School Finance Data System (State Version)

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RFP 2026-NHED-BSFIN-01 SCHOOL FINANCE DATA SYSTEM
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
1. Executive Summary
1.1. Introduction
The Bureau of School Finance (the Agency) within the Division of Education Analytics and Resources of the
New Hampshire Department of Education (NHED) is responsible for overseeing, reporting, and collecting
school financial data. The Agency calculates statutorily defined State aid payments to both traditional
school districts and charter public schools used to support adequate education as well as other State aid
programs. Additionally, the Agency provides technical assistance and support to schools, policy makers,
and other stakeholders.
In September 2023, the Agency was awarded a grant to make substantial upgrades to the school finance
data collection processes and systems from the US Department of Education (USED). On March 15, 2024,
the fiscal committee of the New Hampshire General Court accepted those funds. The Agency then added
a staff member to oversee the federal grant as the Project Manager in August 2024. The grant expires on
September 27, 2027, with the likelihood of a two-year grant extension period. To review further details on
this grant, please refer to NHED's website at: https://www.education.nh.gov/who-we-are/division-of-
education-and-analytic-resources/bureau-school-finance/us-education-school-finance-grant. The three
primary goals of the grants are as follows: 1) revamp the NH Chart of Accounts and improve data
standardization, 2) build robust and flexible financial data collection system, and 3) better integrate and
increase depth of finance analytical tools. This RFP addresses goals 2 & 3 of this grant.
Project Overview/Justification
Embedded within a school district's financial reporting system is a set of codes and definitions for
recording financial transactions. This is referred to as the account code classification system or Chart of
Accounts (COA). A COA consists of designated account code classifications to define type of fund, type of
spending, etc. to provide the framework to capture original transactions, organize data logically, and
provide a robust basis for reporting on results. A COA is an accounting tool and is the fundamental of any
financial accounting system and a well-designed COA provides the ability to isolate data into segmented
buckets to allow meaningful analysis and reporting.
In addition to organizing financial activities and transactions, a COA also offers a consistent classification
structure for accounting and financial reporting. The COA should be viewed as part of a complete financial
information system that links the operations of various departments. Every school district across the state
of NH uses a COA in their general ledger software. The COA is standardized to the extent that each district
is required to follow the NH Accounting handbook classification system when designating various account
code classifications, such as fund, function, etc. Appendix A of the 1999 NH Accounting Handbook
provides an overview, index and definitions of all the components of the account code classification
system. Goal 1 of this federal grant has focused on updating the account code classification system. See
Exhibit D for an updated list. It is worth noting that the Federal Government uses and publishes an account
code classification system in the Federal Accounting Handbook for School Districts and New Hampshire
strives to follow this classification system when possible.
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STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RFP 2026-NHED-BSFIN-01 SCHOOL FINANCE DATA SYSTEM
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Current Method for Collecting and Reporting School Finance Data
Currently, the Agency maintains and owns a web-based application to capture and store annual school
financial data submissions from approximately 200 districts and charter schools. This information is
currently gathered using a 25-page standardized excel spreadsheet called the DOE-25 with multiple
supplemental worksheets under the current web-based Department of Education Financial Reporting
System (DFRS). To view the current system and download the current format, please refer to NHED's
iFinance System at: https://www.education.nh.gov/who-we-are/division-of-education-and-analytic-
resources/bureau-school-finance/financial-reporting-requirements.
The DOE-25 process is detailed below. Data is submitted on an annual basis by public school districts and
charter schools with a due date of September 1st, unless a one-month extension has been requested. This
timing is essential for data to properly reach the NH Department of Revenue for tax rate setting purposes.
The goal of the replacement system from this RFP is to keep the functionality from the existing system and
enhance the efficiency of the process as well as enhance the accuracy and consistency of the data.
Annual School Finance Data Collection Process (DOE-25)
DISTRICT-LEVEL INTERFACE
The system allows for the naming of key contact personnel and a workflow and approval
process with email notifications.
The School Finance Officer (SFO) completes the following data inputs manually:
* balance sheet for current assets, current liabilities and equity, by fund
* statement of revenues, by fund
* expenditure report for elementary, middle and high rolled up by function code and object
code categories for general fund and special revenue fund and district-wide expenses
The SFO completes ancillary data for food service, trust funds, special education expense,
tuition expense, transportation expense, capital expenditures, and average daily membership
(ADM)
The system provides a check totals page with validations to ensure that key fields are input
accurately.
The system calculates a Cost Per Pupil (see Exhibit A for example)
The system calculates a District Profile (see Exhibit B for example)
The School Finance Officer completes other supplemental schedules:
* MS-25 - extract for the Department of Revenue and used for tax rate setting
* Grant worksheet - used for federal reporting
* Food service worksheet - used by Bureau of Wellness & Nutrition
* Personnel expense for instruction worksheet - used for federal reporting
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STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RFP 2026-NHED-BSFIN-01 SCHOOL FINANCE DATA SYSTEM
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
* School-level expenditures worksheet - used for federal reporting
* Indirect cost worksheet - used to calculate indirect cost rate
The system allows for the submission of original signed and certified reports by the governing
body.
STATE-LEVEL INTERFACE
The system allows for monitoring the progress and stage of completion through work queues.
The system allows the state level user to bring in external data for validation from the
Department of Revenue's Municipal Tax Rate Setting Portal and the NHED's Grant Management
System.
The process includes a series of manual validations that have been set up to check the internal
logic of the reporting as well as historical trends and year-over-year reporting.
After all districts and charter schools have submitted their data, the Bureau consolidates this
data into a State-wide DOE-25.
The system calculates a State-wide Cost per Pupil - see Exhibit A which is included in this
document.
The system calculates a State Profile - see Exhibit B which is included in this document.
The state-wide data is used to meet the following federal reporting requirements through a
manual submission process:
* F-33 - Annual Survey of School Finance to US Census Bureau -
https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/npefs.html
* School Level Finance Survey (SLFS) to USED - https://nces.ed.gov/ccd/data_slfs.asp
* National Public Education Financial Survey (NPEFS) -
https://surveys.nces.ed.gov/ccdnpefs/
The fund equity sections of the DOE25 are pulled to perform cooperative apportionment
calculations.
The data is archived in the Department of Education Financial Reporting System (DFRS) and can
be accessed for data analysis purposes, as follows:
* By the public - through iFinance on the NHED website, a user may pull up either an
individual district or a state-wide DOE-25 report as far back as 2010.
* An agency user may implement the dynamic query tool to bring up fields using a drop-
down box to identify all districts or select districts for a given year.
* An agency user may implement SQL to query fields for named districts across historical
years.
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STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RFP 2026-NHED-BSFIN-01 SCHOOL FINANCE DATA SYSTEM
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Shortfalls of the Current Data Collection Process
There are various key users of school financial data that include the NH legislature, United States
Department of Education, United States Census bureau, and local and state constituents. It is essential
for New Hampshire to have data that is consistent, accurate, compliant, and available for analysis. The
Agency expects the outcome of this project to be a more efficient and effective process for school district
financial data collection as well as the ability to use data more effectively to improve education in New
Hampshire and to solve the current shortfalls in the existing data collection and reporting process, as
follows:
* The DOE-25 is currently non-compliant with Government Accounting Standards Board (GASB)
pronouncements for funds and fund balance designations because it is based on an account
code classification system dating back to 1999
* New Hampshire data being reported at a federal level does not match federal definitions, as the
Federal Handbook has been updated numerous times since the 1999 NH Accounting
Handbook, the most recent of which is from 2014
* There is a lot of inconsistency in reporting across the state of NH
* The process is manual and prone to error
* The process does not ensure good accounting practices
* The system does not "speak to" a data dictionary for proper approved account code
classification
* Data is limited to roll-up by function code and object code categories
* The data input process is extremely time-consuming for SFOs
* The federal reporting process is manual and time consuming
* The public interface of the data is limited to one year at a time for one district at a time for the
entire report
* Effective analysis across historical years for multiple districts requires SQL coding
* The data process does not allow for efficiency via the automatic pulling in of other data sets to
include Average Daily Membership (ADM)
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STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RFP 2026-NHED-BSFIN-01 SCHOOL FINANCE DATA SYSTEM
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Uniform Chart of Accounts (UCOA)
The Agency has developed a Uniform Chart of Accounts for the State of New Hampshire to ensure future
consistency of data across the state (see detail below). It is the hope of the Agency that by creating a data
collection system that accepts data through a UCOA, that data will be consistent across the state. A UCOA
is a pre-defined and standardized account code string which represents a school district's assets,
liabilities, fund balance, revenues and expenditures. The UCOA allows every district, charter public school
and state operated school to track consistent data by using the same account codes and methods for
tracking financial data. The UCOA was designed to be adopted by NH school districts as their option. The
goal is that eventually the UCOA will be adopted by all NH school districts and charter schools for ease of
use with the rollout of a new end-of-year financial reporting system.
Switching to a UCOA will require public school districts and charter schools to revamp their chart of
accounts. This is a substantial project at the district-level for many reasons. First, it is a very time-
consuming process requiring significant lead time. Second, if there are costs associated with the process,
these costs would need to be built into a district's annual budget prior to incurring the cost. Third, the best
time for a district to adopt a UCOA is in the May/June timeframe, in order to begin to build the next year's
budget using the UCOA. As a result of all these factors, and the criticality of ensuring accurate data in the
fall for tax rate setting purposes, it is essential that the implementation of the UCOA is done in a thoughtful
and organized manner across the state using strategies, such as test data, pilot districts, and
implementation planning.
The structure of the UCOA is presented below but may change immaterially after the release of the RFP and
prior to contract negotiation. It is designed with eight required segments and three optional segments.
Districts may add more segments outside the boundaries of the required segments at their discretion.
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STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RFP 2026-NHED-BSFIN-01 SCHOOL FINANCE DATA SYSTEM
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
UCOA
34-digit account code string
(22 required & 12 optional digits)
# Required or
Optional
Name Digits Definition
Fund 3 Required Type of Source of money (e.g. General Fund,
Food Service Fund, etc.)
Type 1 Required Financial classification (e.g. Asset, Liability, etc.)
Class: 4 Required Activity for which money is being classified for
balance sheet, revenue, and expenditure
Balance Sheet Revenue
accounts
Expenditure Function
Expenditure - Object 3 Required Budget classification for which money is being
spent
Expenditure - Job Class 2 Required Job classification for which money is being used
for compensation and benefits only
School ID/Level 3 Required School ID code and approval level (elementary,
middle or high)
Subject 3 Optional Curriculum or detailed objective for which money
is being used
Grant Year/ID# 12 6-Required Grant identification numbers, as assigned in the
Grant Management System (GMS)
Grant Activity Code 6-Optional
Undefined 3 Optional Code that can be used at the discretion of
Districts for items they wish to track separately
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STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RFP 2026-NHED-BSFIN-01 SCHOOL FINANCE DATA SYSTEM
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Inherent in the UCOA is a hierarchy which enables a roll-up of data. For example, this is the hierarchy in
coding for booking expenses associated with nursing services for an expenditure function code:
2000 - *Great
Support Grand
Services Parent
2100 -
Support *Grand
Services for Parent
Students
2130 -Health
*Parent
Services
2134 -Nursing
*Child
Services
The chart below shows the account segment types needed for each type of financial transaction: balance
sheet, revenues and expenditures with examples provided below.
Balance Sheet Revenues Expenditures
Fund Fund Fund
Type Type Type
Class Class Class
Object
Job Class
School ID/Level
Subject
(if applicable) (if applicable)
Grant Yr, ID, Activity Grant Yr, ID, Activity - optional
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STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
RFP 2026-NHED-BSFIN-01 SCHOOL FINANCE DATA SYSTEM
SECTION 1: OVERVIEW AND SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
These are examples of coding for balance sheet, revenue, and expenditure accounts:
Balance Sheet Account:
100.1.0101.000.00.000.000.00.0000.000000.000
General Fund, Balance Sheet, Asset, Cash in Bank, District-Wide
Revenue Account:
100.3.1111.000.00.000.000.00.0000.000000.000
General Fund, Revenue, Current Appropriation, District-Wide
Grant Revenue Account:
230.4.4570.000.00.000.000.25.1234.123123.000
Special Revenue Fund - Federal Grant, Revenue, IDEA, District-Wide, 2025 Grant#1234,
Activity 123123
Expenditure Account:
100.5.2134.211.10.551.170.00.0000.000000.000
General Fund, Expenditure, Nursing Services, Health Insurance, Teacher, ABC School (#55),
Elementary Level, General Education
Grant Expenditure Account:
230.5.2134.211.10.551.170.25.1234.123123.000
Special Revenue Fund - Federal Grant, Expenditure, Nursing Services, Health Insurance,
Teacher, ABC School (#55), Elementary Level, General Education, 2025 Grant#1234, Activity
123123
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