Comprehensive Attendance Policy Program
Dear Nonpublic School Leaders,
Last June, State funds were provided to reimburse non-public schools for prior year expenses associated with performing state-mandated functions, including the Comprehensive Attendance Policy program. The legislation directed the Commissioner to prepare a methodology to allocate the funds. It provided $250 million in total support for the reimbursement. This $250 million was divided into $125 million for the current state fiscal year (which runs from April 2015 through March 2016) and another $125 million for the state fiscal year that starts in April 2016.
The first payments for the current year, totaling $64 million, will be made this month. The $64 million in payments for this month will provide additional reimbursement for payments that were made to non-public schools under the Comprehensive Attendance Policy (CAP) program for the 2006-07, 2007-08, 2008-09 and 2009-10 school years. The first round of invoicing for the 2006-07 school year has already begun. You may already have received a notice.
If your school submitted a claim under the CAP program for one or more of those years, you will receive a payment automatically through the same means that are used to pay your more recent CAP claims – a check mailed to your school or a direct deposit to your bank account of record. If your school receives direct deposits, you will see the payments coded as follows: MSA – 4 numbers referring to the school year for which the state is reimbursing you and the next 5 numbers after that are the school’s Institution ID.
The payments are based on data already in our system. You will have no additional work to do in order to receive the payments. Because the payments are each closely linked within our system to the particular school year, if your school is owed funds for more than one of the school years, you will receive separate payments for each year. While this is a little cumbersome, this method of payment enables us to make the funds available to you much closer to the start of the current school year, which we hope you will find helpful.
It is anticipated that additional payments reimbursing schools for additional years of CAP will be made in March 2016. This reimbursement will provide additional support for school years 2010-11 through 2013-14.
If you have any questions, please contact the Office of Grants Management at 518 474 3936 or EMSCMSA@nysed.gov.
Thank you very much,
Christina E. Coughlin