(a) (1) For the 2017–18 fiscal year, the sum of eight hundred seventy-six million five hundred eighty-one thousand dollars ($876,581,000) is hereby appropriated from the General Fund to the State Department of Education for transfer by the Controller to Section A of the State School Fund. The Superintendent of Public Instruction shall allocate those funds to school districts and county superintendents of schools in the manner, and for the purposes, set forth in this section.

(2) For purposes of this section, a “school district” includes a county office of education and a charter school.

(b) The Superintendent of Public Instruction shall allocate the funds appropriated pursuant to paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) to school districts on the basis of an equal amount per unit of regular average daily attendance, as those average daily attendance numbers are reported at the time of the second principal apportionment for the 2016–17 fiscal year.

(c) Allocations made pursuant to this section shall first satisfy any outstanding claims pursuant to Section 6 of Article XIII B of the California Constitution for reimbursement of state-mandated local program costs for any fiscal year. Notwithstanding Section 12419.5 and any amounts that are paid in satisfaction of outstanding claims for reimbursement of state-mandated local program costs, the Controller may audit any claim as allowed by law, and may recover any amount owed by school districts pursuant to an audit only by reducing amounts owed by the state to school districts for any other mandate claims. Under no circumstances shall a school district be required to remit funding back to the state to pay for disallowed costs identified by a Controller audit of claimed reimbursable state-mandated local program costs. The Controller shall not recover any amount owed by a school district pursuant to an audit of claimed reimbursable state-mandated local program costs by reducing any amount owed a school district for any purpose other than amounts owed for any other mandate claims. The Controller shall apply amounts received by each school district against any balances of unpaid claims for reimbursement of state-mandated local program costs and interest in chronological order beginning with the earliest claim. The Controller shall report to each school district the amounts of any claims and interest that are offset from funds provided pursuant to this section and shall report a summary of the amounts offset for each mandate for each fiscal year to the Department of Finance and the fiscal committees of each house of the Legislature.

(d) (1) The governing board of a school district may expend the one-time funds received pursuant to this section for any purpose, as determined by the governing board of the school district.

(2) It is the intent of the Legislature that school districts shall prioritize the use of these one-time funds for deferred maintenance, professional development for educators, induction for beginning teachers with a focus on relevant mentoring, instructional materials, technology infrastructure, and any other investments necessary to support implementation of the common core standards in English language arts and mathematics, the implementation of English language development standards, and the implementation of the Next Generation Science standards.

(e) For purposes of making the computations required by Section 8 of Article XVI of the California Constitution, the appropriation made by paragraph (1) of subdivision (a) shall be deemed to be “General Fund revenues appropriated for school districts,” as defined in subdivision (c) of Section 41202 of the Education Code, for the 2017–18 fiscal year, and included within the “total allocations to school districts and community college districts from General Fund proceeds of taxes appropriated pursuant to Article XIII B,” as defined in subdivision (e) of Section 41202 of the Education Code, for the 2017–18 fiscal year.

(Added by Stats. 2017, Ch. 15, Sec. 67. (AB 99) Effective June 27, 2017.)