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Legislative Analyst's OfficeAnalysis of the 2002-03 Budget Bill |
The California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) is responsible for the planning and coordination of postsecondary education. The CPEC provides analysis, advice, and recommendations to the Legislature and the Governor on statewide policy and funding priorities for colleges, universities, and other postsecondary education institutions. The commission has 16 members, representing the public and private university segments, the State Board of Education, students, and the general public.
Proposed Budget. The Governor proposes total appropriations of $11.9 million in 2002-03. This is a decrease of $0.6 million, or 4.7 percent, from estimated current-year expenditures. Total General Fund expenditures are proposed at $3.3 million, a decrease of $0.5 million, or 12 percent, below estimated current-year expenditures. The decrease in the General Fund amount is primarily due to the proposed elimination of four staff positions.
We recommend the deletion of $96,000 (General Fund) for budgeted data services, expenses the commission no longer receives. (Delete $96,000 from Item 6420-001-0001.)
The CPEC's budget includes $96,000 for payments to Teale Data Center for data processing and storage on Teale's Terradata system. However, since 2000 CPEC has not used these services, having moved its data from the Terradata system to CPEC's own computers. Nevertheless, CPEC continues to make payments of $8,000 a month to Teale for these unused services.
We recommend that CPEC terminate its payments for Terradata services, and that funding for this purpose be removed from CPEC's budget.
We recommend approval of $150,000 for the California Postsecondary Education Commission to develop a study of outreach programs. However, this recommendation is contingent on adoption of budget bill language to ensure that the report is timely and responds to the Legislature's needs.
The Governor's budget proposal includes $150,000 for CPEC to develop an inventory of K-12 outreach programs. This amount is an addition to $150,000 received for the same purpose in 2001-02, bringing total funding for this study to $300,000. The CPEC indicates that work on the inventory is still in its preliminary stages.
We believe that a comprehensive study of outreach programs has the potential to identify opportunities for program consolidation and to identify overlap and duplication. (We raise concerns with duplication and overlap among K-12 outreach programs in the section on the "University of California" elsewhere in this chapter.) We believe that a report on K-12 outreach programs should include, at a minimum, the following: an inventory of outreach programs, estimated programs expenditures for each school, identification of program overlap and duplication of services, and the potential for program consolidation.
While we support the need for an outreach study, we believe that the Legislature should approve this funding only with the addition of budget bill language that ensures the study is timely and responds to the Legislature's needs. Specifically, we recommend adoption of the following budget bill language:
6420-001-0001 Provision 1. Of the amount appropriated in Schedule (2), $150,000 in one-time funds is included to complete a comprehensive study of state outreach programs. This study shall include the name and County-District-School code of all public elementary, middle, and high schools participating in the following K-12 outreach programs: Advancement via Individual Determination program; Collaborative Academic Preparation Initiative; Precollegiate Academic Development program; California Academic Partnership Program; Educational Opportunity Program; Student Opportunity Access Programs; Early Academic Outreach Program; Mathematics, Engineering, and Science Achievement; Puente; and K-12 School-University Partnerships. For each school, the study shall also include the number of students participating in each program, and estimated program expenditures. Finally, the study shall identify overlap and duplication among these programs. The study shall be submitted to the Legislature and the Governor on or before March 1, 2003.