001Welcome to TEA's Federal Fiscal Compliance and Reporting Division's presentation on the ESSA fiscal requirements for title one part A comparability of services. This presentation will specifically review the reporting and documenting of state and local expenditure data. This presentation is based on the viewer being familiar with the comparability requirement and having viewed the title one part a comparability of services general overview presentation. So let's jump right into it and begin comparability testing and state and local expenditures. The most common issues we found school systems making when reporting state and local expenditures are not excluding federal funds, not excluding supplemental state and local dollars or not excluding supplemental state and local dollars consistently across all campuses and grades spans. and not having auditable documentation to support the expenditures being reported. No federal funds should be included in
002the state and local expenditures. The comparability instructions can be found on TEA's Title One Part A comparability of services web page. Appendix two of the instructions codes used in comparability calculations lists all state and local fund codes that are required to be included in the calculation. 15-64 section 1118 fiscal requirements D exclusion of funds states that a school system may exclude supplemental state and local dollars. It is not a requirement to exclude supplemental state and local dollars. However, excluding supplemental dollars creates a more accurate picture of the campuses, making it easier to come into compliance with the testing requirement. Certain services are meant for specific students. Thus, supplemental state and local expenditures can vary from campus to campus based on student populations. Excluding the supplemental dollars can be critical for being in compliance with the
003testing requirement. If the amount of supplemental dollars varies greatly from campus to campus, if you choose to exclude supplemental state and local dollars, you must do so consistently across the school system. Appendix 2 of the title one part A comparability of services handbook provides further information on supplemental state and local fund expenditures that may be excluded from comparability testing. A school system may exclude supplemental state and local funds expended for the following language instruction educational programs such as bilingual education for children with limited English proficiency. English as a second language ESL services excess state and local costs of providing services to children with disabilities as determined by the school system. state or local supplemental programs in any school attendance area or school which meets the intents and purposes of title one part A school system
004excludes supplemental state and local dollars from one campus's total state and local expenditures. It must exclude the same supplemental dollars from all campuses total state and local expenditures. All campuses in all grades span groups. There is no flexibility with this requirement because comparability is a federal requirement. The information reported must be supported by auditable documentation. Official budget records are the only records considered auditable documentation. For example, computer accounting system records such as expenditure reports reflecting the budgeted amounts are considered official records and are auditable documents. Auditable documentation includes reports from the school's system from the school systems accounting system indicating the reported budgeted amounts by fund function and or codes. These reports can be in PDF format. Approved meeting minutes from a board of trustees meeting indicating approval and a copy of the approved budget
005detailed by fund function and org codes and any other official budget document which reflects approved by the board of trustees. An Excel spreadsheet with account names and amounts is not considered auditable documentation. A data export from the school's accounting system into Excel with the appropriate notations is considered auditable documentation. All exported data will have notations indicating the scope of the data and the system from which it originated. These are notations a staff member would make. They are part of the data export. Obtain the budget records for all campuses by funds, function, and object codes from your financial accounting system. Exclude any supplemental, state, and local dollars if the dollars are excluded. Detail which supplemental dollars have been excluded and have documentation of the excluded amount. Arrive at a reduced budget total to be reported. Provide
006the math used to arrive at the reported total. For example, if $100 was deducted for supplemental state and local dollars, show your math on your documentation and detail how the new total was achieved. Keep all documents which support the state and local expenditure data reported as per the school systems record retention schedule. TEA does request this documentation on a random basis. This concludes our presentation. Should you have any questions about this information, please email us. One of our team members will be happy to assist you.