Lawmakers regularly assign tasks and responsibilities to agencies or institutions for which they fail to provide proper funding. These indiscretions are called unfunded mandates, and there are government rules about passing legislation that contains them.

The rules are broken or in dispute so often that there is a separate government agency, the Commission on State Mandates, that resolves complaints. It keeps busy. As of May 2012, it had a backlog of 165 claims and was drafting backlog reduction plans.  

The commission recently ruled on a complaint first brought in 1993 by educational agencies compelled by state legislation to develop and implement a program for special education students, called Behavioral Intervention Plans (BIP), that goes beyond what the federal government requires. It cost school districts, county offices of education and special education local plan areas $50 million to $65 million a year and they asked the commission to make the state give it to them.

And now it has.

The commission ruled last week that the state owes $1 billion, based on calculations by the California School Boards Association's (CSBA) Education Legal Alliance, which pursued the claim. But association President Cindy Marks was careful to temper her enthusiasm until she sees “if the reimbursements are fully funded by the Legislature and governor.” And general legal counsel Keith Bray noted, “No general fund dollars have been committed yet to support the commission’s decision.”

Governor Jerry Brown is reportedly going to move education money around, including tapping Prop. 95 money, to cover most of the expense. The state Legislative Analyst’s Office warned the governor in 2009 that, if left to fester, the BIP mandate was probably going to cost the state $1 billion.

The commission on State Mandates had already ruled against the state in a BIP test case, so the office recommended taking a settlement agreement—on the table since 2000—that would cost a negotiated $510 million.

The Analyst also recommended that the state stop trying to do more than the federal government and eliminate BIPs and their future expense.

The BIP mandate is part of what Governor Brown called a “wall of debt,” money owed school districts for being forced to implement unfunded state-mandated policies. The total price tag has been put at $3 billion.    

–Ken Broder

To Learn More:

State Ordered to Pay Back Districts $1 Billion for 20-Year-Old Mandate (by John Fensterwald, EdSource)

School Agencies Victorious in 20-Year Battle for Special Ed Reimbursements (by Laurie Weidner, California School Boards Association)

Education Mandates (Legislative Analyst’s Office)