Salaries and Funding
What is “COLA”?
COLA is a Cost of Living Adjustment made by the state legislature. The recommendation is based upon the rate of inflation to take into consideration when living in a particular state.
What does COLA affect?
COLA’s are generally used for increasing the value of Social Security or in terms of education, CalPers and CalStrs. The COLA increase is used to increase take home pay from those retirement programs.
What is the difference between a school district and a county office in terms of how they receive funding?
School districts receive their revenue from a variety of sources, however, they primarily rely on ADA or Average Daily Attendance.
ADA is total days of student attendance divided by the total days of instruction. In essence, the more students attend school, the more the district receives in order to educate the students. School districts have several other avenues of revenue, however, their general funds are primarily based on those projections and earnings.
Does the SCCOE receive ADA funds like school districts?
Generally speaking, they do not. COEs receive funding only for students that attend juvenile court schools operated by the COE and for students that attend other schools operated by the COE (referred to as County Funded Non-Juvenile Court School students), such as County Community Schools or special education classes and centers, who are enrolled pursuant to any of the following:
- Probation-referred
- On probation or parole and not in attendance in a school
- Expelled
COEs report ADA for students listed above.
If the COLA doesn’t automatically increase my salary, then how does my salary increase?
There are 3 ways your salary can increase at the SCCOE:
- Step Increase - this refers to the incremental raises you get year over year, for example, after one year of teaching you complete Step One and move to Step Two automatically for your second year.
- Column Increase - A Column Increase on the salary schedule is given on salary schedules where you can earn additional educational credits for completing things like an AA, BA or Master’s Degree.
- Negotiated Salary Increases- The SCCOE regularly engages with bargaining units to negotiate overall pay raises for employees within the bargaining unit that are then applied to the entire salary schedule.
Does the SCCOE receive Title I, II, III, and IV funds?
Yes, the SCCOE does receive Title I, III, and IV funds which can be used to provide students with a variety of different resources such as technology, field trips, and other related student materials.
Can the Title funds be used to provide funding for more classroom staff?
TITLE I A and IV
The intent of Title I and IV program is to meet the educational needs of children in low-income households and children in local institutions for neglected or delinquent children. Participants include students who are at risk of failing, disabled, and English Learners. The Title I program supplements services needed to raise the academic achievement level of kindergarten through grade 12 participants in basic and advanced skills.
Title I and IV funds must be used to promote:
- High academic/achievement for all children;
- Additional Instructional assistance: Some examples below
- Before and After School tutoring
- Materials which supplement a student’s regular instruction
- Improved linkages among schools, parents and communities. Some examples of these are:
- School Site Council Meetings, ELPAC (ELAC)
- Community events to increase parent and family engagement and involvement (CDE Lingo)
- Take-home learning activities, etc.
In general, funds cannot be used for required staffing, purchase/lease/rent or improvement to facilities, routine transportation costs for the transport of students to and from school, or supplant expenses/funds the school is legally required by Educational Code or IEPs to perform.
TITLE III
How does an LEA generate Title III funding? An LEA generates Title III, Part A federal funding when a student has been identified as an English Learner
How do we use Title III fuding? Under Federal Law ESSA, Sec. 3115(c), we shall use the funds to meet three requirements
- Support the effectiveness of the state-funded language instruction educational program with additional supplemental activities; Examples below
- Tutorials and academic or career and technical education for English learners
- Intensified instruction which may include materials in a language that the student can understand
- Improving the instructional program for English learners by identifying, acquiring, and upgrading curricula, instructional materials, educational software, and assessment procedures
- Provide effective professional development to staff in alignment with the SCCOE language instruction increasing English proficiency and academic achievement of English learners in core academic subjects
- Offer parent, family, and community engagement activities
TITLE II
Intent: to develop new ways to support educators and to strengthen existing efforts to provide professional growth opportunities for teachers and school leaders
How is this funding used at SCCOE?
Staff professional development (PD) that is supplemental and addresses the learning needs of all students and is in alignment with the our PD needs as stated in our Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP) and/or the LCAP Federal Addendum.
What about Medi-Cal funds?
Medi-Cal funds vary each school year and are dependent on “fee for services' ' reimbursements from the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) . The idea of Medi-Cal reimbursement funds is to supplement the Special Education funding with instructional and medical material and equipment and repairs, with minimal staffing costs due to the fluctuation in annual reimbursements. The costs are also subject to review by a group of collaborative practitioners, teachers and other invited staff and are audited annually by DHCS.
How are the SCCOE student programs funded?
With the expectation of OYA, the SCCOE student programs are funded by the districts or through state and federal grants. They are not generally supported through the SCCOE’s general fund which is the primary source of funding for district programs. If there is a cost increase to student programming, then there is a cost increase to the districts in most cases.
What is “the Block”
The block is the primary funding source for our SCCOE programs with special education students. The Special Education program is separated into several distinct “blocks”:
- Specialized Academic Instruction (SAI)
- Orthopedically Impaired & Medically Fragile (OI / MF)
- Skilled Nursing (SN)
- Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH)
- Therapeutic (TH)
- AED (Alternative Education)
Each block is their own unique program where there may be different costs associated with the program. The block essentially is referring to the cost of the program by the district for a student they have referred to a particular program.
Why do I hear about districts buying seats in our AED programs?
Our Community Day School programs are classrooms / schools where the SCCOE services primarily expelled youth from district programs. At the beginning of every school year, a district will buy “seats” in our program in anticipation of how many students they are anticipating being put up for expulsion based on their prospective data.
How is the SCCOE funded?
County Offices have a different funding structure than school districts. For the 2023/2024 fiscal year, the SCCOE is funded in the following ways, approximately:
- 45% funded by fees paid by districts (special education, Technology (external), Walden West, Teacher Credentialing)
- 30% County Operations for Mandated Services Flat Funded (District Business Advisory Services, Internal Business Services), Maintenance & Operations, Technology (internal), Human Resources, Charter School Department
- 21% State/Federal/Grant Funded (Head Start, Early Start, Safe & Drug Free Schools, Migrant Ed, ESSA/Title I)
- 4% ADA Funded (OYA, Alt Ed, Charter)