School Districts Respond to Transparency Reporting

In an ASBO survey distributed to the 75 school districts (excluding NYC) required to report school-level financial transparency under section 3614 of the Education Law, 61 school districts responded. Participants were asked questions regarding the complexities and challenges in completing the new transparency form. One of the biggest obstacles: time. The survey found that on average, it took 11 working days to complete the form and several school districts indicated the task took twenty to forty days. This multi-week requirement pulled school business officials away from their daily responsibilities at a critical time in the school year. Respondents raised concerns that this year’s filing deadline came at the same time State Aid claim forms were due, when school audits took place and when schools were opening for the 2018-19 school year. The deadline for the next round of school districts and thereafter may be as early as July 1st which is also a difficult time in the year to focus efforts on such a time-consuming task.

Not only did the state transparency filing place burden on school business officials, but it also did for a variety of other individuals within the school district. Titles ranged from the school superintendent to outside consultants. This goes to show what an enormous task this is for school districts to take on.

Staff Involved in Completing Transparency Form

• School Business Official

• Superintendent

• CIO

• Building Principals

• Special Education Department

• Medicaid Clerk

• Payroll

• HR

• Treasurer

• Accountant

• Grants Management

• Attendance Coordinator

• District Clerk

• Director of Curriculum

• Secretary to the Superintendent

• Consultant

• BOCES

In addition to the amount of time it took to complete the form, survey participants mentioned additional challenges including the following:

Difficulties in Completing the Form

• Limited guidance

• Short turn around

• Difficult time of the year

• Allocations by building (expenses & revenues)

• Allocating benefits by purpose

• Allocating salaries

• Allocating federal funds by school

• Breaking out BOCES costs by building costs, district costs and costs to exclude

• Obtaining non-financial data from other departments

• Dealing with rounding issues

• Fitting an existing budget into a new framework

• Compiling the data for the first time

The shift in focus from the district to the school is not a small task and presents many challenges for school business officials in collecting, organizing and reporting data. In addition, all school districts must comply with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) school-level reporting by December 31, 2019 that will be based on 2018-19 actual expenditures. It is therefore in the best interest of the district to get ahead now by preparing systems for both of these new reporting requirements.

ASBO New York will continue to be involved with the process, meeting with the State Budget Division and Education Department and meetings with school business officials, superintendents, school board members, principals, independent auditors, parent groups, financial software developers, researchers and others about meeting the requirements, interpreting and communicating the data and beginning to identify best practices. This major policy shift in New York State school finance will take time to fully implement. ASBO has heard from its members that if New York State implements a school level financial reporting system, it is important that we do it well. That is a tall order.

Participants also made several comments and suggestions in the survey that ASBO has passed along to the Division of the Budget (DOB). Among the most popular, respondents want to know whether the time and resources put into completing the form will lead to clear and useful data. We’ll have to wait and see. ASBO thanks all of our members who participated in the survey.