Education finance: state special schools and diagnostic centers.

Existing law establishes the California School for the Deaf, Northern California, the California School for the Deaf, Southern California, and the California School for the Blind, known as the state special schools, under the administration of the State Department of Education, and 3 related diagnostic centers under the administration of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, as provided. Existing law establishes a public school financing system that requires state funding for county superintendents of schools, school districts, and charter schools to be calculated pursuant to a local control funding formula, as specified. Existing law requires specified components of the local funding formula to be adjusted by the percentage change in the annual average value of the Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Government Purchases of Goods and Services for the United States, as published by the United States Department of Commerce for the 12-month period ending in the 3rd quarter of the prior fiscal year, as specified. Existing law requires the Superintendent to annually apportion any entitlement provided to the state special schools from specified former categorical programs to the state special schools in the same amount as the state special schools received from those categorical programs in the 2012–13 fiscal year. Commencing with the 2024–25 fiscal year, this bill would require that amount be adjusted each fiscal year by the same percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above. Existing law appropriates additional funding to the state special schools and centers in the annual Budget Act. This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to increase the amount of state funding appropriated for the state special schools and diagnostic centers in the annual Budget Act by the same percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above. The bill would require the Superintendent to calculate, for the 2024−25 fiscal year and each fiscal year thereafter, an adjustment amount to the amount appropriated for the state special schools and diagnostic centers in a specified item of the annual Budget Act for the preceding fiscal year that is equivalent to the percentage change applied to specified components of the local control funding formula, as described above, for the fiscal year that is being calculated. The bill would, contingent upon an appropriation for these purposes, require the Superintendent to proportionately allocate those funds appropriated for the adjustment amount to the state special schools and diagnostic centers.