New Jersey Department of Education

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School Finance

Accounting & Fiscal Guidance

ESSA School Level Reporting Information

In support of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the New Jersey Department of Education Office of School Finance provides summary information as to the distribution of Federal and State & Local funding to individual schools within a school district. Users interested in viewing the funding distribution for a given school district should visit the Performance Reports homepage and search for that district’s detailed report. What follows is a brief description of the information presented in the district summary per pupil expenditure table as well as the statewide per-pupil expenditure summary table listing all districts and their schools in the state.

The expenditure tables available as part of the Performance Reports summarize the distribution of expenses for all students taught at schools within a district for the most recently completed school year. These expenses are per-pupil, calculated by summing expenditures originally submitted by individual districts in the Audit Summary (Audsum) application and dividing by the average daily enrollment (ADE) for the same fiscal year as submitted by the district in their School Register Summary (SRS). The resulting per-pupil amounts are reported by funding source (Federal or State & Local) as follows:

School Level Expenditures Not Assigned to a School—Student related costs that may be potentially directed to a specific school, but the district has not designated the costs to individual schools, thus they are reported as “not assigned.”

District Level Central Expenditures—Costs that cannot be meaningfully designated as expended at a specific school. These include (but are not limited to): General Administration; Central Services; Administrative Information Technology; Maintenance and Facilities; Custodial; Grounds; Security; and State funded Vocational Education.

School Level Expenditures (listed by school)—Costs that can be directly attributed to a specific school. These include (but are not limited to): Instructional and Support Services for Regular and Special Education Programs; School Administration; Guidance; Health; Home Instruction; Summer School; Preschool Programs operated in district schools; and various Federal Projects.

Please note the total cost per pupil for a given school can be calculated by adding the “School Level Expenditures Not Assigned to a School” and the “District Level Central Expenditures” to the school-specific expenditures found in the table.

Expenditures excluded from the ESSA Per-Pupil reports fell into the following categories: Community Service Programs; Tuition; Residential Costs; Repayment of Loans; Judgments Against the School Districts; Affordable Care Act related fees; Interest on Lease Purchase Agreements; Shared Service Agreements with County Board of Freeholders; Transportation; Nonpublic Aid and Nonpublic transportation, Aid in Lieu payments; Transfers to cover enterprise fund deficit; TPAF payments; Interest payments; Transfers to reserves; Post-Secondary Programs; Adult Programs; Special Schools; Equipment; Capital Projects; and Debt Service.

NOTE: Please be aware that the expenditures represented in the ESSA per-pupil expenditure reports are taken from audited district financial data, but the allocation of these resources to specific schools is not audited or otherwise verified by the New Jersey Department of Education. If you have specific questions as the assignment (or non-assignment) of school-specific resources, please reach out to individual districts for additional information.

For district personnel and other interested parties seeking information on how to complete and submit the ESSA expenditure information to the Office of School Finance please see the links below: