How does the Secretary determine undue financial hardship and serious harm to a local educational agency's educational program?
34 C.F.R. § 222.17
in effectEffective: 2024-07-01(a) The Secretary determines that repayment of an eligible overpayment will result in undue financial hardship on an LEA and seriously harm its educational program if the LEA meets the requirements in paragraph (a)(1), (2), or (3) of this section.
(1) An LEA other than an LEA described in paragraphs (a)(2) and (3) of this section meets the requirements of paragraph (a) of this section if—
(i) The LEA's eligible overpayments on the date of its request total at least $10,000;
(ii) The LEA's local real property tax rate for current expenditure purposes, for the preceding fiscal year, is equal to or higher than the State average local real property tax rate for that preceding fiscal year; and
(iii) The LEA's average per pupil expenditure (APPE) (as described in § 222.16(a)(4)) for the preceding fiscal year is lower than the State APPE (as described in § 222.16(a)(5)) for that preceding fiscal year.
(2) The following LEAs qualify under paragraph (a) of this section if they meet the requirements in paragraph (a)(1)(i) of this section and their APPE (as described in § 222.16(a)(4)) for the preceding fiscal year does not exceed 125 percent of the State APPE (as described in § 222.16(a)(5)) for that preceding fiscal year:
(i) An LEA with boundaries that are the same as a Federal military installation.
(ii) Other LEAs with no local real property tax revenues, or with minimal local real property tax revenues per pupil due to substantial amounts of Federal property in the LEA as compared with the average amount of those revenues per pupil for all LEAs in the State.
(3) An LEA qualifies under paragraph (a) of this section if neither the successor nor the predecessor LEA has the present or prospective ability to repay the eligible overpayment.
(b) The Secretary uses the following methods to determine a tax rate for the purposes of paragraph (a)(1)(ii) of this section:
(1) If an LEA is fiscally independent, the Secretary uses actual tax rates if all the real property in the taxing jurisdiction of the LEA is assessed at the same percentage of true value. In the alternative, the Secretary computes a tax rate for fiscally independent LEAs by using the methods described in §§ 222.67-222.69.
(2) If an LEA is fiscally dependent, the Secretary imputes a tax rate using the method described in § 222.70(b).
Source: eCFRURL: https://www.ecfr.gov/api/versioner/v1/full/2024-07-01/title-34.xmlFetched: 7/26/2026