Technical Assistance on State Data Collection-National Technical Assistance Center To Improve State Capacity To Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate IDEA Part B and Part C Fiscal Data

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION <CFR>34 CFR Chapter III</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket ID ED-2024-OSERS-0144]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Technical Assistance on State Data Collection—National Technical Assistance Center To Improve State Capacity To Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate IDEA Part B and Part C Fiscal Data</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, Department of Education. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed priority. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Education (Department) proposes a priority for a National Technical Assistance Center to Improve State Capacity to Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate IDEA Part B and Part C Fiscal Data Center (Fiscal Data Center) under the Technical Assistance on State Data Collection program. The Department may use this priority for competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2025 and later years. We take this action to focus attention on an identified national need to provide technical assistance (TA) to improve the capacity of States to meet the fiscal data collection requirements under Part B and Part C of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This Fiscal Data Center will support States in collecting, reporting, and determining how to best analyze and use their IDEA Part B and Part C fiscal data to establish and meet high expectations for each child with a disability and will customize its TA to meet each State's specific needs. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> We must receive your comments on or before April 7, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Comments must be submitted via the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> However, if you require an accommodation or cannot otherwise submit your comments via <E T="03">www.regulations.gov,</E> please contact the program contact person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . The Department will not accept comments submitted by fax or by email, or comments submitted after the comment period closes. To ensure the Department does not receive duplicate copies, please submit your comments only once. In addition, please include the Docket ID at the top of your comments. <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> Go to <E T="03">www.regulations.gov</E> to submit your comments electronically. Information on using <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> , including instructions for accessing agency documents, submitting comments, and viewing the docket, is available on the site under “FAQ.” <E T="03">Note:</E> The Department's policy is generally to make comments received from members of the public available for public viewing in their entirety on the Federal eRulemaking Portal at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov.</E> Therefore, commenters should be careful to include in their comments only information that they wish to make publicly available. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Charles D. Kniseley, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 4A10, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 987-0907. Email: <E T="03">Charles.Kniseley@ed.gov.</E> If you are deaf, hard of hearing, or have a speech disability and wish to access telecommunications relay services, please dial 7-1-1. A brief summary of the rule is available at <E T="03">www.regulations.gov/docket/ED-2024-OSERS-0144.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <E T="03">Invitation to Comment:</E> We invite you to submit comments regarding the proposed priority. To ensure that your comments have maximum effect in developing the final priority, we urge you to identify clearly the specific section of the proposed priority that each comment addresses. We invite you to assist us in complying with the specific requirements of Executive Orders 12866, 13563, and 14094 and their overall requirement of reducing regulatory burden that might result from the proposed priority. Please let us know of any further ways we could reduce potential costs or increase potential benefits while preserving the effective and efficient administration of the program. During and after the comment period, you may inspect public comments about the proposed priority by accessing <E T="03">Regulations.gov</E> . To inspect comments in person, please contact the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <E T="03">Assistance to Individuals with Disabilities in Reviewing the Rulemaking Record:</E> On request we will provide an appropriate accommodation or auxiliary aid to an individual with a disability who needs assistance to review the comments or other documents in the public rulemaking record for the proposed priority. If you want to schedule an appointment for this type of accommodation or auxiliary aid, please contact the person listed under <E T="02">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT</E> . <E T="03">Purpose of Program:</E> The purpose of the Technical Assistance on State Data Collection program is to improve the capacity of States to meet IDEA data collection and reporting requirements. Funding for the program is authorized under section 611(c)(1) of IDEA, which gives the Secretary authority to reserve not more than one-half of one percent of the amounts appropriated under Part B for each fiscal year to provide TA activities authorized under section 616(i), where needed, to improve the capacity of States to meet the data collection and reporting requirements under Parts B and C of IDEA. The maximum amount the Secretary may reserve under this set-aside for any fiscal year is $25,000,000, cumulatively adjusted by the rate of inflation. Section 616(i) of IDEA requires the Secretary to review the data collection and analysis capacity of States to ensure that data and information determined necessary for implementation of sections 616 and 642 of IDEA are collected, analyzed, and accurately reported to the Secretary. It also requires the Secretary to provide TA, where needed, to improve the capacity of States to meet the data collection requirements, which include the data collection and reporting requirements in sections 616 and 618 of IDEA. In addition, the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, Public Law 118-47, gives the Secretary authority to use funds reserved under section 611(c) of IDEA to “administer and carry out other services and activities to improve data collection, coordination, quality, and use under Parts B and C of the IDEA.” Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, Public Law 118-47, Division D, Title III, 138 Stat. 460, 685 (2024). <E T="03">Assistance Listing Number:</E> 84.373F. <E T="03">OMB Control Number:</E> 1820-0028. <E T="03">Program Authority:</E> 20 U.S.C. 1411(c), 1416(i), 1418(c), 1418(d), 1442; Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, Public Law 118-47, Division D, Title III, 138 Stat. 460, 685 (2024). <E T="03">Applicable Program Regulations:</E> 34 CFR 300.702. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Proposed Priority</HD> This document contains one proposed priority. <E T="03">National Technical Assistance Center to Improve State Capacity to Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate IDEA Part B and Part C Fiscal Data.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> Collecting, analyzing, and using valid and reliable IDEA fiscal data are critical for States to be able to ensure that funds made available to support programs for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities are used consistent with requirements and to implement effective programs that improve outcomes for infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities. However, the Department's review and analysis of State-submitted fiscal data show that States are not meeting all fiscal requirements or effectively using their data to understand how to meet the requirements, thereby impacting program effectiveness and outcomes. For example, State-submitted data regarding local educational agency (LEA) maintenance of effort (MOE) and coordinated early intervening services (CEIS) for school year 2021-2022 indicate that 239 LEAs across 20 States failed to maintain effort, with approximately 28 percent of those failures occurring in public charter schools that are LEAs. The data also show that States made repayment for only 26 of those LEA MOE shortfalls at the time States submitted their data to the Department. Assisting States in understanding and analyzing why LEAs, including public charter schools that are LEAs, are failing LEA MOE, and the factors contributing to delays in State repayments for MOE failures, has high-stakes implications for IDEA implementation, including ensuring that children with disabilities who attend public charter schools that are LEAs have sufficient resources to receive a free appropriate public education. Changes to Federal fiscal requirements that impact the fiscal data States must submit to the Department require States to build their capacity to submit valid and reliable fiscal data. Starting in FY 2024, State lead agencies (LAs) for Part C are now reporting the data submission related to LAs' use of subgrants. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> LAs have demonstrated confusion in determining whether or not they are subgranting and need to understand what these data represent as well as the underlying requirements when subgranting Federal funds, including the cross-cutting Federal fiscal requirements and related responsibilities that apply both to the LA as a pass-through entity and to its early intervention services (EIS) providers and programs as subgrantees. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  Ten States indicated that they are currently subgranting IDEA Part C funds. It should be noted that subgranting of IDEA Part C funds was first permitted in the FY 2021 Consolidated Appropriations Act (HR 133), and is ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 49k characters. 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