Financial Transparency Working Group: Office Hours March 13, 2017 By: Marguerite Roza Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University

Communicating During the Call To request to be unmuted, please use the hand raise tool Use the comment box to ask questions or message the group bscpcenter.org

Agenda Working Group update & future meetings What is the status of the financial transparency requirement? Office Hours: Answering your questions

Working Group Update No longer funded by the US Department of Education – solely supported by CCSSO and Edunomics Lab Opinions and guidance provided by Edunomics Lab are based on our interpretation of the law, and are not endorsed by the US Department of Education March 28, 1-2PM EST Can you add the other dates

Status of the financial transparency requirement ESSA LAW Statue requires SEAs to report expenditures by school Accountability REGULATIONS: Written by DoEd but mandatory Creates a requirement for a uniform procedure for attributing spending in LEAs. Clarifies exclusions. Extends deadline, defines student count, etc. GUIDANCE Written by DoEd. Offers examples and clarifications. Guidance is not mandatory Signed into law 12/ 2015 Released 11/2016 Published 1/2017 All SEAs must comply in order to receive Title I funds Process of withdrawing regulations initiated 1/2016, passed both houses and likely to be signed by president this week. 3/2016 DoEd withdraws guidance immediately when regs are pulled. DoED announces that new simple guidance will be released this week. This guidance may or may not make any mention of the financial transparency requirement. Guidance is not mandatory.

ESSA requires that SEAs report: What is in the law? ESSA requires that SEAs report: “The per-pupil expenditures of Federal, State, and local funds, including actual personnel expenditures and actual nonpersonnel expenditures of Federal, State, and local funds, disaggregated by source of funds, for each local educational agency and each school in the State for the preceding fiscal year.” Deadline = Dec. 2018 for 2017-18 school year.

What’s changed by pulling regs and guidance? Date is Dec 2018, no extension at present Vastly increased choice by states on how/what to report: Regulations about a “uniform” procedure are gone. Definitions of numerator and denominator are gone (including what can be excluded and how to “count” students. Note:  requirement for REAL salaries remains in the law

The Productivity Opportunity Remains: To go beyond compliance and build a financial transparency system that works to drive system improvement School as an important unit in the ed system. We already report outcomes by school, and this step will add expenditures. Activate school-level engagement in order to leverage dollars to do the most for students. Research indicates that school-level behaviors/actions/factors play a big role in determining the relationship between expenditures and outcomes. School level financial data can help activate these factors Explore equity and help ensure that allocations are deliberate. Data visibility can enable local communities to wrestle with tradeoffs.

Office Hours Everyone is unmuted Use this time to ask questions, or share updates about your state or district

Example data: Meeting the basic requirement: Central District Valley District Charterama LEA Maple Elem Ceder Elem LEA average Green School River Acad. LEA Average Charterama school #1 A School level Federal $1,101 $432 $554 $301 $614 $401 B S/L $8,722 $7,759 $7,861 $5,493 $7,112 $6,626 $11,619 C Sch total $9,823 $8,191 $8,415 $5,794 $7,726 $7,027 $12,720 D LEA level $421 $589 $- E $4,597 $5,573   F Grand Total $14,841 $13,209 $13,433 $11,956 $13,888 $13,189 Two options: Define a uniform procedure for what gets reported at school level and require that reporting across all districts Require that all LEA expenditures get divvied up across schools.

Moving from Data Inventory to Action 1. SEA has a common chart of accounts (COA) with a field for location 2. SEA has SLFS (or similar) data by school 3. SEA has real salaries/benefits of personnel with location 4. SEA does not yet have access to financial information by school: CO DE, FL, HI, MA, ME, MS, OH, RI, DC, MD, WY, OR, NE Compare SLFS&F-33 Explore early data runs Connect with representative LEAs Identify where SLFS data is incomplete Develop plan to complete SLFS data Share early reports with LEAs Identify equity issues Explore visualization options Develop communication plan CT. IL Examine personnel expend by school. Are these salaries accurate? Compare personnel totals to F-33. What’s missing? Can the difference be parsed per pupil? Identify LEAs for partnership & analysis Consider SLFS or COA w/ location code Settle on data plan for 2017-18 school year. Communicate data plan with LEAs. Pilot collection plan. ND, VA, AZ, SD, MO, TN Explore available data for patterns across districts (% SL vs % Central) Decide if any work needs to be done to dictate how districts divvy up central expenditures. Who will do it? Have LEAs weigh in. Share early reports with LEAs Identify any equity issues Explore visualization options Develop communication plan Identify LEAs for partnership during exploration Consider SLFS or COA w/ location code Settle on data plan for 2017-18 school year. Communicate data plan with LEAs. Train where needed. Pilot collection plan.

Bucket 1 States 1. SEA has a common chart of accounts (COA) with a field for location DE, FL, HI, MA, ME, MS, OH, RI, DC, MD, WY, OR, NE Explore available data for patterns across districts (% SL vs % Central) Decide if any work needs to be done to dictate how districts divvy up central expenditures. Who will do it? Have LEAs weigh in. Share early reports with LEAs Identify any equity issues Explore visualization options Develop communication plan

Bucket 2 States 2. SEA has SLFS (or similar) data by school CO Compare/merge SLFS to F-33 Explore early data runs Connect with representative LEAs Identify where SLFS data is incomplete Develop plan to complete SLFS data Share early reports with LEAs Identify any equity issues Explore visualization options Develop communication plan

Bucket 3 States 3. SEA has real salaries/benefits of personnel with location CT. IL Examine personnel expend by school. Are these salaries accurate? Compare personnel totals to F-33. What’s missing? Can the difference be parsed per pupil? Identify LEAs for partnership & analysis Consider SLFS or COA w/ location code Settle on data plan for 2017-18 school year. Communicate data plan with LEAs. Pilot collection plan.

Bucket 4 States 4. SEA does not yet have access to financial information by school: ND, VA, AZ, SD, MO, TN Identify LEAs for partnership during exploration Consider SLFS or COA w/ location code Settle on data plan for 2017-18 school year. Communicate data plan with LEAs. Train where needed. Pilot collection plan.

In-person meeting materials Link was shared in today’s calendar invite Afton Partners summary coming soon! If you need additional info, reach out to Katie Please send data files or early analysis when you have it http://edunomicslab.org/meeting-essa-financial-transparency-reporting-requirement/