_SONOMA COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION



SONOMA COUNTY OFFICE OF EDUCATION

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SCOE BIZ

Business Services

Bulletin No. 15-13 March 2015

March 26, 2015

To: District/Charter Business Services

From: Judy Thomson, Director Fiscal Services

State of the State

To recap 2014… The U.S. and California economies continued to grow steadily.  U.S. real Gross Domestic Product grew by 2.4 percent in 2014, and both the U.S. and California have surpassed their pre-recession peak numbers of jobs.  Overall consumer price inflation was low, averaging less than 2 percent in California in 2014.

California’s General Fund revenues for February 2015 are exceeding Governor Jerry Brown’s State Budget projections. For the first seven months of the fiscal year tax receipts are running approximately 1.0% ahead of the Governor’s Budget estimate.

Public Records Act

The League of California Cities has created A Guide to the California Public Records Act. The guide is a very informative document that can be obtained by:

Go to

Go to the “Resources” tab and click on “Publications” … Do NOT stop here, please continue!

On the left side of the page under “Jump to…” go to “—Select Department--” and select “City Attorneys”

Click on the “Resources” tab

At the bottom of this page, click on “City Attorney Publications”

The first selection is The People’s Business: A Guide to the California Public Records Act – Download or Print!

The third selection is The People’s Business: 2014 Supplement – Download or Print!

Common Core Expenditure Reporting ~ Reminder

The California Department of Education (CDE) has opened the online Common Core State Implementation (CCSI) Funds Expenditure Report for all local educational agencies who received CCSI funds in fiscal year 2013-14. Filing the expenditure report before July 1, 2015 is a condition of receiving funds for CCSI. Failure to file the expenditure report will result in an invoice for the entire entitlement amount. Failure to expend or encumber all funds will result in an invoice for the remaining balance.

The expenditures are reported online via the Expenditure Report for Academic Content Standards (Common Core) Implementation Funds web portal at .

Passwords to access the report will be emailed to the district superintendent, charter administrator, or the contact person listed in the California School Directory within the next few days.

 For more information about CCSI funds, please go to the CDE CCSI Web page at . 

Instructional Time Table

The Local Control Fund Instructional Time Requirement Table for 2014-15 can be found at:



Unspent 2014-15 Supplemental and Concentration (S/C) funds ~ Considerations

The 2015-16 LCAP will include an annual update which will capture the progress toward each goal from the prior year LCAP. Please consider the following:

• When an LEA’s LCAP reflects the plan for spending S/C dollars, but the LEA is unable to do so during the plan year, it should be disclosed in the LCAP Annual Update (estimated actuals), discussed with stakeholders, and included in the new LCAP if appropriate. The funding is not restricted, so there is no “carryover” or requirement to spend it. This will be a common, normal part of the process.

• When LEAs want to track the S/C expenditures, consider using a management code. A locally defined unrestricted resource code may generate ending fund balances and unspent balances may appear to be subject to carryover, which may not be the intent since the dollars are unrestricted.

• Knowing the amount of S/C expenditures and communicating that to stakeholders can be useful in negotiations. If expenditures are lower than expected in one year, it can affect the minimum proportionality percentage (MPP) in the subsequent years. Running scenarios for LEAs can be helpful for planning purposes.

Reminder: Public Hearings on Proposed Budgets and LCAPs … at least two board meetings!

The LCAP public hearing shall be held at the same meeting as the Proposed Adopted Budget public hearing. However, the LCAP adoption shall take place in a public meeting, but may not be the same day as the public hearing. This LCAP adoption meeting shall be the same meeting during which the governing board of the school district adopts a budget. Please see SCOE Biz Bulletin No. 15-14 for greater detail.

District Reserves

The State standards and criteria for district budgets establish a minimum recommended reserve for economic uncertainties based on the district’s average daily attendance (ADA). SB 858 amended education code to require a district’s public hearing for the 2015-16 budget adoption and forward to include the following review:

• The minimum recommended reserve for economic uncertainties for each fiscal year identified in the budget.

• The combined assigned and unassigned ending fund balances that are in excess of minimum recommended reserve for economic uncertainties for each fiscal year identified in the budget. The fund balances include the General Fund and Fund 17, Special Reserve Fund for Other than Capital Outlay.

• A statement of reasons that substantiate the need for assigned and unassigned fund balance in excess of the minimum recommended reserve for economic uncertainties for each fiscal year.

SB 858, the education budget trailer bill, also includes reserve caps or limits if certain State revenue conditions are met. The limit only applies in a fiscal year immediately following a fiscal year in which the state makes a deposit of any amount into the state’s Public School System Stabilization Account (the Proposition 98 reserve that was created by Proposition 2). A district with an ADA of 400,000 or less would be limited to two times the minimum recommended reserve.

A county superintendent of schools may grant an exemption of this requirement for up to two consecutive fiscal years within a three-year period to any district that documents extraordinary fiscal circumstances that substantiate the need for a reserve in excess of the limit.

Please note that Budget adoption cannot be used to commit funds, per GAAP, because budgets expire at the end of the fiscal period and commitments do not expire. Once a Board commits funds, those funds stay committed until spent or until the Board takes an action to uncommit them.

Attached is an example of one school district’s Fund Balance section included in its Board Policy 3100 – Business and Noninstructional Operations.

Independent Study

Recent legislation, SB 858, enacted June 20, 2014, changed the way independent study ratios are calculated from a local education agency-wide calculation to a calculation by grade span. The CDE is required to specify how the ratios are calculated. Due to the late timing of the legislation and late availability of the requisite instructions for making the calculations, for the purposes of calculating the ratios for 2014–15, the implementation year, LEAs can choose to calculate ratios by grade span or on an overall local education agency-wide basis.

The California Department of Education has posted instructions and worksheets for calculating ratios for independent study at:

Beginning fiscal year 2015–16, LEAs will be required to calculate the ratio by grade span as provided in the California Education Code Section 51745.6; however, note that there are proposed statutory amendments that will eliminate this requirement, reverting back to a LEA-wide ratio. When planning for 2015–16, please refer back to this webpage as it will be updated as new information becomes available.

SB 858 also included the following changes to independent study effective 2014–15:

• Comparative grade span ratios can be negotiated ~   (Education Code Section51745.6(a)(2))

• Independent study agreements can cover one year ~   (Education Code Section51747(c)(5))

• Signed agreements can be maintained electronically ~   (Education Code Section51747)

• Pupil work products need not be dated and signed~   (Education Code Section51747.5)

New Omni Circular ~ Implications for LEAs

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published the “Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards” on December 26, 2013.

• Formerly known as the “Super Circular”

• Now known as the “Omni Circular”

The guidance consolidates eight OMB circulars relating to federal grants management into one document that applies uniformly to all types of recipient entities including LEAs. The intent was to streamline federal grants management by increasing consistency and by decreasing complexity & duplication among the various circulars. Finding your way around the new guidance can be found at:

Please see the attached for greater detail.

SB 1405 ~ Changes to Healthy Schools Act

Senate Bill 1405, which became effective on January 1, 2015, imposes additional requirements on school districts and child care centers applying pesticides that are not exempted from regulation under the Healthy Schools Act (HSA). HSA (Education Code sections 17608-17614) prohibits school districts from using or restricts certain types of pesticides identified by the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR). For more detailed information please see attached summary and go to:

Dates to Remember:

04/01/2015 Auditor selection for 2014-15 due to SCOE

04/08/2015 Escape HR Group Meeting

04/10/2015 Open Lab

04/17/2015 Open Lab

04/17/2015 P-2 Attendance due to SCOE

04/24/2015 Special Education Workshop

04/24/2015 DBUG

04/28/2015 Payroll Concepts Workshop

NOTE: Documents that are presented at DBUG may be found at dp. website under the "DBUG/SCOE Bulletins" tab.[pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic][pic]

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