHEREAS the ____________ School District statutory reserve for economic uncertainties is $___________ but the potential deferral for state aid would defer $___________ to the school district (SSDA estimates that a $2.5 billion deferral would result in $400 per average daily attendance deferral); and
WHEREAS because the deferral is potentially greater than the reserve for economic uncertainties the _____________ School District must make additional programmatic cuts in order to have sufficient resources to meet contractual expenditure obligations; and
WHEREAS SB 1136 (Cox) recognizes the fiscal difficulties imposed on small school districts by such excessive deferrals; and
WHEREAS SB 1136 would limit the deferral to no more than the statutory reserve for economic uncertainties for any school district with 500 or fewer students, and
WHEREAS the _________ School District has ______ students; and
WHEREAS current law provides school districts an exemption from deferrals only if the school district is subject to state takeover; and
WHEREAS current and proposed law does provide small counties with less drastic requirements in order to have relief from other types of state aid deferrals; and
WHEREAS SB 1136 does not have either an exemption from deferrals because of eligibility of state takeover nor a total requirement for deferrals, but SB 1136 creates the middle option for deferrals to cap at the amount at the small school district’s reserve for economic uncertainties.
Now THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the ___________ School District has adopted this resolution in support of Senate Bill 1136 (Cox).
