May 2022

Table of Contents

• Financial
• Medicaid
• Applications
• General Information
• Upcoming Deadlines
• Staff Contact Information
• Department of Education Resources

Financial

Perkins Consortium and Regional Planning Partnerships Accounting

Districts that are part of a Perkins consortium or Regional Planning Partnership (RPP) should expect to receive some journal entries from the fiscal agent to record in the district’s records, including transactions done by the fiscal agent on behalf of the consortium or partnership. The School Business Operations Bureau worked with the Iowa Department of Education Bureau of Career and Technical Education on the documents Accounting for Perkins Funds: Consortia (currently under revision) and Accounting Guidance for Regional Planning Partnerships.

For Perkins questions, please contact Dennis Harden at dennis.harden@iowa.gov or 515-281-4716.

For RPP questions, please contact Jane Bradley at jane.bradley@iowa.gov or 515-281-4707.

For coding questions, please contact Janice Evans at janice.evans@iowa.gov or 515-281-4740. 

Limited English Proficiency Allowable Cost

Although the annual Limited English Proficiency (LEP) Allowable Cost application is not available until September, it is important to remember that the data supporting the application comes from the various 2021-2022 applications.

When coding FY22 expenditures, remember to continue to code English Learners (EL) (formerly LEP) expenditures to program codes 410-419, even when expenditures exceed the cost of revenues coded to project 1112 or 4644. For excess expenditures, change the project code to 0000, but do not change the program codes from 410–419. The only expenditures to be included in the LEP Allowable Cost application will be those coded to the program code of 410-419.

For coding questions, please contact Janice Evans at janice.evans@iowa.gov or 515-281-4740.

Indirect Cost Rates 

Indirect cost rates for FY22-23 federal programs should be available by the end of May. 

If you have further questions, please contact Janice Evans at janice.evans@iowa.gov or 515-281-4740.

Iowa Chart of Account Coding Updates

The Iowa Chart of Account Coding is regularly updated to reflect changes necessary to meet fiscal reporting needs. The most recent updates are provided below.

Medicaid

Required Submission of Exclusions and Suspensions Checks: Webinar and Secure Submissions

A Checking Exclusions and Suspensions webinar was held on April 6 to provide additional details relating to the required monthly submissions, as agreed to in the Provider Agreement with Iowa Medicaid. The recording may be viewed by visiting the Iowa Department of Education’s Medicaid page, specifically in the section titled FAQs and Training. Once the video is launched, closed captioning is available by clicking the “cc” button in the bottom right corner of the video window.

Some districts have asked about submitting their quarterly checks securely. If your district plans to submit securely, which is not required, please follow the steps below.

1. Send the name and email address of the individual that will be submitting the quarterly reports to Jim Donoghue.
2. The district person will receive an email from Jim Donoghue that will contain the word “Securemail” in the subject line.
3. The individual will then receive an email from ZixCorp.
4. The individual will need to click on the link in the email (which may look like a suspicious email) to create a Securemail account.
5. After the one-time account set-up process is complete, the Securemail account can be used for all submissions going forward.

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

Monthly Eligibility Reports Again Being Issued

The monthly reports of Individualized Education Plan (IEP) students enrolled in Medicaid with health services on their IEP are again available on iowaidea.org in the RPTS section.

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

Enhanced Medicaid Rate Extended through September 30 2022

CARES Act funding included an increase of 6.2 percent in the federal share of state Medicaid programs starting January 2020 and will continue through September 30, 2022. It appears unlikely that it will continue past September 2022.  For claims paid October 1, 2021 through September 30, 2022, the enhanced federal share is 68.34 percent. When there is an announcement about federal share starting October 1, 2022, the Department will advise districts through the School Business Alert.

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

Previously Denied Claims for Same Day Individual and Group Behavioral Paraprofessional Services

In March 2022, Iowa Medicaid (IME) announced it had chosen to waive the edit for LEAs for service dates from July 1, 2021 through June 30, 2022. Previously submitted and impacted claims will be reprocessed. The sweep of paying those denied claims is not expected to happen until after June 30. The sweep is expected to occur before August 31.

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

When to Update a Diagnosis

Do you know how often the district or AEA needs to update a diagnosis or re-confirm an existing diagnosis? A school district recently asked if they can bill for services based on a diagnosis from four years ago considering some diagnoses (i.e., ADHD, conditions such as Cerebral Palsy) are unlikely to change.

Best practice, as determined by the Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH), is to update diagnoses annually. IDPH shared “from a health care perspective, most diagnoses leading to an IFSP/IEP are not transient. IDPH recommends that all children receive an annual well visit.“

The recommendations are based on three important factors:

1. It is possible the symptoms of the student/young child’s condition have changed since the last diagnosis.
2. There may be a suggested change of interventions based on current factors.
3. Ensuring a student’s diagnosis is accurate will provide the most current information for the IEP team and school-based providers to make relevant, treatment-focused decisions.

IDPH further advised that “making the necessary services a child needs to remain healthy and participating in school contingent on an annual well visit would not be the intent of that recommendation, nor in the best interest of children in Iowa.” However, a diagnosis from four years ago would not be considered good practice.

Admittedly getting an annual diagnosis can be challenging. The Department offers a templated letter the education agency can use to request the diagnosis. Jim Donoghue will provide a copy of the template (ICD Diagnosis Letter March 2022) upon request.

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

Applications

FY22 Chart of Accounts Test Records 

The CAR 2022 Chart of Accounts Test Records application should be available by the end of May or first part of June to all districts as the Department continues to update the program. During the test period, some edits and warnings may not be working properly, so they may change as corrections are made. When the application first opens, only stages 1 and 2 will be updated. Successful completion of these two stages validates the composition of the account code. Stages 3 and 4 will be available but may change as we continue to work on updates. Any known edits or warnings not working properly will be noted on the Home page. Districts are encouraged to start uploading and correcting their books as soon as the application is available. A district may test an individual account code or an entire file in accordance with the 2022 COA-CAR rules. The test site mirrors the “live” site, with the inclusion of the reports when they are updated. The application will be available on the Iowa Education Portal. Once logged in, go to EdInfo, Finance Applications.

Many of the COA-CAR edits are programmed to check tables for information. These tables may not be completely loaded during the testing period. This information is entered as we receive it; therefore, there may be some edit messages that appear during testing that normally would not. The incomplete tables are noted on the Home page of the application. Also, districts may get many Stage 4 reconciliation messages, as all revenue, receivables, or restricted fund balances would not be entered prior to the end of the fiscal year.

We strongly urge districts to test their files early and often. Please be sure to update your financial software to the most current version before creating a text file. Districts should not “fix their books” just to pass edits, as the edit may need to be modified.

If you have coding questions or if you come across issues with the upload or edits and/or warning messages, that do not make sense or do not seem to be working properly, please contact Janice Evans at janice.evans@iowa.gov or 515-281-4740.

Nonpublic Transportation Reimbursement Application

The Nonpublic Transportation Reimbursement Application is open! Please enter the data and certify the application by June 15. The Department intends to issue reimbursements to districts in July but will need to have all district data in by June 15 to meet this goal.

Information relating to the nonpublic transportation reimbursement process is found at the Nonpublic Reimbursement page of the Department’s website. The reimbursement application is accessed at the Iowa Education Portal.

If you have further questions, please contact Max Christensen at max.christensen@iowa.gov or

515-336-3965.

Billing for Concurrent Enrollment Supplementary Weighting for Open Enrolled Students

Districts offering concurrent enrollment courses and eligible Project Lead the Way (PLTW) courses may bill resident districts for the supplementary weighting generated on open enrolled students enrolled in the contracted courses. Bills for the supplementary weighting can be generated using the information provided in the Student Reporting in Iowa (SRI) application. Before paying a bill for supplementary weighting, the resident district can verify the information by reviewing the Supplementary Weighting (Non-Fall) application in the Iowa Education Portal. When computing the supplementary weighting, use the student’s resident district cost per pupil of the year in which the course was taken. Directions for generating and verifying the bills are located on the Supplementary Weighting – Certified Enrollment page of the Department's website (281 IAC 17.10(8)).

SRI data is open for final reporting, but data should be considered preliminary until the reporting district’s last day of school. Concurrent enrollment information should not change before the end of the school year, since most community colleges will have already ended their school year. Be sure to bill the resident districts of your open enrolled students after the Non-Fall Supplementary Weighting application is available.

If you have further questions regarding the billing process for foster care reimbursements, please contact Scott Dryer at scott.dryer@iowa.gov or 515-402-8700. If you have questions related to student reporting, please contact Rachel Kruse at rachel.kruse@iowa.gov and 515-281-4153.

Psychiatric Medical Institutions for Children Placements and Placements in a Hospital Psychiatric Unit (Foster Care Claim)

Many psychiatric medical intuitions for children (PMIC) placements are parent placements and not placements by the Department of Human Services (DHS) or the Iowa Juvenile Court System (JCS). Iowa Code 282.27, Children living in psychiatric hospitals or institutions, was changed in 2015 to allow hospital PMIC-placed students to be included in the Foster Care Claim process. Subsection 5 states, “If a child placed in the psychiatric unit or institution was not enrolled in the educational program of the district of residence of the child on October 1 of the current school year, the district of residence may include that student in a (foster care) claim submitted to the department of education pursuant to section 282.31, subsection 1, paragraph “b”, subparagraph (2).”

Each district must do the following to ensure accurate reporting of hospital PMIC-placements in the Foster Care Claim application:

1. Identify students for whom your district received a bill from another district because of a hospital stay involving the student’s placement in a hospital psychiatric ward. Then, determine if the student was included in your district’s certified enrollment count.
2. For any students identified above who were NOT in your district’s certified enrollment count, either:

• Enter the student as a new student in the district’s student information system and show enrollment corresponding to the period of time of the placement with a service/facility type of 2 and service provider/facility code of 97777777. This will usually be for students who are homeschooled, attend a nonpublic school, or resident individuals who dropped out of school and were not enrolled on count date. During a hospital stay while placed in a psychiatric ward, the student is considered a public school student and must be entered into the student information system with an entry code of 1. Exit the student using the date when the student ended the hospital stay and an exit code to show the current status of the student (transferred to home school, transferred to a nonpublic school, dropped out of school).

Or

• Add a new enrollment record for any student already in your system for the period of time the student was placed in the hospital psychiatric unit. The service/facility type field must be identified as 2 (PMIC placement) with a service provider/facility code of 97777777 (hospital psychiatric ward).

If you have further questions regarding PMIC placement foster care reimbursements, please contact Scott Dryer at scott.dryer@iowa.gov or 515-402-8700. If you have questions related to reporting students in a hospital PMIC-placement, please contact Rachel Kruse at rachel.kruse@iowa.gov and 515-281-4153.

Operational Sharing Reminders

Below are some tips to help ensure the integrity of positions engaged in operational function sharing and provide transparency for your communities:

1. Ensure the agreement is in place, approved, and commencing on the normal start date for the position based on the length of the contract for a returning employee in that position.
2. The entity holding the contract does not give away a portion of their employee’s contract. The purchasing entity must pay for the portion of the contract that is being purchased (minimum 20% of salary and benefits is required for the sharing to be an eligible sharing arrangement for supplementary weighting).
3. Any new contract with a governmental entity that is NOT another Iowa public school district or AEA must include the responsibilities the person will perform for each organization or be available for review by the Department. Any questions or concerns about the eligibility for supplementary weighting should be discussed with the Department prior to the signing of the agreement to allow for modifications to the contract if the sharing is dependent on the generation of supplementary weighting.
4. Continuing agreements that will not be changing do not need to be revisited, unless previous concerns were not addressed.
5. If five districts enter into an agreement to share a position at 20% each, but the sharing does not start until October 1, the sharing among the five entities would not be an eligible arrangement. For a 12-month position, 25% of the year would have transpired. Only 75% of the remaining contract would be eligible to be shared. Even four districts sharing the remaining 75% would not result in each of the districts receiving 20% of the contract. The same would be true for a 10-month contract running August through May. If the sharing does not begin until October, only 80% of the full-time contract remains. Therefore, only four districts would be eligible to purchase 20% of the remaining portion of the full-time position. To avoid any questions of impropriety, the sharing arrangements must be in place at the beginning of the full-time employee’s contractual year.
6. All eligible operational function sharing arrangements must be entered correctly in Fall BEDS Staff each fall. This includes:

• Providing the appropriate position of the individual being shared.
• Identifying the sharing status as either the contract holder or the district purchasing services.
• Reporting salary and benefits to be paid by your district with the contract holder reporting the full amount and the district purchasing the services reporting their portion of the salary and benefits (using the purchased amount field).
• Identifying the sharing partner(s).
• Reporting the individual’s FTE with the contract holder reporting the full amount and the district purchasing the services reporting their portion of the FTE.

If you have further questions regarding operational function sharing eligibility, please contact Kassandra Cline at kassandra.cline@iowa.gov or 515-326-2242. If you have questions about reporting positions part of an operational sharing agreement in Fall BEDS Staff, please contact Shelly Wolterman at shelly.neese@iowa.gov or 515-336-3859.

General Information

Gifted and Talented: Recently Answered Questions

The Department recently provided responses to the questions below. These questions will be added to the Gifted and Talented FAQ during its next update.

Question 1: Can districts use TAG dollars for costs to employ a paraprofessional in the TAG classroom to assist with TAG-specific activities.

Answer: Yes, the costs for a TAG paraprofessional could be considered appropriate if the scope of work is beyond that provided by the regular school program. Some notes and examples are provided below:

1. The para's work is only with identified TAG students (not to support the general education student).
2. The para's work is in a TAG classroom, but does not replace the instruction done by a TAG teacher. 
3. The para's work is to provide TAG student support beyond the scope of the normal classroom. (For example, the para could assist with CogAt testing or related database/input if this testing is done with TAG students, but would not be to support universal testing.)
4. Monitoring a student that is engaged in online work at a higher level due to their giftedness (i.e., taking a course through Belin Blank).

Related rule: 281 IAC 98.20

1. TAG teacher costs are the only salary costs specifically allowable (98.20(1)"a").
2. Beyond salary, professional development, and transportation, appropriate TAG costs include resources, materials, software, supplies, equipment, and purchased services that meet all of the following criteria:
   1. Meet the needs of K through 12 identified students, 
   2. Are beyond those provided by the regular school program,
   3. Are necessary to provide the services listed on the gifted students’ individualized plans, and
   4. Will remain with the K through 12 gifted and talented program.
3. 98.20(3) Inappropriate uses of categorical funding. Inappropriate uses of the gifted and talented program funding include, but are not limited to, indirect costs or use charges, operational or maintenance costs, capital expenditures other than equipment, student transportation other than field trips exclusive to this program, administrative costs, or any other expenditures not directly related to providing the gifted and talented program beyond the scope of the regular classroom.

Question 2: Can TAG funds be used to transport a TAG student from building A to building B to receive TAG services or participate in accelerated learning? (An example of accelerated learning includes a 4th grader who is accelerated into 5th grade math and, in this scenario, the math class is offered in another building.)

Answer: No, the scenario described appears to be normal operational costs, and it is not appropriate to use TAG funding. The district is responsible for providing transportation for all students to attend classes at locations other than the normal school setting (i.e., whole grade sharing, foreign language class for students at School A that is only offered at School B). Iowa Administrative Code r. 281 - 98.20(2) specifically prohibits using TAG funds for transportation costs, except for costs related to field trips exclusive to the program.

If you have questions relating to use of this categorical funding source, contact Kassandra Cline at kassandra.cline@iowa.gov or 515-326-2242.

School Budget Review Committee Special Hearing May 3

The School Budget Review Committee (SBRC) met to hold a special hearing on Tuesday, May 3, 2022. The SBRC approved one district to use the unexpended General Fund for demolition costs incurred within three years of a reorganization and approved for ten districts modified supplemental amount for costs related to staff retention payments for staff not otherwise eligible for the Governor’s retention payments. The May 3, 2022 Summary of Action is available on the SBRC page of the Department’s website.

If you have questions relating to the SBRC, please contact SBRC Liaison Kassandra Cline at Kassandra.cline@iowa.gov or 515-326-2242.

Upcoming Deadlines

Staff Contact Information

Department of Education Resources

Division of School Finance and Support Services

• Iowa Department of Education Departmental Directory
• Iowa Department of Education Alphabetical Directory
• Iowa Department of Education Customer Service Guide
• Previous School Business Alerts

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.