On May 18, 2023, the Assembly and Senate Appropriations Committees acted on hundreds of bills that had been held on the suspense file due to their significant fiscal impacts. Bills are generally held on the suspense file before each fiscal deadline to allow the respective house to evaluate the total impact they can have on the state. The bills that moved out of suspense, now head over to the Assembly Floor or Senate Floor, and bills that were held in suspense become known as two-year bills and can proceed forward in the next legislative session.

Most of the bills on the suspense file advanced. The Senate approved 326 measures or 78%, and the Assembly approved 535 measures, or 71%. The following report lists CASBO’s active bill portfolio, and any amendments provided to get off the suspense file.

Two Year Bills

SB 691 (Portantino) Dyslexia risk screening. This bill would have required LEAs serving students in kindergarten to grade 2 to annually screen all students for risk of dyslexia using state-approved instruments, unless objected to in writing by a student’s parent or guardian, beginning in the 2024-25 school year.
CASBO Position: Oppose

 This bill was held in Senate Appropriations Committee due to literacy language being proposed in the May revision.

Note: The May Revision requires LEAs to screen students in kindergarten through second grade, for risk of reading difficulties, including dyslexia, beginning in the 2025-26 school year. It also provides a $1 million one-time Proposition 98 GF to convene a panel of experts to approve a list of screening instruments.

AB 533 (V. Fong) Charter schools: establishment of a charter school. This bill would allow a petition to establish a charter school application to be appealed to a county board of education when it is not otherwise approved nor denied by the governing board of the local school district within 90 or 120 days of receiving it.
CASBO Position: Concern

The bill was not heard in the Assembly Education Committee.

Active Bills

Budget/Finance

AB 938 (Muratsuchi):  Education finance: local control funding formula: base grants: classified and certificated staff salaries.  This bill would establish Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) funding target levels for the 2030-31 fiscal year with the purpose of increasing school site employee salaries.
CASBO Position: Support if Amended.  CASBO is waiting on additional clarifying amendments and looks forward to moving to a support position.

Note: CASBO appreciates the bill’s most recent amendments reflected on pages 11 and 12 in the committee analysis found here.

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Committee on Appropriations estimates ongoing Proposition 98 General Fund cost increases of between $2 billion and $14 billion to roughly double the LCFF base rates by the 2030-31 school year and make other aspirational changes to the LCFF.

SB 98 (Portantino) Education finance: additional education funding. This bill would define “average daily membership” as the measure of the total enrollment days for all pupils in an LEA from TK-12, divided by the total number of instructional days for the LEA in an academic year. This bill would require an LEA’s average daily membership to be calculated using data from the same fiscal year or years that the LEA used to calculate its ADA. The bill also requires at least 30 percent of the funds be used to address chronic absenteeism.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Fiscal Impact: The California Department of Education (CDE) estimates that by using student enrollment instead of attendance, this bill could result in increased funding to schools of approximately $3.6 billion each year

Career Technical Education/Workforce Development

AB 377 (Muratsuchi) Career technical education: California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant Program: Strong Workforce Program. This bill would combine the California Career Technical Education Incentive Grant (CTEIG) Program and the K-12 Strong Workforce Program into the CTEIG program administered by the California Department of Education (CDE). This would provide $450 million in General Fund, beginning in the 2024–25 fiscal year, to be made available for this purpose.
CASBO Position: Support

Fiscal Impact: The Senate Committee on Appropriations shares that the bill’s author intends to seek an adjustment in the Budget Act that would shift the $12 million from the CCC chancellor’s office to the CDE for the regional coordinators. This would result in no net change in Proposition 98 General Fund for this purpose.

Facilities

AB 247 (Muratsuchi) Education finance: school facilities: Kindergarten Through Community College Public Education Facilities Bond Act of 2024. This bill would create the TK-14 Act Bond as a state general obligation bond act that would provide $15 billion to construct and modernize education facilities. This bond would become operative only if approved by the voters in the 2024 election.
CASBO Position: Support

Recent amendments: include TK and add a $15 billion specified amount for the bond.

Fiscal Impact: The Secretary of State’s office estimates one-time costs of approximately $1.6 million General Fund for printing and mailing should this bond measure be placed on the November 2024 ballot.

AB 249 (Holden) Water: schoolsites: lead testing: conservation. This bill would aim to remove all lead from school drinking water and requires water utilities to test all potable water faucets and fixtures in TK-12 schools for lead by 2027. Lead concentrations must be reduced to below five parts per billion (5 ppb) via filters and/or faucet replacements. This is the exceedance standard adopted by the Department of Social Services for the lead testing of water in licensed child care centers directives, pursuant to AB 2370. This bill would require the State Water Resources Control Board to allocate $10 million each fiscal year from the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) to pay for sampling and remediation in schools. The bill would require a community water system to prepare a sampling plan for each schoolsite where lead sampling is required.
CASBO Position: Oppose unless Amended

Recent Amendments: narrow the scope of the bill to include just Title 1 school sites and if an LEA refuses to allow the community water system access to the schoolsite or fails to respond to the second notice, the community water system shall notify the state board of the noncompliance.

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Committee on Appropriations shares that to the extent the $20 million allocated to replace faucets from the federal Drinking Water State Revolving Fund does not cover the cost of this requirement, an LEA may have to find alternative funding to cover costs, such as from its Proposition 98 General Fund general purpose funding.

SB 28 (Glazer) Education finance: school facilities: PK–12, and College Health and Safety Bond Act of 2024. This bill would place a $15.5 billion bond on the 2024 ballot for facilities at public preschools, K-14 and University of California (UC) campuses, and California State University (CSU) campuses. Schools can use the bond monies to construct, reconstruct, and remodel existing or new facilities.
CASBO Position: Watch

Fiscal Impact: This bill would result in one-time General Fund costs to the Secretary of State (SOS) in the range of $738,000 to $984,000, likely in 2023-24, for printing and mailing costs to place the measure on the ballot in a statewide election.

SB 499 (Menjivar): School facilities: School Extreme Heat Action Plan Act of 2023.  This bill would create the School Extreme Heat Action Plan Act of 2023, which would require all schoolsites, the next time outdoor surfaces are resurfaced or replaced, to replace low specific heat surfaces, such as cement, asphalt, brick, pebbles, rubber amongst others, with high specific heat surfaces such as cool pavement technologies, natural grass, shrubs, and trees. This bill would require on or before January 1, 2025, all schoolsites, to develop an extreme heat action plan, and, by January 1, 2027, to begin implementation of their extreme heat action plan.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Recent Amendments: require CDE, in consultation with the State Department of Social Services, to develop a template and make a model program guidebook available. This would now make implementation contingent upon an appropriation by the Legislature.

Fiscal Impact: Acknowledging the bill is now contingent upon an appropriation, the Senate Committee on Appropriations estimates this could lead to one-time Proposition 98 GF cost pressure in the low to mid hundreds of millions of dollars.

SB 532 (Wiener): Ballot measures: local taxes. This bill would improve financial disclosures for local bonds and create new disclosures for tiered tax rates in the voter information guide, helping voters better understand the potential financial impacts of a proposed tax measure. This change would enable local jurisdictions to provide enhanced information in the voter information guide rather than on the 75-word ballot label, which does not provide enough space for appropriate context and explanation, ultimately causing confusion among voters.
CASBO Position: Support

Recent Amendments: specify that, if the 75-word cap is exceeded, the type size of the fiscal disclosure may be reduced by the minimal amount needed to prevent necessitating and extra ballot card, as long as the type size is (1) no smaller than 8- point, and (2) reduced by the same amount for all ballot measures.

Fiscal Impact: The Secretary of State (SOS) indicates that it would incur first-year costs of $133,000, and $128,000 annually thereafter, to review and recertify ballot-on-demand systems and inspect/recertify ballot printing facilities. (General Fund).

Health and Safety

AB 19 (Joe Patterson) Pupil health: opioid antagonists.This bill would require each individual public school operated by an LEA to maintain at least two doses of naloxone hydrochloride or another opioid antagonist for purposes of those authorizations.
CASBO Position: Support

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Appropriations Committee indicates ongoing Proposition 98 GF costs of about $1.1 million annually for each public school to maintain at least two doses of naloxone hydrochloride or another opioid antagonist on its campus. 

SB 10 (Cortese) Pupil health: opioid overdose prevention and treatment. This bill would expand statewide prevention and education efforts to combat overdoses and fentanyl-related deaths that have plagued youth statewide.
CASBO Position: Watch

SB 868 (Wilk) Pupil safety: trauma kits.This bill would require LEAs to equip each classroom with a trauma kit and to offer training to employees on the use of such kits. Employees who render emergency care with such kits are granted qualified immunity from civil damages.
CASBO Position: Support

Recent Amendments: Recent Amendments: add a notification that, at least once each school year, an LEA’s administrative employees, classified employees, pupil services employees, and teachers of the location of the trauma kits and are provided with contact information for training in the use.

Fiscal Impact: The bill is contingent upon a budget appropriation and the Senate Committee on Appropriations estimates the bill could lead to one-time Proposition 98 GF cost pressures ranging from $9.8 million to 23.4 million statewide.

Human Resources

AB 383 (Zbur) California Classified School Employee Teacher Credentialing Program: leave of absence for student teaching. This bill would modify the California Classified School Employee Teacher Credentialing Program (CSETCP) to require a LEA receiving grant funds from CSETCP to provide a classified employee participating in CSETCP with a leave of absence of up to 600 hours to complete a teacher training program, wage replacement for that leave of absence, and benefits during that absence. The bill also requires a classified employee participating in CSETCP to reimburse these costs to an LEA if the employee does not complete a teacher training program or honor a commitment to teach at the LEA after completing a teacher training program.
CASBO Position: Watch

Recent Amendments: make the bill contengient upon a budget appropriation.

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Committee on Appropriations estimates Proposition GF pressures, potentially in the millions of dollars, to existing CSETCP grant funds to provide funding for wage replacement and benefits while classified employees complete their teacher training programs.

AB 452 (Addis) Childhood sexual assault: statute of limitations. This bill would eliminate time limitations on when people may file civil lawsuits seeking damages for childhood sexual assault against specified defendants, including state and local agencies and public schools. The bill specifies the change in time limit would apply only to causes of action arising on or after January 1, 2024.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Committee on Appropriations estimates unknown, potentially significant costs (General Fund) to state entities if litigation is successfully brought against them outside the current statute of limitations.

AB 897 (McCarty) Certificated school employees: probationary employees: service credit. This bill would require adult education teachers to earn permanent status after a two-year probationary period; requires certificated employees working at least 60% of a full time position and who have served for at least 75% of the number of days of their assignment to be considered to have served a complete school year for purposes of attaining permanent status; and, requires employees hired using “categorical” or restricted state funding to be notified of the following at the time of hire: the expected end date of employment, the source of funding, and the nature of the categorically funded program or project.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Recent Amendments: limits the bill to adult education teachers.

AB 1699 (McCarty): K–14 classified employees: part-time or full-time vacancies: public postings. This bill would require vacancies for part-time or full-time positions of an education employer to be open only to current regular and hourly employees, before the vacancy may be posted publicly for the general public to apply. The bill would require an interested part-time employee who does not meet the minimum qualifications for a vacancy to be offered paid on-the-job training for that vacancy. The bill would also require an education employer to accept a current part-time employee’s number of years of service with the education employer, regardless of the capacity in which they were earned when that part-time employee applies for an additional part-time assignment that requires a certain number of years of service.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Recent amendments: limits the required training and make other changes.

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Committee on Appropriations estimates ongoing Proposition 98 GF costs of an unknown, but potentially significant amount, to LEAs to the extent newly permanent employees seek due process related to dismissal.

SB 433 (Cortese): Classified school and community college employees: disciplinary hearings: impartial third-party hearing officers. This bill would require an impartial third-party hearing officer to determine, on appeal, if a classified school or community college employee should be subject to disciplinary action.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Recent Amendments: clarify that the bill’s requirements apply to disciplinary decisions, not initial decisions, maintain the existing appeals process for peace officers; and make other clarifying changes.

Fiscal Impact: The Senate Committee on Appropriations estimates that by requiring a neutral third-party to settle disciplinary appeal hearings for non-merit districts, this bill could result in unknown, but potentially significant Proposition 98 GF costs to school and community college districts. A precise amount would depend on the number and scope of such proceedings each year.

SB 765 (Portantino): Teachers: retired teachers: teacher preparation. This bill would, until December 31, 2026, exempt a classroom teacher or administrator, who has returned to work after retirement to fulfill a critical need in a classroom teaching position due to the teacher shortage, from the 180-day break in service requirement and the postretirement compensation limitation.
CASBO Position: Support

Fiscal Impact: The Senate Appropriations Committee estimates that by exempting retired teachers that return to work from postretirement compensation limits, this bill could potentially have long-term implications on CalSTRS volatility towards paying benefits. Specifically, it could lead to an undetermined increase in the state’s share of costs and school district pension fund contributions.

Transportation

AB 579 (Ting) Schoolbuses: zero-emission vehicles. This bill would require, commencing January 1, 2035, all newly purchased or contracted school buses of a LEA to be zero-emission vehicles.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Committee on Appropriations estimates that at full implementation, the total cost to replace the entire fleet of school buses with zero-emission school buses in the state (assuming 23,000 school buses must be purchased, as about 1,000 school buses in California are already zero-emissions vehicles) would be about $5 billion over time.

SB 88 (Skinner): Pupil transportation: driver qualifications. This bill would impose new requirements on drivers who provide transportation services to students, including background checks and requiring the drivers to be mandated reporters. The bill also mandates all vehicles used for student transportation for compensation by LEAs to be inspected and euipped with a first aid kit and a fire extinguisher.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Fiscal Impact: The Senate Committee on Appropriations estimates that any cost to comply with the bill’s requirements could possibly be shifted to the drivers, such as the completion of medical exams, drug and alcohol testing, and completion of the driver’s training requirement. However, this could lead to an increase in the amounts being charged to LEAs for the transportation services. LEAs may also incur additional costs to ensure that drivers meet the new qualifications such as verifying background checks, providing training on mandated reporter responsibilities, and confirming that vehicles are properly equipped.

Bills in the Second House

AB 721 (Valencia) School districts: budgets: public hearings: notice. This bill would modernize the statutory requirement for county superintendents to publish district budget meeting notices to either their website, newspaper, or both.
CASBO Position: Support

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Appropriations Committee estimates potential Proposition 98 GF savings in the low hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to school districts and county superintendents of schools to the extent a school district opts to post notifications related to its proposed budget on its website rather than posting in a newspaper.

Note: The bill is set for hearing on Wednesday, June 7th in the Senate Education Committee.

AB 1555 (Quirk-Silva) Transitional kindergarten: teacher assignments: qualification requirements. This bill would extend the requirement, for credentialed teachers assigned to transitional kindergarten (TK) classrooms to meet specified early childhood education (ECE) requirements from August 1, 2023, to August 1, 2025.
CASBO Position: Support

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Appropriations Committee estimates potential Proposition 98 GF savings to LEAs, to the extent this bill helps LEAs avoid penalties.

Legislative Committee Takes Positions on Additional Bills

On May 18th, 2023, CASBO Legislative Committee met to discuss and take formal positions on the bills below. After a robust discussion, the following positions were taken.

SB 811 (Jones) Teacher credentialing: Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact. This bill would enter California into the Interstate Teacher Mobility Compact (ITMC), requiring member states to grant licenses to teachers with licenses from other member states without having to meet additional requirements, except for a criminal background check.
CASBO Position: Support

Fiscal Impact: The Senate Appropriations Committee acknowledges this would not got into effect until at least ten states enact legislation to join, potentially towards the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year. The CTC believes the cost for these activities would be about $400,000 each year in special funds.

SB 739 (Alvarado- Gil) School accountability: charter schools: term of operation. This bill would require all charter schools whose term expires between January 1, 2024, and June 30, 2027, to have their term extended by an additional year and indefinitely allow charter schools to submit verified data as part of the charter renewal process.
CASBO Position: Oppose

AB 483 (Muratsuchi) Local educational agency: Medi-Cal billing option. This bill will require the Department of Health Care Services to establish a revised audit process for claims submitted through the Local Education Agency Medi-Cal Billing Option Program (LEA BOP), a program that allows schools to claim reimbursement for a portion of the cost of delivering health services to Medi-Cal eligible students.
CASBO Position: Support

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Appropriations Committee estimates the amount of costs to DHCS is unknown, but potentially in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to revise the audit process and complete audits and final settlements within the timelines required by this bill (50% General Fund, 50% federal funds).

AB 1637 (Irwin) Local government: internet websites and email addresses. This bill would, come January 1, 2027, require a local agency, that maintains an internet website for use by the public to ensure that the internet website utilizes a “.gov” top-level domain or a “.ca.gov” second-level domain and would require a local agency that maintains an internet website that is non-compliant with that requirement to redirect that internet website to a domain name that does utilize a “.gov” or “.ca.gov” domain. The same would apply to an email of the local agency employee.
CASBO Position: Oppose

Recent Amendments: extended the requirement by one year from January 1, 2026, to January 1, 2027.

Fiscal Impact: The Assembly Appropriations Committee estimates costs to local agencies, including cities, counties, special districts, and school districts, is unknown but likely in the millions of dollars statewide.

SB 509 (Portantino) School employee and pupil training: youth mental and behavioral health: mental health education. This bill requires an LEA, on or before January 1, 2027, to certify to CDE that 75 percent of its classified and certificated employees who have the direct contact with pupils at each school have received specified youth behavioral health training.
CASBO Position: Concern

Fiscal Impact: The Senate Appropriations Committee, while the provisions of this bill would be contingent upon an appropriation, it could lead to significant Proposition 98 GF cost pressure to fund the mental and behavioral health training programs.