California Department of Education/County Offices of Education

School Financial Services Subcommittee

August 13, 2001

Meeting Notes

Attendance:

Chair: Ken Prosser, Region XIII Ventura COE

CDE Co-Chair: Caryn Becker

CDE Co-Chair: Scott Hannan

Region I - Lynette Kerr – Humbolt COE

Region II - Lisa Anderson – Butte COE

Region III - Joel Toste – Placer COE

Region IV - Ken Shelton – Solano COE

Region V - Pat Goss - Santa Clara COE

Region VI - Karen Sexsmith – San Joaquin COE

Region VII - Ann Peters – Merced COE

Region IX - John Fogarty - Orange COE

Region IX - Owen Sweeney – San Diego COE

Region X - Betty Richard –San Bernardino COE

Region XI - Debbie Simons – LACOE

CDE - Cindy Chan

CDE - Gerry Shelton

CDE - Kim Clement

CDE - Maria Fong

CDE - Ging Tucker

CDE - Rich Zeiszler

Agenda Items:

PASR Update: Gerry Shelton shared that CDE has decided to take a transitional approach to implementing the PARS data collection software. As a result, the date collection for 2001-02 P-1 will be the same as in the past. With a product delivery date of October 1, sometime in November/December the new data collection software will be available for a pilot process to test the new data collection process. CDE is asking for districts and county offices, and hopefully at least one countywide, volunteers to be in the pilot process. The pilot would compare and test the data collection results to the actual P-1. CDE is still planning on having full implementation for the P-2 data collection.

Distribution-New AB-1200 Funding to COE’s: Ken Prosser indicated that BASC would be developing a funding formula for the distribution of the new AB-1200 funding. BASC will be meeting on Friday, August 17, 2001.

Charter School Issues: Jan Sterling was not available to report on the County Office Charter Schools Oversight meeting, so this issue will be on next month’s agenda.

Kim Clements was present to provide information relating to the Independent Study Ratio for Charter Schools operating an Independent Study Program. There is a question tied up in CDE’s legal department relating to whether or not Charters can use a unified school district’s split ratios for K-6 and 7-12, or if they can only use the largest unified district’s total pupil/teacher ratio K-12. There was discussion as to whether this information should be maintained in a common location that all entities needing information on a county’s largest unified district’s pupil/teacher ratio can access. Questions and concerns were raised as to who should be made responsible for maintaining the validity of the ratios and the basis of the calculations. CDE is considering a recommendation that there be a set pupil/teacher ratio established based on an average of all grade levels.

The next topic of discussion for Charters Schools was on late starting Charters and understanding how CDE prorates Charter funding for less than 175 days of operation. The proration adjustment is applied at P-1 of the subsequent fiscal year and is applied to the charter’s prior year full entitlement. This approach will not affect the in-lieu of tax payment coming from the sponsoring district. The charter’s Advance Apportionment for the subsequent year is based on the P-2 Entitlement increased by the state’s advance apportionment factor for charter schools.

There was additional discussion related to the distribution of in-lieu of taxes. When the sponsoring district needs to send the money and how the calculation is done to determine the amount to be sent.

New Resource/Revenue Codes for New Programs in State Budget: A listing of new and proposed resource codes being added as a result of the State Budget was distributed. A question was raised as to why the Energy Block Grants were under a restricted resource as the general assumption was that the energy grants would be unrestricted. CDE switched resource #6211 to a proposed status and was going to look further into the matter.

State Budget Update: Gerry Shelton distributed Management Bulletin 01-03 dated July 31, 2001 and highlighted the document contents. Discussion centered around pending legislation and some of the rumors filtering out around to state relating to SB 347 – Instructional Improvement Block Grant and the impact on EIA funding and programs.

00/01 Beginning Teachers Salary Incentive Program: Betty Richard questioned CDE regarding the method of funding for this program. There will be two installments, the first 75% immediately and the second 25% to follow one-two months later. Legislation is being sought to allow a new wave of school districts to do a 2000-01 settle-up and thus be eligible for the funding.

K-12 Community Day Schools: Betty Richard questioned what ADA Community Day Schools are funded on. CDE responded that they are funded on Annual ADA.

CAL-SAFE: CDE would like to fund the supplemental services portion of CAL SAFE on Annual ADA. There was discussion as to which ADA figures would be more advantageous to the programs operating. Accreditation is optional.

CSAM Updates: CDE is currently working on a draft of Procedure 703 which will relate to booking the fair market value of cash in the County Treasury.

Software Changes: There was discussion related to CDE needing to get information from Direct Funded Charter Schools using the school code. Currently the SACS software does not go out to the school code field and so CDE is looking into how they can work around this issue and what options there might be. There are some compliance issues with the Comm Day Schools reporting. CDE asked that COE’s work with their districts to make them aware of the proper reporting methods. CDE is also trying to find ways to make people aware of how things should be reported.

COE Staffing: Santa Clara COE has an Attendance Advisor position and Pat Goss was questioning the group if any other COE’s had a comparable position for salary comparison. There were a couple of COE’s that did have a similar position.