Copyright© 2000 by School Services of California, Inc.

October 27, 2000

Let's Repeal the 50 Percent Law
--A Commentary

Since 1961, state law has required that K-14 school districts spend at least 50 percent of their current educational expenses on faculty salaries each year. In reality, districts spend more than 80% of their revenues on salaries and current law does not take into account the full scope of community college services and programs as a component of higher education.

If legislation were introduced to repeal the 50 percent law, the battle lines would be drawn in the sand. Most administrators would welcome the repeal of the 50 percent law with open arms, and on the other side, faculty unions, and organizations would do everything within their power to "kill" such legislation.

The 50 percent law is another one of those "appendages" that continues to haunt the community colleges from its days when the colleges were under the jurisdiction of the K-12 system. Simply put, community colleges should be treated as a higher education system and not like the administration of K-12 schools.

If the repeal of the 50 percent law is not a political reality, at very least it should be modified to reflect the constraints placed on the system as a result of AB 1725-the Partnership for Excellence, and other programs that mandate how the community college system spends its resources. Also, services to students provided by counselors, librarians and nurses should be included on the 50 percent side of the formula, because these employees provide direct services to students.

State Auditor's Report on Compliance with the 50 Percent Law

With prompting from various faculty organizations, the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, chaired by Assembly Member Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles), requested the State Auditor to prepare a report on whether the California Community College Chancellor's Office provides appropriate direction to community colleges on how to calculate their compliance with the 50% law. The Auditor's report concluded that poor oversight by the Chancellor's Office allows districts to incorrectly report their level of spending on salaries of classroom instructors.

The State Auditor visited ten districts and according to their report, six of the ten districts visited were out of compliance. The Auditor estimated that, in total, the six districts spent $10 million too little on instructor salaries, contrary to the Chancellor's Office records which indicated that all 71 districts reported spending at least 50 percent of its current educational expenses on instructor salaries.

The State Auditor's report contained the following recommendations:

To ensure that districts are accurately reporting their compliance rate under the 50 percent law, the Chancellor's Office should take these steps:

• Clarify its instructions
  
• Provide the districts with regular training on compliance
  
• Discontinue its existing practice of excluding noninstructional activities not enumerated in the 50 percent law or seek an opinion from the Attorney General to support its interpretation of the law as reflected in regulations
  
• Expand suggested audit procedures for district CPAs to detect errors in risky areas, such as faculty reassignments and exclusions from current education expenses
  
• Perform routine, independent checks of the work CPAs do for the districts
  
• Chancellor's Office Must Provide Leadership

The simplistic response to the 50 percent law is to repeal it; the University of California and California State University do not have similar requirements in their systems. We all know that repeal of the law is not a likely scenario. As a result, the Chancellor's Office has created a task force to review and provide recommendations and the issue is being addressed through the consultation process. Let's hope that the system's internal response to the 50 percent law will allow us to end up on the right side of the law to the benefit of students and the effective and efficient operation of the districts.

--Arnold Bray