San Luis Obispo County Grand Jury • 2018-2019 • Agency Response
Response to: Continuity Report

San Luis Obispo County Office of Education Eadership . Community . Service*

Published: August 01, 2019 3 pages
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Note: Missing finding numbers detected: F3, F4, F5, F6, F9

Findings and Recommendations 5 findings

F1
The failure of school districts to provide the required written notice to developers of their right to protest may extend the period in which a developer is allowed to file a suit challenging a fee and may expose the districts to potential future liability. The County Office of Education agrees with this finding to the extent that it suggests that in some cases the failure to provide required notices may have legal consequences for school districts, but notes that to the extent the finding is a legal conclusion as to the specific actions or inactions of a school district and the legal consequences, the County Office of Education provides no opinion.
No recommendations for this finding
F2
In the sampled school districts there is inconsistency in reporting developer fee income and expenditures. The County Office of Education disagrees with this finding as it is unclear. The Grand Jury's report indicates that it reviewed online reports regarding developer fees for four of the County's ten school districts. Other than noting some difficulty in accessing some of these reports, the report did not detail any inconsistencies in how local school districts report developer fee income and expenditures. All reporting required by state law is a local school district responsibility, how a school district reports its developer fee income and expenditures is a matter left to the discretion and responsibility of school districts.
Related Recommendations (1)
R2
The County Office of Education should provide and require the school districts to use a standardized format for the notice of the right to protest the payment of developer fees. This form should be developed by January 1, 2020. This recommendation has been partially implemented. The County Office of Education has provided a standard form to all school districts for use in collecting developer fees. The form includes notice of a payee's right to file a protest against the imposition of the fees. The County Office of Education has also provided additional information on best practices and recommendations regarding the collection, tracking, and use of developer fees. However, implementation of these practices is within the sole jurisdiction of locally elected school boards and it is not the role of the County Office of Education to "require" school districts to adopt any specific form or practice regarding developer fees.
F7
All of the sampled districts take a permissive view of the restrictions on the sort of expenditures which are allowed for developer fees. The County Office of Education disagrees with this finding as its use of the term "permissive" is unclear. The allowable uses for developer fee income are set by statute. As noted above, an appropriate expenditure of developer fee income is a function of the local jurisdiction of locally elected governing boards and the County Office of Education has no role in these decisions.
No recommendations for this finding
F8
It is difficult to determine whether developer fees are being maintained in a separate fund as required by law. The County Office of Education disagrees with this finding as the Grand Jury report provides no detail to support this finding and the County Office of Education has not conducted any independent research on this question. SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION LEADERSHIP . COMMUNITY . SERVICE JAMES J. BRESCIA, ED. D., SUPERINTENDENT
No recommendations for this finding
F10
There is no general oversight exercised over the use of developer fees beyond that which may be provided by the district school boards. The County Office of Education agrees with this finding – a school district's use of developer fees is entrusted to the locally elected governing board of that school district. While there is no additional oversight by another governmental agency, there are no statutory or regulatory requirements for oversight beyond the locally elected governing board of that school district. Generally, any decision of a governing board as to developer fees must comply with state law. Further, each school district's financial activity, including its accounting of developer fees, is subject to independent audit.
No recommendations for this finding

* This report's PDF did not contain easily extractable text and required Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for analysis. There may be minor errors in the extracted findings and recommendations due to OCR limitations with scanned documents.