Paul,
I am sending you this info I found out about the Exhibit J-3 in case anyone else calls you about this issue. I suggested to Tom that he post something out on TEA Answers On Line. So it’s possible that he may put something out there.
Charles

 -----Original Message-----
From: Charles Fankhauser
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2003 2:01 PM
To: School Group
Subject: Revised schedule J-3

In case you haven’t seen it yet this schedule has changed quite a bit from last year. We needed to clarify what line 7 of the form was requiring, and so I contacted Tom Canby at TEA. His explanation is basically as follows:

Line 7 is to be the variance between the Legislative Payment Estimate (LPE) from the Summary of Finances for the 2003/2004 year as compared to either the amount shown in the District Payment Estimate (DPE) column which is the right hand column of the 2003/2004 Summary of Finances or the amount derived from the use of the template from Region 13 Education Service Center to calculate its state aid amount and this could be used as the DPE amount instead.

Tom further explained that the concept at play here is to see whether the District is positioning itself to have sufficient fund balance to meet its obligations in the 2003/2004 year.

A key item to note that will show up in the Financial Integrity Rating System answers is whether the fund balance on line 1 is within the range of 50% to 150% of the “Optimum Fund Balance” on line 10.  If the amount on line 1 is in this range then the district could answer question 18 on the Financial Integrity Rating System as YES otherwise the District would have not passed this indicator.

I asked Tom if there was a problem if line 11 was a negative number, and he said there was not as long as the range mentioned above was adhered to. I then asked if it would be a good idea to have an explanation about the negative amount on line 11 and he said it would probably be helpful.

In regards to the amount of line 7 Tom said it would be permissible if we wanted to indicate that the LPE and DPE were for the 2003/2004 year. He said that would be alright as well.

Charles