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Who We Serve · K-12 Public School Corporations

Business-office depth for Indiana school corporations.

Indiana school corporations budget on the calendar year, report on a fiscal year ending June 30, and answer to the State Board of Accounts, the Department of Local Government Finance and federal grantors at the same time. From our office in Syracuse, Indiana, we support treasurers and business managers with fund-level forecasting, payroll and benefits compliance, grant accounting and audit-ready records.

Schedule a Strategy Session Where the compliance load sits
  • Superintendents and chief financial officers
  • School treasurers and business managers
  • School boards and finance committees
  • Small and rural school corporations
  • Special education cooperatives
  • Districts managing federal grants
  • $45,000Minimum teacher salary beginning June 30, 2025, under SEA 146-20252
  • 65%Share of state tuition support a school corporation must spend on teacher compensation under SEA 146-20252
  • Aug 29Gateway Annual Financial Report due to SBOA for a June 30 fiscal year-end, per SBOA guidance (IC 5-11-1-4)2,3
  • $1,000,000Federal expenditures that trigger a Single Audit for fiscal years beginning on or after Oct. 1, 20244,5

Figures verified October 23, 2026 · sources at the end of this page

The financial shape of a school corporation

School finance runs on two calendars.

A school business office answers to more rulebooks than most private-sector finance teams ever see. Three features shape almost every decision.

  1. 01

    Two calendars, one cash position.

    Budgets, rates and levies are adopted for the calendar year through DLGF's Gateway budget forms, while the Annual Financial Report covers a fiscal year ending June 30. A cash forecast has to bridge both, along with the June and December property-tax settlements and the IDOE Form 9 reports.

  2. 02

    Money stays in its fund.

    State tuition support goes to the Education Fund for instruction (IC 20-40-2); the Operations Fund carries transportation, the capital projects plan, bus replacement and overhead (IC 20-40-18). Transfers from Education to Operations need board authorization in a public meeting (IC 20-40-2-6), so each fund needs its own balance target.

  3. 03

    Payroll follows public-employer rules.

    Social Security coverage turns on Indiana's Section 218 agreement and retirement-system membership, and Medicare applies to anyone hired after March 31, 1986. Teachers fall under the FLSA's professional exemption, while hourly classified staff are generally entitled to overtime. PERF and TRF contributions, 403(b) and 457(b) plans and ACA reporting sit on top.

Payroll, Benefits & Grants

Payroll, benefits, grants and controls carry the compliance load.

School corporations don't pay income tax, but they withhold it, report it and administer benefits under rules that changed for 2026. Federal awards add their own cost principles.

  • Social Security and Medicare coverageEvery state has a Section 218 agreement with the Social Security Administration, and Indiana's determines which positions are covered. Pub. 963 lays out a four-step test — 218 coverage, retirement-system membership, Medicare-only coverage and the continuing-employment exception — and Medicare is mandatory for employees hired or rehired after March 31, 1986. Students enrolled and regularly attending classes where they work can be excluded unless the agreement covers them.6,7
  • Stipends are wagesCoaching, club-sponsor and extended-contract stipends paid to employees are wages for Social Security and Medicare (§3121(a); Pub. 963), so they belong in payroll with withholding, not in accounts payable. SBOA's chart of accounts tracks athletic-coach pay — lay coaches included — in its own expenditure account (33400), which makes the payroll coding auditable.7,3
  • Qualified overtime on 2026 Forms W-2For 2025 through 2028, employees can deduct up to $12,500 ($25,000 joint) of qualified overtime — the premium portion of overtime the FLSA requires. Employers report the total in new box 12, code TT, on 2026 Forms W-2, due February 1, 2027. Teachers are exempt professionals with no salary test (29 C.F.R. §541.303), so the reporting centers on hourly classified staff such as drivers, custodians and food service workers.8,9
  • ACA reporting for an educational employerA school corporation that is an applicable large employer furnishes Form 1095-C to full-time employees and files Form 1094-C; for calendar 2025 the dates were March 2, 2026 to employees and March 31, 2026 for electronic filing. The 2026 required contribution percentage used to test affordability is 9.96% (Rev. Proc. 2025-25). Under the look-back method, an educational organization can exclude or credit up to 501 hours of employment-break time a year when averaging hours (Treas. Reg. §54.4980H-3).10,11,12
  • 403(b) universal availability, 457(b) limits and Roth catch-upIf any employee can defer into the 403(b) plan, every employee — part-time staff included — must get an effective opportunity to make or change a deferral election at least once a plan year (Treas. Reg. §1.403(b)-5(b)). For 2026 the deferral limit is $24,500 for 403(b) and governmental 457(b) plans, with an $8,000 age-50 catch-up and $11,250 for ages 60 through 63. Catch-ups by employees whose prior-year Social Security wages (W-2 box 3) exceeded $150,000 must be Roth (§414(v)(7)); the final regulations apply a good-faith standard before 2027 and a later date for governmental plans.13,14,15
  • Internal controls under IC 5-11-1-27Each school corporation must adopt SBOA's minimum internal control standards — control environment, risk assessment, control activities, information and communication, and monitoring — and train every employee who handles public funds. The fiscal officer files a written certification of both with the Annual Financial Report. Material variances, losses, shortages or thefts must be reported to SBOA immediately, and a governing body that adopts no materiality threshold has every amount treated as material.16,3
  • 1099 threshold and e-filingFor payments made after December 31, 2025, Form 1099-NEC reporting for contractors and other service vendors starts at $2,000 instead of $600. Electronic filing is required once a filer has 10 or more information returns, counted by aggregating all information return types (T.D. 9972).17,18
  • Uniform Guidance: time and effort, equipment, indirect costsSalaries charged to federal awards must rest on records of work actually performed; budget estimates alone don't qualify and require after-the-fact review (2 C.F.R. §200.430(i)). Equipment now means items of $10,000 or more per unit, or a lower capitalization level (§200.1), and the de minimis indirect rate is up to 15% (§200.414). A corporation spending $1,000,000 or more in federal awards in a fiscal year beginning on or after Oct. 1, 2024 needs a Single Audit; below that, its records must still be available to federal reviewers (§200.501).19,20,21,4

CFO Advisory

Fund-level numbers the board can act on.

Board reports usually show appropriations and spending. We add the measures that show whether each fund can carry the next eighteen months.

MetricWhat it tells youCadence
Cash by fund, in months of expendituresEducation, Operations, Rainy Day and referendum funds tracked separately, because money can't move freely between them.Monthly
Settlement-cycle cash low pointThe low point before the June and December property-tax settlements, forecast by fund so interfund advances or temporary borrowing are planned rather than reactive.Monthly · Semiannual
Teacher compensation ratioTeacher compensation as a share of state tuition support against the 65% requirement, tracked during the year rather than discovered after it ends.Quarterly · Fiscal year
ADM trend and tuition support per pupilAverage daily membership counts drive state tuition support. A multi-year trend by grade is the starting point for every staffing and budget scenario.Per count date · Annual
Levy collections versus budget orderProperty tax received compared with the levy in the DLGF budget order, by fund, so collection shortfalls surface before the next budget cycle.Semiannual
Federal grant reimbursement lagDays between spending on a reimbursement-basis award and receipt of the draw. Long lags strain the cash position of the fund carrying the cost.Monthly · By grant
Overtime and extra-duty costClassified overtime and stipend pay by department against budget — now a W-2 reporting item as well as a cost line.Per pay period
Health plan cost per covered employeeEmployer premium or claims cost per enrolled employee, alongside the ACA affordability test for each offer tier.Monthly · Plan year

Accounting & Compliance

What we run, and who we coordinate with.

We work inside the business office's existing systems and calendar. Audits, bonds and legal questions stay with the professionals who hold those roles.

Handled by our team

  • Fund-level budget and cash-flow model — support for Budget Forms 1, 2 and 4B, Form 4 and the current-year financial worksheet
  • Monthly reconciliations and ledger proofs — depository balances reconciled to the records at least monthly (IC 5-13-6-1(e))
  • Payroll tax compliance — Forms 941 and W-2 (including box 12 code TT), state withholding and Forms 1099-NEC at the $2,000 threshold
  • ACA reporting — measurement-period tracking, affordability testing and Forms 1094-C and 1095-C
  • Retirement plan administration support — PERF, TRF, 403(b) and 457(b) remittance reconciliations and universal-availability notices
  • Federal grant accounting — time-and-effort documentation, the schedule of expenditures of federal awards and drawdown reconciliations
  • Internal control documentation — SBOA minimum standards, personnel training records and support for the fiscal officer's certification filed with the AFR

Coordinated with your specialists

  • State Board of Accounts examiners or the engaged audit firm — we prepare schedules and reconciliations; the audit is theirs
  • Municipal advisor and bond counsel — debt issuance, refundings and controlled-project questions; we don't advise on bonds
  • School attorney — contracts, collective bargaining and referendum questions
  • IDOE, DLGF and the retirement funds — Form 9, Gateway budget submissions and plan reporting, filed by the business office with our support

What changed · What’s next

Dates on the business office calendar.

Recent Indiana and federal changes, and the deadlines that follow from them through 2028.

  1. SEA 146-2025: teacher pay floor

    Minimum teacher salary rises to $45,000 and required teacher compensation rises from 62% to 65% of state tuition support.2

  2. SEA 1-2025: referenda at general elections only

    Property-tax referenda — operating, school safety and controlled project — can appear only on general-election ballots, and ballot questions now state the maximum rate, the maximum levy and the effect on a median-value home.22


  3. Ahead

    2027 budgets adopted

    Deadline to adopt 2027 budgets, rates and levies. DLGF issues budget orders by December 31, 2026, or by January 15, 2027 for units issuing debt after December 1 or filing a shortfall appeal.1


  4. Ahead

    Excise distributions to any fund

    New IC 6-1.1-27-10 from House Bill 1210 (2026) lets motor vehicle and other excise distributions be receipted to any fund. SBOA requires a board resolution or recorded vote before the distribution if the fund isn't the Operations Fund or the referendum controlled project fund.23


  5. Ahead

    2026 Forms W-2 and 1099-NEC due

    2026 Forms W-2 carry qualified overtime in new box 12, code TT, and are due to employees and SSA; 2026 Forms 1099-NEC are due the same day because January 31 falls on a Sunday.8,18


  6. Ahead

    Charter school sharing goes statewide

    Beginning with 2028 distributions, school corporations statewide share operations fund levy revenue with eligible charter schools (IC 20-46-8-12), and new operating referendum levies first due after 2027 are shared as well.24,2

The Beaconshire Method

How an engagement runs.

Four phases, one accountable team. Tax, CFO and accounting work move together, so a decision made in one discipline is already reflected in the other two.

  1. Phase 01

    Discovery

    We start with the last AFR, the 2027 budget forms, payroll registers, benefit plan documents, the federal award list and the most recent SBOA report, and walk the business office calendar with the treasurer.

  2. Phase 02

    Strategy

    We set fund-balance targets, a cash-flow model that bridges both calendars, and a compliance calendar for payroll, ACA, retirement and grant reporting.

  3. Phase 03

    Implementation

    We build the model, clean up payroll coding for overtime and stipends, document time and effort, and prepare the reconciliations and schedules auditors request.

  4. Phase 04

    Stewardship

    Monthly fund-level reporting to the superintendent and board, forecasting ahead of each settlement, and year-end support through the AFR and the audit.

Run the numbers first

Calculator13-Week Cash Flow & RunwayWeek-by-week closing cash with payroll, estimated-tax dates and one-off items — the low point and runway. CalculatorTrue Employee Cost & HiringFully loaded cost with 2026 payroll taxes, unemployment rates, workers’ comp and benefits — and payback month.

Where this work lives

Fractional CFO

Forecasts, KPI dashboards, lender and board reporting, and a monthly close review.

Explore fractional CFO →

Payroll

Owner and staff payroll, payroll-tax filings, multi-state withholding and classification risk.

Explore payroll →

Bookkeeping

Tax-ready books and cleanup — the foundation every strategy and forecast depends on.

Explore bookkeeping →

FAQ

Common questions.

Do you audit school corporations?

No. We don't perform audits, reviews or compilations. We prepare the reconciliations, the schedule of expenditures of federal awards and the supporting schedules that the State Board of Accounts or the engaged audit firm needs, and we answer their requests so the business office isn't pulled off daily work.

Can you help with a referendum or a bond issue?

We build the operating forecast that shows what each fund looks like with and without a levy, and we keep the books that support any issuance. Debt structuring, pricing and controlled-project analysis belong to the corporation's municipal advisor and bond counsel. Since July 1, 2025, property-tax referenda can appear only on general-election ballots, so the forecast has to look further ahead.

What changes on our 2026 Forms W-2?

Qualified overtime — the premium portion of FLSA-required overtime — is reported in box 12, code TT, so employees can claim the new deduction. Teachers are exempt professionals and generally won't have an amount; hourly classified staff often will. Overtime earnings codes need to be separated from straight-time and stipend pay before the last 2026 payroll runs.

How do substitutes and coaches affect ACA reporting?

Variable-hour staff are measured under the look-back method, and an educational organization can exclude or credit up to 501 hours of employment-break time a year so summer doesn't distort the averages. Stipends paid to employees are wages, so extra-duty work belongs in the hours analysis. We set measurement and stability periods and track hours for each variable-hour group.

We spend less than $1 million in federal funds. Does any of this apply?

Below $1,000,000 in federal expenditures for a fiscal year beginning on or after October 1, 2024, a school corporation is exempt from the Single Audit, but its records must still be available to the federal agency, the pass-through entity and GAO. Time-and-effort, equipment and allowable-cost rules apply to every federal dollar. For a corporation on a July 1–June 30 fiscal year, the year that began July 1, 2025 is the first measured against the $1,000,000 threshold.

Why does the teacher compensation ratio need attention during the year?

SEA 146-2025 raised the requirement from 62% to 65% of state tuition support and set a $45,000 minimum teacher salary. Hiring, supplemental pay and stipends move the ratio as the year goes on, so we track it alongside the budget instead of measuring it once the year has closed.

Other industries we serve

Sources

  1. [1]Introduction to the 2026 Pay 2027 Budget Cycle (budget calendar, May 2026) — Indiana Department of Local Government Finance
  2. [2]The School Bulletin, June 2025 (items to remember; new laws affecting schools) — Indiana State Board of Accounts
  3. [3]Accounting and Uniform Compliance Guidelines Manual — Schools (Resource Library) — Indiana State Board of Accounts
  4. [4]2 C.F.R. § 200.501 — Audit requirements — Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
  5. [5]2025 Compliance Supplement (2 C.F.R. Part 200, Appendix XI) — Federal Audit Clearinghouse / OMB
  6. [6]Section 218 Agreements — State and Local Government Employers — Social Security Administration
  7. [7]Publication 963 — Federal-State Reference Guide (Rev. 5-2025) — IRS
  8. [8]General Instructions for Forms W-2 and W-3 (2026) — IRS
  9. [9]29 C.F.R. § 541.303 — Teachers — Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
  10. [10]Instructions for Forms 1094-C and 1095-C (2025) — IRS
  11. [11]Rev. Proc. 2025-25 (2026 required contribution percentage) — IRS
  12. [12]26 C.F.R. § 54.4980H-3 — Determining full-time employees — Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
  13. [13]26 C.F.R. § 1.403(b)-5 — Nondiscrimination rules (universal availability) — Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
  14. [14]Notice 2025-67 — 2026 amounts relating to retirement plans and IRAs — IRS
  15. [15]Catch-Up Contributions, T.D. 10033 (final regulations), 90 Fed. Reg. (Sept. 16, 2025) — Federal Register
  16. [16]Ind. Code § 5-11-1-27 — Local governmental internal controls; personnel training (2025 Indiana Code) — Justia
  17. [17]Rev. Proc. 2025-32 (2026 inflation adjustments) — IRS
  18. [18]Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. December 2026) — IRS
  19. [19]2 C.F.R. § 200.430 — Compensation—personal services — Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
  20. [20]2 C.F.R. § 200.1 — Definitions (equipment) — Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
  21. [21]2 C.F.R. § 200.414 — Indirect costs (de minimis rate) — Legal Information Institute (Cornell Law School)
  22. [22]Legislative Changes to Property Tax Referenda and Controlled Projects (memo, June 10, 2025) — Indiana Department of Local Government Finance
  23. [23]The School Bulletin, August 2026 (excise tax distributions, IC 6-1.1-27-10) — Indiana State Board of Accounts
  24. [24]Legislation Affecting School Operations Fund Distribution to Charter Schools under IC 20-46-8-11.2 (memo, June 13, 2025) — Indiana Department of Local Government Finance

Figures and deadlines verified October 23, 2026

Start with the 2027 budget and last year's AFR.

We'll build a fund-level cash forecast that bridges both calendars and show where payroll, ACA and grant records need attention before the next audit. Every project is scoped so the financial clarity it delivers justifies the cost of our fees — and if we don't believe the math works in your favor, we'll tell you before you engage.

Schedule Your Free Strategy Session