Office of Sen.

Mike Johnston
Colorado General Assembly | 200 E. Colfax Avenue | Denver, CO 80203 | 303.866.4864

FACT SHEET MEMORANDUM

SB 12-051 Contract Requirements for School Districts Sen. Bacon & Rep. Massey Staff Name: Treana Hickey What the Bill Does: Current law allows districts to contract with to provide a variety of services to students. 1 These services include tutoring, intervention services, physical education services, and other arts activities. The services are usually provided after school and are performed by contractors. The districts are currently able to contract with these providers without providing any sort of justification for needing the services or that the services are being provided in a cost-friendly manner. SB 12-051 requires school districts to adopt a policy that school personnel examine the costs and benefits of contracting for the service, prior to recommending that the board of education enter into a contract explaining why school personnel cannot perform the service. School districts also will need to develop a bidding process for contracts before they go before their board of education. Beyond the bidding process, districts will need to establish criteria for which providers provide the best value and understand the culture of the affected schools. The contractor and school district personnel will also need to jointly review the contract quarterly to make sure that the contractor is implementing the contract and performing the services at least as well as the district would have performed them. Finally, the bill would require the contractor to post each contract with a school district in a downloadable format for free public access. Colorado Context: Supplemental Education Service providers (who contract with districts to provide tutoring services) served 4,858 students in CO in 2008-2009.2 Depending on which group provided the tutoring, costs varied widely, from $20 to $89 per hour. (The average cost was $42 per hour or $1,123 per child in federal Title 1 funds.)3 Beyond data collected for SES contracts, there is nothing else relating to the number of contracts that schools districts have entered into or are currently bound to uphold. Bill Provisions: Requires school district personnel to perform a cost-benefit analysis before recommending that the district contract for a service, activity, or undertaking Requires school district personnel to implement a formal bidding process
1 2

C.R.S. 22-32-122. Evaluation of NCLB Title I, Part A: Supplemental Educational Services, Omni Institute, June 2010. 3 Id.

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For a complete list of fact sheets, visit www.mikejohnston.org/in-the-legislature.

Specifies criteria that school district personnel will consider in recommending a contractor to the board, including whether the contractor understands the culture of the affected school and will execute the contract in a manner that supports student success Specifies minimum contract terms. Beginning September 1, 2012, each school district, BOCES, and charter school must post copies of their services contracts on their web sites with the other budgetary information required by statute.

Fiscal Impact: Once a school district adopts a formal policy, there is the potential that the district's expenses related to the bidding and contracting process will be impacted. Pursuant to C.R.S. 22-32-143, school districts and Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) may submit estimates of fiscal impacts within seven days of a bill's introduction.4

Summaries of fiscal impacts submitted by districts or BOCES can be found at www.colorado.gov/lcs.

DRAFT 1/28/2012 6:54 PM

For a complete list of fact sheets, visit www.mikejohnston.org/in-the-legislature.