To assist ASBs with unspent funds at the end of a school year, one potential option is to hold an event for the students following graduation and once physical distancing and shelter-in-place requirements are lifted. The governing board should take formal action to approve such an event. This could mean the pre-payment of an event while the students are still enrolled, or the approved payment of ASB funds to the district, where the district later uses the funds to pay for the event.
In such a situation, accurate tracking and protection of the funds by the district is paramount, and a timeline should be adopted by the board for acceptable usage of the funds. An additional option may be to establish or modify a district policy allowing for student recognition with unspent ASB funds. A governing board could elect to create a recognition policy whereby unused ASB funds are awarded to students based on certain criteria, such as the completion of the school year under very trying circumstances.
The policy could stipulate that the intention of the recognition is to allow alternative events to occur in a more individualized setting in place of a graduating class event as a result of physical distancing and shelter-in-place measures. Note that student recognition differs from using unspent funds for scholarship purposes, such as college textbooks or tuition, which some LEAs have considered.
Using unspent ASB funds for this purpose is not recommended. The funds were not originally raised for scholarships and the practice could be considered a diversion from the intended purpose of the funds, which was likely to support certain student activities. Further, expending the funds as college scholarships excludes those students who presumably participated in ASB activities and fundraising efforts, but who are not enrolled in a college or university in the immediate future. In other words, where existing policies allow, an LEA may wish to make alternative accommodations given the current COVID circumstances with the use of a board resolution.
Such a resolution would suspend current policy, and should include a detailed explanation regarding the need for one-time relief resulting from the COVID pandemic. It should also delineate a timeline for the use of any unspent funds, as well as a declaration that any exception to existing policy applies exclusively to the current school year and is not intended to establish precedent.
Anything purchased by a district, including the ASB, must be in compliance with the law and local board policy, and cannot be considered a gift of public funds. The purchases must also be for goods and services other than those the school entity should provide from its own funding sources. In middle schools, high schools and community colleges, the students should be the primary authority that decides how ASB funds are spent.
That means that a student must preapprove the expenditure, as well as two adults. However, there is no master list of ASB transactions and expenditures, and a determining factor is whether the type of activity is permitted in governing board policy and approved by the governing board. FCMAT recommends contacting the appropriate staff in the district business office for further guidance.
The governing board must authorize student body organizations to conduct fundraising activities. It also contains fundraisers the governing board cannot allow and others that it should not typically allow.
Education Code Section defines the criteria and process for governing boards to make employee and student awards. Before any awards are made pursuant to this section, the governing board shall adopt rules and regulations. As noted in the code, the district should have established policy and procedures in place for such awards. For employee awards, the board may appoint one or more merit award committees made up of district officers, district employees, or private citizens to consider employee proposals, special acts, special services, or superior accomplishments and to act affirmatively or negatively thereon or to provide appropriate recommendations thereon to the board.
When an awards program is established, the governing board shall budget funds for this purpose but may authorize awards from funds under its control whether or not budgeted funds have been provided or the funds budgeted are exhausted.
To use a gift card as a student award, your board policy must specifically state that you allow the use of gift cards for the purposes of awards. If the policy does allow gift cards as awards, and the award is for a student, ASB funds may be used if funds were specifically raised for such awards in an appropriately approved fundraiser.
If the award is for an employee, ASB funds should not be used because student groups should be raising funds for their own benefit, not for the benefit of employees or other adults.
Cash awards including gift cards are discouraged because internal controls cannot be established and documented. Also, with cash and gift card awards there is no type of control on what is purchased with the money.
Gift cards are considered cash equivalents, and the use of the cards cannot be controlled. The problems inherent with the use of gift cards are numerous due to the lack of control once they are issued. Gift cards are treated by the vendor essentially as cash purchases, with no identification verification or purchase authorization required. The issuer has no recourse to collect receipts and verification of purchases; therefore, the issuer loses control over proper documentation.
Without the verification of purchases and the ability to document that all funds were used appropriately, the gift card can then be considered an inappropriate gift or a misappropriation of public funds. This constitutional provision prohibits making any gift of public money to any individual including public employees , corporation, or other government agency. It states, ". In FCMAT's opinion, giving gift cards purchased by the district to anyone, regardless of the amount or reason, constitutes a gift of public funds and is not allowable unless specifically stated in board policy as an allowable award.
Donations to nonprofit organizations and students or families in need usually are not allowable because they are considered a gift of public funds, no matter how worthy the cause. In general, fundraising that occurs on campus should be for the benefit of the ASB and not for other organizations.
However, a student group may organize a fundraiser to support an outside organization, such as a charity, as long as the fundraising event is clearly identified as raising funds to donate to that charity. Because of liability issues, all donations should be in the form of checks made payable to the charity and should be picked up by or delivered directly to the charity each day so that funds are not deposited in the ASB account or stored on campus.
If it is not possible to have the checks made directly to the outside organization and not stored on campus, open a trust account within the ASB specifically for these donations with district governing board approval , then write a check to the organization in the amount raised when the fundraiser is over.
No funds from other clubs, inactive accounts, or fundraisers not approved by the governing board should be donated to outside organizations, because they were not raised for that specific purpose. Another viable option is to work with a parent group that has its own tax identification number and sufficient internal controls and ask them to operate the fundraiser, because groups such as this are not subject to the rules regarding gifts of public funds. Locate the Category drop-down box in the top left.
To the right of the Category drop-down box, locate the Search Results for Keyword entry field. Type in a few keywords and click the GO button. The LCFF Calculator is updated twice a year, once in the second quarter and once in the third quarter. The second quarter release updates the prepopulated data certified by the CDE for the first principal apportionment P-1 , annual principal apportionment Annual and annual principal apportionment revision 2 Annual R2 certification data.
This data is typically released by the CDE in late February each year. The third quarter release updates the prepopulated data certified by the CDE for the second principal apportionment P-2 , annual principal apportionment revision 1 Annual R1 , and annual principal apportionment revision 3 Annual R3 certification data. This data is typically released by the CDE in late June of each year. The updated version of the LCFF Calculator is typically released in July and incorporates changes to assumptions based on the state enacted budget.
Prepopulated historical data fields remain accessible for user edit. Users can easily override prepopulated data between certification cycles if revisions have been submitted. Users should be cautious when overriding prepopulated data because once the data has been overridden it cannot be restored. Additional updates may occur if material errors are found within the tool. Updates will be posted on this page and material updates that affect many agencies will also be communicated through the LCFF Calculator Announcement email list.
Some email systems have a setting that must be enabled for your account to use these features. Please work with your technology support to confirm that your account is eligible and set up correctly to utilize this feature. FCMAT recommends creating a projection at the beginning of the year and then copying and modifying the projection for each reporting period.
The software allows users to reimport the base year and retain all other projection settings. The Special Education Efficiency Tool is password protected to protect the integrity of the analysis performed.
FCMAT is unable to disperse the password for support reasons. If you would like to suggest a change, please create a help desk ticket and attach a copy of the file demonstrating your request.
FCMAT does not maintain a repository of sample board policies, resolutions or fiscal policies. However, we host community-based email lists that often share these items. To subscribe, please visit Email Lists. FCMAT does not provide legal advice.
If your matter involves interpretation of laws, regulations, court precedent or otherwise calls for legal advice, please consult legal counsel.
The RRMA final contribution must be made based on actual total general fund expenditures and other financing uses as part of closing the books. In other words, while the projected contribution during the year such as in interim reports is based on estimated final total expenditures and other financing uses, the actual calculation, and contribution, should not be made until the true expenditures and other financing uses have been determined at year-end closing.
The actual contribution into resource should not be recorded until after the calculation is made. Until that point, there should only be an estimated budget. Therefore, resource is not included in the final calculation because the amount cannot be determined, or booked, until after all actual expenditures and other financing uses are known. This will take you to a webpage displaying all published solutions from our help desk.
Either choose from the drop-down box to narrow your subject search or keep as All Solutions. Please search the Knowledge Base prior to asking your specific question because the same question, or a similar one, may have already been submitted to FCMAT in the past. Please note that your question and the response may be posted to the Knowledge Base of Frequently Asked Questions for others to learn from in the future.
Contact the Help Desk. FCMAT will respond to your help desk request within 48 hours. You will be notified if additional time is necessary to research your question. Open navigation. Other Services Help Desk. How should we handle payments for which we have not obtained approval from the student body? Some of these events were paid for in advance by the students. Do you have any guidance on issuing refunds? We are considering allowing students to request refunds using an online form.
Would we need preapproval from the students to use this form? If we have records indicating how much each student has paid, is a refund request sufficient, or would we need approval from the student body for each refund?
Can we approve all refunds at once? The Manual states the following: Based on a footnote in the Hartzell case, it is permissible to charge fees for school- or district-sponsored activities that are purely recreational rather than educational and at which attendance is optional, such as an after-school dance or a weekend athletic event.
Chapter 9 further describes allowable fees for field trips: Fees for field trips and excursions in connection with courses of instruction or school-related social, educational, cultural, athletic or school band activities, so long as no pupil is prevented from making the field trip or excursion because of a lack of sufficient funds [Education Code section b ].
Fees should be collected on a voluntary basis only. NS ]. Completed pdf forms can be saved with Acrobat Professional or other pdf editing software. New — Sample Club Constitution pdf docx.
Sample Constitutions, Bylaws and Budgets docx rtf. Sample Internal Control Reference Checklist pdf docx rtf. Open navigation. Note: The electronic files linked to in the sidebar to the right have been updated as of September , August , May , August and November with the following: Corrected and additional detail on page regarding accepting payment by credit and debit card.
Minor corrections to page regarding fees for lost or damage property. Changes and updates to Chapter 9. A new section on a court ruling and the ABC test in Chapter 17, page
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