2011 CACCRAO Conference:
ELIAS REGALADO
Specialist in Fiscal Planning and Administration
Fiscal Services Unit, College Finance and Facilities Planning Division, Chancellor’s Office California Community Colleges
Attendance Accounting and Reporting Update
(Monday, April 25, 1:00 pm – 2:15 pm, Salon B)
· Course Repetition and Withdrawal Title 5 Changes
o The community colleges are facing unprecedented demand while at the same time facing additional likely cuts in state apportionment support
o Thus, there is a need to impose new course repetition and withdrawal limits, beyond those already in place.
o Under proposed regulations, students would be limited to three enrollments (5 if on quarter system) in a course (repeatable or nonrepeatable), which would include any combination of withdrawals and repetitions (T5 Section 58161 will now provide a definition for “enrollment” that says “an enrollment occurs when a student receives an evaluative or nonevaluative symbol pursuant to section 55023”). Specific exemptions are noted, such as for Military Withdrawals, legally mandated training, or disabled student Special Course repetition.
o For courses not designated as repeatable, proposes to allow a district to claim apportionment for one additional enrollment if the student is repeating the class after a significant lapse of time (§ 55043) or due to extenuating circumstances (§ 55045).
o The draft regulations were presented to the Consultation Council on April 21, with the intent to then present to the BOG for a first reading in May.
o It is my understanding that, given the exceptionally short time line, we will be proceeding with two separate regulation packages regarding withdrawal and repetition. The first package will focus on the apportionment regulation (58161), thereby limiting, across the board, the number of times a course can be repeated and/or withdrawn from and the district receive apportionment. The second package will provide a definition for “significant lapse of time” and will limit the number of repeatable courses.
· New or Expanded Audit Compliance Items for 2010-11:
o TBA Hours – New (Item No. 479)
§ Monitoring and tracking of student participation (supporting documentation required – TBA hours cannot be claimed for students with zero documented hours as of the census point)
§ Must ensure that instruction is provided and that the student work completed during the TBA hours is evaluated
§ that the number of TBA hours and general objectives/outcomes for the TBA requirement are specified on the course outline/catalog/schedule as appropriate
§ that regulations for immediate supervision and minimum qualifications are followed
o Residency Determination for Credit Courses – Expanded (Item No. 425)
§ Widened focus of item to also require auditors to test a sample of student-athletes.
§ We ask the auditor to compare the student’s admission application and residence questionnaire to the athlete’s Commission on Athletics Form 1 for applicable information and confirm consistency.
· Current Legislation (NOT YET PASSED – SIMMILAR BILLS VETOED IN THE PAST)
o Inmate Education (AB 216)
§ Would allow districts to offer closed courses to inmates of state correctional facilities (currently district are only allowed to offer closed courses to inmates of city/county jails and federal correctional facilities, but not state correctional institutions)
§ This bill would also allow districts to claim FTES credit or noncredit FTES at the corresponding funding rate (currently, all inmate education is only claimable at the noncredit funding rate, even if credit is awarded)
§ This bill would also require that district report any partial compensation provided them for offering these courses for purposes of offsetting any state apportionment paid to the district. I could see this new requirement being expanded to all instructional services agreements (ISA’s).
· Student Success Task Force
o In September 2010 SB 1143 was signed into law and became effective January 1, 2011.
o This legislation required the BOG to establish a task force to examine the best practices for promoting student success and to adopt a plan for improving student success within the CCC’s.
o The task force will examine best practices within CCC and effective models throughout the nation to accomplish student success.
o In addition to this, the task force will also be considering “alternative funding options” for improving student success. This may mean significant changes to Census attendance accounting.
o As originally drafted, SB 1143 would have require that the count of actively enrolled students be based on the average of two census points (one at the 20% point and one at the end of the class) instead of the current single point at the 20% of the class. If something like this were to be adopted, clearly this which would mean that significantly less FTES would be generated. Thus, I would recommend that you monitor the work of this task force for any developments in this area.
· Recent Legal Opinions/Advisories
o O 11-04 Involuntary Faculty Drops for Nonattendance
§ The question answered by this legal opinion is whether faculty have the authority to involuntarily drop a student that stops attending a course after the census date.
§ The district who brought this question to us wanted to confirm whether their policy that prohibits faculty from dropping students after census was supported by Title 5.
§ It turns out that it was not. The legal opinion concluded that faculty may drop a student that stops attending a course after the census date. It specifically noted that the census date does not restrict the faculty member’s ability to involuntarily remove a student from a course when that student no longer attends that course or has excessive absences.
§ Faculty may also involuntarily remove a student from a course as a result of disciplinary action taken pursuant to law or to the student code of conduct.
§ Pursuant to Section 55003(l) these are the only two situations in which a student may be involuntarily removed from a course.
o O 11-01 Instructional Services Agreements and Receiving Apportionment
§ This legal opinion indirectly relates to a major apportionment recapture investigation that we are working to resolve at this point in time.
§ The question answered in this legal opinion is whether a district that is engaged in an Instructional Services Agreement is able to fully fund a private entity for the cost of instruction? In this case, a private cosmetology school.
§ The answer is yes. There are current regulations and statutes that prevent a district from claiming apportionment where the private entity receives full funding for the cost of instruction from another source, but that does not include the private entity being fully funded by the district.
§ As it relates to the specific investigation that we are working on, it has been confirmed that certain apportionment eligibility rules were violated, including not assuring immediate supervision and control by a qualified employee of the district. It is estimated that apportionment recapture in this case will be approximately $4 million. The district was asked to submit a Declaration of Discrepancy to decertify substantial amounts of FTES for the last three fiscal years.
§ In order to avoid these types of problems, it is important for your district to review all of your ISA’s to assure compliance with all applicable statutes and regulations. There is a contract guide checklist on our website (see Legal Advisory 04-01.5) that can help you with this review.
o O 10-07 Limitations on Enrollment of Cohorts of Students
§ Section 58106(b)(4) provides for the situation where certain courses may limit enrollment to a cohort of student enrolled in one or more other courses as long as a reasonable percentage of all sections of the course do not have such restrictions. The question answered by this legal opinion is what constitutes a “reasonable percentage.”
§ The answer is that if a college decides to limit enrollment to a cohort of students, a majority of the course sections offered need to be left for open enrollment. For example, in a case where a single section is limiting its enrollment to a cohort, two other sections need to be offered for open enrollment.
§ Allowing for a majority of courses to remain open is consistent with the community college system’s goal of ensuring access.
o O 10-05 Nonresident Tuition Fee Waivers for Military Personnel and Dependents
§ This legal opinion attempted to answer the question of what was the effect of the reauthorization of the federal Higher Education Opportunity Act on nonresident tuition rates for members of the armed forces on active duty and their dependents.
§ The opinion concluded that the new federal law broadened the applicable situations in which a member of the armed forces and his or her dependents may be exempted from the nonresident tuition fee.
§ The biggest change related to the fact that the federal law exempts military members for either being actively stationed in a state or being domiciled in a state. So, for example, a military member could be stationed in Nevada and establish domicile in California and the military member and his or her dependents would be entitled to the instate tuition benefit based on their California domicile.
§ In addition to other objective manifestations of intent as determined necessary by the district, a member of the armed forces would need to provide some evidence to demonstrate that they have established a legal, permanent home in California, such as owning a home or renting/leasing an apartment in California.
§ Please be sure to read the complete opinion for the full analysis and several example scenarios.
o A 10-01 AB 540 Litigation and State Supreme Court Decision
§ Last November, the California Supreme Court issued its opinion upholding the validity of AB 540, or Education Code Section 68130.5. This case resulted from a lawsuit that was filed in 2005 against the three segments of public higher Education. In this lawsuit, plaintiffs, United States citizens who were forced to pay out-of-state tuition to attend California state colleges and universities, claimed that to the extent section AB 540 applies to persons not in this country lawfully, it violated federal immigration law in various ways. The State Supreme Court ruled in favor of the defendants (CCC, CSU, UC) and upheld AB 540.
§ The effect of this ruling is that AB 540 continues to be in effect.
§ As you know, AB 540 provided an exemption from the payment of nonresident tuition for any student who attended high school in California for three or more years and who graduated from a California high school or attained the equivalent of high school graduation.
· Comparison of Actual FTES levels from 2009-10 and 2010-11 (as of P1)
o Credit FTES decreased by 19,614.57 or 1.67%
o Noncredit FTES decreased by 7,936.45 or -9.20%
o Total FTES decreased by 27,551.02 or -2.19%
o In the 2009-10 Fiscal Year, 93.14% of all FTES claimed for apportionment was from Credit Courses and 6.86% from Noncredit Courses. Compared to 2008-09, this represents a notable decline in the proportion of FTES that is generated by Noncredit courses.
o This significant decline in Noncredit FTES may be due to at least couple of factors. One, Noncredit FTES is funded at a much lower rate, so when prioritizing of what courses to offer has to occur, Noncredit courses may be cut first. Second, colleges were asked in a January 2010 memorandum from Academic Affairs Vice Chancellor Barry Russell to scrutinize all courses that are outside of transfer, basic skills, or career technical education, with a special focus on courses that would be considered “recreational, avocational, and personal development.”
§ “Recreational, avocational, and personal development courses are those which:
§ are not required courses or suggested electives leading to the completion of the requirements of a major offered by the college,
§ are offered primarily to provide recreational or avocational pursuits for students,
§ are of greater private than public interest,
§ should be offered as a community service class for a fee which covers the cost of instruction.”
o Additionally, a memorandum from the Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs was sent to districts on April 26, 2009 that reminded them that Title 5 Section 58130 provides that they could not claim apportionment for noncredit courses in dancing and recreational physical education. In this regard, please note that in a recent review, we noticed that some are still being reported via MIS by some district, so we presume and hope these enrollments are not being included in CCFS-320 Reports.
· Current Investigation:
o Inappropriate claiming of census FTES based on “catalog time” instead of contact hours as computed based on the actual class schedule.
§ Districts should be computing weekly student contact hours/FTES based on officially published class schedules and pursuant to approved attendance accounting procedures/formulas provided by Title 5 Sections 58003.1 et seq.; 58023.
§ For example, if a 3-unit semester length course actually calculates out to 52.5 contact hours per student (1 student x 3 hours per week x 17.5 maximum term length multiplier = 52.5 total semester contact hours ), the district can’t turn around and claim 54 hours per student just because the catalog or the course outline indicate 54 hours.
§ The main point is that weekly or daily census contact hours have to be actually calculated in accordance with established rules and provisions and that there is no short cut to doing that. In that regard, you may recall that our office issued an addendum to the Student Attendance Accounting Manuel in September 2008 to specifically address academic calendar and course scheduling issues, that in some cases resulted in excessive apportionment being claimed. This addendum, along with the Chapter 3 of the Student Attendance Accounting Manual, includes numerous examples of appropriate practices for calculating student contact hours under compressed and non-compressed academic calendars.
· Enrollment and Nonresident Tuition Fee Changes
o effective with Fall 2011, Student Enrollment fee increased from $26 to $36 per credit unit (converts to $24 per quarter unit)
§ This represents an increase of $10 per semester unit or a 38% increase.
o A.B. 2297 (Brownley) Chaptered – Approved New Options for Setting Nonresident Tuition Fee Levels