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

<RULE> 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> Final priority. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Department of Education (Department) announces the priority for the 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. This priority replaces the priority published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on August 11, 2014, and the priority published on June 16, 2020. We will use the priority to award a cooperative agreement for a Center 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> The priority is effective July 25, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Charles D. Kniseley, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW, Room 4A127, Washington, DC 20202. Telephone: (202) 245-6313. 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. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <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, 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">Program Authority:</E> 20 U.S.C. 1411(c), 1416(i), 1418(c), 1418(d), 1442, 1482; Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024, Public Law 118-47, Div. D, Title III, 138 Stat. 460, 685 (2024). <E T="03">Applicable Program Regulations:</E> 34 CFR 300.702. We published a notice of proposed priority (NPP) for this program in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on January 21, 2025 (90 FR 6915). That document contained background information and our reasons for proposing the priority. There are differences between the NPP and this notice of final priority (NFP) as discussed in the <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes</E> section of this document. The most significant change, as discussed below, is the removal of the requirement that the Center specifically engage underserved families to support the development of products and services. <E T="03">Public Comment:</E> In response to our invitation in the NPP, three parties submitted comments addressing the proposed priority. We received two additional comments unrelated to the priority. Generally, we do not address technical and other minor changes, or suggested changes the law does not authorize us to make under the applicable statutory authority. In addition, we do not address general comments that raised concerns not directly related to the proposed priority. <E T="03">Analysis of Comments and Changes:</E> An analysis of the comments and of any changes in the priority since publication of the NPP follows. <HD SOURCE="HD1">General Comments</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> Two commenters expressed support for the proposed Center, and one specifically referenced the benefits that members of its association have received from the current Center and agreed with the priority's support to States. Further, the commentor identified the need for the Center due to changes related to Federal fiscal requirements that impact the fiscal data States must submit to the Department, as well as changes in lead agency or shifting lead agency responsibility under IDEA Part C to reorganize their early childhood programs and create offices that serve children birth through five. No changes were requested. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department appreciates the comments and agrees with the commenters that the Center funded under this program will provide necessary and valuable TA to States to improve the capacity of States to meet their IDEA fiscal data collection, analysis, and reporting requirements. <E T="03">Changes:</E> None. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Individuals To Be Served</HD> <E T="03">Comments:</E> One commenter indicated that the proposed Center should serve all constituents fairly, as opposed to focusing on a target population. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> The Department agrees that the proposed Center should focus on providing services to all States and that TA should focus on meeting the needs of all constituents in the State. <E T="03">Changes:</E> The Department has clarified that the Center should focus on meeting the needs of all constituents in a State by removing the requirement that the Center specifically engage underserved families to support the development of products and services. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Alignment With Selection Criteria</HD> <E T="03">Comment:</E> None. <E T="03">Discussion:</E> In using this priority in a notice inviting applications, the priority's reference to selection criteria should align with the selection criteria being used. <E T="03">Changes:</E> We are revising the selection criteria headings with the priority by removing “Quality of project services” and “Quality of the project personnel” and replacing with “Quality of the project design” and just “Adequacy of resources.” We are also revising application and administrative requirements to align with the actual factors being used under “Adequacy of resources” and “Quality of the management plan” in the notice inviting applications. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Final Priority</HD> <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="HD2">Priority</HD> The purpose of this priority is to fund a cooperative agreement to establish and operate the National Technical Assistance Center to Improve State Capacity to Collect, Report, Analyze, and Use Accurate IDEA Part B and Part C Fiscal Data (Fiscal Data Center). The Fiscal Data Center will provide TA to improve the capacity of States to meet the IDEA Part B and Part C fiscal data collection requirements under IDEA sections 618 and 642 and increase States' knowledge of the underlying IDEA fiscal requirements and calculations necessary to submit valid and reliable data for the following collections: (1) Maintenance of State Financial Support (MFS) in Section V of the IDEA Part B Annual State Application; (2) Local Educational Agency (LEA) Maintenance of Effort (MOE) Reduction and Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS); (3) Description of Use of IDEA Part B Section 611 Funds reserved for State administration and other State-level activities in Section III of the IDEA Part B Annual State Application; (4) Description of Use of Federal IDEA Part C Funds for the Lead Agency (LA) and the Interagency Coordinating Council in Section III of the IDEA Part C Annual State Application; (5) IDEA Part C MOE requirements; (6) Restricted Indirect Cost Rate/Cost Allocation Plan Information in Sections III and IV of the IDEA Part C Annual State Application; and (7) Part C Subgranting, in Section III.F. of the Part C Annual State Application. The Fiscal Data Center must be designed to achieve, at a minimum, the following expected outcomes: (a) Increased capacity of States to collect, report, analyze, and use high-quality IDEA Part B and Part C fiscal data; (b) Increased capacity of States to accurately perform calculations related to IDEA Part B and Pa ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 40k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━