Cost accounting in education is a feature that determines the actual cost associated with each of the several programs operated by a Local Educational Agency ("LEA"). Examples of such programs include Regular Education, Special Education, and Migrant Education. The California Department of Education ("CDE") has identified over twenty separate programs.   

Cost accounting provides the total cost of the program. The total costs include instructional, support and central administration. Not all of these costs are directly charged to the program, which is the reason for the program cost report allocation (PCRA) function in finance. Briefly, costs that are not directly charged to the programs are totaled at year-end and allocated to each program using a set of factors.  

This cost accounting feature has a significant impact on the special education program. The amounts are used to determine an LEA’s compliance toward the Federal maintenance of financial effort requirement. Therefore, a strong understanding of the cost accounting functions and activities is critical for both the LEAs finance and special education areas.

The following Youtube videos, slides, and CSAM procedure may provide an understanding of program cost accounting and the components of PCRA:

Part 1 of 3
Part 2 of 3
Part 3 of 3

PCRA Slides
CSAM Procedure 910, with notes

Charter Member LEAs can utilize the PCRA in the appropriate tab of the Fresno County Charter SELPA's "Charter MOE Alternative Form". The PCRA is illustrated here: 

In this example, the charter school recorded school administration expenditures of $100,000. These expenditures were undistributed to any program. For SACS users, these are expenditures coded to Goal 0000. These expenditures are coded to Goal 0000 as they were for services that benefited many, if not all, of the programs in the charter school. In other words, these expenditures were not directly charged to the special education program, although special education benefited from these services.

Since they were not directly charged to special education, but they benefited the program, charter schools may allocate a proportionate share of these undistributed costs to the special education program. The proportionate share of the cost is calculated using factors. In this example, Teacher FTE factors are used. Of the charter school's 17 Teacher FTEs, 2.0 serve the special education program. As 2.0 is 11.76% of 17, the charter school may allocate 11.76% of the $100,000 to special education, or $11,764.71. 

Please note that these allocations increase the charter school's MOE amount, and cannot be removed once used. A higher MOE threshold might be difficult for the charter school to meet its MOE requirement in subsequent years. Therefore, calculate the PCRA accurately and correctly.