CSBA sues over mandated costs 

The California School Boards Association’s Education Legal Alliance filed a lawsuit in Sacramento Superior Court last month against efforts by the state government to renege on its obligation to reimburse local governments for the cost of complying with state mandates.

“This is a blatant effort by state government to avoid its constitutional obligation to reimburse schools, cities and counties for state-mandated programs,” said Scott P. Plotkin, executive director of CSBA. “Local governments, and especially schools, are being hung out to dry by the state when it refuses to cover the costs for programs or operations it requires.”

Joining CSBA’s Education Legal Alliance in the litigation are the Sweetwater Union High School District, Fresno County, Los Angeles County and the city of Newport. The suit targets the state government, the Commission on State Mandates and Controller Steve Westly.

Voters approved Proposition 4 in 1979 to prevent the state from forcing programs on local governments without paying for them. School Accountability Report Cards, some Brown Act open government requirements and the processing of mandate reimbursement requests were among the requirements determined to be reimbursable by the Commission on State Mandates, the agency responsible for identifying mandated costs and determining how much local agencies should be reimbursed for them.

But the commission reversed itself, ending the state’s responsibility to reimburse those costs, after Assembly Bill 138 was enacted in 2005 to require the commission to reconsider its prior decisions.

“AB 138, from whatever angle you examine it, is wrong,” Plotkin said. “Instead of tearing down walls in our bureaucratic structure, it builds new ones. The state must be held accountable when it puts local entities in a financial bind—there is just no other way to look at it.”

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