Week 2-School Finance

Part 1-Goal Driven Budget

As presented in the lecture for this week, a goal driven budget is a budget that expends funds based on achievement of the Board of Trustees Goals.  I was not able to meet with my Superintendent until next week, so for this week’s assignment I received input from my district’s Financial Officer, Dwayne Jones.  Based on his input, and my own personal experience as a principal, our district improvement plan and the campus improvement plans are directly aligned.  Both improvement plans are also aligned with the Board of Trustees goals.  Within these plans each source of funding is addressed through action plans.  Each goal and objective has an action plan.  Within the action plan are a list of expected outcomes and activities to meet these outcomes.  The source of funding is then listed.  Not only is actual money a source of funding, but time and people is also a form of funding.  This information is also shared within the improvement plans.

Also mentioned by Mr. Jones is the key importance to only budget needs and not wants.  In today’s lean times it is imperative that funding be utilized for the items and activities that we as leaders truly think will bring about expected results.   
Part 2-Final Top Five List
1.October-Board Meeting to adopt Staffing Formula and Guidelines
-Staffing typically makes up 85% of the budget it is important to have a clear understanding for the number of staff members impacting the budget. This would also include salaries, benefits, and payroll taxes.
2.November- December-Collect Student Projections and Student/Teacher Ratio/Finalize PEIMS data
Preliminary Estimate of Taxable Values received from Central Appraisal District, Budget Review, and Review Revenue Projections
-The budget is based on the number of students to be served and the amount of money they will bring to the budget.
This gives the district a better view of money coming into the district. The district must have a clear understanding of the amount of money they are working with.
3. January-March- Preliminary Budget Review and Community Budget Input Meetings
-A chance for the budget team to review the data, gather stakeholder input, and ensure the budget is on the right path.  The team should look at projected revenue and expenses.
4. June-Early in the month-Board of Trustees Briefing-Proposed Budget Review/ End of June Board Meeting for Tax Rate Hearing and Budget Adoption
-The Tax Rate Hearing is required, and the board must adopt the proposed budget on or before August 20.
5. August-Adopt Tax Rate
-Adoption of the tax rate is also required and sets the amount of income expected by the district.  Adoption of the tax rate is the end of the process for one school year, and begins the process for another.

There are so many key pieces to the development of the budget it is hard to narrow it down to five.  As reflected by my group’s list we felt the need to combine some activities into specific dates to meet the needs of formulating a well-rounded budget.  As mentioned in the lecture the two key pieces are the WADA and the Certified Taxable Values.  Clean PEIMS data is crucial to ensuring maximum money is brought to the district for each student.  Equally important is the Certified Taxable Values which determines the amount of money needed from the state to fund program allocations. 

Part 3-Understanding the TEA Budgeting Guidelines

After reading the TEA Budgeting Guidelines January 2010 I realize how much I do not know about our budget system.  I have been fortunate to work under two Superintendents during my administrative career that have been extremely knowledgeable in the area of school finance.  Before this course I thought that was very lucky for us as a district, but now I realize that this was not just a positive characteristic, but instead a requirement by the board.  Since our district is larger we have a CFO which I felt was the key individual in the finance system.  As portrayed in the reading and in the course lectures, the Superintendent is the district’s budget officer.  I can see having assistance in the area of finance, but as the superintendent would need to have the ability to have a clear understanding of the system on one’s own. 

I learned a great deal about different types of budgets and why or why not they may be useful.  In my district we use the line-item budget.  I was interested to learn more about the Performance Budgeting.  As explained in the reading this approach to budgeting because it provides more narrative details and a clearer basis of evaluating administrators.  The challenge with this approach is predicting the cost of each activity.  Some activities are easier than others.  In my opinion this part should be done in the campus and district improvement plans and then lead to a line-item budget for transparency purposes.

I also learned a great deal in regards to TEC laws that must be followed and then the requirements put in place by TEA and Local expectations.  I had no idea how much time is spent on planning and forecasting.  I knew how much this was done before the start of the school year, but did not realize how much adjustment took place throughout the school year.

I am particularly interested in spending more time with the Grant Funded portion of the document to gain understanding in this area.  I have heard central administration discuss grant funding, and have asked for certain data in the past, but I have not been directly involved in following this process.  I would assume this area has been decreased over time and fewer funds have been available, but at this point in the budgeting “game” any money is helpful.

Part 4-Superintendent’s Roles and Responsibilities in the Budgeting Process

Unfortunately, I was not able to meet with my superintendent until next week due to the holidays and schedule conflicts.  Instead I received input from my site-supervisor, Ms. Theresa Kohler, and the district Financial Officer, Dwayne Jones.  Based on input from Ms. Kohler and Mr. Jones, and in conjunction with this week’s lecture, it is obvious the superintendent serves as the budget officer for the district.  It is his/her responsibility to gather input from the stakeholders, and propose a balanced budget that will meet the needs of the students and stay aligned with Board goals.  Both individuals emphasized the need to stay within legal requirements for budget preparation, and how important it is to get input from all stakeholders.  The need for clean student data has been a focus in our district for the past couple of years.  Two years ago two of our campuses were rated “Unacceptable” based on data regarding leavers.  The computer system we were using had a glitch and converted codes incorrectly when sending in our PEIMS data.  This was a tremendous blow to our district and has resulted in the loss of trust by some of the stakeholders.  Since this time our district has provided a great deal of training, and is in the process of securing a new data reporting system. So much rides on the fact that the data is clean.

After discussion with these two individuals I realize how much responsibility the superintendent holds regarding the budget; yet how much relies on the ability and input of others.  In our district data clerks are responsible for the input of data.  Due to the nature of CISD’s situation with unclean data and computer errors in the past this has certainly been an area of focus.  It is also the responsibility of the superintendent to stay up on current legal requirements, regardless of the support of other financial leaders in the district.  I intend to ask these questions of Superintendent Dr. Powell when I meet with him next week and would venture to guess he will have more details to give.  His style seems to be to rely on those he has employed, but have enough knowledge and input to keep everything on the right path.  I know he will also have input regarding the working relationship of the Board.

Part 5 Stakeholder Input

Ø  Central Office Administrators and Staff,: What data systems must be budgeted for, training needs, projects,

Ø  Principals,: Campus budgets based on Campus Improvement Plan needs

Ø  Site Based Decision Making Committees,: Areas of need from Needs Assessment and input to Campus Improvement Plan

Ø  District Improvement Committee: Areas of needs from Needs Assessment and input to District Improvement Plan

Ø  Teacher Organizations: Information should funnel through the District and Campus planning committees

Ø  Key Stakeholders,:  These individuals should be a part of the Needs Assessments and District and Campus Improvement Plans

Ø  Board of Trustees: They should take a global approach and ensure money allocations will meet the needs of district goals and objectives

After discussion and readings the outside stakeholders should not have a direct line to the budget, but instead should be utilized when developing the campus and district improvement plans.  This input is then utilized by the campus and district leaders to determine the exact way in which the money will be spent.  The Board is ultimately in charge of approving the budget as presented by the Superintendent.  The Superintendent will propose a budget based on the input of campus and district leaders, which should be based on the input of stakeholders.  Stakeholders should not make direct recommendations to the Superintendent or the Board, and the Board must be careful to keep personal agendas out of the equation.

The Superintendent must work to ensure the Board members are up to date in all areas of the budget.  The Board needs to be able to address questions and concerns from stakeholders regarding the expenditure of “their” money.

School Finance Week 1 Reflections-Parts 1-4

Part 1 Historical Events:

Although many lawsuits and changes to the school finance system have occurred over the years, it is evident that the foundation of the Texas Education Finance System has not made the needed progress to keep up with the changing times.  Our group agreed that the establishment of free and appropriate education in 1845 was certainly the number one event in school finance history.  Although many key factors led up to this establishment, the establishment of free schools through the Texas Constitution serves as the foundation for our system.  Post war era led to the need for additional school funding.  In 1947 the Gilmer-Aiken committee was established to address this funding concern.  The laws that were passed during the 51^st Legislative Session in 1949 would significantly impact school funding and how schools operated. This organized approach to supplementing local taxes was an attempt to adequately fund public education.  Although many lawsuits were filed, our group decided that the Edgewood v Kirby lawsuit leading to the 1993 “Robin Hood Plan” was significant, and affected schools in many different ways.  All of us in administration now probably have recollection of this plan.  I am sure a person’s opinion of the effectiveness of this plan would depend on which end of the plan you were on.  Property wealthy districts probably felt that their “hard earned money” was being taken unfairly, and I am sure property poor districts felt the money was owed to them.  I think it would be interesting to require property wealthy districts to operate under the budget of a property poor district and then get their opinion. 

Part 2 State Formula:

The state finance system is mind boggling.  Once you think you are gaining understanding something changes.  I remember our Chief Finance Officer discussing how many different funding templates were used last year before the final template was selected.  The Foundation School Program is just as it title implies, the foundation of the finance system.  Tier 1 formulas are comprised of adjustments, weights, and allotments as is the basic system for each district.  Tier 2 is comprised of a variety of allotments depending on various subgroup populations.  Many districts focus on the attendance of students to ensure the maximum amount of money is brought to the funding table.  Although it appears that if a child comes to school you get equal dollars for each child that is not in fact the bottom line.  The Weighted Average Daily Attendance brings different amounts of money based on the needs of the student in attendance.  This poses a challenge in some areas considering students that bring in extra dollars are often the populations that experience low attendance.  Special Education students experience health concerns in some instances that hinder their attendance, and economically disadvantaged students have a difficult time with transportation in some issues.  This has been a topic in my district many times.  For my particular campus we have Section 8 housing just within the two mile radius of the school, so bus transportation is not provided; however when we have inclement weather these students historically do not attend school because they would have to walk.  I also have a class that has medically fragile children that do not miss enough consecutive days to require Homebound Services, but miss more than the average student.

The local property tax serves as one of the two basic sources of funds.  The state formula is intended to reduce the tax base difference in order to provide an equal, equitable, and adequate level of funding for all districts, as mentioned by Dr. Arterbury in the lecture.  The Robin Hood Plan was developed to help address this issue, and depending on which end of the plan one was on would probably weigh on one’s opinion of the plan.  The attempt to equalize district allocations took money from property wealthy and gave it to property poor.  Whether or not this was the best way to address the equality issue it was at least an attempt to level the education playing field.

Our group decided on inflation as another key factor in the state formula.  Although we have more money in the system than in the past, it is barely meeting the needs of students.  If changes are not made to the funding soon I believe that we will be looking at cuts to extra programs that are as necessary to education in today’s times as the core content areas.

Part 3 Equality, Equity and Adequacy

This goes back to the age old question of “Is equal fair and is fair equal?”  Equality in the state funding formula is intended to bring about an equal base of education that benefits all students.  Funding for the core content areas and money for required facilities.  Individual needs are met by the equity funds allotted for special populations of students; special education and economically disadvantaged students would also fall in this category.  In my opinion equity is intended to level the field for students that need more educational assistance than an average student.  Adequacy issues arise in the areas of teacher pay and costs of textbooks.  What quality of support is provided to students; this is the behind the scenes money in my opinion.

Part 4 Improvement Plan Comparison

With the exception of Appendix B PBMAS, the Austin ISD does not link direct funding to specific activities in an easy to read format.  The Austin ISD Improvement Plan gives a great deal of detail to meeting minutes, and specific notes, and also gives a overall general budget by category, but for Compensatory Funds it lists basic programs and positions funded with no explanation of detail and expected outcomes.  External Grants/Federal Funds are given a direct source, but once again does not give specific expectations and desired outcomes.  The PBMAS Appendix B does give specifics regarding goals, measurable evidence, specific activities, funding and resources, and timelines.  I would expect this format to be utilized for other Goals and Objectives as well.  Crowley ISD has taken a more activity based approach to the improvement plan process.  CISD lists specific goals, objectives, performance indicators, evaluation tools, and funding sources for each activity.  CISD also includes a list of Federal Funding Sources at the end and the general expenditure group to utilize the funds.  Action Plans are developed for each objective and goal that lists the activity/strategy, Title I Component, Timeline, Responsible Staff, and Resources/Funding.  Crowley ISD does not address PBMAS as a separate section, but rather embeds the expectations within the specific activities for each of the goals and objectives.

I believe the PBMAS portion of the AISD Improvement Plan is comparable to the CISD Improvement Plan.  I believe this format would make the rest of the AISD plan much easier to understand, and would show direct correlation between funding and goals.  The AISD format is cumbersome to get through.  CISD utilizes a narrative format that bullets items and also includes a table that correlates goal activities with specific source of funding, which I believe is the intent of Improvement Plans.

 

School Finance Week 1

Comparison of Austin ISD Improvement Plan and Crowley ISD Improvement Plan:

With the exception of Appendix B PBMAS, the Austin ISD does not link direct funding to specific activities in an easy to read format.  The Austin ISD Improvement Plan gives a great deal of detail to meeting minutes, and specific notes, and also gives a overall general budget by category, but for Compensatory Funds it lists basic programs and positions funded with no explanation of detail and expected outcomes.  External Grants/Federal Funds are given a direct source, but once again does not give specific expectations and desired outcomes.  The PBMAS Appendix B does give specifics regarding goals, measurable evidence, specific activities, funding and resources, and timeline.  I would expect this format to be utilized for other Goals and Objectives as well.  Crowley ISD has taken a more activity based approach to the improvement plan process.  CISD lists specific goals, objectives, performance indicators, evaluation tools, and funding sources for each activity.  CISD also includes a list of Federal Funding Sources at the end and the general expenditure group to utilize the funds.  Action Plans are developed for each objective and goal that lists the activity/strategy, Title I Component, Timeline, Responsible Staff, and Resources/Funding.  Crowley ISD does not address PBMAS as a separate section, but rather embeds the expectations within the specific activities for each of the goals and objectives.

I believe the PBMAS portion of the AISD Improvement Plan is comparable to the CISD Improvement Plan.  I believe this format would make the rest of the AISD plan much easier to understand, and would show direct correlation between funding and goals.  The AISD format is cumbersome to get through.  CISD utilizes a narrative format that bullets items and also includes a table that correlates goal activities with specific source of funding, which I believe is the intent of Improvement Plans.