January 12, 2006 Transportation Aid Letter To Districts

Date:January 12, 2006

To:School District Administrators

From: David Carlson, Director
School Financial Services Team

Re:2006-2007 Transportation Aid, PI 1547 Transportation Aid Report (2005-2006 data)

2006-2007 Transportation Aid

2005 Wisconsin Act 25 increased the transportation aid rates effective for aid paid starting in the 2005-2006 school year. Wisconsin state statute 121.58 authorizes payment to school districts by a dollar amount for each pupil transported. A comparison of the mileage rates based on the “over 90 days” enrolled category (under 90 days is paid at one-half these rates) follows:

Mileage Category	FY05	FY06	FY07
0-2 miles (UHT)	$12	$12	$15
over 2-5	30	30	35
over 5-8	45	45	55
over 8-12	60	82	110
over 12-15	68	n/a	n/a
over 15-18	75	n/a	n/a
Over 18	85	n/a	n/a
Over 12	n/a	150	180

A summary of the amount to be paid to districts on January 30, 2006 can be found by clicking on the “Worksheets” link on the left hand scan bar, then “DPI Printed Worksheets,” then “Miscellaneous Worksheets” or directly at http://dpi.wi.gov/sfs/misc_worksheets.html#transportation.

PI 1547 Transportation Aid Report (2005-06 Data for 2006-2007 Aid)

Districts report the number of pupils transported on the PI 1547 Transportation Report. This report was one of the first Internet based data collection programs that was put into production by the school financial services team. Although this report has improved the collection of pupil transportation data, the lack of edits in the program requires a significant amount of manual checking by team staff to ensure the integrity of the data collected.

The PI 1547 Pupil Transportation report will be upgraded for the collection of 2005-2006 school year data used to pay aid in the 2006-2007 school year. Included in the revised report will be a series of edits that will reduce the post-submission auditing which often resulted in telephone calls and e-mails to school districts. Some of these edits will remind the district of the need to continue to maintain documentation for pupils transported. Other edits will focus on data comparisons with prior years and reasonableness tests that are currently found in other school financial service team data collection applications.

Some examples of questions planned to be answered by automatic checks are as follows:

1. Did the district verify that each pupil reported as transported was actually transported at least once during the school year?
2. Is the district eligible for unusually hazardous transportation aid (UHT) and when was their plan last updated?
3. Did the district report summer school or vocational transportation for the first time or did the district report it last year but not this year?
4. Did the school district remember to report pupils who were provided transportation other than by bus?
5. Did the school district report non public pupils last year but not this year or this year but not last year?

It will be important for districts to be able to answer the above questions to ensure compliance with the transportation aid statute. Districts should document their procedures and actions so that external auditors can readily ascertain that the data reported is based on sound reliable practices. In many cases a bus list with a notation by the driver that shows the pupil was actually transported should be sufficient documentation. In others situations, equivalent documentation should be maintained to show that the district has verified that the pupil was actually transported before reporting him/her on the transportation report. Since the 2005-2006 school year is already in progress and this year’s data will be used to compute aid for the January 2007 payment, it is important for districts to review their current year practices to ensure that auditors have the documentation available to them at the time of the 2005-2006 fiscal year audit.

Questions may arise as to why this verification is necessary. State statute 121.58 is clear in allowing aid for each pupil so transported in each mileage category. The verification is required to ensure a district is receiving as much aid as it is eligible for. If a student is eligible to ride, but is not actually transported at least once in the school year, the district cannot receive aid on that student.

Should you have questions please contact one of the following school finance consultants.

Brad Adams	(608) 267-3752	bradley.adams@dpi.wi.gov
Lori Ames	(608) 266-3464	lori.ames@dpi.wi.gov
Karen Kucharz	(608) 267-9707	karen.kucharz@dpi.wi.gov

For questions about this information, contact dpifin@dpi.wi.gov (608) 267-9114

Last updated on 1/12/2010 9:41:35 AM