Relates to the transfer of funds from the tuition reimbursement account

◆ The sponsor's argument

Why John Liu says this is needed

The State Education Department's (SED) Bureau of Proprietary School Supervision (BPSS) is responsible for licensing and monitoring the private "proprietary" schools in New York State to ensure that students receive a quality education and to protect the students' financial interests. BPSS is also in charge of investigating student complaints and conducting comprehensive investigations of proprietary schools to assure compliance with Education Law and SED regulations. Unfortunately, BPSS has been faced with limited resources making it difficult for the office to carry out its functions. Currently,, there are nearly 500 licensed proprietary schools in New York and that number is growing each month. BPSS is facing extremely high caseloads for educational technical assistance and backlogs in licensure renewals and investigations of complaints. BPSS has no resources to investigate unli- censed proprietary schools engaging in unlawful activities. This legislation would allow SED to transfer funds, up to a maximum of five hundred thousand dollars within a fiscal year, from the tuition reimbursement account, which has funding above and beyond what is needed to ensure student protection, to the proprietary school supervision account. Transfers would be permitted when the tuition reimbursement account has a net balance in excess of two million five hundred thousand dollars. Transferring this funding to the proprietary school supervision account would allow BPSS to work to reduce educational technical assistance caseloads, reduce backlogs in complaint investigations, improve licen- sure renewal and other vital services, improve the quality of guidance provided to the public regarding this sector of higher education, and improve the fiscal tracking of assessments, penalty payments, and review of annual financial statements. BPSS would also be able to establish a more innovative method of curricular review and method of ensuring the continued educational quality of proprietary schools. Enacting this legislation would enhance BPSS's ability to fulfill its mission and would provide tremendous benefit for the students attending proprietary schools and the proprietary schools themselves.

This is the sponsor's own case for the bill, quoted from their memorandum. It is not Agora's description of what the bill does.