Summary

Summary of Examination Repor

Except for the instances of material noncompliance mentioned in the following paragraph involving the reporting of Exceptional students, the School District of Baker County complied, in all material respects, with the requirements of the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) regarding the determination and reporting of full-time equivalent (FTE) students and the number of students transported for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2002.

Five of the 14 students in our Exceptional student sample for Support Levels 4 and 5 were reported for more instructional time in the Hospital and Homebound program than they were provided.

Total instances of noncompliance related to FTE resulted in four findings affecting four of the District’s schools.  The resulting audit adjustments to the District's reported, unweighted FTE totaled to a negative 3.6200, but have a potential impact on the District's weighted FTE of a negative 20.2394.  Total instances of noncompliance related to student transportation resulted in five findings and a net audit adjustment to the District’s reported student ridership of a positive five students.

Weighted FTE adjustments are presented in our report for illustrative purposes only; they do not take special program caps and allocation factors into account and are not intended to indicate the weighted FTE used to compute the dollar value of audit adjustments, which is the responsibility of the Department of Education (DOE).

However, after consideration is given to the caution expressed in the above paragraph, the gross dollar effect of our FTE audit adjustments may be roughly estimated by multiplying the net weighted FTE audit adjustment by the base student allocation amount.  For the School District of Baker County, Florida, that gross dollar effect is a negative $66,759 (negative 20.2394 times $3,298.48).

We have not presented an estimate of the potential dollar effect of our student transportation audit adjustments because there is no equivalent method for making such an estimate.  The ultimate resolution of our FTE and student transportation audit adjustments and the computation of their financial impact is the responsibility of the DOE.

School District of Baker County

The School District of Baker County was established pursuant to Section 230.01, Florida Statutes, to provide public educational services for the residents of Baker County, Florida.  Those services are provided to students attending kindergarten through high school.

The District is part of the State system of public education under the general direction and control of the State Board of Education.  The geographic boundaries of the District are those of Baker County.  The governing body of the District is the District School Board, which is composed of five elected members.  The executive officer of the Board is the elected Superintendent of Schools.

 For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2002, the District operated 6 schools, reported 4,393.91 unweighted, full-time equivalent (FTE) students, and received approximately $15.7 million in State FEFP funding for those FTE.

 The primary sources of funding for the District are funds from the Florida Education Finance Program, local ad valorem taxes, and Federal grants and donations.

 Florida Education Finance Program

 Florida school districts receive State funding through the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP), which was established by the Florida Legislature in 1973.

 It is the intent of the law "to guarantee to each student in the Florida public school system the availability of programs and services appropriate to his educational needs which are substantially equal to those available to any similar student notwithstanding geographic differences and varying local economic factors."

 To provide equalization of educational opportunity in Florida, the FEFP formula recognizes (1) varying local property tax bases, (2) varying program cost factors, (3) district cost differentials, and (4) differences in per student cost for equivalent educational programs due to sparsity and dispersion of student population. 

 The funding provided by FEFP is based upon the numbers of individual students participating in particular educational programs.  A numerical value is assigned to each student according to the student's hours and days of attendance in those programs.  The individual student thus becomes equated to a numerical value known as an unweighted FTE (full-time equivalent student).  For example, one student would be reported as one FTE if the student was enrolled in six classes per day at 50 minutes per class for the full 180-day school year (i.e., six classes at 50 minutes each per day is five hours of class a day or 25 hours per week, which equals one FTE).