BILL NUMBER: S7775

SPONSOR: RITCHIE
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act relating to legalizing, validating, ratifying and confirming a
transportation contract of the Fulton city school district

 
PURPOSE:

This bill would correct a clerical error between the Fulton City School
District and the State Education Department in the 2016-2017 school year
in effort to restore Transportation aid to the Fulton City School
District.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:

Section 1 legalizes, validates, ratifies, and confirms the transporta-
tion contract of E006115 of the 2016-2017 school year.

Section 2 directs the Department of Education to consider the contract
              

for transportation aid as valid and proper.

Section 3 provides an immediate effective date.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

At its November 14, 2014 meeting, the Fulton City School District Board
of Education extended its contract with its transportation service
provider for the 2016-2017 school year. Due to a clerical error, the
contract extension was not sent to the State Education Department.

School officials were unaware that the contract extension had not been
filed with the state until the fall of 2017 when they were checking on
the status of their transportation aid. No notice had been provided to
the district that they had not filed. Upon learning of the error, the
school district reached out to State Education Department officials and
were informed the State Education Department does not have the discre-
tionary authority to approve and pay transportation aid in these circum-
stances - even if the department believes that the school should be in
receipt of those funds.

The loss of $1.6 million in transportation aid is very concerning and
will have significant impact on the Fulton City School District.  Those
greatest penalized for this unintentional error will be the students
unless this special legislation is enacted. The impact on the school
district is especially harsh given the combined wealth ratio in the
district, which is among the worst in the state. When the district's
wealth is measured taking into account real property values and income
of its residents, it is obvious that the district is economically disad-
vantaged making this legislation critical so that the education of the
students of the Fulton City School District does not suffer.

This legislation will correct this inadvertent error and will grant the
State Education Department the necessary authority to consider this
contract for transportation aid as valid and proper and therefore eligi-
ble for Transportation Funding.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
S.8730/A.10752.

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None to state; however, failure of this legislation will have a devas-
tating fiscal impact on the Fulton City School District and its taxpay-
ers.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.