Today's Law As Amended


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AB-1001 School bonds: School Disaster Resiliency Act.(2019-2020)



As Amends the Law Today


SECTION 1.

 Section 17199.3 of the Education Code is amended to read:

17199.3.
 (a) The total amount of revenue bonds that may be issued and outstanding at any time for purposes of this chapter shall not exceed four billion four hundred million dollars ($4,400,000,000).
(b) For purposes of subdivision (a) bonds that meet any of the following conditions shall not be deemed to be outstanding:
(1) Bonds that have been refunded pursuant to Section 17188.
(2) Bonds for which money or securities in amounts necessary to pay or redeem the principal, interest, or any redemption premium on the bonds have been deposited in trust.
(3) Bonds that have been issued to finance or refinance working capital.
(4) Bonds that have been issued pursuant to Chapter 19 (commencing with Section 17200).

SEC. 2.

 Chapter 19 (commencing with Section 17200) is added to Part 10 of Division 1 of Title 1 of the Education Code, to read:

CHAPTER  19. School Disaster Resiliency Act
17200.
 (a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(1) Public schools are community centers that need to function during disasters that affect their communities.
(2) The disasters could be related to climate change, including fires and floods, or to other natural disasters, including earthquakes and pandemics.
(3) Disasters can create great pressure on communities and school districts in the communities.
(4) Schools provide vital community services, including meals to pupils and families, direct education either in the classroom or through distance learning, and shelter for residents during and after disasters.
(5) Schools need to be open to provide these services to their communities when there is a disaster.
(6) The purpose of the School Disaster Resiliency Act is to provide loans for school resiliency projects and provide financial hardship loan repayment provisions for those local educational agencies that need assistance to pay a portion of the loans.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature to meet this goal by creating a loan program that will provide school districts needed resources to create resilient schools that are able to function during disasters, and that these schools be able to create clean energy generation and battery energy storage systems sufficient to provide ongoing community services during and after disasters.
(c) This chapter shall be known, and may be cited, as the School Disaster Resiliency Act.
17201.
 For purposes of this chapter the following terms apply:
(a) “Act” means the School Disaster Resiliency Act.
(b) “Authority” means the California School Finance Authority established pursuant to Section 17172.
(c) “Bond” means bonds, notes, bond anticipation notes, commercial paper, and any other evidences of indebtedness.
(d) “Community school” means a school that mitigates the educational disadvantages associated with poverty and improves pupils’ attendance, behavior, and achievement by operating as a hub of community resources, providing integrated educational, health, and mental health services to pupils with a wide range of needs.
(e) “Energy Commission” means the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission.
(f) “Fund” means the School Disaster Resiliency Fund established pursuant to subdivision (c) of Section 17202.
(g) “Local educational agency” means a school district, county office of education, or charter school.
(h) “Priority development community” means any of the following:
(1) A disadvantaged community identified pursuant to Section 39711 of the Health and Safety Code.
(2) A low-income community, as defined in Section 39713 of the Health and Safety Code.
(3) Locations within one-half mile of a low-income community.
(i) “Public safety power shutoff event” means an intentional deenergization of electrical infrastructure for the purpose of avoiding hazardous conditions on the electrical grid.
17202.
 (a) Notwithstanding Section 17199.3, the authority may issue bonds exclusively for the purposes of this chapter, provided that the total amount of bonds issued under this chapter shall not exceed one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000), and no more than three hundred fifty million dollars ($350,000,000) of bonds shall be issued in any fiscal year.
(b) In administering this chapter, the authority shall meet all of the requirements established by law for the issuance, holding, and repayment of revenue bonds by the authority, including those set forth in Chapter 18 (commencing with Section 17170), unless otherwise provided for in this chapter.
(c) (1) Revenues from the sale of bonds issued pursuant to this chapter shall be deposited in the School Disaster Resiliency Fund, which fund is hereby established in the State Treasury. Notwithstanding Section 13340 of the Government Code, all moneys in the fund shall be continuously appropriated without regard to fiscal year to the Energy Commission for the purposes of this chapter.
(2) All moneys received for repayment of a loan, and any penalties, interest, and fees in connection with a loan under this chapter shall be deposited into the fund.
(3) The authority may establish accounts and subaccounts within the fund to separately account for each bond series issued by the authority under this chapter.
(d) The terms of repayment for bonds issued pursuant to this chapter shall be consistent with United States Internal Revenue Service requirements for tax-exempt obligations.
(e) It is the intent of the Legislature that, to the extent possible, the bonds or borrowing under this chapter should be tax exempt, but taxable borrowing is authorized.
17203.
 (a) (1) Bonds issued under this chapter shall not be deemed to constitute a debt or liability of the state or of any political subdivision thereof, other than the authority, or a pledge of the faith and credit of the state or of any political subdivision, but shall be payable solely from the fund and the assets of the fund, and the security provided by the fund. All bonds issued under this chapter shall contain on the face of the bonds a statement to the same effect.
(2) Notwithstanding any other law, should loan repayment funds pledged to repay bonds issued pursuant to this chapter be insufficient to repay the revenue bonds, negotiable notes, or negotiable bond anticipation notes sold to finance projects and related interest and expenses, moneys in the General Fund shall not be available as an alternative source of repayment.
(b) Except as may be provided in the governing documents with respect to bond anticipation notes, each of the bonds issued under this chapter may, to the extent provided in the governing documents, be payable from, and secured by, all or a portion of the revenues in the fund and the assets of the fund, to the extent the revenues and assets are pledged by the Energy Commission for those purposes.
(c) (1) Administrative costs of the authority may be funded from the proceeds of the borrowing or by a surcharge on loans issued pursuant to this chapter.
(2) Administrative costs of the Energy Commission may be funded from the proceeds of borrowing or by a surcharge on the local educational agency.
(3) Administrative costs for the authority and the Energy Commission may each not exceed 2 percent of the loans.
17204.
 (a) The Energy Commission shall establish and administer a loan program to provide low-interest loans to local educational agencies for school resiliency projects to enable local educational agencies to create clean energy generation and battery energy storage systems sufficient to provide ongoing community services during and after a disaster.
(b) (1) The authority shall adopt regulations to create a system to validate the amount and percentage of the state principal and interest payment that may be made for an eligible local educational agency. The regulations shall ensure that the system includes the financial detail necessary and a financial soundness determination made by the authority to determine the amount of principal and interest and the percentage of the principal and interest the local educational agency is able to pay.
(2) The Energy Commission shall develop application procedures for applicant local educational agencies.
(3) The Energy Commission shall determine which proposed local educational agency projects within each of the priorities described in Section 17206 will receive a resiliency loan based on the project and the financial soundness determination made by the authority. The Energy Commission shall determine if the local educational agency is eligible for hardship assistance and if so, the percentage of the hardship funding assistance that may be provided based on the financial soundness determination by the authority.
(c) The Energy Commission shall provide assistance to local educational agencies, including preapplication funding for technical assistance to support development of an application for a resiliency loan. Eligible technical assistance services may include, but are not necessarily limited to, all of the following:
(1) Analysis of historical energy usage and strategies for using energy storage to reduce utility costs and for using energy storage to provide electricity during an electric grid outage for a specified duration.
(2) Analysis of schoolsite conditions.
(3) Meetings with facility managers to determine resiliency plan objectives.
(4) Development of an application for a resiliency loan.
(d) A resiliency loan may include funding for additional technical assistance, including any of the following:
(1) Preparation of a competitive solicitation proposal for the installation of equipment and electrical work
(2) Review and evaluation of responses to the solicitation.
(3) Provision of contracting, project management, and commissioning oversight support.
(e) A local educational agency may use loan funding under this chapter for approved school resiliency projects, including for all of the following project costs:
(1) An energy storage system and associated components.
(2) Energy controls to operate the energy storage system during an outage of the electric grid.
(3) Electrical work and equipment needed to configure the connection of the solar and energy storage systems so that they can operate during an outage of the electric grid.
(4) Electrical work to isolate circuits to be served by the energy storage system.
17205.
 All of the following shall apply to resiliency loans to local educational agencies entered into pursuant to Section 17204:
(a) At a minimum, loan repayments for the first five years of each loan may be for interest only.
(b) The loan interest and principal payments shall be the responsibility of the borrowing local educational agency. The state may, but is not required or obligated to, make a portion of the principal payment and interest on behalf of a borrowing local educational agency pursuant to Section 17206.
(c) A borrowing local educational agency may repay its loan on terms consistent with the authority’s bonds issued for the local educational agency’s resiliency loan.
17206.
 (a) The Energy Commission shall make resiliency loan funding to local educational agencies under this chapter in the following order of priority:
(1) Community schools.
(2) Projects for school facilities, including school campuses, administrative offices, and operations facilities, in priority development communities that are also in high fire threat districts or in locations that have experienced at least one public safety power shutoff event, if funding for the site is not available from the equity resiliency budget of the self-generation incentive program established pursuant to Section 379.6 of the Public Utilities Code.
(3) Projects for school facilities in priority development communities that are not in high fire threat districts but are in locations that have experienced at least one public safety power shutoff event.
(4) Projects for school facilities in high fire threat districts, or in locations that have experienced at least one public safety power shutoff event, but that are not in a priority development community.
(5) Projects for school facilities that have existing solar energy systems, or solar-plus-storage systems.
(6) Projects for schools that serve as community emergency centers.
(7) Projects for a local educational agency that include an energy resiliency plan in an application for modernization funding to the Office of Public School Construction.
(b) (1) In cases of financial hardship or formal certification by the state, or a local or tribal government as cooling centers, emergency shelter facilities, or emergency operations centers, approved at the time of application and loan approval, the state may, but is not required or obligated to, provide funding to repay a portion of the loan principal and interest payments for the local educational agency from any source identified by the state.
(2) For eligible local educational agencies the state may, but is not required or obligated to, pay up to 30 percent of the loan principal and interest for the local educational agency.
(3) At the time of loan application, eligible local educational agencies shall document why they need assistance in paying their full amount of principal and interest.
(c) (1) A local educational entity shall be eligible for assistance pursuant to subdivision (b) if it meets any of the following conditions:
(A) The local educational agency has a per-pupil assessed valuation that is less than ____ percent of the state median per-pupil assessed valuation.
(B) The local educational agency has 2,500 or fewer pupils and is located in a county of the third to eighth class, inclusive, as described in Sections 28024 to 28029, inclusive, of the Government Code.
(C) The local educational agency’s percentage of unduplicated pupils, as described in Section 42238.02, is 80 percent or more.
(2) The Energy Commission shall establish guidelines for documentation of a local educational agency receiving formal certification by the state, or a local or tribal government as a cooling center, emergency shelter facility, or emergency operations center to be eligible for assistance pursuant to subdivision (b).
17207.
 (a) The authority, in consultation with the commission, shall adopt regulations establishing uniform terms and conditions that shall apply equally to all projects for resiliency loan funding under this chapter, including, but not limited to, all of the following:
(1) (A) The process for determining the manner in which the applicant will pay its obligation.
(B) For purposes of subparagraph (A), the authority may use the payment process set forth in Section 17199.4 for purposes of this chapter.
(2) The method for integrating funding pursuant to this chapter with the general procedures of the authority pursuant to subdivision (i) of Section 17180 for funding projects otherwise eligible for funding under this chapter, if appropriate.
(b) The authority may adopt, amend, or repeal rules and regulations pursuant to this chapter as emergency regulations in accordance with the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2). The adoption, amendment, or repeal of these regulations is conclusively presumed to be necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, safety, or general welfare within the meaning of Section 11346.1 of the Government Code.