Question
: How should our district handle leftover ASB funds when a school site is closed? Also, we have a site that changed from an elementary school to a preschool and adult education site. Should the leftover funds from the elementary stay at the site with the preschool and adult education?Response: Education Code section 35664 does give guidance on what to do with the property, funds and obligations of a student body when a district is reorganized,stating:
"If the reorganization of a school district under this chapter results in the relocation of district boundaries so that a portion of the pupils will not be residents of the district thereafter maintaining a school previously attended by the pupils, and if there is in the school an organized student body, the property, funds, and obligations of the student body shall be divided as determined by the county committee, except that the share shall not exceed an amount equal to the ratio which the number of pupils leaving the school bears to the total number of pupils enrolled. The ownership of the property, funds, and obligations, which is the proportionate share of each segment of the student body, shall be transferred to the student body of the school or schools in which the pupils are enrolled after the reorganization. Funds from devises, bequests, or gifts made to the organized student body of a school shall remain the property of the organized student body of that school and shall not be divided".
There aren’t any Education Code or other regulations that we are aware of guiding us what to do when a school site is closed. And, since a school site closing is not the same as a district reorganizing, we can’t say that Education Code section 35664 specifically applies. Obviously, the first place to look for your answer is in district board policies and/or procedures to see if this issue is addressed. But, if there are no specific policies or rules in place (which we are assuming because you’ve asked this question), the methodology described in Section 35664 COULD be used when a school site is closed. So, the amount left in the ASB accounts at the time of the school closure could be appropriated to the various schools (or school) that the students are transferred to, basing the calculation on whatever percentage of students are transferring to each school and the total amount of remaining funds.
It’s important that whatever methodology is chosen to distribute the remaining funds, the decision is made by the appropriate administrators and then documented so that the same calculation will be used if another school site closes in the future. There should be standardization across districts for situations like this to avoid future complaints and/or issues. Although there might be different ways and/or opinions on how to allocate the remaining funds (since there is nothing to guide us in law), the methodology chosen must be fair and continue to benefit the students that the funds were raised for.
If a school site changes from an elementary site to a pre-school and adult education site, our opinion is that the remaining elementary school funds should transfer to the new site(s) with the students, not remain at the site for the preschool and adult education programs to use. When the funds were raised, either via donations or specific fundraisers, they were raised for the elementary students, not the pre-school or adult education students. That’s who the funds "belong to". So, our recommendation would be to use whatever methodology is in place for when a school site closes, and appropriate the remaining funds to the site(s) where the elementary students have been moved.
9/26/08
