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September 2015

District Superintendents of BOCES
BOCES State Aid Designees

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

Release of 2015-16 BOCES State Aid Management System (SAMS)


 

 

SAMS BOCES State Aid Claim Form is due Thursday October 1st, 2015


SAMS Changes for 2015-16  Claim Year Reporting

There are no changes to BOCES SAMS data collection items or processes this year.


Important Reporting Instructions & Reminders
  1. BOCES should include the following data item in the BOC_MISC_DED_DATA schema area: Other Post-Employment Benefits (OPEB) included in Sch. 4 Admin Expense. Actual and projected amounts for this new item should be submitted only for the 001 (Admin) Co-ser and using only the 1000 State Activity Code. (For more detail on this item, please see the field memo distributed in April 2014. After loading data to this area, you can view the data in SAMS by:
      • Choosing BOCES Financial from the main menu
      • Choosing State Aid Forms from the BOCES Financial menu
      • Choosing Official (if loading data that has not yet been reviewed by SED) or Revision Data Area from the State Aid Forms menu
      • Choosing Miscellaneous Deductions from the forms list
      • Typing 001 in the ‘Type PSN’ box, selecting 001 from the dropdown menu and hitting the Submit button.
  1. Anticipated 2015-16 Excess Salary deductions must be reported in the initial SAMS submissions for any service for which estimated aidable expense allocations are provided. (Estimates may be conservative.)
  2. BOCES Aid will only be paid for expenses associated with: a) provided services that have been approved by the BOCES program office as “Active” for the base year, and appear on the BOCES LAS and b) purchased services that have been approved by the BOCES program office as “Active” for the base year, and appear on the providing BOCES’ LAS.
  3. Please be certain that a separate and distinct PSN is assigned to each service, including every ‘pass through’ cross-contracted service; i.e., services purchased by you on behalf of component districts, not services purchased by you that are charged to 001 or one of your BOCES own services.
  4. Data for “pass through” services purchased via cross contract must be reported with the same 4-digit State activity code as the one used by the providing BOCES.
  5. 2014-15 is the last year that BOCES or districts may have had expenses for technology hardware and services purchased with funds received via the Microsoft settlement agreement / NYS School Technology Voucher Program (STVP). These expenses are not BOCES aidable. For STVP accounting instructions published by SED.
  6. District expenses for P-Tech –related services funded with P-Tech grant funds are not BOCES aidable. BOCES must ask all districts that purchased P-Tech-related services in 2014-15 and 2015-16, from their own or another BOCES, whether P-Tech grant funds supported some or all of those purchases. BOCES should include any component P-Tech grant amounts used to purchase P-Tech services in the MISC_DED_REV_CMP data area, along with any other deductible grants/funds. (P-TECH funds may be used to support the unreimbursed local share of BOCES costs. A local school district may pay BOCES tuition charged for a P-TECH grant out of district general fund expenditures in the first year, then the non-aided portion of the first tuition can be received in grant funds (during the period of the grant) in the following year.)

SAMS General Instructions & Passwords

BOCES 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 upper right 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 BOCES district superintendent's account/password go to http://www.p12.nysed.gov/sedrefupdate.htm

For detailed SAMS operating instructions/training materials go to the SAMS Information Tab on the State Aid web site where you will find the BOCES SAMS Training Manual and MS PowerPoint presentations from past training sessions.


Certification Requirements

An electronic certification form must be completed by the BOCES District Superintendent to submit the BOCES State Aid claim via SAMS. By certifying the claim, 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.


Timely Submission of Claim Data: INITIAL CERTIFIED SUBMISSION

A complete BOCES SAMS State Aid claim must be certified by October 1st. Assistant Superintendent’s for Business and BOCES superintendents are requested to supervise the completion and timely submission of the aid claim and projections. Since late, incomplete and/or inaccurate submission will affect your components’ projections of BOCES Aid in the Executive budget proposal, every effort should be made to meet the specified due date and provide accurate and comprehensive data.

If all required reports are not received by October 1st, the BOCES will receive reminders that the aid claim is due. Reminders will be sent to the State Aid Designee first. Subsequent reminders will also include the BOCES district superintendent, and the president of the board of education.

Timely Submission of 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.

BOCES should review and revise SAMS data as necessary following initial certification, especially to update projected expense and deductions as additional contracts are added. 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 Thursday, October 1st, 2015.

Please report problems and questions via email at BOCES@nysed.gov. This link is available on the top right of the SAMS screen. Please include your phone number and extension in the e-mail, and please list your 6-digit BOCES code at the beginning of the subject line. Or contact Ashley Weil at: 518-474-2977 ashley.weil@nysed.gov

Last Updated: May 3, 2017