Lisa Mednick Takami: Good afternoon, everyone. Holly, thank you so much. We are in such good housekeeping hands with Holly at the Helm.

I want to welcome everyone to the start of the fall semester and our first joint webinar. I hope that you all had a restful, enjoyable, and replenishing summer. We have been gearing up as an integrated CAEP TAP for a couple of months now as we head towards CAEP summit, and we're very glad to see more than 50 of you in the Zoom room this morning. Next slide, please.

So here is our agenda for this morning. This is a great slide deck for anyone who is new to CAEP or those who are newer. As reminders, I'd like to take a brief moment to introduce our two new team members at NOCE, Raymundo Gutierrez and Will Moore.

And with that, here's our agenda. We'll be talking about CAEP outcomes, the sequence and the dates for key CAEP deliverables. We'll be specifically talking today about budget and workplan, technical assistance available for that. Mandilee will be taking the helm and doing an amazing live demonstration in NOVA.

We'll be sharing some resources for the CAEP deliverables we'll be speaking of today. And then, as Holly mentioned at the top of the hour, we have intentionally left time for Q&A that you can either put in the chat or you can come off of mute. Please bear with us until we invite you to come off mute so we don't have everyone talking over each other. Thank you. Next slide.

So in terms of our outcomes we want to understand the sequence of CAEP deliverables. We follow a calendar and cadence of variety of CAEP deliverables, the importance of timely reporting in NOVA, and how each of these components is a building block to the next, leading into the budget, the annual workplan, the quarterly expenditure report, and ultimately, the three year plan, which we are not talking about today. Next slide, please.

So here's a sequence of CAEP deliverables. When I came into CAEP three years ago in 2023, I found this type of slide exceedingly helpful. I had hard copies pinned to the bulletin board in my cubicle at the time.

So let's talk about the first segment, allocation. So we have allocation amendments and budget changes. So preliminary CAEP allocations are released by February 28. And they're for the consortium certification of their CFAD falls in that range between February 28 and May 2.

But what's tricky in our system is that we have what's called a May Revise. It is a revised to the state budget from the governor's office, and that is revised in mid-May. And there can also even be a trailer bill in late June, which can sometimes, as it did this year, result in an adjustment.

The state begins the CAEP fund disbursement on August 15, and consortium members certify their amendments by September 1. The interesting and positive thing that we had this year is that we had a COLA. So we got more money than we were expecting to, which required some adjustments.

Little bit about the CFAD. This was one of those acronyms, literally took me more than two years to remember this. CFAD stands for Consortium Fiscal Administrative Declaration, known as the CFAD. CFAD must be consortium approved by May 2 of each year.

The CFAD consists of four components, which include the fiscal declaration itself, the agencies involved, the certifiers who are not all of the consortium members, but the member allocations and the preview sections. So I know you may have specific questions about the CFAD to hold on to those questions for just a little bit.

The annual plan. So this is due on August 15. That happens to be my anniversary. So that is this Saturday.

I have a question, when the annual plan due date falls on a weekend Mandilee, is it actually due on the Monday if it were taxes or on the Friday?

Mandilee Gonzales: It's on the Monday.

Lisa Mednick Takami: It's on the Monday. So two days of grace. It will actually be due on the 17th for this year. It must be approved in NOVA before the budget and workplan opens. So you won't be able to see your budget and workplan templates until that annual plan is approved.

In the annual plan, the consortia are identifying the strategies and activities and metrics from their three year plan drawn down for this CAEP year. Formulating and implementing strategies and identifying plans of action to increase student outcomes. Inherent in that is data. If you had data in your three year plan that have shifted demographically, demand-wise, and so on, that needs to be reflected in your annual plan. That's important.

You don't want to stick with the three year plan program that doesn't reflect your current data. Next slide, please.

So sequence of CAEP deliverables, the budget and the workplan. So once the member submits their budget and workplan, the consortium lead will certify for the upcoming year. Occasionally we have NOVA glitches in the certification process.

I would, at this point, defer any questions that you might have about NOVA certification to our partners at SCOE. We're newer to those solving those glitches. So that's what I would say, for today.

If the member has changes to their workplan and/or budget, they will work with their lead to decertify in NOVA, then on submit, make changes to the budget, resubmit, and the lead will recertify. Inherent in that sequence is time. So we invite you and your colleagues to give yourselves plenty of time to get all of this submitted in NOVA in case you have changes.

Second big bucket. The program area report, also known as the PAR. All members K12 districts, county offices of education, joint powers of authority, community college districts must submit in NOVA the total operational cost by fund source and instructional hours in the 7k program areas adult education on credit.

Fund sources also include any fee revenue collected, and the expenditure report, quarterly reporting. Consortium members are required to submit their expenses in NOVA. Expenditure reports are year to date or cumulative, and expenses cannot be less than what was reported in the previous quarter. Do we have a rationale or justification for that, Mandilee?

Mandilee Gonzales: Sorry, I was answering a question that was private message to me. What was that last part? Sorry.

Lisa Mednick Takami: No worries. Go ahead, Holly.

Holly Clark: A rationale for why we cannot have expenses less than the previous quarter. So it's just because expenditures are cumulative. If we have said that you have spent $25,000 in quarter 1, and then let's say that one of your purchase orders for a company, let's say that company went out of business and they refunded you that $25,000, we expect that you will work with your consortia lead to go back to Q1 and correct that expenditure.

We want you to go back and correct that expenditure in the quarter that you reported that expense. We don't want you to do it in Q2 because that's not where that expense was reported. We want NOVA to match your district fiscal books. It's supposed to marry to your district books. So we don't want it to be kept different, it's supposed to match.

So with that, we do want you to decertify Q1, go back to Q1, make that correction and then correct it going forward. And that's why you should not have a different amount less than the previous quarter.

Mandilee Gonzales: And I'm just going to also add always heavily journal. I think that we've all experienced that we have a turnover. So if there is movement like in Holly's scenario something like that did shift. It's really important to make sure you not only journal it for your district, but then also for your consortia so they have an understanding of why things are moving around.

We've experienced new people come into these seats. They don't understand why, and it becomes a deep dive into lots of fiscal figures just to find out that, oh, it just could have been cleared up with one nice journal entry.

Lisa Mednick Takami: Thank you for the clarification Mandilee and Holly. Next slide. I love this visual because it just clearly lays out quarter 1 report due December 1. The consortium is due December 31. Most of us have a winter recess.

So again, based on technical assistance requests that I've received, even from very seasoned consortium directors, these exercises do take time. You're coming through your meeting cadence with your consortium, please allow lead time. And I know many of you have this down to a science, but those who may be newer, with the winter holidays approaching and so on, give yourself sufficient lead time.

Quarter 2 report due, the member, March 1. Close out of prior, prior year member funds do in NOVA. I'm going to let my colleagues speak on that in just a minute. The consortium is certified March 31. Again, close out of prior, prior year member funds in NOVA, certified by consortia in NOVA, excuse me.

Reminder, the quarter 2 certification also includes the closeout of the 24-25 funds. After the certification process, any 24-25 funds that have not been expended will be returned. Notice, bold and italicized, will be returned to the state. Holly, and Mandilee, could you talk just a little bit about closing out of prior, prior year?

Mandilee Gonzales: It's a difficult to always articulate, especially on a slide like this. But end of the day, your CAEP funds have a life value or a shelf life of 30 months. So by your Q2, that will end that life cycle of, in this case or in this year, your 24-25 funds. They really should be expended by that December 31, and this is where you're reporting it out.

Holly, I'm going to have you pop in because this is also your strong suit. I know it's prior, prior year, but there's that six month because of that 30 month.

Holly Clark: Correct. You have two years, but you get an additional half a year. It used to be with the corrective action plan, I believe now is just an automatic. You might still have to do the corrective action plan.

So your Q2 is when you are reporting on that 30 months. That's when you're reporting on your expenses for that last six month period. And so that's the last reporting period to say what you did with that final bucket of funds that are about to expire.

And when you submit your Q2, NOVA is going to give you a pop up that's, going to say your funds are expiring. Whatever you have remaining, unspent is going to be due back to the state, and you're going to have to acknowledge that. And so it's going to prompt you in NOVA. And anyone who's been through the fiscal reporting with CAEP has seen this. They know what we're talking about.

But if you're brand new in to the CAEP world, your Q2 will be the first time you'll see that. And it's just letting you know that your oldest pot of funds is expiring. Every Q2, your oldest pot of funds is set to expire, and whatever you have not spent will be due back. And you can see that via the FIFO report in your fiscal reporting.

Lisa Mednick Takami: Thank you. Go ahead.

Mandilee Gonzales: And if I could just interrupt really quick. Yes, so the FIFO is your first in, first out. So just like NOVA will automatically track behind the scenes your carryover, it's tracking when that allocation goes in. And it's that first in, first out.

So any expenditure that you add into NOVA, it will start to take those funds from the oldest bucket. So by the time you get to that 30 month mark, you should theoretically have spent everything. Ideally, you've spent all of your money because the last thing we want to do is send any money back to the state when we have our advocates going and asking for more money.

So the first in, first out is really how your money is managed in NOVA, and it's kind of behind the scenes. Sorry. Lisa, thanks.

Lisa Mednick Takami: No worries. Again, a subtext for this, which we again, are not addressing today, but stay tuned for the fall, our written expenditure plans, when in fact, you do have carryover in excess of 20%. May I underline that?

So we will come back. And I would suggest, Mandilee, just thinking out loud, when we do our written expenditure plan webinar or webinars this fall, we may want to use this slide and compare how those things work.

So let's move on to quarter 3. The member report is due June 1 in NOVA, consortium June 30. As a reminder, this is the last quarter the changes are able to be made.

Once quarter 4 is submitted, the year is finalized and no changes are allowed. This is the quarter to review and ensure all expenses are true and accurate. So I know in our consortium meeting for North Orange we're always looking at budgeted actual and all of our expense categories.

And so those meetings that are leading up to the submission of quarter 3 June 1, which is the end of the academic year, very busy, really have to-- before everybody goes for summer recess for those who are maybe not working through the summer, that's the time to determine, are we going to need to make some changes here because we can't do it after June 30? And then finally, quarter 4 report due the member September 1 and the consortium September 30.

Reminder, regardless of where you are with your expenditures, a snapshot will be taken at 11:59 PM for carry over compliance. And those of you who've been on the train with us for a few years, I've got my little bullet train right here on my desk, know that if your carry over in that quarter 4 submission is an excess of 20%, you are going to be responsible, your consortium is going to be responsible for developing a written expenditure plan that allows for spend that describes spend down strategies that comply with AB 1491.

But we're not getting into that today. I'm just referencing that, that September 30 deadline is the measure by which the chancellor office assesses and CAEP assesses. Is your consortium going to be flagged if your consortium is in excess of 20% carry over funds? If you're a 10%, 15%, 18%, or 19%, you are OK as long as you're closing out the funds as we've talked about today.

But if you are at 25%, 75%, or 100% carry over and we have different examples. I want to give a pat on the back to the system because our consortium that have carry over plans, it continues to decrease, which is great. We have a few that are still struggling in that area, and that's why we'll be providing support after September 30 for that.

Mandilee, Holly, anything you want to add to that? And with that, I'll pass it over to Mandilee. Thank you.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you. Sorry, I went to go hit Unmute and then click the slide forward. But no, I don't think anything else to add to that. Thank you so much Lisa for walking through our CAEP deliverables and just ensuring that a lot of those pieces are connecting and building blocks.

So I am going to whip through the rest of these slides because I really do want to make sure that we have time for any of the questions. I've seen some come through on chat. I also want to make sure that we reserve that time to do that live demonstration.

And thank you, Lisa. I am actually passing the buck today to Holly, so she's going to do the live demo for us because she has that already set to go. So I'm excited about that.

Budget and work plan overview. So this really opens up once your annual plan has been certified for your consortium. That's when your budget and work plan opens up.

It is due this Saturday and you get an extension through Monday because it does fall on a weekend. This is a slide for you guys to come back to. We also have screenshots and snippets from NOVA, but I know that the big piece is really going to be that live demonstration.

This is an artifact that we have popped into the chat, is on our website. It will walk you through. So I think Lori has a new business manager. This will be one of those pieces that she can come back to. It will walk through all of those different steps.

The biggest, I would say piece, when you're doing your budget and work plan, is to pull in those strategies from your annual plan, and it will walk you through-- on the left hand side, there is a Menu bar and Navigation bar that walks you through this pretty seamlessly. If there are any changes to the work plan and/or the budget, your lead will have to decertify.

So Lisa used that example of a bullet train. A lot of the work that we do is similar to a train. It's when you put something in, you have to back things out so your lead will have to decertify. You will then have to, as a member, unsubmit, then update, then submit. And now your lead will have to come back in and certify.

So there are multiple steps where you want to make sure that you are in constant contact with your lead to ensure that those certifications happen quickly. When something is decertified, it'll lock all of the other members in your consortia out. So they will not be able to complete their work until you've made your update.

So it is important that, that is a mass communication that goes out to your members and you select a fine window, is my recommendation. And I think it's a best practice where you let your team or your consortium know, hey, we're going to be unlocking for a day or x amount of hours, and then just work closely to get that all certified and back up and running.

This is just talking about those budget modifications, and that they do need to be submitted in NOVA prior to the submission of your quarterly report. And this is, again, just going over those steps. Member representatives enter in the changes and then they, again, resubmit those budgets.

So I know I'm going quickly, but this is text heavy and it's really just for you to come back to and walk through those steps. And then if you have any questions, hopefully, those will be answered for you.

This is a snippet of NOVA. This is that member workplan where all members will go in. We have Alan Hancock here today, as we usually do for some of our examples. You will have to do identify three objectives, which will be pulled in from your three year plan. So you address your educational needs, your improved integration of services and transitions, and then you improve your effectiveness of services.

All of these metrics should be a drop down and will be pulled in. And Holly will walk through that when we do the live demonstration. And then, Holly, were you going to say something? Please feel free anyone to jump in at any time.

Again, this is that workflow here along the left. So once you hit Finish the Workplan, then it takes you into the budget. This is what we're really talking about when we're having you allocate those funds to the different object codes. It'll allow you to do that down in this section here.

This red dollar amount is telling you the remaining amount that you have to budget out. So this dollar amount will include your allocation as well as any of the carryover that's coming in.

The next step is adding in that budget item. So it'll allow you to title it. So you would add in your budget item, whatever that title is.

I did a quick mock up and I added in materials, but I forgot to change the type to the 4,000, which I know for my friend Holly, who is also my right hand, that was really an itchy point for her. And I didn't have time to update the slides, so my apologies. It is not instructional salaries, I understand that.

Other areas to really make sure that you pay attention to over all of these arrows or so, the expenditure type, titling it. Then again, right in here, the dollar amount that's coming from your fund. And then the brief description of the expenditure, it'll pop open a box. It'll allow you to really speak to how you're using these funds and why.

Indirect. If it is an indirect cost, it cannot be greater than 5%. Consortium, who will be using this indirect are going to be those that are fiscal agents typically, and then any fiscal or admin expenses come out of this indirect. Think of it like behind the scenes work for your consortia.

So you'll likely have other expenditures for people that might be forward facing to the public. But this indirect is, again, that indirect. They're not touching program necessarily, but they are supporting the overall work of what CAEP is doing.

And this was brought up earlier. So this is our cumulative quarterly. So as you continue down and you scroll down through NOVA toward the bottom, you get to the very bottom where it talks about the expenditure forecast. This is going to be a little bit different than how there are other calculations done in NOVA. This is cumulative, meaning in Q1, that percentage should be zero.

So in today's mock up, we have Q1 at 20% cumulative. So then in Q2, you've spent down 40% moving all the way to Q4, where ultimately you have no more than 80% of the-- or no less than 80% spent down.

What I will caution and just make a note of is in your Q1, and I think we have it listed as a note, but Q1 typically has low expenses. Either it's because they haven't secured all of your faculty even though you might plan for it, you might not have them in place where you're spending down those funds.

I've seen consortia who in this Q1, they'll say 5%. We're going to spend 5% knowing that in Q2 things will start to hit, and then they jump up to maybe 40%. It can be that 35% swing, and here's why.

If you spend less than what you forecast, NOVA will automatically trigger a corrective action plan. So it's just working smarter, not harder. So if you know that on a cycle, typically your Q1 is going to be less, then go ahead and put 10%, 5%, and then true it up as you go all the way through the rest of your quarters.

I'm going to pause. I know I went pretty quickly and it was text heavy. Thank you, Holly, for dropping in the PowerPoint. Were there any questions before we move to the live demonstration?

Holly Clark: None that came through in the chat.

Mandilee Gonzales: I will turn it over then to Holly for our live demonstration.

Holly Clark: There we go. Let me get NOVA up.

So a question just came through. What is the deadline to submit the program error reporting in NOVA this year? I thought it used to be December 1. Yes, that is correct. The program error report is due December 1. Thank you Susan for dropping that image, that deliverable snapshot in the chat.

So I'm in the Sandbox. We're going to do a walk through and Mandilee nod your head, Lisa, if you guys can see my screen. Perfect. Thank you.

So I'm in the Sandbox. This is a safe environment. What I'm doing here will not affect the consortium.

I went to Santa Clara just because we always go to Allan Hancock, and I didn't know what had been done. But what I had to do this morning, knowing that we were going to visit the budget and workplan is I had to go in and I had to complete their annual plan in order to truly see this properly.

I had to go in. I had to submit their annual plan. I had to go in as a member and approve their annual plan so that it unlocked their budget and workplan. So I just went ahead and went to Santa Clarita and did all that, and that then unlocked their 26-27 budget and workplan.

So now I am in their budget and workplan. So this is their workplan. As you can see, like Mandilee said, over on the left is this orange workflow. This is their workplan.

So these are the objectives that are pulled from the annual plan. And they have, as you can see, three objectives. They have improve attendance-- sorry, address educational needs, improve integration of services and transitions, and improve effectiveness of services.

So what I have to do is I have to decide in the workplan, what objectives do I plan on addressing with my funds this year? So if I'm going to address it, I'm going to put a check box by it. I'm not going to address it. I'm going to leave it blank.

So I want to address improving attendance. So I'm going to check that box. Then I have the program area of focus. So I'm going to drop down, and I'm going to say that I'm going to improve this for ABE, and I also want to approve it for ASE.

And now I have to explain how this activity will focus for these program areas. And I'm going to subscribe to, let me see what my children use, talking points. I think it's talking points that my school uses to remind students about class start time, sorry. That's what I'm going to say for that.

Show activity. This is pulling from the three year plan. Now I probably should have read this, but I didn't because I'm just showing you what this is. But this will remind me of what's being pulled from the three year plan.

Now, if there was something in the three year plan here, that maybe was different. If I wanted to increase by 5% the first year but maybe that figure has changed, I can address that here. I can say, we wanted to address it by 5% but now we've increased it by 10%. I can put a note here to address that here. Then I'm not going to address this one.

And then marketing. I'm going to address this, and I'm going to address marketing for ESL. And I'm going to say, hire full capacity marketing. I would say a little bit more than that. Those are the only two I'm going to address this year.

So now I'm going to hit Next. And sometimes you can find a best practice. If you have any glitches, if you experiencing any issues, you can always hit Next in the upper right hand corner. Sometimes I feel like that's the best practice.

Now we get to your budget. This is where this number in red is what you have to assign, and you don't want to stop until the remaining amount is zero. So in here, we can say that we are going to budget item title.

We're going to do supplies. This is where Mandilee said she did supplies but she gave it a 1,000. And I told her she couldn't do that, so she took off the name.

So I'm going to give supplies-- let's just say we're going to give supplies the $10,000 that Mandilee had. And we're going to do supplies for ABE/ASE Classes. This is not a consortium fiscal admin expense. So I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to add a new budget item.

Now I'm going to do instructional salaries. I'm going to make that, this. And I'm going to say that here, we're going to do 190,000 separate a comma.

And what you have to put in there, your staff will tell you what you need to put it in there. And you just add a new budget. Now here's what I'm going to tell you. If you are a fiscal agent consortium, if your consortium is a fiscal agent and you are the fiscal agent of your consortium, we have some fiscal agents who run programs and they also oversee the consortium.

Where I put in supplies-- let's say that I have supplies for my classroom but then I also need supplies for the consortium as a whole. So I've already put in supplies for the classroom, now I'm going to put in supplies. I'm going to mark it as a 4,000, and I'm going to put this as $5,000.

And I'm going to put consortium supplies. And I'm going to mark this box right here. I'm going to tell you that that's my-- what I've done right now is now I have two 4,000s. And I apologize that I didn't do them side by side, but here I have supplies for my classrooms. I did not mark this box.

Down here I have supplies for my consortium. And I did mark this box because this is a supply as the consortium fiscal agent. So that's a consortium fiscal agent expense.

When I go to my Preview tab, I will come down to my budget. There's still money remaining. But you will see here that I have consortium fiscal expenses and it has separated out that expense.

If I were running program and I was running the consortium as a whole, it will separate those funds. You do not have two separate budgets for that. So I still have 799,891. I'm going to go back. I'm going to add another expense.

I'm just going to say contract. I'm going to make it a 5,000. And I will get to the chat. I see questions coming in.

Here is the cumulative quarterly expenditure forecast. This is what Mandilee did talk about. When we first started, everyone followed this example that was put in NOVA, 15, 30, 45, 60. Those are a little bit outdated because we do have carryover compliance now. We want to end at 80 at least.

What we've seen is a best practice is truly that people retire in June and people get promoted and move on. So we have seen as low as 5% for Q1, and we've seen as slow as a growth as 15 for Q2. Because they struggle to fill vacancies, we know that there's a teacher shortage, and so they give themselves grace enough to build up those expenditures. You can always go over the percentage.

And then we see a drastic 45% growth here and then a drastic 80% growth here. This is commonly what I have seen or what I have heard talked about in the field to get them up to their 80%. They know that they'll get there, but they give themselves time to get there.

If this is a problem you have experienced with staff shortages, that's sometimes what we see. You also may see something like a 25 here and a 10 here. It's whatever you're comfortable with and your history at your district will tell you what you can put in there. It's a best practice for you and you can decide that.

So I'll pause for a moment and see if we have any questions. Mandilee, do we have questions to address?

Mandilee Gonzales: I've been answering the questions that have come through in chat. There is one question that Kira asked, and it's where can I find last year's workplan? And I know it's on the Consortia and Members page. If you want to show on the screen, that would be helpful just so they can walk through that. Thank you.

Holly Clark: And I will tell you once you certify Q4-- so right now it's here because it's not finalized. But once it's finalized, and maybe this is where I might invite Susan or Mayra to come off, because even in the Sandbox, I cannot see 23-24 or 24-25. I don't know that you can access that.

How would you see older budget workplans once they're closed? Where would you see the 23-24 budget workplan?

Susan: I'm getting an echo. Are you guys getting an echo?

Holly Clark: We hear it from you, yes. Oh, you have two accounts in here Susan. Let me--

Mandilee Gonzales: Mute one.

Holly Clark: Yeah, let me put up.

Susan: I just had to do the right one.

Mandilee Gonzales: There you go.

Susan: I guess I didn't use the right one. There should be a Show Older Documents under Remember Budget Work Plan. Is there not?

Lisa Mednick Takami: The consortium roll-up for '25-26 is all there is.

Mandilee Gonzales: I thought there was an older, like a--

Susan: Me, too.

Mandilee Gonzales: Older history, yeah.

Susan: There's not a budget work plan.

Lisa Mednick Takami: It might be in a different section. I'll see if I can find it, because that's not where I expect it to be.

Susan: OK. I'll get back to you.

Holly Clark: Yes, so we will get back to you on that. So let me go back into this budget. So once I hit Next, I will, I'm looking at my preview and I have, it's just everything that you've just seen me do. And I hit Submit. Not all steps have been completed. Oh, I didn't complete the budget. What did I not complete?

Susan: That three errors.

Holly Clark: That three errors part might help. Yeah, OK, there you go. Oh. So it's not going to let me, because last year's fiscal reporting has not been closed out.

Diana Batista: That Q4.

Holly Clark: Oh, yeah. I'm in the sandbox. So you would hit Submit and it would go through. What I will caution you against, is that until Q4 has been submitted, your budget and work plan, as you're building it out, it's going to be doubled.

So when you go in here to your dollar amount right now, if you were to truly go into your NOVA, into your budget work plan, once you submit your annual plan, your budget work plan is going to unlock and it's going to be double what you expect it to be.

Because until you certify Q4, you can submit your Q4, but until your consortia lead certifies Q4, those expenses are not marked as final. So it doesn't pull it out of your budget, because it can still be changed.

Once Q4 is certified, it cannot be changed. And that is when those funds are pulled from your budget. So your budget will look like it is inflated by almost double. So don't be shocked when you go into your budget work plan for '26-27 and you see almost double the amount. That is to be expected.

And as soon as Q4 is certified, it will go back to your '26-27 allocation and your true carryover from '26-27. OK, so that's it for the walkthrough. I can stop sharing. I think at this point, we can open it up to questions. If I need to go back and share for a question, we can. Thank you, Susan, for your assistance.

Mandilee Gonzales: Yeah. It looks like Lori has a question. I always have to make changes for Q4, because NOVA seems to require an exact match of expenditures and budget, which is very hard to do, even from Q3 to Q4.

Holly Clark: Lori. Yeah, Lori, can you come off? Are you comfortable coming off and explaining that to us? There should never be an exact match required, I don't think.

Lori: Yeah, I don't, I mean, it seems like it's a lot more finicky than the OAR we do for WIOA, where you can just go in and say, oh, I spent $100,001, not $100,000, and it's just easy peasy.

So I feel like the last couple years, I've always had to decertify, fix my budget, and it's close. But for some reason, like I feel like I'm in the ballpark. It's not like I suddenly went and bought a new building and have to report capital outlay or something.

It's always within, I'd say 5%, maybe 10% max, but it always requires me to ask my director to uncertify, change all my budget, then recertify. So I don't know if it's something I'm not doing right or consortium needs to fix. I don't know.

Mandilee Gonzales: Are there negatives?

Lori: No, I don't do negative. Like, I'm actually very good at budgets overall, but I feel like, I mean, we, we only add the indirect at the end of the year, because that's how my business department does it. I don't know if that's what it is. But I don't know. This was the first time I heard differently the philosophy of the percentages, because I have always spent 100% of my allocation, except for this year.

So I'm just curious. But anyway, long story short, I've had to decertify or ask my director to decertify every year, and I feel like I'm in the ballpark. Things do not change dramatically for us, so I don't know.

Holly Clark: I wonder if next time you have that happen, would you mind giving us an email at TAP and letting us jump on Zoom with you, so we can see what's going on?

Lori: Sure.

Holly Clark: Because I would love to get on with you and actually see that and see if I can troubleshoot it with you.

Lori: OK. Yeah. And I will double check with my director. I mean, maybe it's a consortium thing. Like, she's, I don't know. So I will definitely contact you, Holly, Thanks for the offer.

Holly Clark: Absolutely. Thank you. OK, and I see that we have a question. How can we submit the '26-27 annual plan due 8/17 if the '25-26 Q4 isn't due till 9/1?

The annual plan and Q4 are not tied together. You should be able to do the annual plan without worry about Q4. Those are two separate deliverables, not linked. Correct, Mandilee? They are not. One is not dependent on the other. So you can be working on the annual plan without worry about Q4.

Mandilee Gonzales: Yeah. I think maybe this might be a question that was connected to the inflation in your budget and work plan if your Q4 hasn't been.

Holly Clark: Right, right. So when you do your annual plan, it unlocks your budget and work plan for '26-27. But your Q4 will be open when you're working on your budget and work plan, and that's OK. That's to be expected, because it's not due yet.

And then how was I able to unlock the work plan section for NOVA? You unlock that by completing your annual plan. You submit, the consortia lead will submit the annual plan. All the member representatives will go into NOVA and click to approve it.

Once it is approved by the final member representative, then your budget and work plan for every member agency will magically unlock.

Mandilee Gonzales: Just appear.

Holly Clark: Yeah, it magically appears. And Susan confirmed that NOVA does not currently include historic copies of member budget work plans. They can add that, the CAEP office will add that to the NOVA feature wish list if desired. Thank you.

Mandilee Gonzales: Desired.

Holly Clark: Can you please help me? How do we calculate the indirect cost? OK, so indirect, you have two options for indirect. It is either or. It's not you get to choose. Indirect, you're capped at 5%. It's either, at CAEP, your indirect rate is either 5% or your CTE indirect approved rate, whichever is less.

So if your CTE indirect rate is 3.7%, that is your indirect rate. If your CTE approved rate is 9.4%, your indirect rate is 5%. It is whichever is less. And there, Mandilee has put a link in there for the CAEP Fiscal Management Guide, which does cover indirect.

Mandilee Gonzales: Go ahead.

Holly Clark: Indirect is, as she mentioned, whatever's behind the scenes. It's not your custodian, who's on the campus. That is program-facing. It's not your principal who's on the campus. That is program-facing. This is your budget technician who's at the district office, who's helping move money.

This is your principle's administrator who's at the district office, who's overseeing that principal. These are people who are helping behind the scenes to make adult education happen. Those are indirect expenses that are making adult education successful.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you, great questions.

Holly Clark: We have 10 minutes, if anyone would like to come off and ask a question.

Mandilee Gonzales: OK, so I will just remind everyone that we do have the CAEP Summit, which is right around the corner. Our teams are scoring all of the proposals. We received 122 proposals, so we have our work cut out for us.

But that also means that we should have a really robust full session for the 2 and 1/2 days where we're coming together, and that'll be toward the end of October, the 28th through the 30th. Thank you, Holly, for popping that in.

Oh, I have a question. So, Will Combs. Will there be a similar presentation or materials shared regarding the program area report before the due date? Yes, we actually have that on our schedule. We are going to be creating a description and sharing that out soon.

It will be closer to December. I think we have, let me not count on my memory today, but we do have that coming up. But if you have any questions prior to the time that we do have a webinar, please feel free to email us or submit a support request.

And I'm just trying to see some of the questions. Tim, does that answer your question? OK. feel free to come off mute. Could you explain again how to make changes to the previous quarter?

Holly Clark: Yes. So what you will do, is you'll reach out to your consortia lead. You will ask them to decertify the previous quarter. Once they decertify, you will submit your fiscal expense report. You will make changes. Then you will resubmit. Once you resubmit, you will let your consortia lead know you have resubmitted, so that they can recertify.

Also, when it comes to your budget work plan, you can make changes to your budget work plan as many times in a fiscal year as you need to do. You will follow the same process as I just laid out for your fiscal reporting.

When you have unsubmitted your budget work plan, that's an individual decertification budget, your consortia lead has to certify each individual member's budget work plan. But if I decertify Mandilee's budget work plan, no one in my consortium will be able to submit any fiscal reports as long as one budget work plan is in draft status.

So for that purpose, we want to act as quickly as we can and not leave her budget work plan in draft status for a lengthy period of time. So we want our communication to be swift. I want to be communicating with her.

Yes, I will decertify it. Please act quickly to make the corrections and resubmit and let me know as soon as you've resubmitted. NOVA's not going to let me know that she has resubmitted.

And so she'll let me know, and then I will recertify it. So it's the same with the fiscal reporting. The consortia league will decertify, you will submit, correct, resubmit, let your lead know, and your lead will recertify those reports.

Mandilee Gonzales: Thank you. There was a question about how to register for those who want to use a purchase order for the Summit, which I addressed in the chat, but I thought I would verbalize it in case someone passed over that.

You can use, oh, do we both? Wendy, also. So there is an option where you can say alternative payment option. That is where if you would like to use a purchase order for your district, or if you would like to register multiple people using maybe one credit card, we just ask that you can reach out to the foundation and they will work with you to make this a seamless process.

I just did a quick copy and paste from the website. So the conference is at foundationccc.org is where you can get specific help for any of those registration questions. You can always reach out to us, as well, and we'll make sure we connect you.

Holly Clark: And I will let you know that the foundation has been amazing. They have recently, they had a request for from someone who wanted to register 10 people with a credit card, and so they built the functionality in for the ease of the customer, of the field, to allow one registration with a credit card for 10 people.

And so if you have a need that's not easily accessible to you on the registration site, reach out to them. They are so accommodating, so just email them if you have something you need that you can't find. They really are simply amazing.

And I'm going to drop the link for the evaluation again. Please do give us your feedback. We read it. The leadership reads it. We take all your feedback to heart and we use it to form our PD going forward.

Mandilee Gonzales: Yeah. And for those that may have joined after we did our kickoff with our house warming, if you have--

Holly Clark: Housekeeping.

Mandilee Gonzales: Housekeeping, sorry. If you have a specific question, we see it all the time where someone will say, I really want to know blah. Right? They ask the question. It is anonymous. So also, it's anonymous, so please be frank.

But if you want us to reach back out to you, please provide an email address that we can connect with you or a phone number so we can make sure that we close that loop and give you the information that you require.