Opinion ID: 507855
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Imputed Costs

Text: 15 California presented to the Board projected charges that would have been incurred for a hypothetical training conference held at a District facility. These projections included four basic categories of expenses: fair market rental costs of District facilities, labor costs, food costs, and reimbursement of certain expenses incurred by conference participants. California argues it would have had to incur these costs even if the conferences had been held at District facilities; therefore, it contends, it should get a credit for these imputed costs against the amount of Title I expenditures to be reimbursed. Except for fair market rental charges for District facilities, 3 crediting California with these imputed conference expenses is supported by the Department's regulations. See 34 C.F.R. Sec. 200.60 (1981) (earlier version at 45 C.F.R. Sec. 116.36 (1980)). Such credit is also consistent with the position taken by the Secretary under analogous circumstances. See Bennett v. Kentucky Dep't of Educ., 470 U.S. 656, 661-62, 105 S.Ct. 1544, 1548, 84 L.Ed.2d 590 (1985) (Secretary reduced demanded repayment to reflect the benefits presumed to result from smaller pupil-teacher ratios in the readiness classes). On remand, the Board should receive evidence of these imputed conference expenses claimed by California, and make a determination, attributable to the seven District-sponsored conferences, of what expenses, other than imputed rent, California would have incurred had the conferences been held at District facilities. Credit for these items is appropriate.