FINANCIAL /REPORTING ALLOTMENTS FOR TRANSPORTATION The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Transportation Services Section is responsible for the allocation of funds, from the state budget appropriation, to 115 local education agencies (LEAs) for school transportation operations. This block grant provides funds to pay for drivers, fuel, personnel, parts, tires, contracts, etc. needed to transport students in grades K-12 to and from school. The state allotment for transportation is calculated from the prior year’s eligible expenditures, a budget rating and any necessary adjustments. The budget rating is, in part, a measure of efficiency of operation. Annual adjustments are made for increased enrollment and any adjustments required by General Assembly action. LEAs may supplement these state funds with local funds. Those funds are considered eligible to the extent that they are used to fund the transportation of students in grades K-12 to and from school. Funds allotted through Program Report Code 056 are for the purpose of transporting students to and from school for the regularly organized school day. DPI Transportation Services calculates transportation allotments using a funding base and a transportation budget rating. The basic calculation is to multiply the previous year’s funding base for each LEA by its budget rating to determine the current year allotment. (Adjustments are made for legislated salary changes, increases in enrollment, etc.) FUNDING BASE. The funding base for a city or county LEA consists of actual, eligible, expenditures (see below) from the prior year for to- and from-school transportation. (For counties with 2-3 LEAs, if city driver salaries and salaries for city administrative work are paid by the county in a given year, those amounts remain in the county funding base for the following year.) BUDGET RATING. The budget rating is, in part, a measure of efficiency and is calculated by examining the cost per student and the number of buses per 100 students for each county. A lower cost and a lower number of buses yield a higher budget rating. Site characteristics include the number of students transported per mile of roadway and the distance of student residences from school. Because county LEAs maintain and fuel the city LEA buses, and because the geographic site characteristics used to the playing field” statewide cannot be distinguished between “level city and county, all data for city and county LEAs are combined before calculating ratings. The
FINANCIAL /REPORTING ALLOTMENTS FOR TRANSPORTATION The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, Transportation Services Section is responsible for the allocation of funds, from the state budget appropriation, to 115 local education agencies (LEAs) for school transportation operations. This block grant provides funds to pay for drivers, fuel, personnel, parts, tires, contracts, etc. needed to transport students in grades K-12 to and from school. The state allotment for transportation is calculated from the prior year’s eligible expenditures, a budget rating and any necessary adjustments. The budget rating is, in part, a measure of efficiency of operation. Annual adjustments are made for increased enrollment and any adjustments required by General Assembly action. LEAs may supplement these state funds with local funds. Those funds are considered eligible to the extent that they are used to fund the transportation of students in grades K-12 to and from school. Funds allotted through Program Report Code 056 are for the purpose of transporting students to and from school for the regularly organized school day. DPI Transportation Services calculates transportation allotments using a funding base and a transportation budget rating. The basic calculation is to multiply the previous year’s funding base for each LEA by its budget rating to determine the current year allotment. (Adjustments are made for legislated salary changes, increases in enrollment, etc.) FUNDING BASE. The funding base for a city or county LEA consists of actual, eligible, expenditures (see below) from the prior year for to- and from-school transportation. (For counties with 2-3 LEAs, if city driver salaries and salaries for city administrative work are paid by the county in a given year, those amounts remain in the county funding base for the following year.) BUDGET RATING. The budget rating is, in part, a measure of efficiency and is calculated by examining the cost per student and the number of buses per 100 students for each county. A lower cost and a lower number of buses yield a higher budget rating. Site characteristics include the number of students transported per mile of roadway and the distance of student residences from school. Because county LEAs maintain and fuel the city LEA buses, and because the geographic site characteristics used to “level the playing field” statewide cannot be distinguished between city and county, all data for city and county LEAs are combined before calculating ratings. The
TransportationDirectorsManual_V1.2_December2016.docx