Reference is to Printer's Date 2/28/19-H.
Amend the bill, as and if amended, page 3759-77, immediately after SECTION 58, by adding an appropriately numbered SECTION to read:
/ SECTION __.
(A) The purpose of this section
is to maximize the effectiveness of every dollar spent on public
education in South Carolina. For this purpose, the General
Assembly needs to assess overhead demands in terms of costs
placed on the State, school districts, and local schools by
accepting federal grants and implementing federal education
programs. Once known, the General Assembly then should consider
if the cost of compliance exceeds the value of the funding in
consideration of federally imposed control and regulation. The
General Assembly believes that State funded education
programming offers the best opportunity to streamline compliance
and return control of education policy to the State and local
level.
(B) The Legislative
Audit Council shall study and on or before August 1, 2020,
publish a report identifying and detailing federal funding
streams for programs and grants in elementary and secondary
education in this State in total and breaking out the cost of
overhead, compliance, and reporting incurred by the State
Department of Education, school districts, and local schools.
Methods, assumptions, limitations, and procedures used in the
study must be published as part of the final report.
(C) the council's study
shall focus on:
(1)
Title I, Title II, and Title IV as related to the
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), and as
reauthorized by the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB), and
Every Student Succeeds Act of 2017 (ESSA);
(2)
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004
(IDEA);
(3)
Head Start and Early Childhood Education; and
(4)
teacher quality improvement programs.
(D) The study and
report must include, but is not limited to, the following
considerations:
(1)
grant and program application costs as a cost of
compliance;
(2)
grant and program application policy requirements imposed
on the State should be included as information, as well as the
fiscal impact associated with the requirements;
(3)
expenditures should be annualized and projected for the
life of the grant and program and ten years after the grant or
program expire or after federal funding is discontinued;
(4)
the process to evaluate program and grant cost of
compliance shall include analysis of applicable federal
regulations, as well as interviews with at least ten local
school districts of varying size and two schools per district
selected;
(5)
both allowable and unallowable expenditures incurred from
the programs and grants must be included in the cost of
compliance;
(6)
expenditures incurred requiring the use of state or local
funds must be included in the cost of compliance; and
(7)
'Maintenance of Effort' and 'Supplement, Not Supplant'
requirements must be included in cost of compliance as a
category of 'minimum state and local spending required to
receive grant'. /
Renumber sections to conform.
Amend title to conform.