August Newsletter
8/31/2023
FY23 Project Cash Requests and Final Expenditure Reports
FERs are due September 30 for most grants. To ensure grantees can submit their Final Expenditure Reports (FER) by the deadline, the Office of Grants Management will stop approving FY23 Project Cash Requests (PCR) on September 18. The FER cannot be started when a PCR is pending payment.
Payments due after the PCR deadline will automatically be generated once the FER is approved. We encourage you to submit a PCR by the deadline date. Payments generated from the FER can take a considerable amount of time to receive since FERs are approved in the order received.
Please see the fiscal year 2023 due dates below.
* Most Grants
Project Cash Request: September 18, 2023
Final Expenditure Report: September 30, 2023
*Please reach out to the program office contact, listed in the CCIP address book, if you believe the project cash request and/or final expenditure report due date may be different for your grant.
** ESSER II, GEER II, ARP ESSER
Project Cash Request: November 20, 2023
Final Expenditure Report: December 1, 2023
** Review CCIP Note
#528 / CCIP Note
#529
- Special Note: While the final due date for the FY23 FER for the ESSER II, GEER II and ARP ESSER grants is 12/1/23, the Department recommends that LEAs and educational entities submit the FER and as soon as all expenditures are fully paid through the PCR system for the fiscal year. This is to facilitate the Department’s FER review process to ensure expenditures are finalized in a timely manner. The subrecipient should ensure that expenditures listed in the Final Expenditure Report are complete and accurate to minimize revisions that would result in high-risk status and conditions placed on the subrecipients, including but not limited to expenditures not being paid.
- If your district anticipates having unspent FY23 ESSER II funds, please review expenditures charged to the ARP ESSER grant and consider moving/journaling allowable costs to ESSER II. Any expenses journaled to ESSER II must comply with the current approved budget as no budget revisions can be completed at this time. (Remember, the substantially approved date for both grants is March 13, 2020). Note: Since most financial books closed June 30, the Department recommends discussing any changes with your auditor.
- Federal Guidance (2 CFR §200) does not permit the awarding agency to fund an award beyond the approved budget period. The deadlines for obligations are based on statutory and regulatory requirements and cannot be extended. All expenditures charged to the grant must be obligated and paid within the timeframe outlined in CCIP Notes #528 and #529.
**NEW** Final Expenditure Reports with Cash on Hand
Beginning immediately, when submitting an FER, if a grant reflects cash on hand (expenditures are less than cash received during the fiscal year), a refund will be requested. Funds requested from federal grants must be drawn down only to meet a grantee’s immediate cash need. Therefore, having a positive cash balance at the end of a fiscal year violates Cash Management requirements discussed in
2 CFR §200.305 and the Department’s guidance
2015-004 Cash Management. Allowing cash to move forward into the current fiscal year creates a potential cash management issue in the applicable year. To avoid a grantee from being out of compliance in two fiscal years, the Department will no longer allow cash to be carried over into the subsequent fiscal year for any grants.
If you have any questions, please contact your district’s Grants Management contact found in the CCIP address book.
It’s a Good Time to Update OEDS Information
There are several systems within the Department that access vital contact information directly from the Ohio Educational Directory System (OEDS). Therefore, it is very important that contact information in OEDS always remains current. This is necessary to ensure the appropriate person in your organization receives all communication from the Department. Each LEA has a contact at their organization that is designated to update OEDS. For help with assigning roles in OEDS, contact the
data custodian for your organization type.
Do you have expired funds on your books?
Every year the Office of Grants Administration is contacted by LEAs who have expired funds on their books, usually inquiring about how to return the funds to clean up their books. These balances could be due to refunds or incorrect reporting which sometimes result in the revision of the Final Expenditure Report (FER). To assist grantees with using these funds before they expire and help ensure accuracy on the FER, our office may request a cash balance report during the review of your FER.
Submit newsletter topics of interest to the Office of Grants Administration.