AB 2235

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Existing law, the Leroy F. Greene School Facilities Act of 1998, requires the State Allocation Board to allocate to applicant school districts prescribed per-unhoused-pupil state funding for construction and modernization of school facilities, including hardship funding, and supplemental funding for site development and acquisition. The bill would revise the definition of modernization under the act to include the replacement of facilities on a site containing a permanent structure that is at least 25 years old or, in the case of a portable classroom, that is at least 20 years old, as specified. The bill would reduce the minimum amount that an applicant school district under the act must set aside for ongoing and major maintenance of school buildings from 3% to 2% of the total general fund expenditures of that district in a fiscal year. This bill would delete a provision requiring the State Allocation Board to conduct an evaluation of the cost of new construction and modernization of small high schools in conjunction with a specified pilot program. The bill would require each school district that elects to participate in a new construction or modernization program funded by the proceeds of any bond approved by the voters after November 1, 2014, to reestablish eligibility, as specified, and to conduct an inventory of existing facilities for purposes of maintaining a statewide school facilities inventory. The bill would authorize a grant for new construction or modernization under the act to be used for seismic mitigation purposes and for related design, study, and testing costs, and require the State Allocation Board, in the development of guidelines and regulations, to provide a school district with maximum flexibility in the design, modernization, and new construction of school facilities. The bill would require the Office of Public School Construction to recommend regulations to the board to provide school districts with flexibility in designing instruction facilities. The bill would require the State Department of Education, the Division of the State Architect, the Office of Public School Construction, and the Department of Toxic Substances Control to convene for the purposes of developing an interagency plan to streamline the school facility construction application, review, and audit processes in order to reduce the time and improve the efficiency of the school facility construction process. The bill would require that this interagency plan be submitted to the Legislature on or before July 1, 2015. (2) Existing law, the California Constitution, prohibits the Legislature from creating a debt or liability that singly or in the aggregate with any previous debts or liabilities exceeds the sum of $300,000, except by an act that (a) authorizes the debt for a single object or work specified in the act, (b) has been passed by a 23 vote of all the members elected to each house of the Legislature, (c) has been submitted to the people at a statewide general or primary election, and (d) has received a majority of all the votes cast for and against it at that election. This bill would enact the Kindergarten-University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2014 to authorize $4,300,000,000 of state general obligation bonds, as scheduled, to provide aid to school districts, county superintendents of schools, county boards of education, charter schools, the California Community Colleges, the University of California, the Hastings College of the Law, and the California State University to construct and modernize education facilities. The proceeds of these bonds would be deposited in the continuously appropriated 2014 State School Facilities Fund, which this bill would establish, thereby making an appropriation. The proposed bond act would become operative only if approved by the voters at the November 4, 2014, statewide general election, and the bill would provide for its submission to the voters at that election. The bill would require the Secretary of State to publish, and separately mail, a supplemental ballot pamphlet regarding the proposed bond act if it is not possible to include information regarding this proposed bond act in the ballot pamphlet for the November 4, 2014, statewide general election. The bill would provide for public examination of the translations of the ballot title and condensed statement of the ballot title of the proposed bond act, as specified. (3) This bill would specify that certain of its provisions would become operative only if the Kindergarten-University Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2014 is approved by the voters at the November 4, 2014, statewide general election. (4) The bill would make conforming changes in related provisions of existing law. (5) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.