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

2. 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

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

5. 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

6. 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.

7. 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 for school year.

8. 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

9. 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.

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

11. 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.

12. 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 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 school year.
Communicate data plan with LEAs. Train where needed.
Pilot collection plan.

13. 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

14. Bucket 2 States 2. SEA has SLFS (or similar) data by schoolCO
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

15. 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 school year.
Communicate data plan with LEAs.
Pilot collection plan.

16. 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 school year.
Communicate data plan with LEAs. Train where needed.
Pilot collection plan.

17. 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