Educators

My teachers became my second family. They made me feel a part of something bigger for the first time in my life.

– Juan, Vista Adult School

AEP Questions and Answers

This is a collection of questions that are most frequently asked of the AEP Office. They are organized by topic area and will be updated as needed.

Archived (fiscal)

Yes – this is the total hours of instruction or service by program area collected by our systems between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018.

Yes. Please report any of these instructional hours based on the distance-learning model (where students accrue hours without necessarily being in the classroom or being with the teacher).

Your attendance system should be able to do this. TOPSPro has this capability by program area.

Then you would not be able to report any hours for those services. Keep in mind, your hours reported in NOVA must reflect verifiable data. Since this will become an annual process, we hope that next year’s report will capture all of these services and reflect a truer picture.

Yes. There would be zero hours for that member. But they could still report operational costs and leveraged funds.

Services can be any assessment, counseling, intake, placement, orientation, support service, transition services, etc. a student may receive at the agency school site. Students can receive services outside of the classroom instructional hours. However, this will vary by how each agency sets up their program and tracks hours in their systems.

We are reporting dollars received and spent/expensed between July 1, 2017 and June 30, 2018. For example, if you collected $100,000 dollars in fees for an adult education program, we are assuming those fees were expended. In general, all collected fees, during the period, should be reported in NOVA for this exercise. Note: community education, community services, and contract education are fee-based programs, but are outside of the California Adult Education Program.

Please report the seven adult education noncredit program areas regardless of funding. So. any expenses related to noncredit ESL, ABE/ASE, AWD, K12 Success, CTE, Workforce Reentry, and/or Pre-Apprenticeship courses must be submitted in NOVA for this exercise.

At a minimum, we will be required to report state funded expenses for the prior state fiscal program year by program area. Estimates would be due in September, with actuals to be certified in December. More details later this year.

If Q4 has been certified, no changes for last fiscal year are possible. If Q4 has been certified and a member overspent last year, they will start the next fiscal year with reduced available funds. If Q4 has not been certified, the member will need to adjust their Budget and Work Plan by moving money from one budget category to the overspent category. To do this, the consortium lead will need to uncertify the Budget and Work Plan. The member will then go and make the changes and resubmit. Then the consortium lead will recertify the Budget and Work Plan.

As long as Q4 has not been certified,Q3 can be uncertified and the correction can be made. Once it is made, the member will resubmit and the consortium lead will re-certify.

There must be a correlation between hours of instruction and expenses. So if they report hours of instruction in ESL, there must be a dollar amount associated with ESL in the expenses table. They cannot report X amount of instructional hours in the Program Area, and leave the expenses for that Program Area blank (or vice versa). This is what we mean by no zero entries. If you report hours of instruction in a program area it must be matched by a dollar amount in that program area on the expense table. For example – last year an adult school reported hours of instruction in ESL, but no expenses. Also, they reported expenses in pre-apprenticeship, but no hours of instruction. This skews the statewide data, and hampers the ability to get an accurate hourly cost.

If the consortium can make the connection from hours of instruction to other non-teaching expenses that contributed to that cost of offering the instruction – than they can include supports, counseling, overhead, etc. However if they have zero hours of instruction in a program area– than there should not be any expenses associated with that program area reported (and vice versa). For example – 500 hours of CTE instruction cannot be reported and no expenses reported. Likewise, $60,000 in CTE funds cannot be reported and no hours of instruction.

We advise consortia and members to complete budget revisions to correct any negative remaining balances prior to certification. NOVA will technically certify negative remaining balances however we strongly encourage budget revisions prior to certification.

Since the indirect costs were not reported in 2019-20, they will be carried over to your 2020-21 available funds in the budget and work plan. Go ahead and budget for double the indirect costs so that you can report the indirect costs in the 2020-21 program year. In the budget and work plan, in the budget summary, please notate the doubling of the indirect costs for 2020-21 since the costs were not reported in 2019-20. In the first quarter expenditure report, please report the 2019-20 indirect costs. In the summary of activities for the expenditure report, please notate the inclusion of the 2019-20 indirect costs.

Reducing next year will work. Please document this action in the summary of activities since the Q4 expenditure report is still open. Additionally, please document this action in the 2020-21 budget and work plan and ensure the member includes the reduced amount prior to certifying.

Fees are not part of NOVA expenditure reporting – only CAEP state allocated funds. You may show these fees in the Program Area report. Interest is also not tracked in NOVA.

"NOVA is programmed to require all agencies who fall below their expected expenditure target to complete a corrective action plan. The corrective action plan is a concise explanation of how you plan to ensure you meet the target in future quarters.

The only workaround to take immediate action is to revise your expenditure targets in your budget and work plan. This would require uncertifying and unsubmitting the budget and work plan to include targets that align with where you are at this time."

The previous years' budgets are embedded in the previous years' fiscal reports. Each member's budget, by object code, is provided in column four. The last column provides the budget remaining.

You can access these reports in the Supporting Documents section in NOVA. This section is located on the Consortium Details page. The documents are titled, Quarter 'X' Fiscal Report Certification.

We are tracking all reportable individuals one or more hour of services and/or instruction. If you entered the student record and hours in TOPSPro, then you can report that in NOVA for this exercise.

Use the student update record to report service hours in TE just like you would for class hours. It would be helpful to identify a program area by creating a class.

This is Year 1 of tracking this information. We will continue to provide technical assistance on student data reporting. If you did not report the hours, you will not be penalized.

This may capture the service hours, but it still does not align them with a program area. If you know the program area, please indicate that in TE. If not, then we cannot use that information for this exercise.

That is correct. And if it is a support service class for CTE, ESL, etc. – please indicate the program area in TOPSPro.

CASAS has provided a separate report for “hours of instruction” in TOPSPro.

That is fine to set it up that way; we just do not have any way to track the hours you spent on that student.

This will be an annual process starting this year, which will continue each year.

Yes – make sure you have used the drop down menu to report on 17-18 only.

For FY 18-19, estimates are due by September 2019, and actuals are due by the end of the year (December 2019).

For FY 17-18, estimates & actuals are due together on February 15, 2019. Usually the estimate and actual reporting is separate in NOVA, but for this initial effort (for FY 17-18), we are combining those process and having them due 2/15/19.

Starting in FY 18-19 (reporting for next year), we will have two separate processes, which include the reporting of estimates in September 2019, and then the reporting of actuals in December 2019.

If monies were moved from Q3 after it was reported, the Q3 fiscal report will need to be updated. NOVA is cumulative. No quarter can be less than the previous quarter. The Consortium Lead will have to un-certify the Q3 expenditure reports. The member would then un-submit, make their adjustments, and re-submit. The Lead would then re-certify. Once the Q3 expenditure reports are re-certified, members will be able to submit Q4.
Please note - after changes have been made to Q3, if there are still exclamation points, a budget revision will have to be completed.

Members will enter the info/data into NOVA under the program area reporting tab.

Yes – please include those on the table in the “Other” drop down box.

No, this should not affect the process. For members who did not receive funding in that fiscal year, reporting will be optional.

Yes, this is correct. We are currently working with productOps to allow member contacts to enter and edit information in the report, however only the member representatives can submit the report.

Yes, member districts can have more than one member representative in NOVA.

Please see the drop-down menu in NOVA and include other grants. If the drop down is not an exact match, please pick one that is closest.

You cannot delete an added fund, but you are not required to enter any data for it either. Just leave it blank.

No. Please choose the fund source that most closely fits.

Yes, changing the amounts would cause a problem in previous quarters. The Budget & Workplan would have to be changed to match where the reporting will be.

Here are the steps:

Consortia Lead uncertifies the Budget & Workplan.
Member moves money from the 6000 category to the 4000 category in the amount of the reporting change.
Member submits Budget & Workplan
Consortia Lead recertifies Budget & Workplan.
Once the Budget & Workplan is certified, the consortia lead now needs to uncertify the expense reports for the quarters needing changes (in this case Q1 and Q2)
Member makes necessary changes in Q1 and submits.
Lead will need to certify Q1.
Member can then submit changes for Q2.
Lead will need to certify Q2.
Please note that actions in NOVA are sequential. Changes to Q2 are not able to be made until Q1 is certified.

That should be all that is needed to correct this.

The Primary Contact is unable to submit the Q3 expenditure reports because they are not the first Member Representative listed for the agency. Only the first Member Representative listed has the authority to submit reports. This can be fixed by the Consortia Primary Contact removing all Member Representatives until the authorized Member Representative is listed first. Once the authorized Member Representative is listed first, the Consortia Primary Contact will add the other Member Representatives back to the agency contacts.

As long as the fiscal year is still open, the member will need to go back and fix the quarter that was wrong. It will require the Lead to uncertify the entry before changes can be made.