State rejects appeal on use of funding | News

Neighborhood Legal Services and Equal Justice Society filed the complaint with the District in February. A District investigation found the complaint unfounded and that the District was in compliance. On April 14, Neighborhood Legal Services and Equal Justice Society appealed to the California Department of Education.

On Sept. 14, the District received word from the Department of Education that all five allegations in the original appeal were denied, Superintendent Greg Nehen announced at the Oct. 19 Board meeting.

The uniform complaint alleged that the District’s estimated actual expenditures on several of its contributing actions reflected that the District both underspent and overspent Local Control Funding Formula supplemental and concentration grant funds budgeted for low income, foster youth and English learners, according to a copy of the CDE’s 15-page decision.

In response to the first allegation, the District indicated that it spent less than it budgeted for supplemental and concentration funded actions and services in the 2019–20 school year “due to the COVID-19 school closures and by the receipt of COVID-19 relief funds, which were utilized to fund a variety of planned actions,” the CDE report said.

In addition, the District prioritized spending COVID-19 relief funds due to time constraints, where it would lose the money if it was not spent by the deadline. The unused supplemental and concentration grant funds were carried over to a special reserve fund and remain available for the District to use in the event of a future shortfall, the report said.

Neighborhood Legal Services and Equal Justice Society, in its appeal, urged the CDE to “order the District to reallocate any underspent and misappropriated S&C funds towards services for unduplicated pupils.”

The appeal also referenced Assembly Bill 1835, which it argued “merely clarified existing law.” However, that bill never became law because Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed it, in September 2020.

AB 1835 was introduced in response to a November 2019 report issued by the California State Auditor, which concluded that the there is “no requirement under current law for districts to continue using unspent supplemental and concentration funds in the following year to increase or improve services for intended student groups — the unspent funds essentially can be used for any purpose in subsequent years,” the CDE report said.

Newsom, in his veto message, expressed support for the bill’s intent but also expressed concerns about flaws and implementations, the CDE report said. He noted the administration would propose different statutory language for the Legislature to consider in the 2020-21 budget. That language was proposed and became Assembly Bill 130, which became law, in July 2021. It led to new requirements and a new LCAP template starting with the 2022–23 school year, the CDE report said.

“(T)he CDE finds that the District’s ultimate disposition with respect to this allegation — that there was no violation of law with respect to ‘carryover’ from the 2019–20 school year into the 2021–22 LCAP and school year — is not contrary to law,” the report said. “Accordingly, the Appeal as to Allegation 1 is not sustained.”

Neighborhood Legal Services and Equal Justice Society’s second allegation said that the District must adopt an LCAP using the State Board of Education-adopted template. The CDE found that the District’s conclusion that the LCAP’s goal descriptions did not violate state law or the template as “supported by substantial evidence and consistent with the law.”

The third allegation challenged the sufficiency of District’s demonstrations regarding contributing districtwide actions from the 2019-20 LCAP. However, because the allegation was not filed within the one-year filing deadline, the CDE did not address the alleged insufficiencies.

The CDE report also did not address the allegation regarding the District’s contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department as a contributing action in the 2019-20 LCAP because it was not made within th one-year filing deadline.

The CDE determined the fifth allegation — that the District’s LCAP “lacks transparency” regarding the use of S&C funds and “deprives the public of the right to meaningfully participate in the LCAP process” — derivative of the other allegations, which were addressed by the decision.