Requirements to Receive ARRA Funds

INFORMATIONAL LETTER: 105
POLICY CODE: LG/EF

TO: Superintendents of Schools
FROM: Susan A. Gendron, Commissioner
DATE: June 5, 2009
RE: Requirements to Receive ARRA Funds

Maine’s application has been approved for the State Fiscal Stabilization Funds. The allocation of these funds is part of the State Budget, which recently was passed and signed into law by the Governor. There are several additional steps that need to be performed by the Bureau of the Budget and the Office of the State Controller prior to issuing payments to each school unit. Once these steps have been completed, the Maine Department of Education will prepare to process payment of the 2008-09 State Fiscal Stabilization Funds to each school administrative unit. I anticipate the funds will be available and all internal processes completed by the middle of June.

State Fiscal Stabilization Funds

The Maine Department of Education informed the school administrative units through Informational Letter #100 (May 8, 2009) that an application for phase 1 of the State Fiscal Stabilization Funds was to be completed and submitted to the Department by May 20, 2009. In order for the State Fiscal Stabilization funds to be disbursed to a school administrative unit, the unit must have:

a complete application with DUNS number,
compliance with all elements of required State General Fund reporting, cash management reporting and annual audit submission.

For 2009-10, School Finance and Operations will be processing payments on a quarterly basis. If a school administrative unit is not in compliance with the elements outlined in (1) and (2) above, the unit will have six weeks to provide the necessary documents to come into compliance for payment. Units that become compliant after the six-week timeframe will not receive their payment until the next regular quarterly payment.

IDEA; NCLB: Title I-A, Title I School Improvement, Educational Technology, and Education for the Homeless

In order for the disbursement of each of the federal ARRA funding streams to school administrative units, each unit must have: 1) a complete application and 2) compliance with all federal reporting requirements. The federal ARRA funds will be distributed on a monthly basis. If an SAU has Cash Management Report issues or too much cash on hand in an NCLB Title account or an IDEA account, the funds will be held until these issues are resolved.

The following are the State and federal reports that are required to be completed:

State Fiscal Stabilization:

http://portalx.bisoex.state.me.us/pls/doe/eddev.formscheckin.searchmissingreports

IDEA:

EFU 415 - Federal Cash Management Form [www.maine.gov/education/forms/otherdoe.htm#efu415]

NCLB:

SAU Action Plan for Highly Qualified Teachers
NCLB Application
No outstanding federal monitoring citations

Please review these web resources on a regular basis to determine your compliance status for receipt of ARRA funding for each federal program.