Guidance for Determining Estimates for County Allocations for NCLB
Programs
The US Department of Education has a webpage (link below) which contains estimates for
each federal formula grant allocation for the coming year by state and by program. It is
only an estimate and is not final for NCLB programs until sometime in July. Funds
included in the State tables are for programs that allocate funds to States using statutory
formulas. The State tables are posted and updated as a package, rather than on an
individual basis. As a result, changes are not necessarily made to every program and/ or
every State each time the tables are updated. Major updates normally are posted for
significant milestones in the appropriations process, such as the President's Budget
Request and enactment of an appropriation. Major changes also are made when final
allocations occur for the No Child Left Behind programs-usually in July. The
allocation chart contains a date at the bottom of each page indicating the last date on which
the allocation was updated. In addition, routine updates are performed each month, as
needed, and typically reflect only minor changes. The state tables are accessed from this
web page as either a pdf file or an excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet or pdf file contains
STATE allocations for each year since 2001 prior to NCLB being enacted. The year at the
top of each column is the Congressional allocation year so it is one year behind our fiscal
year. In other words the column for 2007 is actually the amount that is estimated for our
Fiscal Year 2008 (school year 2007-2008). You can access the USDE web page using the
following link and then click on the link for either a .pdf file or and excel file, whichever
you prefer.
http://www.ed.gov/about/ overview /budget/statetables/index.html
This is a STATE allocation. To determine the amount of increase or decrease in an
allocation you must divide the proposed allocation by the previous year allocation for the
state. The percentage increase or decrease would then be applied to the county allocation
to determine the estimated allocation for the coming year. This only provides a rough
estimate. Actual county allocations must be calculated by the appropriate WV Department
of Education program Coordinator using a formula provided in the legislation for each of
the programs. These calculations could change the level of a particular county's allocation
from the previous year even though the state allocation remains exactly the same. The
reason for this is that each program's formula typically contains calculations based on
student population and some level of poverty. As those numbers change it would impact a
particular county's allocation more or less depending on increases or decreases in student
population and/ or county poverty level.
The Rural & Low Income Schools (RLIS) program allocates funds on a formula also, but
there are at least three complicating factors in calculating estimates for the RLIS program.
RLIS uses the latest calculation of average daily attendance (ADA) rather than student
population. The ADA is used to allocate funds to eligible counties. Counties become
eligible if they qualify in two areas. First, they must be rural as defined by the National
Center for Educational Statistics. The other factor is if a county has at least 20% of its
students from families that are below the US Census established poverty level. This level is
updated each year and the census estimate is recalculated each year also. This makes it
impossible to determine for sure if a particular county is eligible. An example from FY 07
is Grant County. Grant County was above the 20% level required to be eligible. Grant
County was eligible 3 of the 5 fiscal years from FY 2003 trough 2007. Additionally, in the
previous year the range of poverty in all 55 counties was from a low of 1i.69 in Putnam to a
high of 47.62 in McDowell. Grant County had 20.09% of its students from families below
the US Census poverty line. Additionally, there were no counties that were closer to the
20% level than Grant. Therefore, if the poverty line were to go up only a very little, or if
only a few families in Grant County became more prosperous during the year then Grant
County would not be eligible for RLIS funds. If those figures went only a little the other
way then Tucker County (19.75 % that year) might become eligible. Since the inception of
RLIS in FY 2003 the number of eligible counties has had a range of 10 with a low of 26
eligible counties in FY 05 and a high of 36 eligible counties in FY 03 and FY 04.
This fluctuation in the number of eligible counties also affects the amount of funds the
remaining eligible counties receive. The calculation of eligible school districts is happening
in all states and territories that receive US Department of Education allocations. The
average daily attendance from all of these districts is divided into the Congressional
allocation to determine a per student amount, then multiplied by each particular state ADA
to determine the state allocation. This formula is repeated at the state level to determine
county allocations. The step of having to determine eligible counties for the whole nation
each year is the extra step which delays the RLIS allocation.