Section 25-2599 - Administrative/Instructional consolidation incentives(a) The purpose of this section is to establish a program of incentives to school entities to encourage greater efficiency in the management of schools and the consolidation of administrative and instructional programming.(b) Any school district, area career and technical school, intermediate unit or joint school is eligible to participate in the consolidation incentives program and shall be considered a school entity for the purposes of this section.(c) Funding will be provided only to programs which have the participation of two or more school entities. Funding will be provided for programs which are initiated after July 1, 1998.(d)(1) Funding will be provided through a competitive request for proposal process. Proposals will be evaluated by a team of Department of Education and nondepartment personnel. The evaluations will be completed and funds awarded in the second semester of the school year following the submission of a proposal.(2) Funds may be awarded for two years. School entities may be awarded up to fifty percent (50%) of the savings the first year. The award in the second year may be up to one-half of the amount of the first year's award.(3) The Department of Education will establish general criteria for qualifying for these funds: (i) for rating purposes, savings will be calculated as a percentage of the applicable part of the budgets of the entities involved in the consolidation;(ii) the Department of Education will establish multiple categories to allow for awards based on the size and variety of proposals;(iii) awards for consolidation of administrative services must result in the reduction of the overall administrative complements of the participating entities;(iv) awards for consolidation of instructional staff must result in the reduction of the overall staffing complement of the participating entities or the participating school entities not hiring additional personnel.(4) All data submissions from the school entities shall be subject to audit, and any incentive payments subsequently determined to be excessive due to inappropriate data will be deducted from subsequent basic education funding payments.(5) Incentive funds shall be paid to school entities for use in consolidated programs.(6) Nothing contained in this section shall be construed to supersede or preempt any provisions of a collective bargaining agreement negotiated by a school district, intermediate unit or area career and technical school and the employe organization that is in effect on the effective date of this section.Amended by P.L. TBD 2019 No. 76, § 61, eff. 12/30/2019.1949, March 10, P.L. 30, No. 14, art. XXV, § 2599, added 1998 , April 27, P.L. 270, No. 46, § 24, effective 7/1/1998.