Summary

Summary of Attestation Examination

The Florida A&M University Developmental Research School complied, in all material respects, with State requirements regarding the determination and reporting of full-time equivalent (FTE) students under the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP) for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2006.

Total instances of noncompliance related to FTE resulted in two findings.  The resulting audit adjustments to the District's reported, unweighted FTE totaled to a negative 1.1720, but have a potential impact on the District's weighted FTE of a negative 1.9570.

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, 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 Florida A&M University Developmental Research School, the gross dollar effect is a negative $7,324 (negative 1.9570 times $3,742.42).

Florida A&M University Developmental Research School

The Florida A&M University Developmental Research School was established pursuant to Section 1002.32, Florida Statutes, as a developmental research school on the campus of Florida A & M University.  The statute specifies that developmental research schools are to provide “a vehicle for the conduct of research, demonstration, and evaluation regarding management, teaching, and learning.”  The statute also states that “the primary goal of a lab school is to enhance instruction and research in [mathematics, science, computer science, and foreign languages] by using resources available in a state university campus, while also providing an education in nonspecialized subjects.”  The School offers instruction in Basic education and Career Education 9-12, and serves students in kindergarten through twelfth grade.  For the fiscal year ended June 30, 2006, the School reported 459.1668 unweighted full-time equivalent (FTE) students, and received approximately $2.7 million in State funding for those FTE under the Florida Education Finance Program (FEFP).  The primary source of funding for the School is State funds allocated from the Florida Education Finance Program.  General oversight and guidance is provided to the School by an advisory board, pursuant to Section 1002.32(8), Florida Statutes.

Florida Education Finance Program

Florida school districts and developmental research schools 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). 

The Superintendent's written response to the audit findings is included in the audit report on the Auditor General Web site.