The following Priority Notice was sent on March 15

Following the initial publication of the preliminary FY 2017 (2016-17 school year) state subsidy printouts (ED 279) on January 29, 2016, data quality issues were detected. During the time in which the Department has been working to correct these issues, the Legislature passed, and the Governor signed, PL 2015, Chapter 389 which provides an additional appropriation of $15 million dollars to General Purpose Aid for Local Schools for FY 2017.

In order to provide school administrative units with timely information needed for budgeting purposes, the Department has produced several spreadsheets which illustrate the changes to each school administrative unit’s subsidy allocation, beginning with the preliminary ED 279 published on January 29, to the impact of the additional $15 million appropriation enacted this week. The following spreadsheets are available here:

•  FY 17 preliminary State Subsidy compared to FY 16 by SAU
• Comparison of Original Preliminary ED 279 State Subsidy to Corrected State Subsidy to Additional Appropriation by SAU
• FY 17 Education Subsidy Information for Property Tax Bill by SAU and Town

In addition to corrections for the identified data quality issues, amounts in the spreadsheet include adjustments for Adult Education course counts, replacing the estimated counts originally used with actual counts, as reported on the EFM 39 reports. Also included are debt service adjustments for those school units which were impacted by recent debt refinancing.

Work is continuing to correct systemic issues which impact the actual ED 279 report. As soon as those issues are corrected and the detailed reports posted, school units will be notified.  In the meantime, these spreadsheets will assist school units in moving forward with their FY 2017 budget work.

Please direct questions regarding these printouts to the School Finance team via email: tyler.backus@maine.gov, paula.b.gravelle@maine.gov or joanne.allen@maine.gov.