Mandated Services Aid, also known as CAP-MSR, is a long-standing program from NYSED that provides critical reimbursements for fulfilling NYS Mandates on nonpublic school. The NYSED CAP-MSR portal usually opens in January for schools to start submitting their claims. State law requires that claims be submitted by April 1st of the school year and be paid out (or a notification of payment needs to be sent) by May 31st. This ensures that schools can access needed dollars in a timely manner. With the portal opening soon, schools should already be progressing in the process of putting together their claims. Schools that use Teach NYS to complete their claim should have submitted the requested data to our staff so that we can do our claim work on your behalf. If you have not yet submitted your data, please reach out to one of our staff members as soon as possible.
There are several changes to the claim submission process that are worth noting. Schools are paid out by the May 31st deadline whether their claim has been approved or not. While many schools are auto-approved instantly upon submission, many are not and are placed in “hold” status. When your claim is in this status, it is your responsibility to respond to data requests and other inquiries from the Office of Religious and Independent School Support (ORISS) staff in a timely manner. Failure to get your claim approved can affect your school’s ability to file a claim in the following school year and is obviously unwise.
Another change from past practice is that schools are very often required to submit original payroll reports to support data in the claim. It’s critical to check your data inputs with your original payroll, as opposed to internal school fiscal reports, as there are often discrepancies that can affect the accuracy of your claim and change the amount owed by the State.
While everyone should be aware of this, a school can no longer submit a late claim if they miss the deadline. Although very uncommon, there have been schools that missed the deadline and were under the mistaken impression that you are allowed to submit within a 3-year period. This is ancient history for our purposes, although it used to be a very useful piece of knowledge.
We encourage any school with questions about Mandated Services Aid to reach out to our experts at Teach. We complete approximately 65 claims annually for schools and are valued for our expertise. If you want to learn more about our Mandated Services work or have us perform a review of your current claim work, please reach out to our office.