Educators without a valid license will not be considered in the FTE for the payment. A license must be current as of December 1 of the school year in which the employee is reported to be valid for purposes of the quality educator payment calculation for the following fiscal year.
The OPI will provide an opportunity for district officials to review the FTE information submitted in TEAMS. Changes to FTE reporting used for the quality educator payment calculation will not be accepted after December 31 except in cases of significant reporting error, as determined by the Superintendent of Public Instruction.

A school district must apply for the state
advanced opportunity aid payment during the
application period, which is December 2, 2024 at
8:00 a.m. – January 9, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. for
FY2026.

A school district must apply for the state
advanced opportunity aid payment during the
application period, which is December 2, 2024 at
8:00 a.m. – January 13, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. for
FY2026.

A school district must apply for the state
transformational aid payment during the
application period, which is December 2 at 8:00
a.m. – January 13, 2025 at 5:00 p.m. for FY2026.

Compensation Expenditure Report requires that
all employees who received a paycheck during
FY24 be entered into MAEFAIRS by and submitted
to OPI by December 10th. This information
should match all information in the Infinite
Campus system including employee SEID
numbers, etc.

The FY2024 Trustees Financial Summary (TFS)
may be revised to correct a material coding error.
Submit a revision to the School Finance Division.
Changes to the FY2024 Trustees Financial
Summary are limited to:
● Coding revisions between revenue and
expenditure line items provided no
change occurs in the fund balance of the
budgeted funds, and
● Revisions in the balance sheet accounts
provided no change occurs in the fund
balance of the budgeted funds.

Please review the per-pupil calculation for your
district(s). The calculation may be reviewed in
MAEFAIRS, under Data Entry, ESSA PPE
Calculation (please scroll to page 2 for the final
per-pupil amount).
An updated ESSA Per Pupil Expenditure Reporting
document has been posted to the OPI School
Finance Web Page under ESSA Per Pupil
Expenditure Reporting.

Cash requests can not be embedded into the
ESSER Final Expenditure Report unlike other
grants.
Please schedule and view the ESSER Close Out
resources (video and pdf) before your meeting.
Note this process is different from the E-Grants
Final Expenditure Report (FER). It includes a full
review of ESSER I, II & III Budget Pages and other
relevant documentation.

Monthly lunch, breakfast and snack counts are
due the 10
th of each month. Counts are
submitted in the Montana Agreement and
Payments System (MAPS) for National School
Lunch Program (NSLP) or Summer Food Service
Program (SFSP) reimbursement.
See OPI’s Back to School Page for more
information on SFSP and important updates.

OPI pays grant cash requests submitted by the
25
th of the previous month.

Trustee candidates file for election. A Declaration
of Intent and Oath of Candidacy must be filed
with the election administrator. No candidate
may appear on the ballot unless the candidate
files between Thursday, December 12, 2024 and
Thursday, March 27, 2025. The candidate for
trustee must be registered to vote at the time the
Oath is filed.
County superintendents should log into the
County application and complete/verify their
district classification and board compositions

Guaranteed Tax Base Aid for General Fund
State Lands Block Grant
State Coal Mitigation Block Grant
County Retirement

School districts that experience an enrollment
increase based on the October enrollment count
in the current year converted to ANB must be
greater than the budget limitation ANB for the
fiscal year three years prior by 110%.

Grant cash requests made by this date will be
paid on January 10.

By December 31 of the school fiscal year following the year of attendance, the district of residence shall pay at least one-half of any tuition and transportation obligation established under subsection (5)(a)(i) out of the money realized to date from the district tuition or transportation fund levy. The remaining tuition and transportation obligation must be paid by June 15 of the school fiscal year following the year of attendance.

Check with your software vendor to see if a
year-end backup is required.
After final payroll, reconcile quarterly payroll
reports for the calendar year with W-2 totals.

All high schools that received funding from the
Carl D. Perkins federal grant program in
2023-2024 are required to complete this fall
follow-up collection to maintain their eligibility to
receive Perkins funding.
Students identified as CTE Concentrators last year
(2023-2024) and graduated in the spring of 2024
should be contacted between November 15 and
December 31 and asked their current
post-graduation status. After contact, the
appropriate post-graduation status code must be
entered into the AIM/Infinite Campus data system
for each CTE Concentrator
Enter Date Contacted and Post-Program Status for
Career and Technical Education (CTE)
concentrator students who graduated in the
previous spring school year (2023-24). These
students should be contacted during the second
quarter.

Students identified as American Indian in the AIM
system at the time the data is imported into the
MAEFAIRS fall count (October 7, 2024) will
generate funding for the Student Achievement
Gap (SAG) payment in the ensuing year
(FY2025-26).
Verify that the “Students Imported From AIM In
SAG Report” (access in MAEFAIRS) accurately
reports the number of American Indian students
enrolled in the district.
The deadline to submit changes is December 31,
2024 (see ARM 10.21.204).