Reporting Requirements and Deadlines

ADMINISTRATIVE LETTER: 11
POLICY CODE: KLL/DIC

TO: Superintendents of Schools
FROM: Susan A. Gendron, Commissioner
DATE: September 17, 2009
RE: Reporting Requirements and Deadlines

A current “Reporting Deadlines for Subsidy Calculations” is now available on the Department of Education Reporting Forms website:
http://www.maine.gov/education/forms/forms.htm

This website also includes the “2009-2010 Administrative Calendar of Reporting Forms”.

The link “Reports that Impact the ED 279 Subsidy Printout or other Portions of General Purpose Aid Funding” provides a schedule of data submissions that impact the calculation of State subsidy for 2010-11 and will assist you in allocating employee resources during the early fall to ensure that data deadlines are met.

These data submissions include reporting for staff data, student data and financial data and are broken into two categories: one is the initial report due date and the other is the final date for any revisions that will impact the 2010-11 State subsidy calculation.

Over the past few years, school units have been submitting required data very late, resulting in delays of State subsidy calculations and causing difficulty for the Department in carrying out the statutory requirements of Chapter 606-B – The Essential Programs and Services Funding Act.

Examples of “required data” are the following:

All financial data necessary to calculate components of the Essential Programs & Service Funding Act.
All staff data necessary to calculate components of the Essential Programs & Service Funding Act.
All student data necessary to calculate components of the Essential Programs & Service Funding Act.

You will note that the initial report due date and the final date for any revisions (for Essential Programs & Service Staff Positions only) for MEDMS Staff Information are both September 30, 2009. This deadline is necessary to have sufficient time to use the data to update the Staff Salary Matrixes for presentation as part of my 2010-11 recommended funding level to the State Board of Education in December 2009. The website also includes a list of the staff positions that specifically impact the calculation of the Essential Program & Services matrixes and special education allocations. The MEDMS Staff Information will also be used in the calculation of the Minimum Teacher Salary Adjustment and verification of eligibility for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards Salary Supplement.

I strongly encourage you to review your unit’s data for accuracy prior to submission, to reduce or avoid the need for revisions. Should your unit fail to meet these deadlines, the most recent data will not be used for your unit’s calculation of 2010-11 State subsidy which could adversely impact your unit’s amount of State subsidy. Additionally, subsidy payments in the current year may be withheld until the submission requirements are met and/or you may incur a penalty for the late submission of the data.

Following are the statutes regarding withholding subsidy payments and the penalty for late submission of required data:

20-A MRSA Chapter 606-B §15689-B sub-sections 7. and 7-A:

7. Required data; subsidy payments withheld. A school administrative unit shall provide the commissioner with information that the commissioner requests to carry out the purposes of this chapter, according to time schedules that the commissioner establishes. The commissioner may withhold monthly subsidy payments from a school administrative unit when information is not filed in the specified format and with specific content and within the specified time schedules. If the school administrative unit files the information in the specified format, the Department of Education shall include the payment of the withheld subsidy in the next regularly schedule monthly subsidy payment.

7-A. Penalty for late submission of required data. Notwithstanding any other provision of this Title, the commissioner may implement the following subsidy penalty for a school administrative unit that is not in compliance with subsection 7. If a school administrative unit has not filed the required data pursuant to subsection 7 within 3 months of the due date, a penalty equal to 1% of the unit’s monthly subsidy check times the number of months past due is assessed.

Please make it a priority to submit this important required data by the “Report Due” date as it allows Department of Education staff to review the data and accept final revisions before the “Date Revisions Must Be Received” deadlines.