CHRISTY WEILER
Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Today, we will be presenting a tool designed for states to assist and streamline the management of their Section 611 Set-Aside Funds. My name is Christy Weiler, and Laura Johnson is with me today. We are technical assistance liaisons for the Center for IDEA Fiscal Reporting, or CIFR.
Let’s start with, what are state set-aside funds? This graphic is from the At-A-Glance IDEA Part B grants to states and subgrants to LEA CIFR resource. The graphic details the breakdown of the state grants and subgrants to LEAs. It starts with the dark blue bar at the top that’s titled, State Part B Grants, which are also referred to as Section 611 or 619. Eligible states receive an annual grant from the US Department of Education to support special education and related services for children ages three through 21. From those grants, each state may reserve a limited amount of its 611 and 619 grant that can be used for state administration and other state-level activities. And these are often referred to as state set-aside funds, which are listed as the gray boxes on the side. States will then allocate the remaining funds as subgrants to LEAs, and those funds are broken up into two buckets, starting with the base payments, which is the yellow box, and then any remaining is allocated based on the LEA population and poverty counts, which is shown in the green box.
LAURA JOHNSON
Thanks, Christy. Now, I’m going to talk to you about our new tool, the IDEA Part B State Set-Aside Calculator for Section 611. This tool will do multiple things. First, you can budget your state set-aside funds to make sure you’re meeting state priorities. Second, you can track expenditures throughout the entire grant cycle. And third, you can adjust the budget as needed, and the calculator will alert you if adjustments to the budget require prior approval from OSEP. That means, if they meet that 10% cumulative threshold.
We have multiple components to this tool. We have comprehensive instructions that include a step-by-step guide for copying your data from the calculator to OSEP’s interactive spreadsheet. We also have two calculator samples that show hypothetical data at different points in the grant cycle, and I will be showing those during today’s demo.
So, to begin work in the calculator, you will need a few supplies. One of those items is the Grants to States table, also known as the nine-column table. As always, the tool comes with a lengthy instructions document that is very useful. We recommend reading it, at least through page 15, before you start. And that will include the tool description, so understand why you might want to use the tool, the basic instructions, including what you need to have available and how the calculator is laid out. And then, we have a step-by-step guide for entering data into the table that includes the different kinds of tabs, such as the Table of Contents in the tool, the Getting Started tab, the State Set-Aside Overview, and the Cost Category Worksheets.
You can work with this tool in two ways. You could either enter your data into the interactive spreadsheet and then come to our tool to fill in the details of your budget categories. Or, as we would recommend, you could start with our tool to build those detailed budgets and then copy the data into the interactive spreadsheet. So now, I’m going to open the tool.
So this is the sample for just filling out the data for your application budget. This title page will look familiar to you if you’ve used any of our Excel tools. One new thing in this tool is that we have a table of contents, and this is a great navigation tool if you want to go to a specific tab. We have one tab for each of the line items in the interactive spreadsheet, and those letters go from A to U–V. So, there are a number of tabs, and this is a great navigation tool. You can start budgeting in whichever area you want. Of course, you’re going to start working on the Getting Started tab.
So, on the Getting Started tab, you will enter data from the nine-column table, the Grants to States table, or from your interactive spreadsheet if you’ve already filled it out. First, you will need to select your state from the dropdown. You won’t have the option of sample state, that’s just for creating our samples, but you can select your state from the list. They’re in alphabetical order. Then, you need to enter the grant here, and then you will start copying and pasting from either the Grants to States tables or the interactive spreadsheet. And this column, column E, will show you exactly what you need to copy and how to do it. So, we strongly recommend that you paste values to avoid copying over some bad formatting or anything that might change how this tool works.
And as with most of our tools, you’ll see that these cells are shaded and the shading means that it is available for data entry. Cells that are unshaded, such as this one, either are headers or have a formula, and are not able to be entered. And we do have those protected, so if you forget and you try to type something here, you will get an error message. Now as you go, if you enter something that is incorrect or that doesn’t match, for example, if the maximum available is $5,663,000 and you enter 6 million here, you will get an error message off in column F, in bright red, telling you that your amount set-aside has exceeded your maximum. So, pay attention to that column as you’re going. You may see error messages along the way. The important thing is that when you’re done, you don’t have any error messages.
So, just follow the instructions here, and then we have a few Yes/No questions. If you’re the lead agency, you would want to select Yes. If you receive a preschool grant, you would want to select Yes. And if you’re using funds for a high-cost fund, you would select Yes. And if you select Yes, those tabs will be available to you. If you select No, certain tabs will be not available, and you can come back later and change that. And at the very bottom, we have three that are for using this tool throughout the grant cycle. If you need to revise your budget, if you’re doing a new budget for the Tydings period, and then, if you’re revising that budget, you can come back and change those to Yes.
Another navigation tool I want to show you is off to the side, over here on the left. We have links to every tab in the tool. And that’s another great way if perhaps you don’t want to start with Part D Administration, you want to start with your high-cost fund, and get that money in there right away, you would click here to get to U–V easily without having to scroll all the way to U–V.
So now, I’m going to show you some of the data entry tabs for individual line items. I’ll come back to this State Set-Aside Overview tab later. So, to get to the Part B Administration tab, it’s visible, I could click right here or I can use this handy link. So all of our budget tabs look the same. There are a few that have slight differences, and I will highlight those. But for the most part, what you’re going to enter is a budget item, and in our sample, we’ve kept it rather broad. You could, if you want, include specific people. You could break out personnel into salaries and benefits. Professional development, perhaps you want to list out specific trainings that you’re doing. Supplies, materials, you can get as detailed as you want. And if you want to get really detailed and need additional rows, just reach out to CIFR and we can help you with that.
So, you’re going to enter your application budget numbers and it will calculate a total for you, and this is the same on every tab. Now, you’ll see that the revised budget is blacked out, and that is because you’ve said No on the Getting Started tab, that you are not revising your application budget. You are just entering your application budget at this time. If we look at the Part C Administration tab, you’ll see this one is blacked out, and we have a message up here that our SEA is not the lead agency. And it will direct you to the Getting Started tab to change that if you have made a mistake, and you actually are the lead agency, and you need to enter some budget for Part C Administration.
Joint Part C Policy is another one where it may be blacked out based on your answers on the Getting Started tab. In this case, we did say, “Yes, we received a preschool grant.” If we had said No, this would be blacked out and we would have a message to go to the Getting Started tab if we wanted to change that.
Another tab that is different is the High-Cost Fund. This is actually two line items in the interactive spreadsheet, but since they’re both related to the high-cost fund, we put them together as U–V. And on this tab, it will be blacked out if you chose, “No, you don’t want to set aside funds for the high-cost fund,” and give you the instructions to go to the Getting Started tab and change that. In addition, this tab does not have additional periods. Because funds unexpended for the high-cost fund after the budget period must be distributed to LEAs through the formula for pop[ulation] and poverty.
Now, I’m going to take you to the State Set-Aside Overview tab, and again, I’m going to use this handy navigation tool to get me back there. And this tab brings together all of your totals. So you can see in one place, okay, here’s my total for Part B Administration. Here’s my total for administration and it will sum everything up for you. And these, again, are links. Let’s say that this looked wrong, you could click again on the Part B Administration tab and double check your numbers.
Now, as you’re entering data, you may have some errors. If you do have an error, this will show in bright red to check the rows below the table. I’m just going to make a little change so that you can see how that works. So now, we have an error message that we need to look below the table for specific warnings. And as we scroll down, we’ll see that the total we’ve budgeted for administration does not match what we said we were going to reserve on the Getting Started tab. If I undo my edit, that message will clear. And again, you might see edits, see error messages as you are working on your budget, you really want to check when you’re done with your budget to make sure there are no error messages left.
So now, I’m going to switch to a different version of the tool that has all of the timelines filled in. So in this tool, you’ll see that we have a revised budget, a Tydings period budget, and even a Tydings period revised budget, because we’ve wanted to make some small changes along the way. Now, we got to these budgets just by selecting Yes in these rows on the Getting Started tab, and that removed the blackout so that we could enter data here.
One thing I want to make sure you’re aware of is that this number is copied directly from here. And we did that because we figured that with all of these tabs, A through U–V, and all of the lines, it would be easier for you to edit the few you want to edit instead of entering every single item, even those that are staying the same. So, you will have to edit the ones you want to change, but anything that is staying the same in your budget is already going to be copied over.
As you’re working through your year, you will want to enter your expenditures, and then it will track what do you have unexpended so that during the Tydings period, you will see how much money you have left. And you could change that budget, or you could just continue with the same budget, and this is the amount you have left. Then, you’ll enter your budget or your expenditures during the Tydings period and it will track your unexpended funds. So here, we see there were $8 in this line item that were not expended. So then, we have the liquidation period, and these are the final expenditures during the liquidation period that were obligated before the end of the Tydings period. And in this case, there were $8 left over that the state would have to return to the federal government because they did not liquidate or spend those funds. And if we go to the State Set-Aside Overview, we can see a total of what dollar amount was left over. And here there were $13,880 that were not spent that need to be returned to the government.
Finally, I want to show you in the instructions how you copy data from your application budget into the interactive spreadsheet. So, once you’ve entered your application budget, you want to go into the PDF of the instructions. And using the Table of Contents in the instruction, which has interactive links, you want to click on How to Enter Data From the Calculator Into the Interactive Spreadsheet. And if you click there, it will take you to page 16, which has an exhaustive table with all the instructions you need for getting your data from our tool into the interactive spreadsheet.
The first column here will show you what the name of the data element is in the interactive spreadsheet. The second will tell you where you can find it in our tool, the Part B State Set-Aside Calculator. And the third column will tell you the location in the interactive spreadsheet. And the fourth column will tell you the action. And the action may be you need to verify that the numbers in our tool and the interactive spreadsheet match, or you may need to copy and paste values from our tool into the interactive spreadsheet. And again, we recommend pasting values to make sure you’re not copying over any of our formatting into the interactive spreadsheet and potentially causing problems there.
This table does go on for several pages, but as you know, there are multiple items in the interactive spreadsheet to enter.
CHRISTY WEILER
And then to wrap up, don’t hesitate to reach out, whether it’s through the website, email, or LinkedIn. We’re here to assist you. Thank you for your time, and we look forward to staying connected. Thank you.
