Assigned to APPROP FOR CAUCUS & FLOOR ACTION

ARIZONA STATE SENATE

Phoenix, Arizona

FIRST SPECIAL SESSION
REVISED FACT SHEET FOR S.B. 1006
omnibus budget reconciliation; education

Purpose:

Makes changes to both permanent and session law to implement budgeting measures relating to education.

Provisions:

School Funding

1. Allows state funding for school safety programs to supplant existing district funding. (Currently, the state funding may only supplement existing district funding.) (Sec. 1)

2. Adjusts, from $2,532.60 to $2,559.93 per pupil, the base level for school district funding in FY 1999-2000. Increases funding to $2,585.60 per pupil in FY 2000-2001. (Sec. 6)

3. Increases, from 3 to 5 percent, the additional base level funding for school districts that provide 200 days of instruction. (Sec. 7)

4. Increases school district support level for specified Group B weights. These include kindergarten programs and grade one through three, orthopaedic impairment, emotional disability, moderate mental retardation, multiple disabilities, autism and severe mental retardation. (Sec. 9)

5. Establishes the K-3 Group B weight for FY 1999-2000 at .050 rather than at .060. (Sec. 15)

6. Requires early childhood block grant participants to establish accreditation by July 1, 1999 in order to be eligible for FY 1999-2000 program funding. Allows participants to operate on a provisional basis if they provide evidence that they are working towards accreditation. Allows new sites to receive monies if the site becomes accredited within eighteen months of receiving monies. (Sec. 16)

FACT SHEET - Revised S.B. 1006 - First Special Session Page

7. Requires the Department of Education, subject to legislative appropriation, to distribute $26 a day for each full-time student and $13 a day for each part-time student who attends an extended year or summer school program in a joint technological education district. (Sec. 5)

Accountability

8. Requires the Superintendent of Public Instruction to provide a report, in electronic form, that provides detail by function code on the current expenditures of individual school districts. (Sec. 3)

9. Requires each school to provide in its annual report card the average current expenditures for administrative functions on a per pupil basis and to compare these expenditures with the Joint Legislative Budget Committee (JLBC) report on predicted average school administrative costs. (Sec. 4)

10. Requires, by July 1, 2000, the JLBC staff to analyze school district budget data on administrative costs from FY 1998-1999. By December 1, 2000, requires the Auditor General to report to the Legislature on possible factors that account for certain school districts reporting particularly high or low average per pupil administrative expenditures. (Sec. 18)

11. Requires the State Board of Education to adopt and implement a statewide nationally standardized norm-referenced achievement test for pupils in grades two through eleven in reading, language arts and mathematics. (Sec. 14)

Charter Schools

12. Allows a school district sponsoring a charter school to compute separate weighted student counts for its charter and noncharter schools so that small school district funding can be maintained for noncharter pupils in a school district with a student count of less than 600. Specifies that a charter school's student count is not eligible for small school district weighted funding. (Sec. 2)

13. Requires a school district that converts a district public school to a charter school and then converts back to a district public school to repay the State, in one lump sum, all of the additional assistance monies received while the charter school was in operation. Reduces a school district's current year equalization assistance and general budget limit by the lump sum owed to the state in repayment monies. (Sec. 2)

14. Defines, from and after June 30, 1999, equalization assistance for charter schools as the sum of the base support level and additional assistance. (Sec. 2)

15. Eliminates, from the base support level, double funding of a charter school or its sponsoring district. (This occurs when a charter school was a district public school in the prior year and it received federal or state monies for basic maintenance and operations of the school.) Requires the reduction in funding to be equal to the sum of the charter school's or the sponsoring district's base support level and additional assistance monies for the pupils who attended the traditional public school in the prior year and the charter school in the current year. (Sec. 2)

16. Defines, for purposes of determining the applicability of the prohibition on double funding for charter schools, "operated for or by the same school district." Requires the Auditor General and the Department of Education to determine which charter schools meet this definition. (Sec. 2)

17. Prohibits a school district from including in its student count or adjusted student count pupils whose attendance has changed to a charter school sponsored by, operated by or operated for a school district. (Sec. 8)

18. Transfers the responsibilities for financial and compliance audits permanently from the Auditor General's Office to the State Board of Education or the State Board for Charter Schools, depending upon the jurisdiction of an individual school . Specifies auditing parameters. (Sec. 17)

School Facilities Board
19. Extends the deadlines related to the development of rules establishing minimum school facility adequacy guidelines as follows:

Final draft of guidelines: March 31, 1999 to July 31, 1999

Adoption of guidelines: April 30, 1999 to August 31, 1999

This change is retroactive to March 31, 1999. (Sec. 11, 13 and 20)

20. Changes, from August 1, 1999 to January 31, 2000, the date by which school districts are required to submit summary notices of quality deficiencies. (Sec. 12)

21. Changes, from December 15, 1999 to March 31, 2000, the date by which the School Facilities Board is required to submit a detailed cost estimate of the monies needed to correct existing deficiencies. (Sec. 12)

22. Extends, from April 30 ,1999 to December 1, 2000, the School Facilities Board rule making exemption. This change is retroactive to March 31, 1999. (Sec. 14 and 20)

23. Instructs the State Treasurer to transfer $200 million from transaction privilege tax revenues to the new school facilities fund in FY 1999-2000, regardless of the funding request made by the School Facilities Board. (Sec. 19)

24. Allows the School Facilities Board to disburse monies from the new school facilities fund before the minimum school adequacy guidelines are published.

Miscellaneous

25. Eliminates obsolete language.

26. Makes technical and conforming changes.

27. Contains a general effective date.

Amendments Adopted by Appropriations Committee

1. Permanently transfers responsibilities for auditing charter schools.

2. Allows the School Facilities Board to disburse monies from the new school facilities fund before the minimum school adequacy guidelines are published.

Senate Action

APPROP 4/1/99 DPA 8-6-0-0

Prepared by Senate Staff

April 1, 1999

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