Q&A from the 2016-17 Public High Cost Student Worksheet (DCPUB screen) Webinar, April 10, 2018

The table below provides the questions with answers that were asked by participants during the 2016-17 Public High Cost Student Worksheet (DCPUB screen) Webinar held on April 10, 2018.

The presentation slides can be found below:

 

Question Answer
Must school districts complete the DCPUB online screen for students attending BOCES? For the 2016-17 school year, if a BOCES student’s 10-month annualized cost does not match the 10-month annualized cost reported on the BOCES year-end final cost report, DCPUB is required.
What parts of a special education teacher’s salary are aidable? Not all periods of a special education teacher’s work day are aidable. Professional, administrative, home room, and study hall periods are not aidable. The number of periods the teacher spends on classroom preparation and teaching should be divided by the number of periods in the day, excluding lunch. Lunch period should be excluded from both the number of aidable periods and the number of total periods.

Example: A high school has eight periods in the day. A special education teacher has 1 period of class preparation, 5 periods of teaching, and 1 professional/administrative period. The school district should report 6/7ths of the special education teacher’s salary and fringe benefits in section II.
Do school districts need to complete a DCPUB for students initially flagged by SED for review based on approved (estimated) costs, even though the actual reported costs are much different than the approved (estimated) costs? Yes. All SED-flagged claims require a DCPUB.
Once school districts have verified all their public excess cost records, what steps should they take to complete the process?
  1. On DVPUB, select any provider, select “Verified and Not Reviewed by SED”, and click “Get AVL”.
  2. Once the provider has been loaded, review the “District Count” at the top of the screen. Ideally the count for "Total records" should match the "Records Verified" count.
  3. Fill out the "COMPLETION OF 10-MONTH VERIFICATION FOR ALL PUBLIC PROVIDERS" box. This box replaces the paper DVPUB Signature Form that was required for previous school years.
  4. Check the box for "Verification Completed".
  5. Click the "Submit" key at the bottom of the screen.
  6. To confirm that the certification has been accepted, click "Get AVL" and check for a date next to the "Verification Completed" checkbox. You will not receive any other confirmation from the STAC and Medicaid Unit.
Note: If you have not selected a provider and hit "Get AVL", you will not be able to submit the "COMPLETION OF 10-MONTH VERIFICATION FOR ALL PUBLIC PROVIDERS" box.
What back-up documentation must school districts submit for the 2016-17 Public Excess Cost verification process? Back-up documentation will only be required for claims selected for review. School districts will be notified of required backup documentation (beyond DCPUB) via email from the STAC and Medicaid Unit for any claims selected for review.
How does one calculate the total cost per session for all students? In other words, do we calculate the cost based on the speech therapist's salary/ benefits, etc. for 30 minutes OR do we say the speech session cost is what was billed for Medicaid for 30 minutes? School districts should report actual calculated student costs, and never use Medicaid billing rates for determining actual cost. Do not claim any costs paid with federal grants.
How do you want districts to annualize the cost of "other provider" related services when a student has not attended for a full year and there are only a few months of invoices? Should they use the required sessions indicated on the IEP to calculate the 10-month cost? School districts must annualize the number of sessions in accordance with the IEP.

Example: If the student’s IEP calls for the student to receive Counseling three times a week, the district can claim up to 120 sessions.

However, school districts should annualize based on the services that were actually provided during the period the student did attend, if less than the IEP.

Example: The student attended for 8 weeks, and his or her IEP called for Counseling from an outside provider 3 times a week. The invoices indicate only 19 sessions were provided. Take 19 sessions, divide by the 8 weeks the student received services, and then multiply by 40 weeks. The school district would report 95 annualized sessions in the Actual Sessions box in section IV of DCPUB.
How should school districts complete the classroom section of DCPUB if the student is in multiple classrooms each day and each classroom has a different teacher, different classroom aides and different number of students? In section II of DCPUB, report the special education classroom where the student spends the most time being educated. Take the number of periods the student is in the special education classroom and divide by the number of total periods (excluding lunch) for the special education teacher and classroom aides and prorate salaries and fringes accordingly.

For the remaining special education classrooms, how you report will depend on the setting. If the student is in a subject-specific integrated co-teaching setting, report the cost for the special education portion in Section IV with "Spec Ed - Integ Co-teaching" as the Service Type.

If the student is in another special education classroom dedicated to special education students only, report in Section IV with "Spec Ed - Add'l/Resource Room" as the Service Type.
How do school districts calculate the per-session cost for integrated co-teaching settings (service type "Spec Ed - Integ Co-teaching"), additional special education classrooms/resource rooms (service type "Spec Ed - Add'l/Resource Room"), and adaptive physical education (service type "Adaptive Physical Education")?
  1. Calculate the total number of teacher periods per year: Take the total number of periods per day (excluding lunch) and multiply by 180 days.
  2. Add together the special education teacher’s salary and fringe benefits to get a combined special education teacher cost.
  3. Divide the combined special education teacher cost (from step 2) by the total number of teacher periods per year (from step 1) to get your per-period cost.
  4. Enter the per-period cost as the Total Cost Per Session in section IV.
Report the exact number of special education students in the class as the Group Size. If the student attends multiple periods taught by the same special education teacher and the number of students remains consistent, the school district can report on one line by totaling the number of sessions. If the student count varies, each group size must be reported on a separate line.
How should school districts complete the classroom section of DCPUB if not all the students in the class are there for the same amount of time each day? For example, an 8:1:2 class that has 6 students, but 4 of them are there all day, and 2 are in class for only one hour a day. What should they use for the "Actual students in class"? School districts should prorate the partial day students by the number of hours in the special education class divided by the number of hours in the school day. Add these prorated amounts to the number of full day students and round up to the nearest whole student for entry in "Actual students in class".

Example: The school day is 5 hours long. 1hr / 5hrs = 0.2 x 2 students = 0.4 prorated students + 4 full day students = 4.4 students, rounded up to 5 students. The number of "Actual students in class" would be 5 in section II.
If a school district contracts with an outside vendor for nursing services (no salary/benefits, just invoices), should they still complete section III for nursing services and only put cost under salary? The school district has two options. The school district can report the nursing services in section IV with "Skilled Nursing" as the service type. Use "Other Provider" as the provider type. To arrive at a Total Cost Per Session, take the sum of the invoices and divide by the number of sessions. School districts should use this option if they have less than six other services reported in section IV.

If there are six or more other services reported in section IV, the school district can report the nurse in section III, with the total cost of the invoices reported in Annual Salary and the number of sessions reported in the comments at the bottom of the screen.
Often the IEP will state "Skilled Nursing Services" and agencies will sometimes send an RN and sometimes an LPN. The district has no control over this, the agencies send whomever is available. How should they complete DCPUB? Report the nursing services in section IV with "Skilled Nursing" as the service type, where the type of nurse does not need to reported.
If students spend 1/2 day in-district and 1/2 day at BOCES, do you want the student STACed, as in-district or as BOCES? If the student is listed on the BOCES year-end final cost report, it is recommended listing the BOCES as the education provider. However, if the school district has already STACed the student as in-district, the school district does not need to change the provider for the 2016-17 school year.
Many districts hire part-time aides to avoid paying health insurance benefits, so students will have different aides as their 1:1. How should they detail this cost if there are multiple aides servicing the student, can they put an average salary and average benefit cost under section III? If there are multiple part-time 1:1 aides assigned to the same student every day, total the prorated actual salaries and actual fringes of all the 1:1 aides and report the combined amounts in the Annual Salary and Annual Fringe fields in section III.

If the district has a pool of 1:1 aides that are not assigned to specific students, the school district can total the salary and fringe benefits for all 1:1 aides in the pool, and divide by the number of 1:1 aides in the pool to arrive at an average salary and an average fringe benefit cost. Report these averages in section III.
Last Updated: April 21, 2022