On October 21, 2016, an announcement was made that all charter schools must submit a data template by the due date for submitting their annual financial reports to the Texas Education Agency. The announcement is excerpted below.
"The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has developed the Charter School Annual Financial and Compliance Report (AFR) Data template to allow open-enrollment charter schools to submit their AFR data in electronic format to the agency in a similar way that school districts submit their data to the agency using the data feed. Each open-enrollment charter school is required to submit the AFR package (the AFR data template (Excel file); a PDF copy of the AFR with all appropriate signatures; and a certificate of board that has been marked approved or disapproved, dated, and signed) to the agency by the 150th day after the end of the charter’s fiscal year. The following table shows the due dates for different fiscal year calendars.
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If a charter's fiscal year ends on:
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the AFR is due to us on or before:
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June 30
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November 27
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August 31
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January 28
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Failure to submit the template could lead to a failure of the Charter FIRST Rating. The charter school must ensure that its data template is consistent with the financial information in its AFR. Each schedule has validation tests to check for variances, and the charter must enter explanations for variances.
The new template is available on the TEA website at http://tea.texas.gov/Finance_and_Grants/Financial_Accountability/Financial_Integrity_Rating_System_of_Texas_(FIRST)/School_FIRST_Rating_for_Charter_Schools/
Instructions and contact information are also available at this web address should you have any questions."