Capistrano Unified School District

Funding Overview

WHAT IS THE LOCAL CONTROL AND ACCOUNTABILITY PLAN (LCAP)?

The LCAP is a critical part of the new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). Each school district must engage parents, educators, employees, and the community to establish these plans. The plans will describe the school district’s overall vision for students, annual goals and specific actions the district will take to achieve the vision and goals.

The LCAPs must focus on eight areas identified as state priorities. The plans will also demonstrate how the district’s budget will help achieve the goals, and assess each year how well the strategies in the plan were able to improve outcomes.

LCAP PRIORITIES:

As outlined in Education Code Sections 52060-52077 the state priorities for the LCAP are:

Credentials/Materials
Pupil Outcomes
Parental Involvement
Pupil Achievement
Pupil Engagement
School Climate
Standards Adoption
Course of Study

LOCAL CONTROL FUNDING FORMULA:

The 2013–2014 state budget replaced the previous K–12 finance system ("Revenue Limit") with a new Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF). For school districts and charter schools, the LCFF creates a base, supplemental, and concentration grants in place of most previously existing K–12 funding streams, including revenue limits and most state categorical programs.

The 2013–14 Budget Act provides $2.1 billion for school districts and charter schools to support the first-year implementation of the LCFF. Until full implementation, however, local educational agencies (LEAs) will receive roughly the same amount of funding they received in 2012–2013 plus an additional amount each year to bridge the gap between current funding levels and the new LCFF target levels. The budget projects the time frame for full implementation of the LCFF to be eight years.

The LCFF includes the following components for school districts:

Provides a base grant for each LEA equivalent to $7,643 per average daily attendance (ADA). The actual base grants would vary based on grade span. The old Revenue Limit model varied funding by district type (i.e. Elementary, Unified or High School district)
Provides an adjustment of 10.4 percent on the base grant amount for kindergarten through grade three (K–3). This replaces "class size reduction funds" in the old model. As a condition of receiving these funds, the LEA shall progress toward an average class enrollment of no more than 24 pupils in kindergarten through grade three, unless the LEA has collectively bargained an annual alternative average class enrollment in those grades for each school site. CUSD currently has a higher bargained class size in place.
Provides an adjustment of 2.6 percent on the base grant amount for grades nine through twelve. This replaces "career technical funds" in the old model.
Provides a supplemental grant equal to 20 percent of the adjusted base grant for targeted disadvantaged students. Targeted students are those classified as English learners (EL), eligible to receive a free or reduced-price meal (FRPM), foster youth, or any combination of these factors (unduplicated count).
Provides a concentration grant equal to 50 percent of the adjusted base grant for targeted students exceeding 55 percent of an LEA’s enrollment.
Provides for additional funding based on an “economic recovery target” to ensure that virtually all districts are at least restored to their 2007–2008 state funding levels (adjusted for inflation) and also guarantees a minimum amount of state aid to Districts.

The budget maintains Home-to-School Transportation and Targeted Instructional Improvement Block Grant funding as add-ons to the LCFF. The budget requires LEAs to maintain 2012–2013 expenditure levels on transportation out of funds received for this purpose.

Because each school district will receive total funding based on the eligibility of students for either a supplemental grant or concentration grant, each district will receive more each year of the implementation, based on the percentage of eligible students. For the current year, the state implemented about 12% of the target gap to achieve full LCFF funding. The additional funding districts received this year (2013-2014) is roughly:

District with 1% eligible students received about $180 per ADA
Capistrano Unified, with about 26% eligible students received about $212 per ADA.
District with 60% eligible students received about $312 per ADA
District with 100% eligible students received about $576 per ADA

LCFF Accountability

As part of the LCFF, school districts are required to develop, adopt, and annually update a three-year Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP), beginning on July 1, 2014, using a template adopted by the California State Board of Education (SBE). In addition, the SBE is required to adopt evaluation rubrics to assist LEAs and oversight entities in evaluating strengths, weaknesses, areas that require improvement, technical assistance needs, and where interventions are warranted on or before October 1, 2015. Subsequent revisions to the template or evaluation rubrics are required to be approved by the SBE by January 31 before the fiscal year in which the template or rubric would be used. The LCAP is required to identify goals and measure progress for student subgroups across multiple performance indicators.

Other LCFF accountability components include:

The SBE must adopt regulations that govern the expenditure of the supplemental and concentration grant funding. These regulations will require school districts “to increase and improve” services for targeted students and will provide authority for school districts to spend funds “school-wide” when significant populations of those students attend a school.
Districts must obtain parent and public input in developing, revising, and updating LCAPs.
County superintendents must review school district LCAPs and ensure alignment of projected spending, services, and goals. Charter school LCAPs will be reviewed by the chartering authority. COEs are required to provide technical assistance when they disapprove an LCAP.
The State Superintendent of Public Instruction must review LCAPs of COEs, as well as intervene if a school district or charter school fails to show improvement across multiple subgroups in three out of four consecutive years.