July 16, 2021

American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act of 2021 and the Individuals with Disabilities Education (IDEA) Act

To: Special Education Directors, Business Managers, and SEDRA Contacts
From: Division of School Finance

The American Rescue Plan (ARP) of 2021 issued additional funding under the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) for State Fiscal Year (SFY) 2022. These additional funds are made available from July 1, 2021 through September 30, 2023. In total, the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) received the following additional amounts for each federal funding source:

• Part B Section 611 - $45,023,838
• Part B Section 619 - $3,783,339

Local educational agencies (LEAs) who receive regular Part B funds will receive these additional ARP IDEA funds. LEAs will access these additional funds through the State Educational Record View and Submission (SERVS) Financial system. Applications have been loaded for SFY 2022. MDE is asking LEAs who have already applied for regular IDEA funds for SFY 2022 to complete applications for these new funds as soon as possible. The application is just a one and a half page Word document that just needs to be loaded back into SERVS and then signed by your LEA’s Identified Official with Authority (IOwA). There is nothing to fill out or complete with the application since we already have all your information from your regular IDEA applications.

Funds may be used for all allowable purposes under Part B of IDEA and are subject to all requirements and provisions that apply to IDEA funds, including requirements and provisions under IDEA, the Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR), and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Uniform Guidance.

The Office of Special Education Programs has issued general guidance around uses of these funds and reminds LEAs to consider sustainability. LEAs should focus on challenges from the pandemic, including:

• School re-entry
• Disruption in the education of children with disabilities
• Mental health services

LEAs should also focus on the issue of equity in special education and early intervention services.

MDE is also reminding LEAs to be mindful of Maintenance of Effort (MOE) when using these funds. Under section 613(a)(2)(A)(iii) of the IDEA, an LEA may not reduce the level of expenditures for the education of children with disabilities made by the LEA from local funds below the level of those expenditures for the preceding fiscal year. This means LEAs should not be using these funds to cover expenditures that were paid for with state funds in the prior year. Instead, LEAs should be looking to charge recovery, compensatory along with additional Extended School Year (ESY) services to these additional funds.

LEAs providing a voluntary Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS) program may elect to use up to 15 percent of their additional Part B funds under ARP IDEA, but they will have to track these expenditures separately from their regular voluntary CEIS program. For LEAs under the mandatory CEIS requirement, MDE will automatically calculate and allocate 15 percent of your additional Part B ARP IDEA funds.

OSEP has stated that both the state and LEAs must be able to track expenditures reimbursed with ARP IDEA funds separate from regular IDEA or state funded costs. Therefore, MDE created several Uniform Financial Accounting and Reporting Standards (UFARS) finance codes along with their corresponding Special Education Data Reporting Application (SEDRA) funding source codes.

The table below shows the ARP IDEA grant along with its UFARS finance code, SEDRA funding source code and its corresponding regular IDEA UFARS finance code.

SEDRA code sheets have been posted to the website for all the new finance codes.

Path: MDE > Districts, Schools and Educators > Business and Finance > School Finance > Special Education > State Funding/Code Sheets.

If you have questions regarding the application process, please direct them to the Special Education Funding and Data Team.