Special Education
March 30, 2020
State and Federal Special Education Funding Changes Due to COVID-19
Below is the specific piece on special education, detail and summary of what it means and several examples. After that we provided information pertaining to federal special education funds based on the information that has been provided as of March 26, 2020.
#14 – Upon approval by the Executive Council, expenses for special education staff assigned to other work during the Closure Period and Distance Learning Period and expenses recorded in the food service fund may be charged to the same Uniform Financial Accounting and Reporting Standards codes to which the service is charged for an instructional day. The Commissioner of Education must notify school districts and charter schools of these formula changes as soon as practicable.
Details
Executive Order 20-19 would allow schools to continue reporting all state funded special education staff and contracted costs, including special education transportation costs, using the same Uniform Financial Accounting and Reporting Standards (UFARS) funding string they would have otherwise been reported in, regardless of work performed during a school shutdown, cancellation or distant learning model. An example would be that a special education paraprofessional who, during the school shutdown, cancellation or distant learning model, is assigned to assist with cleaning, general education services, meal prep and/or delivery or is unable to work, will continue to be charged to state special education and eligible for state special education aid.
Schools should continue to pay contractors scheduled to provide special education services including transportation during this time even though services are not being provided or have been changed to address the emergency, so long as the contractor says they will pay their workers. Schools could base payments on weekly average invoices that they have incurred during this year or on the contract rates for the services that were to be provided on scheduled school days. The intent of the executive order is that no person involved in providing education or transportation to Minnesota students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) is harmed during the school shutdown, cancellation or during a distant learning model.
Summary
Executive Order 20-19 would allow schools to continue reporting all state funded special education staff and contracted costs, including special education transportation costs, using the same UFARS funding string they would have otherwise been reported in, regardless of work performed during a school closure, cancellation or distant learning model. The intent of the executive order is that no person involved in providing education or transportation to Minnesota students with IEPs is harmed during the school closure, cancellation or during a distant learning model. The goal is such that the school closure and distant learning period does not cost the state nor save the state special education funding from what was forecasted this past February.
Examples
- A special education paraprofessional who, during the school closure, cancellation or distant learning model, is assigned to assist with cleaning, general education services, meal prep and/or delivery or is unable to work, will continue to be charged to state special education and eligible for state special education aid. Regardless of being full or part-time, the school should not be looking to reduce the para or any staff's hours, since the goal of the language is that everyone gets what they would have received if nothing happened. Therefore, if the para was part-time before March 13, then the school should continue to employ the para for roughly the same hours each week.
- Schools should continue to pay contractors scheduled to provide special education services including transportation during this time even though services are not being provided or have been changed to address the closure, cancellation or distant learning, so long as the contractor says they will pay their workers. Schools could base payments on weekly average invoices that they have incurred during this year or on the contract rates for the services that were to be provided on scheduled school days. Contractors would be able to continue to bill schools based on services that were being provided prior to March 13 for the time schools were closed or providing instructional through a distant learning model. Contractors would only be able to bill for days that the school was originally scheduled to be open. They would not be able to bill for spring break days since those days the school was not supposed to be in session.
- A school contracts with a private busing company for four special education vans as of March 13. During the shutdown the company agrees to pay the drivers for all four vans. During the first week of the shutdown the school uses two of the four vans to deliver food for or other general education supplies. Then the second week of the shutdown is the school’s scheduled spring break. In this instance the bus company would continue to bill the school for all four vans during the first week at the same daily rate they were billing before the shutdown. The school would code the invoice for the four vans to FIN 723. During the second week the bus company would not bill the school since it was not a scheduled school day (meaning the school wasn’t going to be providing instruction either way, regardless of this pandemic). If the school is billed based on mileage driven or hours then the bus company would use what they billed during the week of March 9 for billing estimated costs over days the school was closed due to the shutdown. The school would still not be billed for school days that were not scheduled before the COVID-19 outbreak. This same logic will continue during the distant learning period. So same invoice for theoretical services based on services prior to March 13, costs would be coded to FIN 723/728 and therefore eligible for special education aid.
- Vehicles purchased with state or federal funds can be used for general education purposes so long as they are not needed for special education. Special education programs get priority use of the vehicles; however, other programs can use them when they are not needed by special education. Vehicles purchased with Medical Assistance (MA) funds can only be used to benefit students with IEPs and therefore can never be used outside the special education program area.
Federal Special Education Funds
At this time the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) has not received any information from the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) regarding maintenance of effort. Therefore at this time schools are still expected to maintain effort with their special education reporting for school fiscal year (SFY) 20.
Reporting Staff for Time and Effort
During the eight-day closure it is recommended that all local education agencies (LEAs) maintain current time and effort processes. Document your decisions and the guidance you receive for this time period. After LEAs return to serving students on March 30, under their distant learning model they will have to consider whether or not schedules or duties have changed. If so, time and effort may have to be updated as of that date. Additionally, LEAs will have to consider adjustments the business office needs to do to the funding streams for these positions. Keep all documentation and support for any adjustments made, as per usual internal controls and expectations. This includes staff previously reported under a federal finance code were their funding changed to state special education due to them no longer working in a special education capacity. Please, remember that special education staff and contracted services can still be charged to state special education for reimbursement regardless of whether the person is still providing special education services, while federal special education funds continue to only be used to reimburse eligible, necessary and reasonable special education services and costs.
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