1. School Safety Grant Opportunity

 

The Safety and Facilities Enhancement (SAFE) Grant Cycle 2 will award $279.5M from the overall legislative appropriation to local educational agencies (LEAs) through a formula grant process. This funding is designated to help LEAs meet the required safety standards as well as other statutory school safety requirements.

 

LEAs meeting the enrollment criteria below are eligible to apply for this grant program:  

• School districts and open-enrollment charter schools with a reported enrollment of at least one student from the October 2021 PEIMS fall snapshot submission will be eligible for funding.  
• Charter schools that opened prior to January 1, 2024 (the date of grant availability). 
• Note: Private schools are not eligible recipients for funding.

 

As part of the process to receive a SAFE Cycle 2 grant award, LEAs are required to complete a compliance assessment, through the Intruder Detection Audit Dashboard, no later than January 31, 2024.

 

To support LEAs through the Compliance Assessment and Cycle 2 grants process, TEA will be hosting a series of webinars in January. Please click the links below to sign up for a webinar (Note: webinar attendance is optional).

 

• Register for the January 9th webinar at 3:00 p.m.
• Register for the January 10th webinar at 10:00 a.m. 
• Register for the January 11th webinar at 12:00 p.m. 

 

If you are a SAFE Cycle 1 applicant, or have any additional questions on SAFE Cycle 2, please visit the School Safety page or email safeschools@tea.texas.gov.

 

 

2. Summary of Finance Updates

 

As we get halfway through the school year for most schools, there are a few items to be on the lookout for in the next month or two:

 

• Compensatory Education tier updates should be released by TEA in an SOF run in late February.
• PVS values will be released for ISDs and could change the averages used in the Charter SOF calculations.

 

These items will have a direct impact on your total FSP funding. As you continue to review your SOF runs each month, you can use manual SCE Tier counts (using the 2024 Tier Mapping file) from the Fall PEIMS submission report PDM1-120-022 to provide an estimate of the potential change in SCE funding.

 

 

3. Update to Standard Mileage Rate for 2024

 

Beginning on January 1, 2024, the standard mileage rate will increase to $0.67 per mile driven for business use (up 1.5 cents per mile from 2023).

 

Additional information can be found in the IRS Notice 2024-08, as it contains the optional 2024 standard mileage rates guidance.