Lawmakers probe the 15‑day drop rule as districts report enrollment and revenue losses
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Summary
Committee testimony explained how the 15‑day drop is coded and reported, how aid calculations are reconciled at fiscal year end, and why districts say recent enrollment dips (including an immediate 165‑student drop in Columbia Heights) have created urgent funding instability.
District leaders and MDE officials told the Education Finance Committee that the 15‑day drop reporting rule can produce immediate funding consequences for districts and that inconsistent local coding complicates state tracking.
Leslie Shirk, principal of Columbia Academy in Columbia Heights, said her district’s enrollment fell by about 165 students in recent weeks after an immigration-related surge, which she linked directly to attendance declines. “That loss equates for us in Columbia Heights to $2,500,000 in revenue at Columbia Academy,” Shirk said, and she added the district faces an additional estimated $3,600,000 reduction in compensatory revenue.
Kathy Erickson, Director of School Finance at MDE, explained the mechanics behind the 15‑day drop: when a student misses 15 consecutive instructional days, local staff code that student’s MARS file with an end date and the student is treated as unenrolled until reenrollment is reported. Erickson told the committee that the state’s fall reporting snapshot was taken Jan. 6 and that March 12 is the next reporting milestone for end‑of‑year submissions; statewide edits to the 15‑day-drop data are expected in April.
Erickson noted funding calculations are based on early estimates and that final reconciliations happen at the end of the fiscal year. ‘‘We do an initial calculation based on estimates from our LEAs…we freeze the amount that we use to calculate entitlements for the rest of this fiscal year,’’ she said. Local shortfalls due to unexpected ADM declines can be corrected in the reconciliation process beginning in August, with final cleanup into the following January; but districts told the committee that immediate cash‑flow and classroom substitution costs are real pressures.
Committee members asked how a 'day' is defined for the 15‑day rule; MDE officials said the state requires attendance be taken at least once a day but that districts define what counts as a day (full day, half day, hourly). That variation—high schools that take period-by-period attendance versus districts that use a different threshold—means that a single statewide 15‑day rule can play out very differently in practice.
No formal action was taken at the hearing. MDE committed to provide updated counts once additional district and county reports arrive and to continue work on data alignment through the Compass pilot and Ed‑Fi modernization.