Change in Data Collection and Reporting for EIA
October 2, 2006
CHANGE IN DATA COLLECTION AND REPORTING FOR
ECONOMIC IMPACT AID FUNDING IN 2006-07
Dear Charter School Administrators and County Chief Business Officials:
The purpose of this letter is to advise you of recent legislative changes, effective in fiscal year 2006-07, that revise and augment the funding for the Economic Impact Aid (EIA) Program, and require charter schools to collect and report different data than in years past for the purpose of receiving EIA funding. Under the EIA program, the state provides funding to support additional programs and services for English learners (EL) and compensatory education services for educationally disadvantaged students. Unlike school districts, block-grant funded charter schools receive EIA funding as an unrestricted supplement to their Charter School Categorical Block Grant and may spend EIA funds for any purpose.
The Budget Act of 2006 (Chapter 47, Statutes of 2006) as amended by Assembly Bill 1811 (Chapter 48, Statutes of 2006)
augmented the budget act item for the EIA program by approximately $350 million. Charter schools are to receive a portion of this funding to ensure that the charter school EIA funding rate is equal to the average per-pupil EIA funding provided to school districts. Assembly Bill 1802 (Chapter 79, Statutes of 2006)
revised the funding formula for EIA for both school districts and charter schools. Senate Bill 1131 (Chapter 371, Statutes 2006)
made further revisions to the data that charter schools are required to report for use in the EIA formula.
New Formula and Data Reporting
A charter school’s EIA eligible pupil count is the essential component in determining a charter school’s EIA allocation and will be the sum of the following:
- Number of economically disadvantaged (ED) pupils
- Number of EL pupils
- A calculated number for each charter school that has a combined ED and EL pupil count (or concentration) greater than 50 percent of the charter school’s total pupil enrollment
In prior years, a charter school’s EIA funding also was based on the number of ED and EL pupils. However, under the new formula, the data used to measure ED and EL counts and the source year of the data have changed resulting in additional funding for charter schools serving a large proportion of pupils eligible for EIA. Please see the Attachment that summarizes the differences in the data used in the calculation of a charter school’s EIA eligible pupils under the old and new formula for both continuing and new charter schools.
In 2006-07, all continuing block-grant funded charter schools will receive EIA funding based on their prior year enrollment counts as reported in the California Basic Educational Data System (CBEDS), prior year EL counts as reported in the R30-LC Language Census, and current year ED counts, which are counts of pupils ages five through seventeen, as of October 2006, whose annual family income is at or below the federal poverty level. New charter schools will receive EIA funds based on current year CBEDs, R30-LC, and ED counts.
Data for this funding is collected via the CBEDs and R30-LC; these reports were not used, however, in the prior formula to determine EIA funding. The reporting of poverty counts as the ED measure is new and replaces the free and reduced priced meal counts used in the prior formula. Charter schools will be required to report the new ED counts to the California Department of Education (CDE) by January 15, 2007, using the new 2006-07 Principal Apportionment Revenue Software. The data once reported will be considered final and not subject to revision.
Senate Bill 1131 fulfills the need for equivalent counts for charter schools in determining the number of ED pupils to correspond with changes in determining the number of ED pupils in a school district. Unlike school districts, charter schools do not have established geographic boundaries that coincide with census boundaries and allow for the collection of census poverty counts specific to a charter school.
Pursuant to Senate Bill 1131, in 2007-08 and annually thereafter, prior year (instead of current year) ED counts will be the basis to provide EIA funding for continuing charter schools. Thus, charter schools’ 2006-07 ED counts will be used in two consecutive years. New charter schools in 2007-08 and subsequent years will continue to receive funding in their first year of operation based on current year counts, as described above.
We note that both Assembly Bill 1802 and Senate Bill 1131 are silent as to funding for new charter schools for their EL counts. The CDE will address this oversight by funding new charter schools for their EL counts consistent with provisions for funding new charter schools for their ED pupil counts, and will follow-up with a conforming legislative proposal.
Income Guidelines for Collecting Poverty Count
As already noted, in 2006-07, the number of ED pupils in a charter school will equal the number of pupils ages five through seventeen, as of October 2006, who are living in families whose annual household income is at or below the federal poverty level. Charter schools should refer to the following income chart to collect this information:
| Persons in Family or Household |
Federal Poverty Guidelines (Annual Income) |
|---|---|
1 |
9,800 |
2 |
13,200 |
3 |
16,600 |
4 |
20,000 |
5 |
23,400 |
6 |
26,800 |
7 |
30,200 |
8 |
33,600 |
| Each additional person, add |
3,400 |
Source: Federal Register, Vol. 71, No. 15, January 24, 2006, pp. 3848-3849
Sources of ED Pupil Data
A charter school may use one or more sources to collect data on ED pupils, as follows:
- Applications submitted to the charter school for school operated programs that require applicants to report household size and income, such as for Nutrition Services programs that offer free and reduced price meals. Note, charter schools are required to use a sampling method to verify applicants’ eligibility for free and reduced price meals. For further information refer to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Eligibility Guidance for School Meals Manual available on the CDE’s Web site at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/mgmb.asp .
- An income survey to households not captured in item 1 above on which household size and income is collected and evaluated with respect to the federal poverty level (see table above).
- Direct certification insofar as the certification is based on a program whose income eligibility threshold is the federal poverty level and the counts are unduplicated by the applications and surveys in items 1 and 2 above. For further information on direct certification please refer to CDE’s Web site at http://www.cde.ca.gov/ls/nu/sn/fm.asp.
- A combination of 1, 2, and 3 above.
Timing of EIA Funds for Charter Schools
Advance funding for 2006-07 will be provided to continuing charter schools based on their estimated EIA entitlements which will be calculated using data in the 2005-06 second principal apportionment. EIA entitlements for continuing charter schools will be apportioned in a special apportionment in late October. Estimated 2006-07 EIA entitlements for newly operational charter schools will be calculated using EIA data reported with the 20 day actual reporting forms. CDE expects legislative changes to be reflected in the 20 Day Actual Special Apportionment and the EIA funds to be apportioned to newly operational charters accordingly. Final entitlements will be calculated after actual ED counts are reported in January 2007 and CBEDs and R30-LC data are certified in spring 2007, and the remaining payments for 2006-07 will be adjusted accordingly.
How Will Districts be Funded?
All-charter districts that are funded through the revenue limit and school districts with traditional schools will continue to receive EIA funding through the special purpose apportionment. Their EIA pupil counts and funding will be determined through the same formula, but their ED pupil counts will be based on their Title I formula child counts (with an exception for rural school districts with enrollment of less than 600). Title I counts are almost exclusively made up of census counts of pupils residing with families whose income is at or below the federal poverty level.
Should you have any questions on the changes to the EIA formula, please contact Byron Fong, Consultant, at 916-323-0498 or by e-mail at byfong@cde.ca.gov.
Sincerely,
Scott Hannan, Director
School Fiscal Services Division
SH:ed
Attachment
1430 N Street
Sacramento, CA 95814