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July 2014

School District State Aid Designees
BOCES District Superintendents (For Information)

Andrea Hyary, Bureau Chief
Office of State Aid, STAC & Medicaid

Release of 2014-15 SAMS,
Including the Annual Financial Report Form ST-3,
via the State Aid Management System (SAMS)
Due Tuesday September 2nd, 2014

 

Important SAMS Changes from Last Year

Form Set A – Attendance

  • Added Schedule A-8 for reporting 2013-14 Extraordinary Condition Days.
  • Form A entry #83, Students In Equivalent ATT Progs, center column (2013-14 School Year), is no longer pre-filled with BEDS/SIRS data. Districts are required to enter their actual fall 2013 enrollment in Equivalent Attendance programs as defined in the SAMS help text for this item

Form Set FB – Building and Misc.

  • New item #139 for 2014-15 Estimated Building Condition Survey Expense: Building Condition Survey Aid will be available in 2015-16 and 2016-17

Form Set ST-3

  • Deactivated or removed certain ARRA-related accounts in the General and Special Aid Funds in accordance with relevant provisions/allocations.
  • Supplemental Schedule - 1 (Schedule of Indebtedness) for each reported Bond "Outstanding Beginning of Fiscal Year" amount will now be pre-filled from the corresponding "Outstanding End of Fiscal Year" from the prior year SS-1.

Click below for a summary of ST-3 changes for the upcoming claim year:
http://stateaid.nysed.gov/st3/st3change_fiscal_year_end_063014.htm

Important Reminders

  1. If you issued debt for buses between 7/1/13 and 6/30/14, please complete and certify Form set F6 by September 2, 2014 even if none of your other SAMS forms are complete.
  2. Critical: Please check that all contact information on the SAMS entity screen is up-to-date.
  3. Some districts are still saving corrections & revisions but not submitting them! Please be sure to use the submit changes link on the form tree/menu to ensure that revisions are actually transmitted to SED. Just saving a revision will not transmit it to SED.
    Click on the link below for a quick power point training on SAMS Revision Submission.
    How to do Revisions in SAMS (powerpoint 609 KB)

Less than Eight Teacher Districts

If your district is currently classified as a "less than eight teacher" district but you anticipate the possibility of claiming State Aid and/or becoming a "major district" at any time in the near future you should begin submitting state aid claim forms now. This is because many aid calculations depend upon data from two to three prior years.

SAMS General Instructions & Passwords

SAMS can be accessed from the State Aid Web site at http://stateaid.nysed.gov or from the main New York State Education Department home page at http://www.nysed.gov (look for the Portal Login at the lower left of this page).

Districts should use SEDDAS (State Education Department Delegated Account System) to create, disable accounts or reset passwords. For procedures for a new superintendent's account/password go to http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/sedrefupdate.htm

For detailed SAMS operating instructions/training materials go to the SAMS Information Tab on the State Aid web site. The SAMS Training Manual, Frequently Asked Questions about SAMS, "Introduction to State Aid Management System" slide show and other important tips for working in SAMS can be found there.

Certification Requirements

An electronic certification forms for each form set must be completed by the Superintendent to submit State Aid claim forms. By certifying a form set, the Superintendent’s action constitutes his or her official submission of that data to SED. The electronic signature is the legal equivalent of a handwritten signature. The Office of the State Comptroller also requires the ST-3 Annual Financial Report certification page to be completed and mailed to the address shown below. Please do not send this form to the Education Department. This form should be signed by the treasurer and returned to the Office of the State Comptroller at the following address:

State of New York
Office of the State Comptroller
Division of Municipal Affairs
Albany, NY 12236
Attn: Anthony J. Dolan

Timely Submission of Claim Data: INITIAL CERTIFIED SUBMISSION

  • All SAMS Form Sets must be certified by September 2nd. District superintendents and public school superintendents are requested to supervise the completion and timely submission of the aid claim and projection by the school districts for which each is responsible. Since late filing of required forms will delay payment of State Aid, every effort should be made to meet the specified due date.

  • Payments can take a week to prepare and are required to be submitted to the Office of the State Comptroller two weeks prior to the mandated payment date. Therefore, claims should be submitted three weeks prior to a mandated payment date (e.g., claim data must be submitted by September 24th for a payment to be made on or before October 15th in order to ensure that the payment due will be received in October).

  • If all required reports are not received by September 2nd, the school district will receive automated reminders that State Aid apportionments payable to the school district, other than payments to the Teachers Retirement System on the district's behalf, will be withheld pursuant to Section 3604(11) of the Education Law pending receipt of all reports due. Automated reminders will be sent to the State Aid Designee first. Subsequent reminders will also include the school superintendent, the district superintendent, and the president of the board of education.

  • Please do not wait for completion of your independent audit in order to submit your ST-3 and other claim forms! All form sets can be submitted separately and all data can be revised multiple times after submission.

Timely Submission Claim Data: REVISIONS AFTER CERTIFICATION

Throughout the legislative cycle each year the Governor and the Legislature use districts and BOCES State Aid claims and projections to predict the fiscal impact of various legislative proposals affecting school aid formulas. The resulting predictions of fiscal impact are only as accurate as the data that has been filed with the Education Department.

School districts and BOCES should review and revise SAMS data as necessary. Review should be timed to be consistent with Section 305(21)(b) of the Education Law which requires the Commissioner of Education to update that data used by the Governor and the Legislature on November 15, February 15 and May 15. In order for the Education Department to process all data revisions and corrections prior to each of these data updates, revisions and corrections should be submitted no later than the following specified dates.

Table of Dates for Electronic Data File Updates
Date of Electronic Data File Update for the Governor and Legislature Principal Purpose of the
Data File
Revisions in the Education Department by:
November 15 Executive Budget Proposal November 1 *
February 15 Budget Negotiations and Enacted Budget January 15

May 15
Updated Enacted Budget projections and June current year aid payments.
April 15

*This is a deadline for revisions to already submitted claims, not the deadline for original submission, which is Tuesday, September 2nd, 2014. In addition, due to lengthier processing time, revisions to capital project costs, SA-139 forms and STAC data should be submitted by mid-October to affect the November 15th data file.

Submission of the Independent Audit Report

The report of the annual audit of the school district's records by an independent certified public accountant or an independent public accountant (Independent Audit Report) is due in the Department on October 15, 2014 for districts other than the five large dependent city school districts. Please note that upon receipt of the Independent Audit Report, the district must reconcile its financial reports and implement any audit recommendations. Any resulting revisions to the ST-3 or the State Aid forms must be submitted via SAMS to the State Education Department.

The Independent Audit Report should be sent to the following address or Electronic submission of financial statements to FSandA133@mail.nysed.gov.

New York State Education Department
Office of Audit Services
89 Washington Avenue, Room 524 EB
Albany, NY 12234

To verify that receipt of the independent audit has been logged into SAMS, select the "SED Only" form set from the menu, choose the Independent Audit Form and confirm that the date independent audit received has been entered by SED Audit Services.

CONTACTS FOR QUESTIONS
Questions Regarding Please Call or email
SAMS/SAMS Problems State Aid Office: (518) 474-2977
RSU Rate Setting Unit (518) 474-3227
CPSE STAC Unit (518) 474-7116
Login/User Id Help SEDDAS Help Desk (518) 473-8832
Other Questions State Aid Staff Assignments Functional Directory
State Aid Unit at (518) 474-2977

 

Last Updated: April 14, 2017