SB 308: Community colleges: audits: reports.

Existing law establishes the California Community Colleges, under the administration of the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges, as one of the segments of public postsecondary education in the state. Existing law requires the board of governors to adopt criteria and standards for periodic assessment of the fiscal condition of community college districts. In so doing, existing law requires the board of governors to develop, by regulation, appropriate procedures and actions for community college districts that fail to achieve fiscal stability or that fail to comply with the board of governors recommendations, and to report to the chairs of the educational policy and fiscal committees of both houses of the Legislature, the Director of Finance, and the Governor, related corrective actions taken by the community college district and related actions taken against the community college district.

This bill would instead require the office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges to report the above-described information, as needed, and to additionally report the information to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee. Beginning in the 202728 fiscal year, the bill would also require any information reported to be included with the below-described report related to community college district audits.

Existing law requires the board of governors to annually submit a report to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee on the number and nature of audit exceptions and estimated amount of funds involved in the exceptions, a list of community college districts that failed to file their audits under existing law, and the actions taken by the State Department of Education to eliminate audit exceptions and comply with management improvement recommendations.

This bill would revise the contents of the report to instead include actions taken by the chancellors office to eliminate audit exceptions and comply with management improvement recommendations. The bill would instead require the office of the Chancellor of the California Community Colleges chancellors office to report that information, and to additionally report that information to the educational policy and fiscal committees of both houses of the Legislature, the Director of Finance, and the Governor. Beginning in the 202728 fiscal year, the bill would also require the report to include any of the above-described information related to corrective actions taken by, and actions taken against, a community college district.