(a) Money in the Adult Education Fund of a school district may be expended only for the following charges:

(1) Direct instructional costs relating directly to the adult education program, including, but not limited to, the salaries and benefits of adult education teachers and aides, textbooks, instructional supplies, travel and conference expenses for employees who work in the adult education program, and repair, maintenance, acquisition, and replacement of instructional equipment used in the adult education program.

(2) Direct support costs for the adult education program. For the purposes of this section, “direct support costs” means:

(A) Instructional administration and instructional media costs that are supported by auditable documentation. For purposes of this paragraph, instructional administration costs include the documented costs of individuals who, regardless of specific job title, administer the district’s adult education program.

(B) School administration and pupil services costs that are supported by auditable documentation and that represent the activities of individuals whose employment by the school district is exclusively in support of the adult education program, or school administration and pupil services costs that are supported by auditable documentation and that meet all of the following conditions:

(i) Those costs are able to be identified in a separate contract with the adult education program.

(ii) The administration and services are provided exclusively to adult students and only for the period identified in the contract made pursuant to clause (i).

(iii) The services are provided during a time that is different than when services to pupils in kindergarten and grades 1 to 12, inclusive, are provided, and the administration is provided after 4:00 p.m.

(iv) The persons who provide the services and administration to adult students report to the adult education director during the period of the contract made pursuant to clause (i).

(v) The person providing the administration immediately supervises the adult school personnel.

(C) Plant maintenance and operations costs, including costs for facilities that are used to provide child care services to the children of the students attending the adult education program at a particular site as follows:

(i) For facilities that exclusively house adult education programs, the costs that are supported by auditable documentation. For purposes of this subparagraph, a facility that houses an adult education program and a regional occupational center or program or a child care program, or both, is a facility that exclusively houses an adult education program.

(ii) For facilities that are used by more than one program, including the adult education program, a district may charge the Adult Education Fund for an amount attributable to the adult education program, but this charge shall not exceed the amount derived from the following calculation:

(I) Calculate, according to the general description in the California School Accounting Manual, the prorated number of classroom units that the adult education program uses for instructional and child care purposes.

(II) Calculate the total number of classroom units in the district.

(III) Divide the amount calculated in (I) by the amount calculated in (II).

(IV) Multiply the quotient calculated in (III) by the district’s total plant maintenance and operations costs.

(D) Facilities costs for nondistrict-owned facilities that exclusively house adult education programs, including, but not limited to, costs of facilities that are used to provide child care services to the children of the students attending the adult education program at the same site. For purposes of this paragraph, a facility that houses an adult education program and a regional occupational center or program or a child care program, or both, is a facility that exclusively houses an adult education program.

(E) Facilities costs for the acquisition of facilities originally acquired by adult education programs, or for the restoration of those facilities, including costs for debt service for the acquisition or restoration of a facility, including the costs of facilities that are used to provide child care services to the children of the students attending the adult education program at the same site.

For the purposes of this paragraph, “auditable documentation” means time reports and other contemporaneous records that establish the time that individual employees spend working for the adult education program, and the documentation that supports nonpersonnel costs substantiating that the adult education program received the service, supply, or equipment. That documentation shall comply with the documentation requirements set forth in the California School Accounting Manual published pursuant to Section 41010.

(3) Indirect costs of the adult education program. For the purposes of this paragraph, “indirect costs” means the lesser of the school district’s prior year indirect cost rate as approved by the State Department of Education or the statewide average indirect cost rate for high school and unified school districts for the second prior fiscal year.

(4) As an alternative to charging the costs in both paragraphs (2) and (3) to the adult education program, a school district may transfer not more than 8 percent of the annual revenue deposited in the district’s Adult Education Fund to the district’s general fund for expenditures the district incurs in operating its adult education program.

(b) If the State Department of Education and the Department of Finance concur that a school district has violated this section, the Superintendent of Public Instruction shall direct that school district to transfer double the amount improperly transferred to the district’s general fund from that fund to the district’s Adult Education Fund for the subsequent fiscal year, which amount shall be used for the improvement of the district’s adult education program. If the school district fails to make that transfer as directed, the superintendent shall reduce the school district’s regular apportionment determined pursuant to Section 42238 and increase the district’s adult block entitlement determined pursuant to Section 52616 by that amount, which amount shall be used for improvement of the district’s adult education program.

(c) It is the intent of the Legislature in enacting this section that responsible school district officials be held fully accountable for the accounting and reporting of adult education programs and that minor and inadvertent instances of noncompliance be resolved in a fair and equitable manner to the satisfaction of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and the Department of Finance.

(d) The Superintendent of Public Instruction, with the approval of the Department of Finance, may waive up to the full transfer amount in subdivision (b) if he or she determines that the noncompliance involved is minor or inadvertent, or both.

(Amended by Stats. 1996, Ch. 1158, Sec. 13. Effective September 30, 1996.)