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The Comprehensive Educational Improvement and Financing Act of 1996 (CEIFA) attempted to set educational spending amounts based on a set of assumptions regarding what a "thorough" (the Core Curriculum Content Standards) and an "efficient" (related to the efficient delivery of instruction to achieve the Core Curriculum Content Standards) education should cost. CEIFA also established a two-year process for adjusting per pupil costs in future years beyond 1996. By March 15^th of every even numbered year the governor is required to present to the Legislature a report on the cost of providing a Thorough and Efficient Education (Biennial Report).

In response, the NJDOE designed a Web-based system that can help provide the data required by the state legislature and support appropriate changes in the CEIFA formulas.

In July 2001, the School District Organization and Expenditure Survey opened for the Internet-based collection of data. The 2000-2001 school year marked the first period for which data can be provided directly by school districts.

Using data you enter into the survey, the Office of School Finance will generate the Biennial CEIFA Report. The CEIFA law passed in 1996 requires this report. By March 15^th of every even numbered year the governor is required to present to the Legislature a report on the cost of providing a Thorough and Efficient Education (Biennial Report). This Biennial Report is to include recommendations for:

1. Per pupil T&E amount of spending

2. The T&E range of spending for different grade levels

3. Additional per pupil spending amounts for the following programs:

The Survey is designed to ease the reporting responsibilities of districts and individual schools while making data entry as easy as possible. Should you encounter a problem or experience difficulty navigating the system, please e-mail us at Survey@doe.state.nj.us.

All comments are welcome as we strive to make the system both user-friendly and reliable.

Thank you.

These guidelines may be helpful to you in responding to the questions in the Survey Questions:

1. These survey questions are designed to help us measure the parameters of the T&E Formula with which the bulk of your state financial aid is calculated. Therefore, your accurate response and participation is essential for estimating the validity of the assumptions in the T&E Formula. These responses will also have an important influence in the determination of future T&E amounts as well as the proper allocation of state monies to each school district.

2. The Organization and Expenditure Survey Questionnaires consists of 3 parts:

PART 1: This questionnaire asks questions about DISTRICT level Organization and Expenditures. It looks only at GENERAL EDUCATION spending in preschool thru 12^th grade. It does not consider vocational schools or post secondary education and their associated spending. It does not include charter school students and costs. Employee counts should NOT include special education teachers and aides, or any support staff that are involved solely in special education activities. They are to be placed in the Part 2 questionnaire. Student counts should include all general education students, including students with IEPs, who are in general education classes that were not modified to meet their special requirements. It also includes out of district general education students for which you are being reimbursed. The totals should match your district ADE counts. The requested data is an aggregate of all SCHOOLS at each level within your DISTRICT.

PART 2: This part looks at all relevant DISTRICT level Organization and Expenditures data for SPECIAL EDUCATION students. These are students that have an Individual Education Plan (IEP). They are enrolled, for the majority of their time, in the Special Education programs offered by the State of NJ. Again, only preschool thru 12th grade students are being considered in this survey. Districts that operate Regional Day Schools should NOT include their operational costs and staff in this survey. Your staff counts are only for those who are involved solely in your special education programs. The requested data is for all SCHOOLS (except Regional Day Schools) at each level within your DISTRICT. When added to the totals given in Part 1, the combined total should be the total of ALL students and ALL staff in your preschool thru 12^th grade programs.

PART 3: The final questionnaire asks questions that are best directed to the lead person of each individual school at your district. Each school within a district should complete the survey questionnaires separately. Part 3 asks questions about both the general education and the special education student populations of that individual school. By combining the responses of all the schools within your district it is our hope that a detailed and accurate picture of your districts’ activities and spending patterns can be drawn. It is upon this data that changes in the states T&E formula can be then addressed.

3. Each PART of the survey can be compiled independently. However, the totals in part 1 and part 2, with the exception of the district level offices, should equal the combined totals of all of your part 3’s.

4. Do NOT include $ or # signs, or commas (,) to separate digits. Your response should be rounded to the nearest whole dollar (e.g. $23,534.55 should be entered as 23535 or $ 53, 665.45 should be entered as 53665).

5. The School Year under study is 2000-2001. Therefore, all the requested data should correspond to that academic school year.

6. Personnel are measured in full time equivalents (FTE). Two ½ (half) time personnel are equal to 1 (one) full time personnel. The student population is measured in average daily enrollments (ADE). Remember that any fractional entry for either should be recorded as a decimal rather than as a fraction (e.g. 3/4 FTE should be recorded as 0.75 FTE). This is because fractions are read by the computer as calendar dates.

7. You will be asked to provide benefit information for all of your employees. Benefits are defined by the Department of Education in this survey as employer contributions to social security, pension, unemployment, workers compensation, health, dental, and life insurance. The audit summary gives your district the option of accounting for these costs under the same function that the salaries are accounted for. Districts can also account for them as unallocated benefits in accounts 11-000-291-210, 220, 241, 250, 260, & 270. Note that this definition of benefits does not include reimbursed contributions like the TPAF contributions. That is because districts are reimbursed for these costs. Nor does it include any special payments made to specific individuals, like tuition reimbursement, uniform purchases, or unused sick leave buybacks (See #8, next).

8. Each table asking for payments to employees also has an "Other" column. It is here that tuition reimbursement, uniform purchases, unused sick leave payouts, or any other special payments to individuals should be placed. Any other amounts for employees that cannot be classified as either salary or benefits should also go here. Your audit summary worksheets list these costs under accounts 11-000-291-280 & 11-000-291-290. It is our intention to compare this labor spending data in total with your audited spending reports to ensure that the data we are using will be as accurate as possible.

9. The survey ALSO gives districts the same options of allocating employee benefits as does the audit summary worksheet. You can elect to allocate benefits by employee function or use an overhead per employee calculation table. The tables are found under the "Benefit $ Rate Calculator" and the "Other $ Cost Rate Calculator" buttons on the survey title page. Further details of their operation are there as well.

    

   F	Remember that the CEIFA formula is designed to allocate costs by grade level and by function. Using the average rates you are effecting the formula by treating all salaried employees alike. If you can allocate these costs by function you are urged to do so.

    

10. Again, as a final reminder, the surveys are to investigate the cost of educating general and special education students in preschool thru 12th grade. In order to focus on this particular group the following school environments are NOT included:

11. Options for submitting questionnaires:

We will manually input the data for you.

12. All districts in the state of NJ are in the process of assigning web account administrators as well as setting up website access accounts. This survey is only one application that is designed with this approach in mind. Further details about this program are available at a data collection general information center on the DOE website at:

13. The data can be entered 24 hours a day electronically by either district or school personnel. It can also be entered manually by D.O.E. finance staff for those districts without computer access. Given this, it will be difficult to track participation rate at any given time. We will attempt to communicate reminders to you on a timely basis. Still, the responsibility to complete the survey rests with you. All responses should be submitted no later than September 15, 2001.