18A:22-8a "User-friendly" plain language budget summary forms for school districts; information; submission; availability.

2. a. The Commissioner of Education shall promulgate "user-friendly," plain language budget summary forms for the use of school districts. The commissioner shall also promulgate a procedure for the submission by each school district of the required budget summary form to the Department of Education following the approval of the budget.

b. The plain language budget summary shall provide the public with information in summary form about the budget of the school district and shall include, in addition to an abbreviated version of the formal budget adopted by the school district, such statistical information as the commissioner determines to be useful for the public's understanding of the school district's fiscal matters and condition, and shall also include, but not be limited to, the following information for both the district's budget year and the prebudget year: all line items of appropriation aggregated by item type; the school tax rate; the equalized school tax rate; revenues by major category; the amount of available surplus; a description of unusual revenues or appropriations, with a description of the circumstances of the revenues or appropriations; and a list of shared service agreements in which the district is participating.

c. The plain language budget summary shall be submitted to the Department of Education in such form as determined by the commissioner, and, upon its receipt of the summary, the department shall make the summary available to the public through an Internet website maintained by the department in an easily accessible location. The information on the web site shall be presented as data that can be downloaded by the public for comparative purposes using commonly-used software.

L.2007, c.53, s.2.