On January 1, 2017, Senate Bill No. 1029 (Hertzberg) became effective, requiring all public agencies (including K-12 school districts and community college districts) to adopt debt management policies and to report annually on authorized and outstanding debt, and expenditure of proceeds of the debt. The annual reports are received, implemented and managed by the California Debt and Investment Advisory Commission (CDIAC), which acts as a statistical clearinghouse for the State of California.  SB 1029 propelled many districts to immediately develop and adopt debt management policies.  Now that CDIAC is rolling out the second part of the legislation, called the “Annual Debt Transparency Report” (ADTR) Program, districts should start preparing to submit their annual report(s).

Any district that issued bond debt for which a Report of Final Sale was filed on or after January 21, 2017, must file its first ADTR for that bond issue on or before January 31, 2018 to cover the first reporting period of July 1, 2016 through June 30, 2017.  Reports will be due every January 31 thereafter for the prior fiscal year reporting cycle, for as long as bonds remain outstanding.   The reports are filed electronically with CDIAC though its website interface.

If your district must file this report for the first filing period, you should have received, or will soon receive, an email alert from CDIAC. Your bond counsel or other contact person listed on the Report of Final Sale for your bond issuance has or will also receive this notice. In order to prepare an ADTR, a district or its consultant must enter a unique CDIAC number and password that connects to existing data on file for a particular debt issuance.  Some of the fields are expected to be auto-populated with information based on the data submitted to CDIAC at the time of the bond issuance, but new information from a public agency’s records also will be required, such as expenditure of debt proceeds during the reporting period.

What must be included in your ADTR?

The form will require the following information for the reporting period, in varying levels of detail:

• Authorized debt, lapsed debt, and outstanding debt;
• Principal paid and outstanding during the reporting period; and
• Proceeds available, spent and remaining during the reporting period, which includes the purposes for which the proceeds were spent.

Note that the ADTR is “issue specific,” meaning that separate reports must be filed every year for each bond issuance, for as long as the particular issue is outstanding.  As of right now, the ADTR is not cumulative, so plan ahead and give yourself plenty of time to file.

Like many new programs of this nature, we expect there to be a learning curve, and perhaps a few bumps in the road, including questions regarding the specific data fields and  proper input of particular data sets to the ADTR.  Our bond attorneys are very familiar with CDIAC reporting, and have a working relationship with CDIAC staff.  We would be happy to help you navigate the process of filing your first ADTR. Please contact us if we can assist you with the preparation or filing, or if you have any other questions about SB 1029.

For more information regarding your district’s obligation to ensure compliance with Title IX, please contact a DWK attorney.