Student-Centered Funding Formula: The Latest on Alternative Recommendations

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While the Student-Centered Funding Formula was adopted in the 2018-19 state budget as a new way to allocate funding to community college districts, a final strategy for its implementation has not yet been devised.  Multiple entities have been evaluating the current configuration and have developed recommendations for revision.  Here's a sample, with details provided by the McCallum Group (one of the lobbying firms retained by the LACCD) at the most recent meeting of the LACCD Board of Trustees' Legislative and Public Affairs Committee.

Community College League of California

The League established a Student-Centered Funding Formula Task Force to develop a set of preliminary recommendations which have been shared with the Department of Finance, the Governor's Office, the Chancellor's Office, and legislative leadership.  Included in their recommendations are to

  1. Secure the 2018-2019 total computational revenue plus the 2019-2020 COLA as the new base for all districts;
  2. Extend hold-harmless provisions to fiscal year 2021-2022 to determine and mitigate data-integrity concerns; 
  3. Increase base resources for California community colleges;
  4. Provide colleges only the highest award achieved by the same student in a given year.
  5. Level the point system for associate degree awards so that all educational goals and achievements of comparable unit values are counted equally;
  6. Keep the Student Success portion of the funding formula set at 10% of the total allocation.
  7. Ensure programs supporting special-admit students, incarcerated individuals, CDCP noncredit students, and instructional service agreements receive full FTES funding;
  8. Count outcomes in all districts where students took 12 or more units in the district in the year prior to transfer;
  9. Employ two-year average of prior year and prior-prior year in the Supplement and Success grant portions of formula;
  10. Simplify the calculation of the three-year average;
  11. Establish an intentional strategy that provides technical assistance to colleges throughout the implementation of the formula;
  12. Increase the predictability of the funding formula; and
  13. Limit year-to-year revenue reductions to district by a specific percentage following sufficient analyses and simulations.
Concurrently, a group of community college faculty groups have developed an alternative formula which has been presented to the Department of Finance and legislative leadership.  Their proposal recommends
  1. 80% base funding driven by FTES;
  2. 20% supplemental grant for low-income students; and
  3. Separate categorical approaches that provide incentive funding based on 75/25 progress, student-counselor ratio, part-time faculty equity, and faculty diversity ratio.
Finally, the State Chancellor's Office, at the last Consultation Council, presented its own recommended changes for discussion:
  1. Extend "hold harmless" provisions by one year to 2021-2022;
  2. Enact a limit on year-over-year funding increases;
  3. Count only one award per student in a single year;
  4. Count CTE unit achievement only if the courses are within the same TOP code;
  5. Count successful transfer towards a district allocation only if the student, in the year before transfer, completed at least nine units in the district;
  6. Count attainment of a regional living wage for a district only if the student, in the year before exit, completed at least nine units at the district;
  7. Count awards only if a student completed nine or more units at the district in that same academic year;
  8. Use average of outcomes for the prior year and prior-prior year;
  9. Use average for supplemental allocation amounts;
  10. Count outcomes only if the student is a resident student (this would not affect AB 540 students);
  11. Count supplemental allocation only for resident students (this would not affect AB 540 students);
  12. Clarify that special-admit students and students in correctional facilities are not includes in outcomes or supplemental allocation;
  13. Count FTES using a three-year average in categories outside of the funding formula;
  14. Maintain the split of 70%/20%/10% in 2019-2020; and
  15. Enact a statue that authorizes the State to adjust general fund appropriations for the Student-Centered Funding Formula following enactment of the annual budget to account for revised estimates on local property taxes.
Clearly the final version of the SCFF is "still a way off."