SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — Proposed legislation could change the way schools receive state funding.

Senate Bill 830 would replace a daily attendance funding-based model with an enrollment-based model.

Harold Sullins, associate superintendent of business, facilities and operations at San Bernardino City Unified School District, keeps his eye on enrollment. The district, historically, has 94% of kids in the classroom each day, but now there are many more absences.

“We’re actually seeing because of quarantine and because we’re still in the midst of this pandemic, that the absenteeism rate is much greater,” Sullins said.

Now, just around 86% of students are showing up, which means less money for the district even though they have to prepare for full classrooms.

“If a student doesn’t show up to school one day, we still have to turn on the lights, we still have a teacher in the classroom,” Sullins said. “Those expenditures don’t go away simply by a student not attending.”

Sullins believes the proposed enrollment-based funding model would help his district.

It’s not a new idea. In fact, almost every other state has this funding model.

State Sen. Anthony Portantino introduced the legislation. He believes that in a year, of $31 billion state budget surplus, the proposed funding model could bring more than $3 million to public education.

“You’re gonna submit your enrollment numbers at the beginning of the year and that’s what you’re gonna get paid upon,” Portantino said.

Critics have said enrollment-based funding could hurt school choice. Parents who enroll students in a different school would leave money behind at the former school.

Others argue the model could disincentivize districts from addressing chronic absenteeism.

Portantino says he isn’t worried about that.

“States that do it well don’t see that issue,” he said. “What we’ve done with the bill is, we’ve put in safeguards and we’ve put in money towards going after chronic truancy to go into the underlying causes of absenteeism.”

Sullins estimates the change could bring an extra $36 million per year to district schools.

The proposed law has been endorsed by Los Angeles Unified School District, which had 130,000 students absent from school the first week back from winter break.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced schools will receive nearly $100 million for the 2021-2022 in his new budget proposal.