SACS Forum Meeting Minutes, November 2024
Standardized Account Code Structure (SACS) November 5, 2024 meeting minutes.Meeting held via webinar
Meeting Agenda
Announcements and Information
Accounting Updates
Next Meeting
Meeting Minutes
Announcements and Information
2023–24 Unaudited Actuals (UA) Submissions – California Department of Education (CDE) Review
In November CDE will begin the process of reviewing the 2023–24 Unaudited Actuals (UA) data submissions.
A focus of the review will be the local education agency (LEA) indirect cost rate calculations. The review is to ensure the rates calculated are in accordance with the CDE’s delegation agreement with the US Department of Education (ED). In addition, the CDE wants to ensure the financial data is accurate, consistent, and reliable.
CDE staff may contact LEA staff with questions regarding the indirect cost rate calculation or any other financial reporting questions. CDE appreciates LEA staff’s timely assistance with these questions to ensure the statewide financial data will be published in a timely manner.
Staff Updates
The Financial Accountability and Information Services (FAIS) Administrator, Christine Davis, has retired as of May 31, 2024.
CDE announced that Masha Lutsuk has been appointed as the new Administrator over the FAIS unit.
In addition, CDE announced Herminio Torres, as the newest consultant, is the lead on forms A/AI, GANN, the Charter Alternative Form, and SACS Data Viewer (i.e. data publishing).
SACS Web System 2024 Interim Release
The 2024–25 First Interim reporting is open in SACS Web System as of October 30, 2024.
The announcement email did not reach some users due to a system bug. Following the SACS Forum meeting, a copy of the email was sent to the SACS Forum listserv.
SACS Web System Offline
The SACS Web System will be unavailable from 11:59 pm on Friday, December 13 to approximately 8:00 am on Tuesday, December 17. This offline period coincides with the December 16 due date for submission of interim reports to the oversight entities. LEAs are encouraged to take this into consideration as they prepare their submissions for oversight entity review and approval. The CDE will provide additional reminders and updates to SACS Web system users in anticipation of the system being offline.
SACS Web System – SACS Data Viewer
School Fiscal Services Division (SFSD) and Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT)/California School Information Services (CSIS) are preparing to launch the SACS Data Viewer with an estimated release in November 2024. SACS Data Viewer will provide public access to LEAs’ financial data submitted in SACS Web financial reporting system.
Dataset submissions must be in a publishable state, which means “LEA Oversight Review Completed” and “CDE Oversight Review Completed” states for budgets, interims; and “Approved 3rd Level CDE Review” for unaudited actuals.
SACS Web users will be notified by email when datasets for a specific reporting period are published. The publishing schedule, high-level overview for public users, and helpful tips will be published on the CDE website with link to SACS Data Viewer.
Publishing will start with 2022–23 and 2023–24 datasets and will continue on a pre-set schedule by reporting period with estimated dates as follows: two releases of Budget datasets in mid-October and December; first interim release in early February; prior year unaudited actuals release in February; and second interim release in May.
CDE responded to questions regarding which datasets will be published and when and responded to comments regarding the format of data in SACS Data Viewer: PDF of forms and data files. CDE also described the feature of the application that will provide the consolidated data by county and statewide.
California School Accounting Manual Update (CSAM) Update
SFSD is excited to announce an upcoming update to the California School Accounting Manual scheduled for approval at the November Board meeting. The manual received content and editorial updates including SACS coding, terms and definitions, and Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) updates. A summary of the changes will be provided.
Accounting Updates
Closure of Goal 4610, Adult Independent Study Centers
The CDE will be closing Goal 4610 starting 2025–26. Education Code Section 41976.2 establishing Adult Independent Study Centers was repealed in 2021 by Assembly Bill No. 486. It is recommended that LEAs that are still using Goal 4610 review if expenditures are best coded to Goal 4110, Regular Education, Adult. Alternatively, LEAs can code these expenditures to locally defined Goals 4130–4399, which must roll up to Goal 4110 when reporting data to the CDE. Minimal impact to LEAs is anticipated as only nine school districts used Goal 4610 in their fiscal year 2022–23 Unaudited Actuals submissions.
Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) Per-Pupil Expenditure (PPE) Reporting Update
The CDE is currently revising the application used by LEAs to complete ESSA PPE Reporting. The School Level Finance Survey (SLFS) will be included in the ESSA PPE Application moving forward. An informational webinar will be held in January 2025 addressing the changes in ESSA PPE reporting starting with the 2023–24 school year.
Access codes for the ESSA PPE application will be sent to LEAs in December of 2024. Specifically, the following will receive access codes: for County Offices of Education and School Districts, access codes will be sent to the superintendent and chief business officer. At charter schools, access codes will be sent to the principal and chief business officer. All contact information will be obtained from the California School Directory.
LEAs will have the option of selecting from three enrollment types this year when completing their ESSA PPE: reporting-census day enrollment, annual ADA, and cumulative enrollment. Only the Census Day enrollment will be auto-populated in the application. If an LEA chooses to use either annual ADA or cumulative enrollment, they will hand-key it into the application. Hand-keyed enrollment figures will be verified by the CDE, and LEAs will be required to revise their data if discrepancies are identified.
Additional information can be found at the ESSA PPE Reporting web page.
School Level Finance Survey (SLFS) Update
Reminder to LEAs that the SLSF is a federally mandated data collection approved in May 2023. The survey applies to all public schools, including charter schools. The CDE will use the California School Directory to identify the schools that LEAs will need to report on. The ED has approved a phased-in implementation timeline for California LEAs; therefore, for 2023–24 data collection, only National Center of Education Statistics (NCES) Function 1000, Instruction, will be collected. The CDE anticipates a collection window for 2023–24 data from December 2024 to March 2025. The collection will take place in an updated version of the ESSA-PPE application which will allow for the collection of both the ESSA-PPE and SLFS.
To obtain the equivalent of NCES Function 1000 using SACS functions, the CDE has created a crosswalk available on the SLFS Reporting web page Figure 1a: NCES Functions to SACS Functions.
Starting 2024–25, additional NCES Functions and Exhibits will be required to be submitted within the CDE collection window beginning December 2025. LEAs will need to provide expenditure data for Instruction expenditures but also Pupil Support Services, Instruction Support Services, School Administration, along with information on salaries paid to teachers, instructional staff or assistants, and books and periodicals.
For more information about this federal requirement including Frequently Asked Questions, visit the SLFS Reporting web page. Questions about this requirement can be sent to SLFS@cde.ca.gov.
Next Meeting
The next SACS Forum is tentatively scheduled for Tuesday, February 11, 2025. CDE is planning on offering the forum via webinar only.
To receive email notification of future meetings, meeting handouts, and notice when meeting minutes and recordings are posted to the web, please send a blank message to join-sacs-forum@mlist.cde.ca.gov to subscribe to the sacs-forum.