December 2021

Table of Contents

• Medicaid
• Financial
• Applications
• Upcoming Deadlines

Medicaid

Annual Reminder: Double-Check Billing of Dates of Service for late December 2021 and January 2022

It is important to double-check that dates of service being billed are definitely dates when school was in session. For example, there should be no billing during holiday breaks, or when school was cancelled due to weather or other reasons. If billing for services provided by another district who is serving your student, make sure to check the school calendar of the other district.

Can employee or billing service costs for Medicaid be considered a Special Education Expense?

The following questions are asked regularly.

If the district has a billing service fee, how does the district account for the fee?
A: The billing service fee is not a cost that can be claimed against Medicaid. This fee can be charged to the special education weighting plan funding.

If the district has a dedicated lead Medicaid individual who collects, organizes and submits materials to the billing service, how does the district account for the cost of that employee?
A: The cost for this type of employee is not a cost that can be claimed against Medicaid. The employee's costs can be charged to the special education weighting plan funding.

If the district does its own billing and does not use a billing service, how does the district account for the cost of that employee?
A: The cost of a district employee responsible for billing is not a cost that can be claimed against Medicaid. The employee's costs can be charged to the special education weighting plan funding.

If you have further questions, please contact Jim Donoghue at jim.donoghue@iowa.gov or 515-281-8505.

Iowa Medicaid Setting Work Group to discuss School-Based Services

Iowa Medicaid will soon be initiating stakeholder work groups on different topics. The purpose is for feedback to Iowa Medicaid about the workgroup's topic.

One of those workgroup topics is School-Based Services. The School-Based Services Listening session is tentatively scheduled for February 17. If one of your staff or parents are interested in participating, the individual should email their request, including the name of the workgroup, to IMETownHall@dhs.state.ia.us.

Financial

Message from the Department of Management

The December 2021 income surtax payment (to be paid by the end of December) represents three-quarters of the amount of income surtaxes collected for your district from January 1, 2021, through October 21, 2021. The rest of the payment, plus or minus any adjustments made by the Iowa Department of Revenue due to their audits of income tax returns, will be paid around February 1, 2022. 

This payment is based upon the income surtax rates established for your 2020-2021 budget.  If you didn’t have a surtax for the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) Fund, the entire payment should be credited to your General Fund. On the other hand, if you had both General Fund and PPEL surtax, then split the income surtax in accordance with the rates. The PPEL Income Surtax rate can be found on line 19.4 of the FY 2021 Aid and Levy Worksheet. The General Fund Income Surtax rates can be found on lines 10.15 and 11.4 of the FY 2021 Aid and Levy Worksheet.

The Department of Education has posted the payment amount, rates for each fund, and dollar amount for each fund on the State Payment Information FY22 webpage.

If you have any questions, please contact John Parker at john.parker@iowa.gov, Department of Management or 515-281-8485.

State Payment Tracking

The Department of Education (Department) payments information on the Iowa Education Portal  includes the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) number and the Grant Number for federal funds. A source code should also be assigned to all payments to districts or area education agencies (AEAs). If you notice a payment without the source code, please contact Janice Evans at janice.evans@iowa.gov or 515-281-4740 so this can be included on the listing. If you have other questions about the payments, please contact Angie James at angela.james2@iowa.gov or 515-281-3646.

Payments may come from other state agencies as well.  If the payment in question is not on the Department’s page, it likely came from a different government agency. For all state payments, you may visit the Department of Administrative Services (DAS) Vendor Payment Portal. You will also find this link at the bottom of the State Payment Information FY22 page of the Department’s website.

SAVE distribution questions can be directed to Barbara Lewison at barbara.lewison@iowa.gov or 515-314-5936, or Adam Floyd at adam.floyd@iowa.gov or 515-601-4229, at the Department of Revenue. For additional information, please refer to the SAVE payment information forwarded on December 1.

Transportation Equity Payments

The transportation aid allocation for fiscal year 2022 was enough to get districts above the FY20 statewide average to the state average. The base funding payment and method of distribution is stipulated in Iowa Code sections 257.16C(3)“b” and 257.16C(4).

Per Iowa Code section 257.16C(6), transportation aid payments received by school districts are miscellaneous income and deposited to the General Fund. Districts will code this payment to Source/Project 3119 Transportation Equity Aid. Expenditures do not need to be tracked by project number and there is no restricted balance for these funds. The payment schedule for FY22 Transportation Equity is found on the State Payment Information FY22 webpage.

If you have further questions, please contact Denise Ragias at denise.ragias@iowa.gov or 515- 281-4741.

Applications

Juvenile Home Budget - Due Jan. 1

The juvenile home non-fiscal budget data collection for AEAs is now available. The due date is Jan. 1. Instructions are available at this link.

School Associations Report - Due Jan. 7

Iowa Code 279.38A requires boards of school corporations that pay membership dues to organizations which directly relate to the functions of the board of directors, to report annually to the local community and the Iowa Department of Education. The board must report the amount paid in annual dues to the organization, any fees paid and revenue or dividend payments received for services the board receives from the organization, and the products or services the school district received inclusive with the membership in the organization.

The data collection (for FY21 data) is currently available on the EdPortal. Due to underlying programming issues, the due date/year listed on the initial screen of the application, as well as information in the footer were unable to be updated. The submission is due by Jan. 7, 2022.

Districts must report information for four different associations, as applicable: Iowa Association of School Business Officials (IASBO), Rural School Advocates of Iowa (RSAI), School Administrators of Iowa (SAI), and Urban Education Network (UEN).

Due to legislation passed during the 2021 session (SF289), districts are no longer required to report information pertaining to the Iowa Association of School Boards (IASB) to the Department. Information regarding IASB will now be received by the Department directly from IASB. However, as noted above, we were unable to fully revise the application to address this situation. 

If you have additional questions, please contact Tom Cooley at tom.cooley@iowa.gov or 515-725-1120.

At-Risk/Dropout MSA Application – Due Jan. 17

The Department of Education's (Department) revised SBRC application for At-Risk/Dropout modified supplement amount (MSA) is now available via the Iowa Education Portal. Only those districts wishing to request SBRC-granted MSA (Project 1119) will need to complete a submission.

The purpose of the requested MSA is to provide additional resources for the 2022-2023 school year that are necessary to implement the at-risk, dropout prevention, and returning dropout services for identified students that are included in the local school board’s adopted plan. The purpose is not for increasing regular program spending authority.

As in the past year, the Department has maintained the general structure of the pre-2020 application for MSA as a tool for developing/housing the local program plan for those districts desiring to use it. This includes planning components, including budget forms, which districts have reported as being useful in developing the program plans for the local school board’s approval. Use of the planning components is not required; they are not connected to the form used to request the MSA.

If you have questions regarding at-risk/dropout prevention programming, please contact Steve Crew at steve.crew@iowa.gov or 515-326-1029. If you have questions regarding the MSA request, please contact Kassandra Cline at kassandra.cline@iowa.gov or 515-281-4738.

Statewide Voluntary Preschool Program for Four-Year-Old Children Application for New Districts - Due April 6

School districts not currently participating in the Statewide Voluntary Preschool Program (SWVPP) may apply to become part of the program. The application to begin a new preschool program in 2022-2023 is now available on the Department’s website. This non-competitive application, which is due April 6, 2022, will require districts to fund the preschool program using other funding sources in 2022-2023. In the second year of SWVPP implementation, districts will receive state aid based on the number of eligible children served in year one. Additional details will be included in the January Superintendent's Notes.

For more information about the SWVPP, contact Mary Breyfogle at mary.breyfogle@iowa.gov or 515-326-1030.

Upcoming Deadlines

Staff Contact Information

Division of School Finance Support Services

Bureau of School Business Operations

Department of Education Resources

• Iowa Department of Education Departmental Directory
• Iowa Department of Education Alphabetical Directory
• Current and past issues of the School Leader Update
• Current and past issues of the School Business Alert

If you have suggestions for future SBA articles, please submit to sandra.harris@iowa.gov.

It is the policy of the Iowa Department of Education not to discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, sex, disability, religion, age, political party affiliation, or actual or potential parental, family or marital status in its programs, activities, or employment practices as required by the Iowa Code sections 216.9 and 256.10(2), Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. § 2000d and 2000e), the Equal Pay Act of 1973 (29 U.S.C. § 206, et seq.), Title IX (Educational Amendments, 20 U.S.C.§§ 1681 – 1688), Section 504 (Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq.). If you have questions or complaints related to compliance with this policy by the Iowa Department of Education, please contact the legal counsel for the Iowa Department of Education, Grimes State Office Building, 400 E. 14^th Street, Des Moines, IA 50319-0146, telephone number: 515-281-5295, or the Director of the Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education, Citigroup Center, 500 W. Madison Street, Suite 1475, Chicago, IL 60661-4544, telephone number: 312-730-1560, FAX number: 312-730-1576, TDD number: 877-521-2172, email: OCR.Chicago@ed.gov.