Mayra Diaz: All right, thank you, Thank you, Holly, and the CAEP TAP team. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you all for joining us today for our webinar presentation in which we will discuss the state budget update and provide an allocation amendment overview. Next slide, please.

As Holly mentioned, my name is Mayra Diaz. I'm the program leader with the Chancellor's Office. And I have co-presenting with me today Neil Kelly from California Department of Education and Mandilee Gonzalez who is representing the CAEP TAP and will be walking us through the live NOVA demo. Next slide, please.

All right. So for today, we are going to focus on going over the governor-signed budget amounts, the final amounts for 23-24, covering the guidance memo, state allocation process, and walk through the allocation certification process in NOVA. As Holly had mentioned, we will open it up for questions at the end of the presentation, and we'll also be monitoring the chat for questions. Next slide, please.

So to kick us off, the CAEP allegations for 23-24 have been officially released. And the CAEP-based funding for 22-23, as you see on this chart, was established at 597 million. In January, the governor's proposed budget included a $645 million proposed increase with an 8.13 COLA percentage increase. After the May Revise, the governor-signed budget was finalized at $646 million with a slightly higher COLA increase at 8.22%.

The COLA increase between the May Revise and the signed final budget was a 0.09% increase or a $538,000 total increase. In summary, the new CAEP baseline funding has now increased by $49 million. Next slide, please.

In this next slide, the table displays the legislature's commitment to the continued investment in the California Adult Education Program and for our adult learners across the state. You can see the continued funding increases in the most recent years. For 23-24, we have a historic $646 million in total apportionment funding. Next slide, please.

As the final governor's budget was signed during the last week of June, the CAEP state leadership office released the annual CAEP allocations memo for the field. Next slide, please. In this next slide, I will cover a little bit more details about the memo.

The CAEP final consortium allocations memo for 23-24 was released on July 12. The memo can be accessed on the CAEP website, and it has also been emailed and posted on the CAEP weekly newsletter. And that was on the July 12th edition as well. The memo contains a link to the final 23-24 consortia allocation amounts, which are broken down by consortia fiscal agent, direct-funded member apportionment totals as well.

There is also NOVA instructions included for consortia to complete the next steps to this allocation process. However, we will also be covering those steps in greater detail throughout this presentation. Next slide, please.

Next, I would like to go over the state allocation process to provide you with an overview. There are two important items that I would like to point out. First off, education code mandates at the Chancellor's Office and the California Department of Education provide allocation schedules to the Department of Finance no later than July 15th annually. Looks like we met that deadline this year. Which means that by law, the state must disburse CAEP funds within 45 days of the budget enactment. The disbursement then comes in 11 installments through June of the program year.

So this is the state allocation process in which I will break down a little bit further in the next slide. Next slide, please.

So continuing the conversation on the CAEP state allocation overview process, what this means is that allocation amounts for fiscal agents and direct funded members must be confirmed shortly after the state budget is passed on July 1st. Our state offices spend the month of May and June busy at work developing the final allocations based on the certified CFAD and release of the May Revise.

In the event that CAEP receives an adjustment via the May Revise and/or the trailer bill, CAEP consortia and direct-funded members will then be asked to complete an allocation amendment by September 1st. Since the fiscal year 23-24 assigned budget came with the 0.09% added COLA increase, which is the $538,000, CAEP consortia and direct-funded members are then asked to complete an allocation amendment by September 1st, and that will be included in the live walkthrough that we will be conducting today. Next slide, please.

As a reminder, the state has updated NOVA to reflect the amended amount by consortium. So those amounts are already reflected in NOVA if you were to log in and look up your consortia. Each consortium must enter and certify in NOVA the amounts for their member agencies by September 1st. For direct-funded members, amounts have already been determined, and you can access the schedule breakdown that is attached to the memo and as I mentioned previously, also located on the CAEP website.

For this step, this is a step that must also be entered manually into NOVA. And as I mentioned, Mandilee will walk us through what those steps entail in the live NOVA demo. Next slide, please.

All right, so here's a breakdown of the CAEP allocation process. You can see, there is a number of steps from beginning at the state level in early January, February, all the way down to September. And I'll go through those steps individually. So for step number one, the state CAEP office releases the preliminary allocation schedule by February 28 of each year.

In step number two, the consortia will then begin to hold their public meetings shortly after to be able to meet the CFAD certification deadline of May 2nd. It is important that consortia complete the CFAD certification on time as the state uses this information to begin the development of the allocation schedule.

And step number three, the state monitors for the release of the May Revise and any Trailer bills. And in step number four, the state will finalize an allocation schedule to ensure it meets the Department of Finance deadline by July 15th. Which is the allocation schedule that was published in the memo on July 12th.

In step number five, the state begins the CAEP fund disbursement process. And finally, with step number six, the consortium members must certify the allocation amendments in NOVA by September 1st in order to meet the deadline. And I am going to hand it over to Neil. Next slide, please.

Neil Kelly: All right, thanks, Mayra. So I'm going to go over a couple of questions related to some of the things that Mayra had in the slides and dive a little deeper into the amounts and how we process this things and why we process this money the way we do it.

So first question here is, how does the state CAEP office confirm allocation amounts at the local district level while meeting the July 15th deadline imposed by Department of Finance if we don't need to certify our allocation amendment until September 1st? And the response-- Next slide, please.

If there are any technical adjustments, like Mayra, said via the May Revise or the Trailer bill towards the middle to late June to the State Budget bill, the state will use the same funding formula to allocate funds to each consortium. This action will satisfy the need to have allocation amounts for consortia with fiscal agents.

But, next slide, for direct-funded members, the state will use the same proportional share that was approved via the CFAD on May 2nd to adjust the budget upward or downward. And I'm going to provide an example in the next few slides.

So in this example, the CFAD-- let's see. The total allocated in the governor's budget, proposed budget was $1,000,000 to this consortium. And the way it was broken down was member A got $100,000, member B, $100,000, member C, $100,000, member D, $700,000. So you get a percentage here, as you can see in the far right column, equaling 100%.

So then there comes the May-- I think it's a May Revise. Next slide, please. So we get another increase. In the May Revise CAEP, we had this year. And so member A got 20%. It was a $200,000 increase. So what we do is we look at that percentage here from the first slide, the allocation, and we make sure that everyone gets that proportionate share because of ed code 84914 says, nobody gets less than the prior year, nobody gets less than what they've received. Whether it's a greater amount or a lesser amount, they get that proportionate share.

So that is why you'll see the first three members getting the 10% and the last member getting the 70%, which is based on the percentage from the original allocation that you saw in the first slide.

And so here's how we broke down the 200,000. And then-- the next slide, please. We put it back all together, and here's your final allocation using that percentage share. So it's the $1 million from the original allocation plus the $200,000 from the May Revise gets to $1.2 million. And you can see how that's broken out.

And the reason we do this is because we don't want people manipulating the COLA, we don't want people using the COLA as a vote to see who gets it or not. The only way you can deny somebody their full allocation is if it meets the three criteria from ED code 84913, and that is if the member doesn't wish to follow the plan, can't follow the plan, or is deemed ineffective, which recently we defined as carryover. And those are the only three ways that you can reduce the members funding or change that funding. So everybody gets that COLA. There's no voting on the COLA. And so this is how that example shakes out.

So let's go to the next slide there. Here's another question. If I'm direct-funded or a direct-funded member, why is the CAEP office calculating this for me? My consortium wants to do other things with the increase. Response. Kind of when I was talking about members received no less than the prior year unless it meets one of the three causes for funding reduction, which I just went over. And that's ed code 84914.

And when we talk about COLA, it's a cost of living increase for all member districts, which means all members in good standing will receive a COLA, which means they didn't meet one of the three causes for a funding reduction. Fiscal agents and direct-funded members, allocation schedules, as know as Mayra went over are due to Department of Finance by July 15th.

So we have to have those schedules prepared and sent to state controllers so you can get your money by statute, which is the CAEP funds must be disbursed 45 days after the state budget is signed. So to meet that requirement, we have to provide these allocation schedules to state controllers, and they send that money to your county office, and then the county office sends it to the district in most cases. And that's how you get your funding in those 11 installments.

So for fiscal agents, that's pretty easy because it's just a lump sum, and then you guys figure that out in NOVA how much everybody gets. But you still have to adhere to the COLA means. Everyone gets it that's in good standing. Member receives no less than the prior year unless there's cause.

The reason we calculate the direct-funded is because we can't wait till September 1st, we have to have those schedules ready and over to Department of Finance. So that's why I used that example of the percentages and the share. And that's the easiest way. And the fiscal agent should be doing that as well for their members. But we do it for you for direct funding because we need that information as soon as before July 15. So next slide, please.

If I'm a direct-funded agency, where do I find my predetermined amounts or the allocation amendment? Response. Direct-funded members can find the link to the predetermined amounts in the CAEP allocation memo release July 12, 2023. And so that's one of the attachments there.

Please note, if a consortia wishes to make changes with their 23-24 allocation, they may do so via the allocation amendment. So you can't make those changes via the CFAD, you can only reduce some members funding with cause. But if after the fact, if everything's certified, like Myra was talking about by September 1 and then you agree that you're going to put money towards this project that a member is going to coordinate, then you can move money around via an allocation amendment. But what you can't do is affect the base unless there's cause.

So going back to those earlier slides that everybody gets no less than the prior year unless there's cause. But after all that is settled and certified, you can move money around via the allocation amendment process after the fact, and that won't affect your base or violate the ed code.

One thing to keep in mind if you're direct-funded, just because you do an allocation amendment in NOVA, that doesn't mean that we're going to move that money. So let's say after the fact you decide to give money to another member who's going to do marketing for the consortium and it's $100,000, well, if you put it in NOVA and everybody agrees, we're not going to move that $100,000 over that member. You have to physically transfer the money or write a check and walk it over to that district's accounting office. So it's a little extra steps with the direct-funded members and consortia when you're moving money around. Just keep that in mind. Next slide, please.

And then finally, reminders before we get into the live demo. AB 1491 carryover tracking has begun at the start of 23-24. And so when you're certifying that Q4, we'll start tracking-- clock starts ticking 23-24. Even though you're accumulating expenses now, when you certify that Q1 23-24, then we'll start tracking that carryover.

Also 1491 authorize consortia to reduce the members' excessive carryover funding after two years of consecutive excessive carryover has been determined. So maybe about half of you have opted in to define what excessive carryover is. For the most part, you're using 20%. And so this is something you should be tracking in NOVA to see how your members are doing, providing technical assistance, or connecting them with professional development to help them to stay under that excessive carryover amount.

The third bullet, member carryover impacts consortia carryovers. As you know, consortia exceeding 20% annually will be monitored by the Chancellor's Office and CDE. That's at the consortia level. And the NOVA enhancements will be released at the end of this month and a state webinar will be announced to go through those NOVA enhancements. And these are related to AB 1491 like tools and reports and things that will help you track and monitor the carryover as it unfolds throughout the year.

And then lastly, just remember, CAEP annual plans are due August 15 of this year. I heard from some people in the field saying the improvements went really well. It's easy to update the annual plan, very simple. Didn't take them that long. So hopefully you have the same experience.

And with that, we'll turn it over to-- Mandilee, are you going to do the live demo?

Mandilee Gonzales: Yes, I am. So let me go ahead and stop sharing screen. And I already have. Great.

Before we move into the live demonstration, I didn't see any questions in the chat. But before we jump over to that next spot, if there's any questions, now it'd be a good time. Otherwise, I will invite questions as I go through the walkthrough in NOVA. You can either pop it in the chat. Holly is on with me, I think most of you already know her. But she's also able to answer any questions as well as just coming off of mute, understanding that as we go through a live demonstration, sometimes it's best just to stop me right where I'm at.

Holly Clark: Yes. And if questions do come in, Mandilee, and I'm not able to answer, I will go ahead and interrupt. For the members or for the attendees, if you could just put your questions in the chat, that would be great. And no, no questions had come through.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK. And then is there any question-- Not seeing any. I thought I saw Kelly's hand but I think she was just-- OK. All right, and I'm hopefully sharing a screen now. Are you seeing the sandbox?

Holly Clark: Yes.

Mandilee Gonzales: Great. So everyone, as you would log into NOVA, I'm in a safe environment. I am in the sandbox. Because I'm in the sandbox, there's a note here that says the database will reset after July 31st. So I bring this to everyone's attention for two reasons. One, anything I do here isn't going to mess up somebody's actual live account.

Two, because it doesn't update until July 31st, we're not going to see those allocations that Mayra and Neil were talking about live here. So we're going to have to have a little bit of an imagination, we're still going to walk through the steps. Holly has already dropped in the chat this PowerPoint presentation, which on the latter half also has the step by step instructions with the screenshots just to support that allocation. If there's any questions as you're doing them, always reach out to us, we're happy to help.

So with that, I'm just going to go ahead and begin. When you log in under the consortia and members, some of you have it bookmarked, it'll automatically open up to your consortia. I've opened it up already just because of the lag time and sharing screen, it's just easier to be here. So we're going to use Allan Hancock. Thank you, Allan Hancock. Your letter A, number one, so you're always at the top. So what you see often.

So I'm going to scroll down, and I don't want to go too fast, but I do want to stop at the CFAD. And I do this because oftentimes as people start their allocation process, they'll start to see these red numbers. If you logged into your live site, you would see a red number here with that determined dollar amount of the allocation. As Neil said, in your CFAD, once it's been approved, you cannot make any changes here. This is why we do the allocation amendment.

As you notice in years past, you will continue to see these red numbers. They will always stay there. There's nothing you can do and there's nothing wrong. It is OK. So I know sometimes it kind of throws people. I think it's the red but it's OK.

So going back to our main site, scrolling down under the CFAD, you're going to go right into your allocations. Here, you'll start your amendment, and we'll go ahead and start. It's going to have a pop-up, it's going to let you know that you're going to follow a workflow. It's three really easy steps. And then once it's submitted, the changes will need to be approved by the member representative. So it's just a reminder that your members will get a notification from NOVA.

Now, once you come into the allocation amendment, this is going to be your workflow. So you'll see it on this kind of inside left-hand menu bar. On this page, what you're doing is you're making sure that your certifiers are appropriate, the people here are the people that can go ahead and approve. Anybody listed here can approve. So if Thomas does it, Sophia doesn't have to. So on and so forth.

Any questions? I can't really see anything. So if anyone does, Holly, just let me know.

Holly Clark: There's no question so far.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK, great. I think everyone's old hats at this, but we'll go through it. Once you've completed this part, you've confirmed everyone is where they're supposed to be, you're going to click the Next button, and then you're going to go to the member application. So this is that part where I'm going to ask you just to use your imagination. I'm going to just pop in a five here. We're going to just do a little pretending just so you can kind of see that process.

So this is where it says the current allocation. Ideally, we want this dollar amount to be zero. When you're in the live set, you're going to see that allocation number as far as the current allocation and then here's where you're going to change the proposed. And then the adjustment will be reflected here on the right hand side. So I'm going to go ahead and in this case, we're going to go back down just to make the number zero. And then once you've-- I'll just go back.

Once you have done all of your proposed allocation and you've done all of your changes, it'll have a $0 reflected. As long as you're following your schedule, you should be good. And then you go ahead and click, Next.

This is the preview option. It gives you the opportunity to look at the current allocation, the proposed allocation. Providing there are no additional changes, you can go ahead and click the Submit button. If you think oh no, I did something wrong here, you can come back to this menu on the left hand side, go over to the member allocation, make those adjustments here.

Once you're done in this section, you will go ahead and click the Submit button, and then it'll notify your members. At that point, your members will go ahead and go in. They're going to approve this allocation amendment.

Once all your members have approved the allocation amendment, that is when the budget and workplan will open up for each member. Each member at that point will need to go into their budget and work plan, and then they will at that point start to distribute the allocation funds. Then your consortium lead will come back, and then they will certify.

It's really that simple. That's my full walkthrough. Is there any--

Neil Kelly: Mandilee, can I ask you a question?

Mandilee Gonzales: Sure.

Neil Kelly: So I believe we have already entered into NOVA the $538,000 in the May Revise. Is that correct, Mayra?

Mayra Diaz: Yes.

Mandilee Gonzales: It is. And if you're in the live site, you'll see that there. I can pop over to the live site, I just don't want to touch anything. But I can definitely do that and then show everyone so that gives everyone just some peace of mind.

Neil Kelly: I think that would be appropriate. One thing while you're doing that, I just want to remind everybody, we're serious about if you're direct-funded, you have to use the same amounts in the memo on the sheet. Because some people in the past have decided oh, I know what the COLA is. I'm going to multiply it. Because there's so many numbers, percentages, and rounding, you're never going to meet the number that we use and so your cash will be off. And we've had this happen where they're trying to reconcile and they're wondering why they're off $10 or something.

So please, use our numbers. Don't try to do it yourself. Just that's a warning and a best advice for me.

Mayra Diaz: Yes.

Mandilee Gonzales: And I currently have the spinning wheel of death as I'm trying to log in to NOVA. So we can take this time to-- I would also like just to mention some best practices. It's not necessary but once the members do approve the allocation amendment well, and then you go into your budget and work plan. Once you finalize that, it's helpful to go ahead and notify your consortia lead. In that situation, your consortia lead can then go in, and then they'll be able to certify your budget and work plan individually. Because those are done not as a whole, as a consortia-wide, it's done individually by the member. Well, I got logged in.

Another good rule of thumb when you're doing your allocations is if you are-- I think Mayra and Neil kind of spoke to maybe you guys decide that, hey, you have a project coming up and you want to shift funds while you're doing your allocation amendment, but you're like oh, we're just going to go ahead and do this lump sum over to ABC. I recommend and we recommend doing the allocation amendment as one allocation amendment and then any other transfer funds, doing that in a separate allocation amendment with those journal entries. Because if for whatever reason five years down the road we have to go backwards, it's a cleaner path to understand what was done, financially speaking.

Holly Clark: And Mandilee if I can, Crystal has a question on the chat. And I think you just kind of touched on it somewhat. We are a fiscal agent, we will do the allocation amendment for this COLA increase. And we are planning on a second allocation amendment for a one-time increase for special project. Do we need to wait until after September 1st for the second allocation amendment? We are hoping to get both allocation amendments approved in NOVA by mid-August, same time as the annual plan.

And if I'm not mistaken, Mandilee, she does not have to wait. They do have to be two separate amendments but there is no time restriction on when she can complete that one-time special project amendment, correct?

Mandilee Gonzales: That's correct.

Neil Kelly: And if I just might add is for special projects, yeah, you have to go through the process of doing the allocation amendment based on nobody gets less than the prior year, so that same proportionate share. But then after you certify that allocation amendment related to the May Revise, then if you have special projects or other expenses or consortia-related expenses and you need to move money around, you can do that.

And I don't even think you can do an allocation amendment until you certify the existing one by September 1st. I think that's correct. So you're kind of stuck until you certify the May Revise into NOVA until you can start doing other things like with special projects or other allocation amendments.

Holly Clark: Thank you.

Neil Kelly: If that answers the question. Crystal, did I answer your question?

Holly Clark: She said, thanks.

Neil Kelly: OK, great.

Mandilee Gonzales: So what you guys are seeing now on the screen is the live NOVA, and there was something that came up in the chat. So the difference between the sandbox is it's a place where we can go on the back end for troubleshooting and helping look at people's NOVA history without affecting their numbers. Typically, this access is not given to all membership, it's just a place where we can also do a live demonstration and show without affecting people's numbers because that could be very bad.

Holly Clark: And we being the CAEP office and CAEP staff. It's just a tool for us to better support you.

Mandilee Gonzales: So here we are. I popped back into the Allan Hancock. It is the live site. As you can see here, there's no sandbox. It looks a little different but still overall the same. And you can see the current allocation and that adjustment is here in red. And then they would go all the way down.

And this is already-- they've already started. So here we go. So I'll go ahead and stop sharing screen unless there's any other place, Neil, that you think people need to see that would be appropriate.

Neil Kelly: Just so they could see the allocation, the May Revise amount that's sitting there waiting for them to program. That's all they needed to see.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK, I appreciate that.

Mayra Diaz: And Mandilee, would you be able to show us how to access in case someone can't find the memo or the schedule, a place on the website where it's located?

Mandilee Gonzales: I have it ready to go. So if you go to the tele.ed website, say you start here on the home, you'll go ahead and go to the administrators. We'll go to funding, annual CAEP allocation. And then it's going to be under the 23-24. The final may revise memo along with the allocation schedule.

And I think Holly has dropped those into the chart multiple times. But we can drop it in again if people didn't have an opportunity to get it there.

Holly Clark: I will drop it again right now.

Mandilee Gonzales: Yeah. Any other questions? This was allotted, I think, a lot of time thinking that people might have a pause.

Holly Clark: There is a hand raised yet.

Mandilee Gonzales: All right, go ahead, Marlyn,

Marlyn Garcia: All right, I'm concerned because I already submitted an allocation amendment last month. So I don't know if I was supposed to submit that allocation before this allocation. But I remember when I talked to you guys at the CASAS Summer Institute, you told me I should be able to do it, so I did. So we transferred funds from one of the three agencies because they don't need-- they wanted to give up 50% of their funds, so we split those funds between the other two agencies.

Mandilee Gonzales: That's appropriate. And now you will do another one with the COLA.

Holly Clark: Correct. That allocation amendment you did was on the 22-23 funds because the 23-24 funds had not-- that was done in June, so that was on last year's pot of money. And it was just kind of reallocating what would not be able to be spent so that what you did was appropriate.

Marlyn Garcia: No, it was for the new funds, 23-24. It was after we certified. It was for 23-24, it was the new funding.

Holly Clark: Even with that, I don't foresee a problem. If a member has decided they will not spend all of their 23-24 allocation and they decided to reshare that or redistribute that with other members, that is still in play here. When you go to reallocate these funds, you're still going to distribute these new funds from the May Revise according to your CFAD distribution. So even that member will get a portion of these funds.

Now, if after the fact they choose to redistribute, those that would be a separate allocation amendment. But for this allocation amendment, you must follow the CFAD formula for districts.

Marlyn Garcia: OK, thank you. And then last question. So I think we did this like, two or three years ago, so we're going to be getting it-- we have to request a check from that organization, correct? For those funds.

Holly Clark: I'm sorry, can you repeat that?

Marlyn Garcia: Like I said, that allocation, those 50% funds, so we need to request a check from that organization. That it's not going to come to us from the state.

Holly Clark: Correct. Correct. The state does the initial payments and as Neil mentioned a little bit earlier, any transfer of funds amongst members, you handle internally.

Marlyn Garcia: OK, got it. Thank you.

Holly Clark: Yes.

Mayra Diaz: And then just to confirm, the consortia and new allocation amounts for 23-24 were entered as of July 5th of this year. So it was after the governor's budget was signed on July 5 was when we went in and were able to enter those new 23-24 total allocations. So anything that was done prior, I don't think it should have reflected those totals. As of July 5th is when-- and if you go on there now, you should be able to see those new allocation amounts.

Holly Clark: Thank you.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you, Mayra. And then Neil, you were going to answer Laura Lee's question live. Did you want me to read it out loud for you or--

Neil Kelly: Yeah, that would be good just for the recording purposes.

Mandilee Gonzales: Yeah, thank you. So Laura Lee says, just to confirm, as long as the consortia ensures that its members do not receive less than the prior year's funding and the consortia members agree how the COLA is to be allocated, is it acceptable for the consortia members to agree how to allocate the new funds from the May Revise?

Neil Kelly: OK. So the way we treat COLA's May Revises, Trailer bills, any kind of increase that's part of the state budget, that is part of your allocation. So when we're dealing with allocations, we have to refer to ed code 84914, which means even when there's an increase, everyone gets the same proportionate share.

And so what you have to do, because we're re-benching-- so for this year, we're re-benching everyone's allocation base by a lot. And so if you started moving money around on COLAs, on May Revises, and Trailer bills, you would be affecting each member's base. And so that would go contrary to ed code 84914.

So what you can do is you have to adhere to everyone getting the same proportionate share. But after that's done and you certify by September 1st, like Mayra and Mandilee we're showing you, you can go back and move money around.

Kind of like I was responding to Crystal, after you do the allocation amendment and you certify all your allocations for the year and you follow ed code and you follow our instructions, then if you have projects or you have other things you want to do, you can do an allocation amendment to move those monies around. But it would have to be agreeable. Let's say one member didn't want to move the money around, the only way you could take money away from that member is with cause. And we have those three causes for funding reduction in ed code 84914.

So we have to be really stern on the allocations because we are retrenching the base, and there is ed code that says you can only reduce members funding or change a member's funding with cause. But once you follow that, then after the fact, you can go to your bylaws and you can look at how you're making decisions on how to move money around. And then you can follow those bylaws to do special projects, marketing, consortia-wide efforts, things like that, or maybe a new member's coming on board or something like that, then everyone would contribute based on what your bylaws say.

So hopefully that's a response you were looking for or explains it. Let me know.

Mandilee Gonzales: She said thank you.

Neil Kelly: All right. That was a long response.

Mandilee Gonzales: All right, looks like Crystal has a question. Does this allocation amendment-- does this allocation-- is this allocation amendment for COLA need a vote in a public meeting? We are, but I've been asked to confirm.

Neil Kelly: So we've had this come up before, and Mayra, you can add on to it. But when you have those original public meetings and you're agreeing to the allocation and it's the same proportionate share, and this is just an adjustment to that allocation, a percentage increase on the COLA, it's kind of the same public meeting. But if you're not comfortable with that, you're scheduling a public meeting. But it is an extension of that original meeting because you're not changing anything, you're using the same percentages. It's just a technical adjustment through the May Revise that we're doing here.

So I think you could go either way on that, but it's within your comfort level and maybe what your bylaws say.

Mayra Diaz: Yeah, I would agree with that, Neil. I think that would be like a local control decision, how you guys go about-- but as long as it falls in line with the education code and really, that COLA increases just following that same proportional distribution. But as far as the decision-making, I would say that would be like that local control whether to go back and have that meeting.

But if that meeting was already-- that public meeting was already held earlier in the year while the CFAD was being determined, you can just follow that same proportional process. But we'll leave it up to that local decision.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK. So good questions. I would say in this format, if anyone would like to come off mute, you can ask your question or type it in the chat.

Neil Kelly: Or any other questions, right? Since we have a little bit of time.

Mandilee Gonzales: All right, why not? All right, Dr. Olinger, thank you for raising your hand. Go ahead and come off mute.

DR. OLINGER: Thank you, Mandilee, can you hear me?

Mandilee Gonzales: Yes.

DR. OLINGER: Hi, Mayra. Hi, Neil. Quick question. So we were talking your outline on the enhancement, the NOVA enhancement. And Neil, you were referring that many of that enhancement or updates is really about the carryover 1491. Is there any enhancement or updates on the way that we report in NOVA about our allocations or amendments? Just kind of thinking, what other enhancements? Give us a preview of what some of those-- or is that in another conversation?

Mayra Diaz: That's an excellent question. So we are working through those enhancements, and those should be finalized at the end of July. And we will be having a webinar around that. Really, the majority and the focus of those enhancements are getting NOVA ready to begin tracking the carryover functionalities within the system. And so it really will be primarily tied around looking at it from a carryover perspective now.

So the majority of those enhancements are tied to tracking carryover. And even once those are released and we go through the webinar, we'll show some mockups. I think when you go into NOVA, you might not see that right away because it's going to take an entire year once Q4 is certified next year in September for it to actually then show you that this consortia or this number has been flagged for carryover.

There was one item that was coming to mind as I was listening to the allocation amendment process, because that is one update that we are making in relation to AB 1491. But I'm going to go back and confirm because one of the great feedback, suggestions that we got from CAEP TAP was to include a box, a narrative box. So if there is an allocation amendment and it sounds like-- because we do these on an ongoing basis, it would be helpful to have a narrative that can outline, what is the rationale for this allocation amendment?

And we were really targeting that for the purposes of AB 1491. So within a year or two years, once the member has that excessive carryover, if an allocation-- and I don't want to dive too far into that conversation. But if there's a point in time two years down the road where there's an allocation amendment taking place, because of that excessive carryover and the consortia is looking to move around funding, there will be a narrative box, a selection for conducting that allocation amendment and providing a narrative box.

One of the information or one of the items that I'm going to take back is to confirm whether that narrative is going to be specific to if the consortia selects that, they're conducting that allocation amendment because of AB 1491. I need to confirm if they're conducting an allocation amendment for other reasons if that narrative box will show up. But besides that, that's the only thing I can think of at the moment that will be of a change. And we will conduct a walk through webinar of those updates.

The other one that comes to mind actually is the corrective action plan. That will be an additional update. It will be triggered by carryover as opposed to expenditure, not meeting the targeted expenditure. So I won't dive too far into that, but we will certainly have a webinar to be able to walk through those updates. We're looking at August or so, so we'll work with CAEP TAP to make that announcement.

DR. OLINGER: Right. Thank you, Mayra. That's really helpful to know.

Mayra Diaz: Yeah, absolutely. And as a disclaimer, we know that this first year, we're working to capture what we can, and we will continue to welcome the input and the feedback from the field as you guys are utilizing the NOVA system. Your feedback helps us improve those processes. So once we release them, we welcome the feedback so we can take that back and whether we need to include that in the future enhancement with NOVA.

So just laying that out there if there's any feedback to provide around once we release those enhancements, we certainly welcome that from the field.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK, so we have some more questions. One from Kathy Walker asking if we will be providing a webinar surrounding the program area report with the enhancements of the LaunchBoard data being pre-populated in NOVA. I believe, Mayra, that's something we could potentially work on?

Mayra Diaz: Yeah, we can talk about that. I did see a couple of emails from CAEP TAP. It sounds like there's some mismatch of data around the program area reporting. So we are looking into that, and we should follow back up soon. We'll work with CAEP TAP to--

I know we have a couple of different webinars planned in August already, which is the member budget workplan. I think a consortia governance 101 at the beginning of August. So we'll look at that schedule, and we'll also plan the NOVA walks-- the NOVA enhancement updates around 84 to 91. So we'll certainly look for dates available, and we can take that back and look to see if we need to plan another webinar around the program area reporting.

Mandilee Gonzales: And thank you for that. Let's see the next question.

Neil Kelly: I responded to Joe Morgan and Kim.

Mandilee Gonzales: And then it looks like Janine. You mentioned that the budget and work plan will open up once the amendment is certified and the members should go in and make adjustments for their updated COLA increase. Can you go over that again? Yes. So it sounds like you understand that process.

So did you want me to show that to you? Really, so once you make the allocation, so once you start the allocation amendment and you submit that, your members will go in and then they'll approve. Once all members in your consortia approve, NOVA will then open up the budget and work plan for each individual member to go into.

With the increase of the COLA, they will then distribute those funds in whichever object code they desire. So it could be like, their 4,000s or their 5,000s. Say they got $100,000 and they take 20 here, 20 there. However they distribute it, they will go ahead and go back through that budget and work plan. And then once they finish that, they will go ahead and they will then submit. Is it submitting or do they-- this is Holly, this is-- yeah, they go ahead and submit. Thank you for the head nod.

Once they submit, we recommend that every member agency just shoots off an email to their consortia lead. At that time, the consortia lead will go into the budget and work plan and then certify.

Neil Kelly: Mandilee, how does the annual plan factor into that? Is that also connected to that process?

Mandilee Gonzales: Just as far as the timing. I don't really think it factors into the process of the budget and work plan outside of the fact that the annual plans are due right around the same time.

Neil Kelly: I thought that you couldn't move forward on your budget and work plan unless your annual plan was submitted, is that true? I don't know.

Mandilee Gonzales: That's ringing a bell.

Holly Clark: That is ringing a bell.

Mandilee Gonzales: Yeah.

Mayra Diaz: I can confirm. I can call the product ops to confirm.

Mandilee Gonzales: No, you're correct. Thank you, Neil. So your annual plan is due in NOVA by August 15t. And then by September 1st, your member expense report is due and certified in NOVA or approved in NOVA by September 1.

Holly Clark: Right. So what Mandilee said is still accurate. Once they submit their allocation amendment, now we just add that one extra layer and your annual plan is official, NOVA will open up the budget and work plan. Because it will show additional funds and budgeted, and that's where the members will have to go in and budget those new funds.

Neil Kelly: So what would be the most efficient process or steps to take? Do you do your allocation amendment first, then your annual plan, then your work plan and budget? What would be the most efficient sequence?

Mandilee Gonzales: I say it really depends on each consortia and how they function. I know that we've received some emails where we have consortia leads who are planning their annual plan around this allocation schedule coming out, so they can kind of get everything done in one fell swoop. So some people, I think, do it in parallel and whereas others might do exactly what you laid out.

Holly Clark: And I think that it is up to them individually. The process that would probably be more straightforward with less risk of possible complication would be to complete the annual plan first then to do the allocation amendments so that then the budget can automatically be opened. What we don't want is to do the allocation amendment, it could cause a slight issue. If NOVA, since it is an automatic action, tries to open the budget and work plan that is not available yet, it may take some work on the back end of getting that reopened once the annual plan is submitted.

Neil Kelly: All right, thank you.

Holly Clark: OK. I don't see any other questions.

Neil Kelly: Larrick just said that they thought that you needed the annual plan so the districts can check strategies in the budget work plan. I think you covered that.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK. Jenee.

Jenee Crayne: Yeah, hi, thank you. So just for a super clarification. Since we haven't submitted our annual plan yet, we haven't done any work on our budget and work plan. So when the members open up their budget and work plan, they'll be an added the amount of money that this new COLA update will then be like another added amount of money in there that they have to-- it won't be lumped in to their normal allocation. I guess I just want to have clarification to be able to explain that to them. I don't know if I'm being clear enough.