The Uniform Chart of Accounts (UCOA) is a shared system of accounting for supervisory unions and supervisory districts (SUs/SDs) in Vermont. It includes a set of accounts to categorize school finance revenues and expenditures, as well as standardized business practices. The UCOA provides more consistent and comparable school finance data. These improvements to Vermont school finance data will provide better information for both the legislature and local decision-makers, yielding greater transparency and the opportunity for quality, data-driven policy for Vermonters.
Under Act 6 of 2019, which amends Act 58 of 2015, all SUs/SDs must adopt the UCOA by July 1, 2020 for the 2021 Fiscal Year. One means to implementing the UCOA is to adopt the new Shared School District Data Management System (SSDDMS). The SSDDMS is UCOA-compliant and will be preconfigured according to Vermont best practices, with opportunities to adapt for local needs.
Please contact Sean Cousino if you would like a copy of the Uniform Chart of Accounts.
Handbook II is now available which provides Vermont’s elementary and secondary education community a single source document for governmental financial accounting and reporting guidance provided by the AOE.
If you would like to receive updates on the UCOA and related information, please request to join the UCOA listserv. This link will bring you to the subscription request form where you will be asked to provide your name and supervisory union email address. A password is not required.
Preparing for the FY21 UCOA
The Agency has organized a number of workshops to assist SU/SDs with cross-walking their Chart of Accounts (COA) into the new UCOA. The process of cross-walking means translating your current COA into the Vermont UCOA account string segments and codes. For example, if you record your general fund as a “1000” in your COA, and the new UCOA requires that the general fund is “1001”, then you would replace all “1000”s in your current account string with a “1001”.
In order to alleviate some of the burden of cross-walking your COA to the UCOA, the Agency will put together two cross-walk tools for your convenience. The first tool is used to cross-walk your COA to the UCOA during the SSDDMS implementation. Please contact Sean Cousino for the latest version. The second tool will be used to cross-walk your COA to the UCOA for submitting statbook data until your SU is on the SSDDMS. This tool should be available in early summer 2020.