Based on information provided by the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), the biennial Washington State Budget includes an amount for OSPI to cover Fire Services provided to schools. In July of each year, OSPI calculates a per student rate for fire services.
To calculate this, OSPI takes the annual School Fire Services budget and divides it by the number of preschool through grade 12 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) students reported to them. The resulting per student rate is then multiplied by the number of students each school certified to OSPI to determine the school’s annual Fire Services revenue.
The local fire district providing fire services to that school can then invoice their school(s) to receive this Fire Service revenue. Fire Districts will need to get the student count from the schools in their service area to bill them. To find out if you are eligible for this Fire Services revenue, see below for information on retrieving your local school data from the OSPI website.
Retrieving Your School Fire Services Data
For those of you who bill your school districts for Fire Services based on the state Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) established per student rate, here is the information for the 2015-2016 school year. The rate is established in July, fire districts bill after the rate is set.
The OSPI fire service budget for the year is $620,000
There were 518,864 FTE students
The per student rate fire districts can invoice their schools is: $1.194918
OSPI has decided to publish this information on their website again, and we are told they will be keeping previous years’ information on the site as well. It is a bit tricky to find the information, but the link is included below. You will want to go to the 2015-2016 Attachments and click on 2015-16 Fire Payments for the current year’s information. Each of the schools that were included in the calculation will be listed on their attachment.
From the OSPI home page (http://www.k12.wa.us/default.aspx) click on “Finance & iGrants” (dark blue banner at top), “School Apportionment and Financial Services”, “All apportionment attachments”, “2015-16 Attachments” and finally “2015-16 Fire Payments.” This will show how much each school district was paid by OSPI for fire services.
OR the direct link currently is (go to the third bullet down after using this link):
http://www.k12.wa.us/SAFS/Misc/ApportionmentNotes.asp
If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at 206-772-1430 or dmakaeli@kcfd20.org