December 2008

To: District Superintendents, School Superintendents and Program Managers of Employment Preparation Education (EPE) State Aid Programs

From: Tom Orsini, Team Leader

Subject: Employment Preparation Education (EPE) State Aid Claim Forms for 2007-2008

Enclosed are:

· SA 160.1 combined EPE claim form and interim projection report. The SA 160.1 is used to claim EPE State Aid for contact hours of instruction provided in approved programs from July 1, 2007 to December 31, 2007. The interim projection report allows agencies to update their projected contact hours for the full year (July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008).

· SA 160.2, EPE claim form for the period January 1, 2008 to June 30, 2008.

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this claim form, please contact the

Adult Education and Workforce Development Team at (518) 474-8940.

Enclosure

Employment Preparation Education State Aid Claim Form SA 160.1

For the Period July 1, 2007 through December 31, 2007

Part 1. Agency Information

Agency Name:
District Superintendent/Superintendent Signature:	District Superintendent/ Superintendent Name:
Contact Person:	Phone:

Part 2. Claim Form and Interim Projections for Students without a High School Diploma or Equivalent

	Components	Claim Form 7/1/07-12/31/07		Interim Projections 7/1/07-6/30/08
		Contact Hours	Enroll- ment	Contact Hours	Enroll- ment
Line 1	Traditional Adult Education
Line 2	Distance Learning Adult Ed.
Line 3	High School Credit Courses
Line 4	Adult Occupational Education
Line 5	Work Experience
Line 6	Total

Part 3. Claim Form and Interim Projections for Students with a High School Diploma or Equivalent (limited to 2.3 percent of total claim)

	Components	Claim Form 7/1/07-12/31/07		Interim Projections 7/1/07-6/30/08
		Contact Hours	Enroll- ment	Contact Hours	Enroll- ment
Line 1	Traditional Adult Education
Line 2	Distance Learning Adult Ed.
Line 3	High School Credit Courses
Line 4	Adult Occupational Education
Line 5	Work Experience
Line 6	Total

Employment Preparation Education Claim Form SA160.2

For the Period January 1, 2008 through June 30, 2008

Part 1. Agency Information

Agency Name:
Contact Person:	Phone:

Certification and Signature:

The undersigned hereby certifies that revenues received by this school district or BOCES pursuant to Section 3602(24) of the Education Law in support of the total hours of Employment Preparation Education Services provided during the 2007-2008 school year plus all other revenues received in support of such services, including other State and federal aid and direct tuition payments, do not exceed the total approved cost of such services. Documentation supporting this certification and records of such revenues and expenditures has been maintained by this school district or BOCES and are available for review upon request.

District Superintendent/Superintendent Signature:

District Superintendent/Superintendent Name:

Employment Preparation Education State Aid Claim Form SA 160.2

For the Period January 1, 2008 through June 30, 2008

Part 2. Claim Form and Enrollment Distribution for Students without a High School Diploma or Equivalency

	Components	Contact Hours 1/1/08-6/30/08	Enrollment 1/1/08-6/30/08
Line 1	Traditional Adult Education
Line 2	Distance Learning Adult Education
Line 3	High School Credit Courses
Line 4	Adult Occupational Education
Line 5	Work Experience
Line 6	Total

Part 3. Claim Form and Enrollment Distribution for Students with a High School Diploma or Equivalency (limited to 2.3 percent of total claim)

	Components	Contact Hours 1/1/08-6/30/08	Enrollment 1/1/08-6/30/08
Line 1	Traditional Adult Education
Line 2	Distance Learning Adult Education
Line 3	High School Credit Courses
Line 4	Adult Occupational Education
Line 5	Work Experience
Line 6	Total

EMPLOYMENT PREPARATION EDUCATION (EPE) STATE AID CLAIM FORM

INSTRUCTION SHEET

Background

Subdivision 24 of Section 3602 of the Education Law and Part 168 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education establish requirements governing the Employment Preparation Education (EPE) State Aid Program. EPE provides contact hour reimbursement to school districts and BOCES serving adults 21 years of age or older who have not received a high school diploma or equivalency diploma issued from any state or territory of the United States who attend adult education programs approved by the Education Department.

The New York State Legislature enacted legislation to allow Employment Preparation Education (EPE) State aid to be generated by individuals aged 21 and above who have been awarded a high school diploma or high school equivalency diploma issued by a state or territory of the United States who "fail to demonstrate basic education competencies". In Commissioner's Regulations approved in April 2001, this was defined as scoring below level 5 of the National Reporting System for adult education as measured by the following standardized tests:

· For Adult Basic Education - scoring at or below grade level 8.9 in reading or mathematics on the TABE (version 7-8 or 9-10)

· For English for Speakers of Other Languages - scoring below 507 on the BEST Plus test

As indicated in the memorandum of May 14, 2001, these contract hours must be tracked and reported separately. Because only $2.5 million of the total allocation is available for these students, agencies should claim no more than 2.3 percent of their total claim for those with a diploma. Agencies claiming more than 2.3 percent will not be paid in full if New York State exceeds the $2.5 million cap. In no case will an agency be reimbursed for more than 10% of total funds claimed.

Part 1. Agency Information

Provide the information requested. The claim must include an original signature of the District Superintendent or the Superintendent.

Part 2. Claim Form, Interim Projections and Enrollment Distribution for Students Without a High School Diploma or Equivalent

The SA- 160.1 is used to claim EPE Aid for the period July 1, 2007 through December 31, 2007, and is due on February 15, 2008. The SA- 160.2, for the period January 1, 2008 through June 30, 2008, is due on September 15, 2008. Claims received after the due date will not be processed or paid.

The interim projections are the methodology by which SED reallocates EPE contract hours. It is imperative that the interim projections are included and are for the entire year.

Agencies projecting a higher generation of EPE contact hours on the SA 160.1 are not automatically approved to receive an increase in EPE State Aid. Reallocations of EPE State Aid, within the funds available statewide, will be considered after all Interim Projections have been reviewed. Agencies will be notified in writing.

Part 3. Claim Form, Interim Projections and Enrollment Distribution for Students with a High School Diploma or Equivalent

The same information is reported in Part 3 as in Part 2, for those students that have been awarded a high school diploma or equivalency, but “fail to demonstrate basic education competencies” as defined above. If total contact hours claimed for these students exceeds 2.3 percent of the total claimed the additional funds may not be paid. Claims over 10 percent will not be paid.

Traditional, High School Credit and Occupational Education Components

For the Traditional, High School Credit and Occupational Educational Component a contact hour is regarded as 60 minutes of instruction by a teacher per student. For example, an adult basic education mathematics course has 15 EPE eligible students, who attend 60 minutes of instruction each day for one week. The contact hours would be computed as follows:

15 students x 1 hour/day x 5 days/week = 75 contact hours for this class

Work Experience Component

Work Experience Programs are unpaid, structured and supervised work activities/tasks for a specified period of time in a public or private, profit or not-for-profit setting that enhance and support a written Individual Education and Employment Preparation Plan (IEEPP) for the adult student. The on-site work experience is reimbursed at .5 contact hour for every hour on the work site. In addition to the on-site work experience, the program must include traditional classroom education comprising at least 30 percent of the total program hours. The classroom component can include any traditional academic program that the agency is approved to offer in their comprehensive plan of service. Agencies must submit the program design and curricula for the work experience program as part of the comprehensive plan of service.

The work experience program must be operated by an EPE-eligible agency and both the classroom teacher(s) and the teachers monitoring the work sites must hold provisional or permanent certification or temporary three-year adult education certificates. In addition, the work activity needs to be a non-paid activity.

For example, 6 students work 2 hours per day, 3 days per week, at a non-paid work site that is monitored weekly by a certified work site supervisor. The computation for contact hours follows:

6 students x 2 hours/day x 3 days/week x .50 (one-half hour per hour) = 18 contact hours/per week

Agencies must maintain supporting documentation to verify the total work experience contact hours reported. The classroom component of the work experience program should be claimed in the “traditional” section.

Distance Learning Component

To calculate EPE hours for distance learning programs, a local school district or BOCES should determine the maximum number of professional staff hours that can be claimed by adding the number of students actively enrolled in the program each week for the length of the program and multiplying the cumulative total by 30 minutes or .5 hours. (For aid purposes, districts and BOCES are limited to an average of 30 minutes per week of professional staff time for each person actively enrolled.) Multiply the result by 12 to determine the maximum number of contact hours that may be claimed. For example: A district's distance learning program has an active enrollment over a ten-week period as follows:

Active Enrollment in a Distance Learning Program Operated by a School District
Week	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	Total Active Enrollment
Active Enrollment	42	40	41	45	40	42	44	42	45	39	420

Since the cumulative active enrollment for the ten-week period is 420, the allowable maximum that may be claimed is 420 x 5 hours or 210 professional staff hours. Multiply the allowable maximum professional staff hours by 12 (i.e., 210 x 12) to arrive at the total number of contact hours (2,520).

If the full 210 professional staff hours were not expended, the number of professional staff hours actually expended would be multiplied by 12 to arrive at the total contact hours to be claimed. In no case could the district in the example claim more than 210 professional staff hours in the calculation to arrive at the contact hours total. School districts and BOCES must be able to document the actual number of professional hours expended.

EPE Revenue and Expenditures

Section 3602.24 (g) of Subdivision 24 of the Education Law requires that the Education Department reduce the following year’s EPE Aid when the total revenues for EPE, when added to all other State and federal aid received for such purposes including tuition paid to the school district for such a program, exceeds the total expenditures for the EPE program.

Once the second period EPE claim form is processed and the resulting payment is made, the Education Department’s State Aid office will contact the EPE State Aid recipients for a reconciliation of the EPE revenue and expenditures. These figures will be compared with your ST3 or SA111 Financial Report. The outcome of that reconciliation will determine whether an adjustment is necessary in the subsequent year’s EPE payments.