Page 16 - The Edge - Back to School 2018

SUMMER CONFERENCE AND EXPO

BY DON HARRIS
Changes Are Coming to Financial Reporting — What to Expect

A representative of the Arizona Auditor General’s O ce prepared e format for scal 2020 AFR reporting will have one line for each
AASBO members for the not-too-distant future when nancial reporting school with multiple columns for each data element. “It is important to
requirements for district schools and charters become more detailed and note that this is the way the information will be gathered,” Cable said.
transparent. “ADE will develop the display of the information for the School Report
Cris Cable, Manager with the Arizona Auditor General’s O ce, Card requirement.”
noted that starting in scal year 2020, district schools and charters will Cable posed several questions on implementation to two members
be required to report revenues and expenditures at a school level to be of the school-level reporting working group who agreed to share their
included in the annual school report cards. thoughts – Jeremy Calles of Tolleson Union High School District and
“So how do we make this work?” she said. Kimberly Dugdale of St. Johns Uni ed School District.
e new requirements are contained in legislation passed in 2017, and For example: What piece(s) of the revenue reporting will be the most
are e ective for the scal year 2021 report card based on challenging?
the scal 2020 Annual Financial Report. Calles identi ed transportation as the most challenging. Schools have
In a breakout session at AASBO’s Summer Conference to consider route miles per school in a district, he said. “ ere is no way
and Expo on July 19, Cable spelled out the requirements. to calculate it without knowing the route miles for each school,” he said.
They include: detailed total revenues generated by If there are 400 students in one school and 200 in the other, district
weighted student count at each school; total allocated o cials can’t automatically allocate two-thirds of the funding to the larger
federal, state, and local revenue at each school; the amount school and one-third to the smaller one, he said.
of monies not allocated to the school level for each district “Some schools get more transportation funding than they have
Cable
and charter; the allocation of classroom site fund monies expenses,” Calles said.
at each school; and the amounts allocated for teacher pay On a question about strategies for determining what revenues to
and bene ts, classroom supplies, student support and allocate to the school-level, Calles noted that not all schools provide special
other expenditures at each school. education. Counselors and special education teachers move from school
“ e law requires e cient and transparent reporting,” to school, so o cials will have to break out their time per school, he said.
Cable said. Asked how he will allocate funds, Calles said with current-year funding
e reporting format for scal year 2020 must cover you have to try to make estimates as the revenue comes in. “I say it’s
state and local funds and federal revenues, including impossible,” he said. “ e student count changes daily. You can’t allocate
Dugdale revenue generated by student count, all other revenues, on the front end. Every allocation has to be on the back end.”
and amounts that are actually allocated to your individual Calles raised his own question: “What is ADE going to do with the
schools. data? Some legislators will use the data to support some bills and we will
Meanwhile, the report should cover expenditures collect data to counter the argument of whatever they’re saying. So, it’s
based on existing NPEFS reporting in the AFR with detail, important to keep that in mind when you are looking at how to structure
and should capture personnel versus non-personnel the data collection.”
expenditures, Cable said. On expenditure reporting, questions to consider include:
State and local revenues generated by student count • What programs are run centrally versus at the school-level?
Calles include base support, district and charter additional • Will you allocate centralized program costs or use ADE’s allocation
assistance, the Classroom Site Fund, and others such as based on student count?
tuition and grants like results-based funding. • Will you be implementing changes to how you use unit codes?
Many of these student count generated amounts will be calculated for Kimberly Dugdale of St. Johns Uni ed School District urged AASBO
districts and charters by the Arizona Department of Education, Cable members to make sure revenue and expenditures are coded to the correct
said. school.
Non-student count generated revenues include amounts from state and And Cable explained that the last question above was acknowledging
local taxes, such as district transportation funding, district voter-approved that districts and charters might need to look closer at the unit codes
overrides, district small school adjustments, and grants. they use to ensure they accurately track school-level costs rather than
Other non-tax state and local funds include private donations and tax classifying some of those expenditures to the district-wide code.
credit eligible fees, transportation fees that some charters charge, school
lunch sales, and others such as school plant and auxiliary operations. Cris Cable can be reached at: ccable@azauditor.gov or (602) 553-9838.
Federal revenues generated by student count include special education
and grants under IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Jeremy Calles can be reached at: Jeremy.Calles@TUHSD.org or (623) 478-4003.
Non-student count revenues include impact aid and child nutrition
programs. Kimberly Dugdale can be reached at: kdugdale@sjusd.net or (928) 245-5949.

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