SHERRI WATKINS: Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks for joining us. We're going to make this just a super informal webinar that you can just ask questions when you want, put them in the chat. This information is just for what we do as our consortium and what Shannon is actually doing. And I'm going to have each of us introduce ourselves. So I'll start with myself. I'm the Director of the State Center adult Education Consortium. We have a 21 member consortium. And I have some great support. And I'll turn it over to our staff, Allyson, but you can go first. 

ALLYSON ADAMS: Hello, everybody. I'm Allyson Adams. I'm the administrative assistant for the consortium, 

SHERRI WATKINS: Pang. 

PANG VANGYI: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. My name is Pang Vangyi, and I am the regional transitions coordinator. 

SHANNON ELLER: And I'm Shannon Eller, and I'm the Director of the Siskiyou Adult Education Pathways Consortium way up in Siskiyou County, which is the last county before the Oregon border. So we're very rural and isolated. And I've been in this position for seven years now. And Sherri was my CLA mentor. 

SHERRI WATKINS: And I learned a lot from Shannon as well. So actually, Shannon's going to take it away for her. She's going to go first and show some of the things that she's doing to mitigate the carryover situation. And for our part, we will do, basically, the same thing and just share with some practices that we're doing that seems to work for us. So Shannon, you go ahead and take it away. 

SHANNON ELLER: Yeah, so as I mentioned, we're very rural and very isolated up here in Siskiyou County. I always like to share that it takes me three plane rides and three states to get to different conferences in LA and San Diego. So it's just very different from my Southern counterparts. 

So when I started seven years ago, no one trained me about Nova. I really leaned on CAEP TAP for any and all information at the time, Neil Kelly. And to give the consortium grace before that, Nova had just come into place as well. So everyone's still learning how to do Nova. 

So what I found, unfortunately, was that all of our allocations in Nova, all the carryovers were just a complete mess. So what I ended up doing was, it took about nine months to reorganize, really understand what was happening at each site. And I went out to each site and met with their fiscal staff. Most of them had the CBO. But sometimes, I would meet with other fiscal staff as well. 

And I developed really, really strong relationships with them. And what I found was many of them didn't even know what Nova was because the former director was inputting the information that maybe a member representative sent to them or maybe fiscal staff sent to them some report. And I didn't know the names of the reports or anything like that. 

So I really sat down with the fiscal staff, said, here's what I need. They would be like, oh, that's the FAR300 in QSS. Let's print that out. So what we did was we did a lot of-- let me share my screen-- a lot of going back from years previous to really make sure that we could make Nova match what they had in their books. 

We had been told we're going to go performance space at some point. We're still not there yet. But we're getting there. So I always had that at the forefront of my mind is we need to get our stuff in order so that way, we can make sure we're showing our improvements or where we're lacking, things like that. 

So I developed this really simple Excel spreadsheet for each year. This is just one of our current ones. And these numbers are just examples. So what I do is I look at our carryover, I have them enter that. Then I have them enter their allocation and then that creates their total budget. So that number, asides from the cents, should be matching NOVA at all times. 

So then each quarter, they are required to put their exact amounts, their exact expenditures in this spreadsheet per quarter. And I have all the formulas in there. So anything I put in, it then starts dropping down the budget remaining. 

The biggest point I like to stress to each site is that this budget remaining always has to match NOVA. Down here is the year to date total. So as I enter in any information into more quarters, then these adjust as well. So this number should actually match the year to date totals in NOVA as well. 

So this is a really quick explanation of this sheet. But what is really beneficial of this sheet is that we have caught many errors over the last-- I guess I implemented this probably at the end of my first year because I didn't have access to their books at their districts, but I wanted to know exactly what they were spending each quarter. So that way, whatever they're putting into NOVA, it was all balancing up. 

Because, again, I can tell you in that first year, it was just a complete mess, to the point we were working with the NOVA programmers to change things. Because at that year end, you can't make any changes to Nova. So we found different issues. 

Like, one of our sites had gotten reimbursed for something or got a return after that year. So when they were looking at their carryover, they were like, why am I $10,000 off? And that's a big amount to be off, especially now that we have AB 1491, where we're watching those percentages for the carryover. So this has been extremely helpful on a quarterly basis for us. It's very, very simple. But I can say, each quarter, we always find errors. 

The other thing is NOVA does rounding. And actually, I think it rounds down even. So what I say is if your budget remaining is $5 or more off from what you have in your books, we're going to do a deep dive and figure out where you're off. Because that's not just rounding, that means something else is happening. And though it seems pretty strict, it has saved us a lot of time and energy. Because, again, if you don't catch it in that quarter that you're dealing with, it can really cause some errors later down the road. 

So from this, we all got on track with this. Everyone was doing well, aside for the fact that we had multiple things happen over the course of a few years. We lost a consortium member and had to spread funds. I also wasn't trained on how to do our internal funding formula. 

And so I was attending webinars for Cola and everything and they would say, oh, you have to have the same amount as last year. So I actually thought the Cola was split up equally among all sites. And what that caused me was frustration because I'm like, why is this site that's not doing anything getting more money? How do we make sure that is worked out? 

With the help from CAEP TAP, again, I believe it was Holly that I was working with, said, no, it's your internal funding formula that you have to work on. So again, we could go back to these things and figure out what that internal formula was. And then Holly had the great advice, too, is to see if the members would be happy or be OK with putting in our bylaws that at the three-year planning mark, that's when we look at our internal funding formula. 

So we actually did that. So every three years, we look at that formula, see if there needs to be any adjustments. And then they have, at least, three years to work within that level that they're at. So going back to that, I was like, OK, so now, I know our internal funding formula. But now, I actually want to see because in NOVA it shows all the fiscal information. And then the Data Vista now, at the time, launch board, shows the data information. 

But I want to see those compared. And again, it was mostly because of a struggle with one in particular site that just was not sending money, was not getting any outcomes. And I wanted to prove to the consortium that they do not need this funding. Let's do an allocation amendment. Let's move the money around the consortium to who really needs it at this time. So with that came what we call the allocation versus performance summary. And can you give me a thumbs up that it switched to that allocation? 

HOLLY CLARK: It did. It did. And Shannon, we did have a couple of questions. They would like to know if you would be willing to share that quarterly expense template with them? And Martha would like to know if you could share the template, as well as your funding formula. 

SHANNON ELLER: Yes, so actually, I can share the funding formula piece on this spreadsheet, the allocation versus performance summary. So going back to the other spreadsheet, though, Holly, I think I gave you a copy. 

HOLLY CLARK: I do have it. I do have it. I have a copy that will force a copy. It's not your copy, but when they download it, it'll force a copy. 

SHANNON ELLER: OK, perfect. I'm totally fine with giving whoever wants any of this information, go ahead. And all of this stuff kind of came up from different errors or sites not doing too well. And so then came this allocation versus performance summary. 

And I said to my data manager, I said, I really want to see what sites have done for however many years. I don't know when I started this. But since the inception of the consortium system to current date, I want to know what their carryover was and what their allocation was side-by-side to their data. So we did it. We put it together. Because NOVA and Data Vista don't talk to each other, so how can we really expect them to say like, yeah, you're doing good, or you're doing bad, or let's move some money around? 

The other piece for us, as I mentioned, we're very rural and isolated. Well, we have such small student counts in some pockets of our area that our information doesn't pop up on Data Vista because of confidentiality issues. So this is showing all of our information going forward. 

So all the formulas are in here. However, because I didn't want to give away our dirty little secrets, I changed all the numbers in here. So if there's a formula not adding up or there's maybe a credit that is actually green, don't pay attention to that piece, just do the overall of it. 

So what we decided, going back to the question about the funding formula, I always put our funding formula on each site. So it ends up site A gets 6% of the Cola, the college gets 9%, site C gets 10%, and so on and so on. And all of that equals 100%. 

Going to this as well, we include the college. So they are a member representative or a member site to our consortium. So we wanted real time information to make sure that we could move money. So in Data Vistas, many times, it lags in data or it doesn't show all the things that we want to look at. 

So on a quarterly basis, my consortium data and accountability manager talks with the institutional researcher at the college on a quarterly basis. And she grabs all the information that each adult school has to provide in TE. We do the best we can because we know that they're on different schedules than each of our districts. But we're also very small. So we have a pretty good relationship with them. And we can get the information from them. In this, we just-- go ahead. 

HOLLY CLARK: Shannon, I'm sorry. How did you decide the percentage amounts for each funded member? 

SHANNON ELLER: So if you recall, I said I didn't know how to do the internal funding formula. So when that happened, I think we were just about to go into our three-year planning. So we just talked about it and determined it then as a consortium. And that's how it's been ever since. 

In this last three-year planning, like last year, I asked the consortium. I said, do we want to make any changes to this? And everyone said, no, I think we're doing good. So we left it as is for the next three years. And then at the next three-year planning, we'll do the same thing. We'll bring it to a meeting. Do we need to make this adjustment? Yes, OK, let's make the adjustment. No, we move on. 

HOLLY CLARK: Thank you. 

SHANNON ELLER: So going back to the data, these are the main things that we decided were most important going forward. So we do our reportable students. We do the student participants that meet 12 hours. And then we do the participant rates. State persistence is they get the pre and post-test and 12 hours and then the outcomes per program area. 

So again, we can look at this and be like, oh, wow, site A has released a lot of funds through an allocation amendment. But they started doing good in '23, '24. And they got quite a bit of outcomes or students. And they started doing good on their participant rate. Their state persistence still kind of sucked. But they're getting more outcomes. This is great. 

And then maybe something happened in the year where their instructor left or something. I don't know what it was. So then we can look at different trends that happen. And I will tell you, we are still trying to figure out how to use this tool efficiently. But what I can tell you is it's really, really great, as far as transparency and as far as getting conversations started. 

I don't even know. I'm making something up. But, oh, look at site F, they really did poorly on their carryover percentage last two years, but then they really turned it around and started spending money. Maybe they bought a shed for all their welding equipment. I don't know what it was. But they started really planning because that's what we were lacking. We were lacking the planning of the entire year. We would be on the fly with getting things done. 

So now, we're making these connections, like, oh, our annual plans done. OK, let's look back at our annual plan, what did we say we were going to do? OK, I can spend money on x, y, and z. And so it's getting better. However, I'm still trying to figure out what I want out of this. 

But again, going back to the transparency, I will just say it. Not everyone likes it. So I've gotten curt comments or whatever when I'm like, whoa, you haven't spent any money over the last three years, what's going on? 

And it can be a little challenging for them to explain why their data isn't as good as it could be. So again, it's a conversation starter mostly right now, but it's been really helpful to put the money next to the data. Because I think that's where it was lacking in other years or in NOVA or Data Vista, I suppose, you could say. 

HOLLY CLARK: And Shannon, I think one final question. Molly is thinking about making adjustments. Do you have any cautions? 

SHANNON ELLER: It can get a little adjustments to the internal funding formula I'm thinking? 

HOLLY CLARK: Yes 

SHANNON ELLER: The only caution I would say is, some people believe that getting money taken away in this consortium model is money being taken away but it's all our money. So it's the consortium's goal. Like consortium goals, if you're doing good, I'm doing good. So it's just the moving around with money, it's not, let's say, the college's money. 

I think the college's probably the most tricky part to work with, sometimes, because they see any sort of money being released as punitive and they're doing terrible or something like that. And it's not that at all. It's just maybe you didn't offer a class this year, and so now, you have extra funds, or maybe someone left, someone retired, which we have happen all the time. So that would be my only caution. 

I would also advise everyone-- hopefully, it's allowable. Because I know there's editor code that says you have to have your previous year's allocation or more. And so hopefully, it's allowable. But we really like the every three years in the three-year plan to be able to make that change of funding formula. And we put it in our bylaws, too. 

So it's not a guarantee that will make any changes, but it's been helpful to make sure that everyone's on the same page. Because when those people retire, they're taking that knowledge that we made that. So bylaws are really important to include in that as well. 

HOLLY CLARK: Thank you. 

SHANNON ELLER: So that's it. 

HOLLY CLARK: Thank you, Shannon. 

SHERRI WATKINS: Great job, Shannon. 

SHANNON ELLER: Thank you. 

SHERRI WATKINS: For my part, I'm proud to say that our consortium with our 21 members for the first year of AB 1491 '23, '24, our carryover was 14.98%. We receive about $19 million each year for our consortium. And then this '24, '25, we had 8.97% carryover, which is phenomenal. 

And I do attribute a lot of that to Allyson and Shannon's spreadsheet. Because remember, I said I learned a lot from Shannon? We started using her allocation versus performance spreadsheet, too. And then we have paying that also helps at the member level. So let me just give you a rundown of what we do. 

First of all, we show this. Let me share my screen. Maybe just a second. Where'd it go? Oh, I lost it, just a second. OK. So can everyone see this where it says student metrics, quarter one? So we're about to-- yes, now? OK, sorry, thanks. 

So we show this at every board meeting just to give them an update. We work on our three-year plan, annual plans. So we have to put down the targets of what they're going to serve for the year. So we give them an update on what their targets are, their number of participants, where they stand and carry over, what their next year's allocation, total funds available, their expenditures, and the remaining. So we do that each quarter. 

ALLYSON ADAMS: Excuse me, Sherri, it looks like you might need to make that a full page. I'm not seeing the entire thing. 

SHERRI WATKINS: OK. How do I do that? 

ALLYSON ADAMS: Try just expanding your page at the top, see if that helps. 

SHERRI WATKINS: Oh, wait, what if I just go like that? Can you see the rest of it? No? 

ALLYSON ADAMS: Not yet, no. 

SHERRI WATKINS: OK, wait, am I sharing this one? OK, good thing I'm retiring, everybody. Is this better? 

ALLYSON ADAMS: There we go. Yeah, that's it. 

SHERRI WATKINS: I was showing the wrong one. OK, thanks, Allyson. OK, anyways, can you see what I was talking about? We have the participants, the targets. We show them the carry over. So this keeps everybody-- these are all of our members-- keeps everybody in the know of what's happening with everybody else. So it's all out there, which it should be for transparency sake. 

And then we look at the allocation and the remaining. This is, I think, crucial. Like, oh my gosh, I have to spend this much more money by the end of this, by October. So this is quarter two. This is what just happened. So at any rate, they're pretty much on target. But this just shows exactly where they are, again, for transparency sake. Let me stop sharing that. Any questions so far on that? 

OK. And the other thing that we do is we show-- yes, I can share that with you, Martha. Every year at our retreat-- actually, a retreat is Thursday and Friday. So we do an annual board retreat, which gets, again, everybody on the same page. They get to work together, get to build relationships, which I think has been really crucial in our consortium with so many members. 

You have to know them, I believe, on a personal level. We work with Allyson, works with the fiscal people. She handles, most importantly, the calendar invites. We send them out every summer. She sends out invites. 

And what we have done in our consortium because we're so large is getting all those reports back in and doing what we need to do is we always make our due dates a week prior to what the CAEP due date is. So that if there's any problems in there, Allyson is able to work with the fiscal people in order to get everything in. So I really feel like that's been in a good model in order for us to be where we are in the carryover as well. 

Let me show you the allocation versus performance, the one that we borrowed from Shannon. And actually, I really like, Shannon, how you added the percentage to that, on the percentage of your Cola. OK, can you see ours? And we actually showed everybody. We don't care. It is what it is. 

So this is Caruthers, one of our smallest schools. But again, we show the carryover. We show what their allocation has been. This was really eye-opening for everybody when we first started showing this because it's like, wait, you've received this much money and you've only served this many students. And with the small school, this is very understandable. But it really shows the progress. 

And in fact, Shannon, when you were going through yours, it made me realize what are the changes when there's such a big difference in how they've spent from this year compared to the next year? What happened at that school? Did they get a new administrator? Did they lose teachers? Is there a hiring freeze? So it tells a historical picture for each of our members. Allyson, Pang, is there anything you guys want to add to this? 

PANG VANGYI: No, Sherri, just going back to what you shared about and Shannon mentioned about this allows for transparency. And we have this discussion at the retreat. And it allows where members can look at, who needs the money? Because at the end, like Shannon stated, it's our consortium success and if someone is struggling to spend it, allowing time. So it's been really helpful for us. 

SHERRI WATKINS: I like that it shows cost per student because even though it's different depending on the program, we know that, or depending on where it's offered, it really, again, paints that picture. Because if you look here, this is one member that had a lot of carryover, a lot of cost per student, excuse me. But they also only do CTE. So we know that's going to be a more expensive. 

There was another one we had that was like, wow, right here. Because they had so few students and their allocation, they hadn't been spending. But they went through two new superintendents and new adult ed people that really didn't know what they were doing. So our job is to help support them to get them through that. Any questions for me on this one? Shannon did a good job of explaining it because it's her spreadsheet and she did much better explaining it. All right. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: I have a quick question, Sherri. Sorry, it's Mandilee. So when you adopted that transparency and that worksheet, I see how it's beneficial at the consortium level. How receptive are your members? And were they happy? How did that go? 

SHERRI WATKINS: I think it was eye opening for all of them. And it's interesting because I've been around since day one with our consortium and way back when it was the board telling and directing us. And now, that we've had such a turnover, we know more what we're doing, it's more like, OK, this is what we're supposed to do. So it was really kind of OK. 

And what helped are our carryover letters, which helped because, actually, our board asked for us to do these carryover letters to college presidents, superintendents. Because a lot of times, the information doesn't get back from the adult ed, the consortium member, it doesn't get back to the higher ups in the district. So we'll show you this in a second how the carryover letters have really helped. 

And we also added to our bylaws. And I'll drop it in the chat, just the blurb from our bylaws. It's a lot. Oh wait, it's not going to let me do it. So I'm going to have to do it in chunks. 

We added to our bylaws that a, how to relinquish funds. Let me just take all of those out because I did it a bunch. 

There's like a voluntary relinquishment or an involuntary relinquishment. So we haven't had to do any of that. The voluntary has been great. But we work with them. We have to remind them, hey, don't forget, don't forget. And here's this letter. And at your job as a consortium lead, you need to be able to do that. 

OK, so this is one part. I'm going to do this in a second because I can't think and text at the same time, put this in there. I'll do that in a minute while I-- I'll do it once Allyson takes over. The other thing is we meet. Again, we have our annual board retreat. We review that performance and allocation sheet. And then we meet with members who have excessive carryover. And we help them troubleshoot. What do they do? What can they do to help spend their money? 

In fact, I had one member the other day, he continues to have carryover. And he's a really tiny member, so it doesn't affect our overall carryover amount. But he's like, I just don't know what to do. So I'm like, well, who pays you? Why can't you use that? The district doesn't have to pay all your salary. Maybe you use a percentage of your time because he does adult ed also. Why are you not paying for your teacher? Because they were going to maybe timesheet the teacher. And then wanted to know if he could pay somebody to do their data. I'm like, of course! So it's just your job to help them troubleshoot because they don't know what they don't know. 

And the other fun thing that people-- you probably have this, too-- we text our members. So Allyson and I refer the due dates. She's like, OK, let's sit down. So we sit down and we're like, OK, this person needs this. This person needs that. They haven't provided their general ledger. They have this. They haven't done a summary of the activities in nova. 

So I am fondly known as the NOVA nag because I will text them. And I'm like, hey, don't forget. And then it's every day. And then finally, like at 5 o'clock at night, they're calling me, oh wait, on a Friday night, it's not turned in. So you just do what you got to do. But it's constant communication, especially in this virtual world we live in. 

And again, those calendar invites and making your due date a little bit prior so you are not stressed out of getting everybody's thing in on time, that has been a game changer for us, especially with so many members. So I'm going to let Allyson take it over. She is going to share what our carryover letters look like. She's the one that helps to create them. She explains it super well. So I'm going to let you take it over Allyson. 

ALLYSON ADAMS: OK, thank you, Sherri. So our members wanted us to have a little more communication with their superintendents and that type of thing. So many of our members were just like, the superintendents, they don't feel so much involved in adult ed. And the members don't always communicate what needs to be communicated. 

So they asked us to come up with letters to go out twice a year. And let me share my screen here. So we do this after Q2 and after Q1. Let's see. This is a Q2 letter here. So basically, it's to the superintendent. And what it's saying is that we reviewed everything. And from our own internal looking at these things, these are all numbers that are taken from NOVA. 

And we're just telling them, in order to reach the 20% carryover target, your school has to spend an additional, however much by the end of June. And looking like it, they will do so in the first-- for instance, this school in the first two quarters of '24, '25, they spent $653,000. They only have to spend another 219 to get to their 20% So they're well on track to make their 20%. So that is a middle of the year type of letter. 

And then at the end of the year, we do basically the same thing but just letting them know where they ended up. And in this one, we put an average cost per student and just saying, you're on track. You're in line with other members that have similar programs. This is, I should say, with, as many people as we have. 

I actually have maybe four or five templates because we have people that need a letter saying, you're going through your allocation and everything's great. We need a letter saying you're spending money but you're still working through your carryover and you haven't gotten into your allocation yet. Or we need a letter saying, you need to give up money, that type of thing. 

So we have a lot of different templates. These are just two that I'm showing you right now. But those have been super helpful in terms of Sherri gets feedback from some of the superintendents saying, we had no idea or we want to meet with you. It's just been a really good line of communication for everyone, I believe. 

SHERRI WATKINS: Can I jump in there for just one second? 

ALLYSON ADAMS: Sure! 

SHERRI WATKINS: So Allyson helps create the letters because she's a much better number person than me. Thank God. So she'll send out the letters or we'll get the letters ready and then I email. So when I email, if a member is doing really well, I can just say, I commend Principal Brown for his great dedication to adult ed. He really does a great job doing his reporting. We really value his participation. 

And that gives us an opportunity to create a stronger bond with that member. And then also, that gives that superintendent or his boss, whoever it may be, a chance to respond. And that has happened quite often. We're like, thank you for the feedback. And then it's also that, that principal is copied in that. So they get the kudos from their district, too, which we need that. I think we all need a little bit here and there. 

ALLYSON ADAMS: Yeah, I think that's all I have on the letters. So Pang. 

SHERRI WATKINS: Let me jump in real fast, too. I put in the chat the part of our bylaws where it's about relinquishing funds-- feel free to borrow whatever you need to do. And you can find our bylaws also on our website. And I think there's another bylaws webinar in April, I believe, that we're going to be doing as well. 

But we created a compliance committee. So we have a few different committees. We have a leadership committee, leadership team, a finance team, or committee. And so we created a compliance committee in case there's somebody that is not meeting those expectations. And it goes through our office first. And then if there's somebody, a member that is just not doing it, then they get referred to that compliance committee. 

It hasn't happened. No one's been referred yet. But it's like when you're doing time out with your kids and you do the 1, 2, 3, we've never had to get to the 3. So it's been really helpful to have that. Anything that you want to do within your consortium, get it in your bylaws because then you always have that reference point, OK. 

PANG VANGYI: Thank you, Sherri. As Sherri mentioned earlier, we have 21 voting members in our consortium-- so 15 adult schools, 2 RP programs, 4 community colleges. So with that in mind, in '24, '25, we had nine new members. 

So on top of the communication, the meetings for the annual plan, the three-year plan, the retreat, it was essential for us to develop a new member handbook. So I will share that. And then, Allyson, you can put it in the chat. 

It was essential because these new members were brand new to adult education. We wanted to give them the context. We wanted to really take the time. So we first facilitate a group meeting, had all our new members come. The handbook was shared beforehand. 

And we went over all the contents-- welcoming them, giving them a little background on adult education, what is CAEP, what is our role, the consortium office, all the staff that's there to support them. Allyson, Sherri, myself, we have the team of transition specialists that are co-located at the adult school sites to support our adult learners-- so really just breaking down all the resources, the policies, NOVA, our bylaws, the dates, a directory of all the other board members. 

Because we are so large, we have divided our consortium into four subregions, which goes off the college district. So, for example, like Fresno city, Fresno adult, Central adult, Carruthers in Washington and Fresno RP are lumped in that region. And it's really to build that collaboration among that region. 

And so it was essential for us to let our new members know the support that's available to them and what they're walking into. What are their fiscal responsibility? How are outcomes measured? So really taking the time to give them all the information, the expectation, the requirements, and walking them through. So it has helped us out. And in addition to meeting with them as a group, we did individual checks in mid-year with our new members, too. 

So this has really helped with that communication and building that trust and the relationship for our new members. Because at the end, if anyone is struggling, we want a time available to be able to support these new members and to check in with them. And so there was time to be able to make amendments on their allocations and support other members that need the extra money to be able to fulfill their program needs or increasing student enrollment. Sherri, do you have anything else to add to this? 

SHERRI WATKINS: Thanks, Pang. I think it's important that everybody has an opportunity to know what else is going on within the other members and that we can support them. Our office, we actually hold back a little bit of money not on purpose. But because we always overestimate on what our salary projections might be, we always end up with extra money at the end, which is great because then we're able to do advertising for the whole entire consortium. We've done commercials. We've done billboards. We've done a publication. So that helps everybody at the same time. So that's where our office comes in. 

I do want to share something with you. Sometimes, this is like, I think, a hidden gem that we don't talk about very often. But ever wonder, what happened to my consortium before me? Where can I find all that historical data? Let me share my screen. This is a tip for the day. 

If you go to the CAEP website, we're on administrator page, just type in the search, consortium map. Some of you may know this. But you have the consortium map. Here we are. Here's Shannon. Wait, oh my gosh, you really are way up there. I knew you were way up there, but I never put it into perspective, OK. 

And here we are. So let me just click on that. It's going to show you all the funding that you've gotten over the years, shows your primary contacts, who are all the consortium leads? And you keep going down and it's going to show you all the things that have happened. There's your report. 

Here's your original AB86 plan. What the heck was that? I mean, that was when we were first mandated to get together and bring our adult schools and community colleges together. And we had funding to create this plan and how it was going to work. So at any rate, everything is here. 

Like Shannon said, before NOVA, we had to actually, literally, email our reports. So all of that information is easily found for your consortium. Did everybody know about that? Is that like a secret tip I just shared? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: I mean, I knew about it, but. 

SHERRI WATKINS: I'm so glad you knew about that. That's a good thing. [LAUGHTER] All right, so I don't have anything else to add for today. What questions do you guys have? And then people have asked for a few things in the chat and I missed it. So let me know if there's anything that we can share with you. We are here to be resourced. I can certainly share my email address if anybody needs any help. I've been at this for a while. And I get a lot from Shannon, too. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: The big question, Sherri, is, when you leave, will your email address just automatically forward on to Allyson and Pang? 

SHERRI WATKINS: It will. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: OK, great. 

SHERRI WATKINS: But I'll still be around. You guys know where to find me. 

JASON KLINGER: I've got a question, sorry. So I'm a new principal at an adult school in Southern California. And my district fiscals tell me I have to spend all of my CAEP money. And I've pushed that. And then I'm hearing words like, 20% carryover target. So I want to have an idea is, is my goal to have carryover every year? Is my goal to spend it all? I'm just trying to get an idea of what the rules and procedures are regarding what I am allowed to do. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: OK, I'll start, unless Sherri, you want to start. But I'm just going to go for it. So what I'm going to tell you is it's two things. 

HOLLY CLARK: Can we look up the agency he's with so that we know if there's a member threshold? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Yeah, so that's what I was just going to say. 

JASON KLINGER: Ventura County adult school consortium. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Are you doing that, Holly? 

HOLLY CLARK: Yes. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: From the state perspective, the carryover is as a consortium. So the consortia needs to spend down 80% of their yearly allocation. How that's distributed amongst the members may look different. So that's where we come back to those bylaws, your local control, if you've opted in to being monitored on the NOVA side. 

So for example, you can have three members of one consortia but one member received 70% and then the other two received 15%. So that member target of 20% is going to look vastly different from the one member that's getting the 70% of the consortia allocation. So that's where it gets a bit nuanced. 

So all of that to say, you are going to come back to your local board or your consortia. So I would say, while your district fiscal department may feel one way about how you need to spend down those funds, you still need to go back to whatever your bylaws say for your consortia. And maybe it's an opportunity to educate them on what CAEP funds are, the use of those funds, and the allowances of any potential carryover. Did that answer your question? 

JASON KLINGER: Yeah. And I understood the 20% was a consortium rule. But it's just like, I'm looking at this spreadsheets and I'm seeing that there's carryover from each of the individual members. And then I heard words like, oh, a 20% carryover target, I'm assuming that was applying to the consortium and not necessarily individual schools. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: And Holly might be able to add to this because she looked up your specific consortia. Thank you. 

HOLLY CLARK: So yes and no. So in the CFAD, there is the option to set a member carryover threshold. And your consortium did not set that threshold. So your consortium did not set a member threshold. So it is just the threshold for the consortium as a whole. You do not have a member threshold turned on for your consortium inventory. 

JASON KLINGER: Thank you. 

HOLLY CLARK: But there is two-year consecutive-- the threshold for the individual member, correct, Mandilee, for the two-year consecutive if there are over 20%? 

MANDILEE GONZALES: So in the legislation, it states with carryover compliance that, as a member, if you have carryover two years consecutively in a row, then the consortium board can come and say, hey, we could redistribute your carryover funds to fill in the blank. Some people are doing an innovative fund. So people are doing a, maybe it's a capital outlay fund. 

Whatever that looks like, it can be voted on. That vote can look like majority or unanimous, depending on your bylaws. So that's really something that you always have to bear in mind whenever the state is giving you what you can and cannot do. But they will always default to whatever your local policies are in your bylaws. 

So at the end of two consecutive years, yes, you can vote. Yes, they can remove the funds. It does not impact your yearly allocation. You are still eligible for your yearly allocation. So say, every year, you get $10, but one year, you just don't spend that much or two years in a row, then they take away some of that, you're still going to get your $10 the next year. 

Depending on your bylaws, member effectiveness, what the board and all of the members have already agreed to, there may be various levels of checkpoints and technical assistance that your consortium will provide you. That might look 1,000 different ways because-- well, you're new so you haven't heard it. I say we have 71 unicorns throughout the state because they're all uniquely different, similar barriers. But we're all serving regions that our learners look a little different. 

So we have to approach things a bit differently. So what that technical assistance looks like, provided to you from your consortia, may look different. So it could be, hey, we're going to come back to you in six months and do this or what have you, maybe revisit the funding formula as a consortia. 

HOLLY CLARK: And Jason, getting to know your bylaws is your best bet. If your bylaws say that after two consecutive years, your consortium can swipe your excess carryover and that you're at 21.7, they can take the 1.7. They cannot take the 20 because that's within the range. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: And this is what I'm going to say. If you take nothing else from today, take our email. You can always reach out to us. As a member, you have direct access to us to support you through whatever questions, however silly or not silly you think they are. We will always be here to help you as a member to support you through whatever navigation you need. And even if it's like, can you just ground me in CAEP? What does this look like for me as a principal here? What's important? We can help walk you through that. And if we can't do it, then we'll point you in the right direction. 

JASON KLINGER: Thank you. 

SHANNON ELLER: Mandilee, I think you might want to share, too, if you happen to have more than 20% carryover as a consortium, then you'll be doing the written expenditure plan, saying how you're going to be doing it. So that's our consortium every year. And so we're getting better, though. And it's helping us plan. 

So I actually like the written expenditure plan. I require those members with excessive carryover. For us in our bylaws, we just kept it at 20% to match 14.91. So each member has to do 20%. And I have them do their individual written expenditure plan. And then we combine them all into the NOVA written expenditure plan. So that way, we're all on the same page. 

Because some sites are doing fine spending their money, and then some sites are really struggling. So that's our process if there is carryover. But so far, knock on wood, Mandilee hasn't been like, give me all your money because you're not spending it. It's just a written expenditure plan to show that we are trying to do good with it. 

Because I will say some members, when they hear you have to meet 20%, they suddenly are finding all these ways to spend money. And I'm like, is that the best use of our funds? And that's a hard conversation to have when you're not their boss. You're not at their site or anything. 

But I'm a believer that we're all protecting taxpayers' money. So I want it to be used very effectively and not like, oh, well, we could use a shed way aback. And it's like, well, for what? Because you're not offering any CTE, what's going on? So that's my experience with it sometimes. 

And so, again, going back to the allocation versus performance summary, that's where it's been helpful, where each site in my experience, they drill down on their own data, their own fiscal stuff. But when you're starting to see everyone else's information as well, it starts being like, oh, why site A have 40% carryover left over? What is going on out there? So anyways, I don't know if that helped a little bit more but [AUDIO OFF]. 

SHERRI WATKINS: We also said our carryover, our member carryover at 20% So that way, there's no confusion over was member carryover 18% or was it 20%? They can go google it and it's going to be 20% for everybody. So it's just consistency for us and easier with all of our members. 

MANDILEE GONZALES: Yeah, no, thank you. And the written expenditure plan, just to really expand on that just a little bit, just as far as, it's not necessarily the TAPs that are always reviewing those plans. We do review every single written expenditure plan that comes through. 

But just to really underscore the Chancellor's Office and the California Department of Education in partnership, they read every single one as a unit. So it's read by both sides of the house. It's then read by your assigned technical assistance provider, us. And then that's how we determine, are you moving forward with an approved written expenditure plan? Is this supportive of the spend down? And then how can we best support that? But if you are in that written expenditure plan process, you get a designated technical assistance from either our team here at CAEP TAP SCOE, or our CAEP TAP team at NOCE. 

HOLLY CLARK: Do we have any other questions? We have a few more minutes. 

SHANNON ELLER: Can I just add one more thing, Holly, before we jump off? Because I realized I didn't say this. And if you're going to share this, just so people know. I did want to track on a quarterly basis what was going on. So this green bar here is on the quarterly basis. 

So this is what they have spent up to the end of quarter two. This is what they have left and then their carryover percentage and then their data up to the end of quarter two. So just, if you share it and you're plugging in your own numbers, that's what this is. I didn't have a great place to put it. So I just shoved it right at the bottom of the spreadsheet. 

HOLLY CLARK: OK, perfect, thank you, Shannon. With no other questions, we'll go ahead and give everyone a minute to save the chat. So in the chat, click the three dots in the upper right-hand corner and click Save Chat. There were some chunky links. Anything that was not a chunky link, you can click on the URL and open it. Keep it open on your computer monitor because once we close the meeting, the chat will disappear with it. 

We put our email address in the chat. You can always email us for any of the links that were shared today. The recording will be remediated. Again, it does take two to three weeks to get back from our third-party vendor. Once we do have that back, we will email you. We'll post it on our website. We will email you and let it know that it is available. 

To Pang, to Allyson, Sherri, and to Shannon, thank you so much. Oh, Sherri put her email in the chat so you can go ahead and grab that. Thank you so much for presenting with us today. We appreciate you having this webinar for us. We had heard from the field that they're hearing what to do with carryover once they have it. They want to hear how to avoid having it. And we leaned in to you and you delivered for us. And we really appreciate you guys coming through and presenting for us-- so thank you very much. 

For everyone, thank you for joining us. Please do take a moment and fill out the survey. We will share those results with the presenters today and provide them with some of your feedback. Thank you for joining today. We look forward to seeing you at some of our other events. 

I did drop a link in there for our bylaws PLC, the governance and bylaws PLC that will be happening in April. So if you're interested in doing some of the things that you heard about in today's webinar, do sign up for that PLC in April. We look forward to seeing you guys at our next event. Thank you and enjoy the rest of your day. Bye, everyone. 

TARY ACEBEY: Bye, thank you. 

HOLLY CLARK: Bye-bye.