[Busmgrs] A message from Michael Wiltfong: March 1, 2010 release of the 2010-11 State School Fund estimates

[WILTFONG Michael]

Date:           March 2, 2010

To:             District Business Managers

From:           Michael Wiltfong
                Director of School Finance

Re:             March 1, 2010 release of the 2010-11 State School Fund estimates


Good morning everyone,

Yesterday I posted the preliminary March 2010-11 State School Fund (SSF) estimates and now that I've had a chance to review most of your inquiries, thought it would be helpful to respond to everyone as there appears to be a similar theme amongst the questions.

Before I get started, I need to identify we are experiencing technical difficulties with the SSF website and I've had to resort to posting estimates and warrant information on a temporary site. The current links can be found at the following URL: http://www.ode.state.or.us/search/page/?id=1363 under the Miscellaneous section at the bottom of the page. I hope to have this issue resolved in the near future and have the links relocated to their normal locations - sorry. Until I have this corrected, I will continue to create News Announcements with the link included in the announcement; this will redirect you to the temporary site. Again, sorry for any confusion and or inconvenience.

Federal State Fiscal Stabilization Fund shares by district

The March 1st estimates currently do not include the SFSFs. I was reluctant to perform the calculations and post SFSF shares until I have had a chance to make adjustments and allow an initial review by the stakeholders. As I suspected, there were requests for adjustments - fortunately they have all been minor adjustments up to this point.

Once I feel confident everyone's estimates are where they should be, I'll make two runs on the same date. One run will include and one run will not include the $66,509,918 in SFSF monies - the difference between the two runs becomes the SFSF share. At present, the average per Extended ADMw is approximately $95 for school districts and $5 for ESDs. I will hold off on making the final determination of the SFSF share until early July - just before I start the payments. Once the share has been set in July, we will roll the funding into the Department's Electronic Grant Management System (EGMS). It will take some time to set this up, so I would anticipate access to your 2010-11 funds to be in place by August or September 2010, as there will be a number of other grants being rolled into EGMS at that same time.
Please keep in mind the SFSF monies are to be claimed on a reimbursement basis only. You have until September 30, 2011 to identify eligible General Fund expenditures, and you have until November 14, 2011 to submit claims for SFSF reimbursement.


$200 million Trigger

I tried to keep the SSF Assumptions page to just one page, but maybe it's time to expand that; there's a lot going on there. I think Angie's note from yesterday did a nice job describing how I can only dispense the Trigger to the school districts and not include the ESDs in the additional funding when I apply the 95.25% and 4.75% ratio. This is in light of recent changes to legislation under SB 5565(2010) and the creation of the Supplemental School District and School Program Subaccount.

Below is what Angie said:

With regard to the $2,840,959,962, it does not include the $200 million trigger but it does include the $66 million of SFSF funds.  That is simply the starting point for the calculation.

>From that number, Michael deducts the SFSF and a number of other amounts, adds the local revenue, allocates the formula revenue to districts and ESDs, then deducts other transfers for districts and ESDs.  If you go through the calculation you will find that the calculation for districts results in a total of $4,028,972,595 for distribution.  However, the amount distributed as noted in "Bold" under School Districts is $4,228,972,595 because Michael has added the $200 million in for purposes of determining the total for distribution.

The reason it doesn't appear above in the calculations I believe is because the full $200 million trigger is available only to districts, not ESDs.

Keep in mind I include the $66.5M in SFSF in the base so I can demonstrate how we're getting to the $6.0 billion level, but I remove it from the distribution amount in the carve outs.

Why doesn't the total appropriation for biennium equal $6.0 billion?

Last year a decision was made to increase the percentage of payout on the Common School Fund from 4% to 5%, and this resulted in an anticipated increase of a little over $19 million in funding available for distribution to school districts. Granted, it comes to you as Local Revenue, but nevertheless, it's additional funding. HB5054(2009) and HB5100(2010) account for these additional funds and the State School Fund appropriation for 2009-11 was reduced by approximately $19 million. This is why the current appropriation now stands at $5,981,056,003.

Well, these are the three primary issues being asked at this time and I hope this information helps with your understanding and communications back home. I will respond to other more specific questions as time permits, so in advance I thank you for your patience. As well, I hope to post revised 2009-10 SSF estimates in the very near future as I'd like to rebalance the SSF prior to the March payment - but I need to sort through the 2010-11 issues first. That's it for now and thanks everyone for your great work out there!




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