Dr. Tim's Blog
by Dr. Tim Uhl
2023-2024 School Year
March 12
The following guest blog is submitted by our Assistant Superintendent for Government Services, Chris Riso. The included picture was generated by Ideogram, a new AI program which generates images from prompts. Try it!
As Assistant Superintendent of Government Services, my job is to make sure our Catholic Schools are aware of and know how to access any funds or services available from NY or Federal Government entities. While many of these programs provide services or instructional material loans, a few of the programs provide reimbursements to your school. Most of you are aware of the Mandated Services and Comprehensive Attendance Policy (CAP) Reimbursement programs which allow our schools to get reimbursed for performing tasks on behalf of NYS, mainly the taking of attendance and administering NYS assessments. Two other reimbursement programs are the NonPublic Safety Equipment (NPSE) program and the Mathematics, Science, & Technology Teachers (MST) program, both of which require the school to first expend the funds and then submit a claim for reimbursement.
NPSE reimbursement funds may be accessed when a school pays for any of the qualified school safety and health expenses under the program. Information on the program can be found on their website here. A large increase in funding and expanded uses of these funds for building repair and remediation have accompanied Year 10 of the program; unfortunately, we are still awaiting the updated Guidance document, final allocations, and reimbursement forms for this program. Here are the general categories of allowable expenses: Security & Student Safety, Security Personnel (Contracted or School Personnel), Prevention Training, Fire Safety, Environmental Safety, COVID-19, and “remediation, repair, and maintenance of buildings, facilities, and appurtenances, equipment and systems related to health and safety.” Any projects or purchases you wish to submit for reimbursement during Year 10 must be completed and paid for before 3/31/24. Applications for reimbursement must include project invoices and cancelled checks or other proof of payment; I believe they plan to extend the application deadline to 4/15/24. Eligible expenditures that occur beyond 3/31/24 may be submitted when the Year 11 forms are released closer to 3/31/25. Reimbursement may take up to a year from the application deadline so please consider that when budgeting for this program.
The MST Grant allows schools to be reimbursed for a portion of the salaries paid for qualified Math, Science, and Technology teachers. Qualified teachers have two requirements: they must not teach religion anywhere in their schedule; and they must be certified to teach in NYS, have a Master’s degree in a related field, or be currently working toward a Master’s degree in a related field. This is a very significant reimbursement program, with the exact percentage of reimbursement depending on the number of teachers submitted to the program and the amount of funding available that year. I believe Year 4 gave around 33% reimbursement for each salary amount submitted but could be higher or lower in the future. In Year 5, our WNY Catholic Schools received just over $2.7 million in reimbursement, with the 18 participating elementary schools averaging almost $52,000 in reimbursement while the ten participating high schools averaged around $178,000 in reimbursement (median of $134,000). We are still waiting for Year 6 reimbursement (submitted 8/1/23). This year’s application is not yet available but will be due by 8/1/24 and will be found here.
Please reach out to me at criso@buffalodiocese.org if you have any questions about these reimbursement programs.