Education finance: Year-Round School Grant Program.

Existing law establishes the Year-Round School Grant Program to provide financial assistance to school districts operating year-round educational programs. The State Department of Education, in consultation with school districts, the Department of Finance, the Legislative Analyst's Office, and other affected parties, is required to conduct a study of the grant program to develop an equitable method of phasing out the program over a multiyear period. Existing law phases out the Year-Round School Grant Program over a 4-year period by reducing grant amounts by 20% each fiscal year commencing with the 2008–09 fiscal year, prohibits the Superintendent of Public Instruction from approving new year-round school grants, and requires that for the 2008–09 fiscal year to the 2012–13 fiscal year, inclusive, school districts receiving grants under the program receive a gradually diminishing percentage of the grant amount received by that district for the 2007–08 fiscal year. Under existing law, the Year-Round School Grant Program becomes inoperative on July 1, 2013, and is repealed on January 1, 2014. This bill, commencing with the 2008–09 fiscal year, would prohibit the Superintendent of Public Instruction from approving new year-round school grants based on applications received on or after August 1, 2008, thus authorizing the Superintendent to approve new year-round school grants based on applications received prior to that date. The bill would also provide that a school district that did not receive a year-round school grant under the program for the 2007–08 fiscal year is eligible for year-round education operational grant funding for the 2008–09 fiscal year only up to 50% of the amount requested in the grant application and is exempt from the increase in school building capacity required pursuant to a specified provision of the Leroy F. Greene School Facilities Act of 1998. The bill would also require that funding received by a school district pursuant to the bill be deemed to be year-round operational grant funding for the 2008–09 fiscal year, irrespective of the fiscal year in which the funding is received by the school district.