Under the Dome 

School board members can follow all bills that CSBA has taken a position on or is tracking. From the CSBA home page at www.csba.org, click on the “Advocacy” tab at the top of the page. On the Advocacy page, click on “CSBA positions on legislation,” which appears in the top right corner. This link takes you directly to our master index maintained by Capitol Track, a comprehensive bill tracking service.

The master index contains a complete listing of all of the bills that CSBA is following and includes the bill’s number, author, subject, its current location in the Legislature, along with CSBA’s position and the name of the CSBA advocate assigned to it. By clicking on the bill number, users can link to more complete information on the bill, including summaries, the complete bill text (in both HTML and PDF formats) and votes. Bill information is updated daily by Capitol Track, so users will get the most current information on pending legislation affecting schools.

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School Districts: employment decisions
Runner, R-Lancaster
CSBA Position: Oppose unless amended
This proposal would amend the California Constitution to require school districts to use a combination of individual annual performance evaluations and improvements in pupil academic achievement as measured by state-adopted standardized tests in order to make employment decisions. Under the bill, the governing board of the school district would be required to discuss and adopt a system to annually assess the performance of employees at a public meeting. The school district would be required to post on its Web site a description of the system used to evaluate performance, and submit that information to the state Board of Education for posting on its Web site.

The bill would also change the timeframe for probationary employees (teachers) to earn tenure from two years to 10 years. Specifically, this bill states that new employees may be granted tenure only if their 10 most recent annual performance assessments have been satisfactory. This bill would supersede the conflicting provisions of any collective bargaining agreement that is entered into, renewed or extended on or after the effective date of this section.

CSBA opposes this bill unless it is amended to propose a statutory change rather than a constitutional amendment and to create a pilot program for a limited number of districts only. A constitutional amendment is a more restrictive way to address the goals of the bill, because changing any of its provisions would require another vote of the people. Further, a constitutional amendment would create an unfunded mandate for school districts, because the state does not provide funding to local entities for constitutionally created mandates as it does for mandates created by legislation. A pilot program to allow school districts to create an assessment system for their employees would allow implementation of such a sweeping reform to be monitored on a smaller scale for effectiveness before such a program is implemented statewide. In addition, programs adopted voluntarily are much more likely to be successful than mandated programs.

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Public employee defined contribution plan
Richman, R-Northridge
CSBA Position: Oppose
This proposal would amend the constitution to establish the California Public Employee Defined Contribution Plan. The measure would provide that after June 30, 2007, any person hired by a public agency may enroll only in a defined contribution plan of a public pension or retirement system, and is prohibited from enrolling in a defined benefit plan, as currently defined. The measure would permit an active member of a defined benefit plan, during a specified period, to transfer a sum equal to the member’s interest in the defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan.

CalPERS and CalSTRS both provide defined benefit plans where employees receive a predetermined benefit upon retirement. In a defined benefit plan, the benefit is determined by a formula that includes the number of years of service, the employee’s final compensation, and a factor based on the employee’s age at retirement.

A defined contribution plan, on the other hand, is a retirement savings plan where employers and employees make tax-deferred contributions to individually-owned accounts. These contributions are invested and employees get the investment earnings and principal when they retire or leave the system. A defined contribution plan does not specify the retirement benefit to be received by the employee. Rather, it specifies a contribution, typically expressed as a percentage of compensation, which is deposited into an individual account for each participant. This proposal would not impact the benefits promised to any current public employee or retiree.

CSBA opposes this bill for four reasons. First, new employees would not contribute to the defined benefit plan that would still be in effect for current employees. This would create an unknown (but large) liability for taxpayers to fund current and future obligations. Second, there is no clear evidence that a defined contribution plan would result in school district savings and it may even result in higher costs in some years. Third, a more effective way of reducing retirement costs may be to adjust the benefits paid under the defined benefit plan for new employees. By constitutionally prohibiting defined benefit plans, this measure would arbitrarily foreclose any possibility of taking such action. Finally, CSBA believes that failing to offer teachers and other school employees a guaranteed pension upon retirement would have a deleterious impact on teacher recruitment and retention, at a time when the “highly qualified teacher” requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act already exacerbate district challenges in recruiting and retaining teachers.