SURVEY INSTRUCTIONS - Updated 2/22/13

ARRA Jobs Reporting Survey – Quarter Ending March 31, 2013

The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) requires that Local Education Agencies (LEAs) report the number of Jobs Created and Retained as a result of funding received through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

In this survey, school districts and charter schools will be asked to provide the number of Full Time Equivalents (FTEs) created or retained in this quarter as a result of ARRA funding. FTEs submitted for this quarter should be calculated based upon the total hours funded with Recovery Act dollars divided by the total hours in a full-time schedule. A funded job is defined as one in which the wages or salaries are either paid for or will be reimbursed with Recovery Act funding. Expenditures for benefits should not be included.

There is a check box on the form stating “I am authorized to submit data on behalf of” after the Organization Num-Type Name drop down box. After picking your school from the dropdown list, please click in the check box to verify your school again.

Recipients should ensure that an employee who is working full-time and whose salary is fully funded by ARRA is reported as 1 FTE. If an employee is working a full-time contract, regardless of whether the contract is 10 months or 12 months, the employee should be reported as 1 FTE in every quarter if the position is fully funded by ARRA.

The Job Survey will be open on Friday, March 1, 2013. Please report the job numbers for the quarter ending March 31, 2013. This survey also requires that school districts and charter schools validate the jobs information reported in the quarter ending December 31, 2013 and enter corrections. The only survey corrections that will be recorded are the FTEs in the Dec ’12 field.

DEADLINES:

Corrections for quarter ending December 31, 2012: Friday, March 8, 2013, 5:30 p.m.

Current Quarter ending March 31, 2013: Monday, March 18, 5:30 p.m.

Reminder: for the Types of Jobs, the boxes remain checked from quarter to quarter. Please remember to uncheck any boxes that were checked from the previous quarter that do not pertain to the current quarter. Also, please check any boxes that do pertain to the current quarter.

For each ARRA award that your district or charter school receives, you are required to submit a survey until the end of the grant period even if you have no jobs to report. Submitting the jobs data is a requirement under the ARRA grants.

Responses to this survey will be used to report jobs information to the U.S. Department of Education. You may report jobs even if you have not yet requested reimbursements or received any ARRA payments in this quarter as long as ARRA funds will be used to reimburse the expense that you have incurred for salaries/wages.

The USDE only requires reporting of jobs created or retained by Federal Stimulus allocations, not regular federal fund allocations. This survey will ask for direct jobs created and/or retained in the following program areas and finance codes (only corrected jobs numbers should be entered for programs that ended September 30, 2012):

Types of Jobs

As you calculate the number of FTEs created or retained, please consider the following potential types of jobs. You will be asked to complete an open-ended field by keying in the types of jobs created or retained by these funds, including but not limited to:

Note: For the Title 1 School Improvement Grant the job types are different.

Vendor Jobs Created/Retained

Please also consider whether stimulus funds have allowed your school district or charter school to submit a payment to a vendor, therefore allowing vendor jobs to be created or retained. If so, please attempt to obtain an estimate from the vendor on the number of vendor jobs created or retained as a result of that payment by your school district or charter school. Please do not report your school district as a vendor or your sub recipients as vendors in the vendor survey unless they are truly vendors. See Frequently Asked Questions for the definition of a vendor.

FTE Calculation of Jobs Created/Retained

MDE has created an Excel worksheet designed to help in calculation of FTEs. This worksheet does not need to be submitted to MDE; it is only a tool for school district use as you prepare to submit response to the jobs reporting survey. A worksheet should be completed for each program (Title 1, School Improvement Grants and Education Jobs). Districts should retain copies of the worksheets or other supporting documentation for their records.

BACKGROUND

Section 1511 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) requires prime recipients (MDE) to report on a quarterly basis to the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) an estimate of the number of jobs created or retained due to the Recovery Act funds. MDE will report to the USDE jobs created and jobs retained as one number and provide a narrative description of the types of jobs created or retained.

Sub-recipients (school districts and charter schools) are required to provide an estimate of jobs created or retained and a description of the types of jobs created or retained. School districts and charter schools are also required to submit information on the number of vendor jobs created or retained.

Links to additional information on jobs reporting:

For questions regarding access to the survey, please contact mde.it-helpdesk@state.mn.us. For questions on how to calculate the jobs numbers, please contact Jan.Steppe@state.mn.us