A label on a version, not a version number.
Baseline 2024 is the first version of each state file that carries all three dimensions with the figures published through the 2024 reporting cycle. It is the year every later cycle is measured against, and it is complete only when all fifty-one files carry it, the rollup is released, the deposit exists, and the run ledger for the cycle is closed.
Two routes to the same label
A file first released with the fiscal dimension covered
The baseline release is version 1.0. The label is recorded in the workbook README, the narrative's opening line, the release package, and the register.
A legacy file compiled before the fiscal dimension was specified
The baseline release is the backfill version that adds the fiscal dimension, which is a major version, so version 2.0. Files 01 to 08 take this route.
Any later cycle
When the next reporting cycle publishes, every released file is re-audited by scheduled re-audit, a major version preceded by notice, carrying the next baseline label.
What 2024 means
Each dimension draws on a different published cycle: child counts and educational environments, fiscal years, and the statutes and rules in force on a stated date. The mapping that says which published cycle each dimension uses for Baseline 2024 is fixed once, recorded in the decision register, and stated in the same words in every baseline file's README, so that the label means the same thing in every state.
The change between cycles is the finding
The re-audit's verification trail states every figure and code that changed since the prior baseline with its direction, because what a state started publishing, stopped publishing, funded, or restructured between cycles is what the Index exists to record over time. A file is complete for a baseline only when its ledger rows, its notice record, and its release package exist for that version.
Files carrying the baseline label
Count and list of released files at the baseline label, the rollup's status, the deposit, and the ledger, per the register.
As of 13 September 2026
Baseline progress renders here from the register.