Copyright© 2000 by School Services of California, Inc.
Waiting in the Wings-Legislature Returns to
Sacramento
The State Legislature has just completed its summer recess, and returns to Sacramento on August 7 to finalize its 2000 legislative session. Several hundred bills will be waiting for final action before the Legislature brings down the final curtain on this session on August 31, 2000.
There are several bills "waiting in the wings" that could have an impact on California's community colleges. Most of these bills are in their final committees and must be heard by August 21. After August 21 no committee may meet for any purpose. All the subsequent action will take place on the Senate and Assembly floors.
Legislation that does not make it to the Governor's desk during the month of August will be considered "dead."
Following is a summary of key bills that impact community colleges:
AB 206 (Runner, R-Lancaster): Equalization Funding
This bill would require the Chancellor's Office to annually compute an equalization adjustment for the credit program general-purpose apportionment of each community college district per FTES. Funds would be allocated for this purpose to each community college district for which the credit apportionment per credit FTES is less than the statewide target amount. The Legislative Analyst's Office (LAO) would be required to conduct a study of prescribed aspects of community college funding, and to report the results of the study in its Analysis of the Budget Bill for the 2001-02 fiscal year. Due to the veto of equalization funding by the Governor in the 2000-01 State Budget, it is not likely that this bill will be approved.
AB 383 (Cardoza, D-Merced): Uniform Salary Schedules
This bill would require the governing board of each community college district to adopt and cause to be printed and made available to each academic employee a schedule of salaries to be paid on the basis of a uniform allowance for years of training and years of experience. Similar bills have been vetoed by previous administrators, it is unknown what action Governor Davis may take.
AB 475 (Ducheny, D-San Diego): Community College Leadership Institute
This bill would require the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges to establish and operate a Community College Leadership Institute to recruit and train community college administrators and faculty. The bill would require that the institute operate a doctoral fellows program to assist qualified individuals to complete preparation for community college leadership at the doctoral level. The bill appropriates $1,000,000 to provide grants to individuals for these purposes.
AB 2337 (Ducheny, D-San Diego): Community College Finance
This bill would establish a mechanism for automatically "backfilling" any shortfalls in property tax allocations for the community colleges. Similar bills have been vetoed by previous administrations. Governor Davis' position is unknown at this time.
AB 2434 (Wildman, D-Los Angeles): Part-Time Faculty
This bill would provide that any person employed as a temporary employee who has served each regular quarter or semester in three of the five current and preceding academic years receives a preferred right to reappointment to the teaching position previously held. Districts are also required to notify individuals by March 15 of the current academic year that the district has made a decision not to offer the person reappointment to the teaching position previously held. Rumor has it that the Governor does not want this bill on his desk, pending the study of part-timers by the California Postsecondary Education Commission.
SB 358 (Ortiz, D-Sacramento): Short-Term Classified Employees
This bill would require the local governing board to specify a beginning, and ending date for work performed by employees who don't qualify to be members of the classified service. In addition, the bill would require that no more than 20% of the classified workforce may be hired for short-term employment, thereby creating a ratio of 80/20 for classified employees.
The above assembly bills are pending in the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Senate bills are awaiting hearing in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.
--Arnold Bray