School Finance Week 5-Reflections

Part 1

1.) 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.7- A school official drew cash advances saying she was reimbursing expenses from and Educational Fund, but was actually using the money for personal use.

-Short term-administrative leave

-Long term- Charges filed and possible jail time

-Unlikely to find work in this area in the future regardless of the outcome due to a tarnished reputation

2.) 1.3- A teacher at a conference used a receipt from a colleague to request reimbursement for materials purchased by the collegue for her own profit.

     3.)1.2- A school administrator used general school funds to purchase furniture for             

           her home.

-short term-administrative leave pending an investigation

-Reimbursement of funds

-Rport incident to authorities and SBEC

-Charges filed, and possible jail time

-Loss of credentials

4.)  2.6-An administrator used a monetary bribe to persuade teachers to say positive comments to the superintendent regardin the principal even though the statements were not completely true.

5.)  2.3-A school administrator accepted a monetary payment to make the decision in hiring a certain teacher candidate for an open position.

-Administrative leave pending an investigation

-Report incidnet to authorities and SBEC

1.)  Training regarding appropriate forms of tracking expendatures should be in place.  A system should be developed in order to prevent one employee from having direct access to the account.

2.)  A checks and balances system should be in place to verify expenditures of items beyond those of educational material.  Especailly if the amount is at the magnitude of the cost of complete sets of furniture.

3.)  Provide training regarding hiring practices.  The district should have a system developed to monitor the candidates being interviewed.

Part 2

I learned a great deal of information in this course. I do feel like I am at least competent in all areas.  I have a clear understanding of the basic finance areas, but I do not feel comfortable enough to apply these skills on my own.  In the area of personnel and time budgeting I am a part of the technology committee in my district, so this has certainly opened my eyes to the vast concerns and issues in ensuring a technology sound system.  Self-assessment is always difficult for me because I always see room in any area for improvement, but overall I feel I have gained enough knowledge and acquired resources that will guide me in the right direction.

Part 3

I first of all think it was great to be able to work with others in the class.  Posting in all the places was a little difficult, but overall I enjoyed reading the reflections of classmates and working with my wonderful group.  It is hard to narrow down the parts that were the best because I learned something from each of the assignments.  I enjoyed interviewing my superintendent and getting her perspective on the budget.  With the financial times being so difficult in education I am very glad to have this course so that I can have a better understanding of the various funding formulas, projections, and the importance of stakeholder input.  As a campus principal I will certainly have a better understanding of how the overall budget is developed, and will be able to make better decisions about spending on my campus.  The budget I work with is simply a drop in the bucket compared to the overall district budget, but in today’s times every penny counts. 

As I worked through the post course self-assessment I realized that I had a much better understanding in many of the areas compared to pre-course assessment. 

School Finance Week 4-Part 5 Financial Audits

In speaking with Superintendent Dr. Dan Powell CISD’s process for conducting the Annual External Financial Audit mirrors the steps shared in the lecture notes for this week shared by Dr. Lu Stephens.  CISD utilizes the TASBO model format for selection of the external auditor, which includes placing a RFQ for firms to submit their proposal of interest.  The district reviews and verifies the firms’ references and narrows the choices to 2 or 3 firms.  The district then conducts interviews of these firms in order to conclude the final choice.

Once the auditor is selected the auditors come to the district throughout the year to conduct specialized visits.  They let the district know the time of their visit and which documents they will examine.  Towards the end of the audit, which differs based on the district’s financial cycle, the auditors will spend about two weeks going over final documents and conducting final interviews of pertinent staff.   

Once the audit is complete, the firm will prepare a document of their findings for the Board of Trustees.  Within this report the firm will determine if there are any areas of concern.  In the audit shared at our last Board Meeting no areas of difficulty were discovered.  There were two different occasions that funds were over extended, but due to the time of the accounting for those days the money was crossing paths at the bank.  This did not pose any concern for the auditors.

In the case of CISD the audit was given to the district and Board Members a week prior to the called Board Meeting.  During the Board Meeting the auditor shared his report and answered any questions posed by Board Members.  The audit was accepted and voted on for approval during the Board Meeting.

After discussing this process I was surprised to find that the report was not shared with the Superintendent in advance of sharing the report with the board.  There was no allowance for questioning or dispute. 

School Finance Week 4-Part 4 Personnel Salaries

85% of our over $97million dollar budget is staff related costs.   A little over $63 million dollars will be spent this year on instructional costs, which includes teacher salaries.  Due to our competition of such districts as Fort Worth ISD it is imperative that our district maintain a competitive teacher salary in order to recruit quality teaching staff. 

In speaking with my district’s superintendent there positives and negatives to a 5% increase in salary.  On the positive side it provides a short-term morale boost for the staff.  The increase also allows our district to keep up with the market of obtaining and retaining quality staff.  Dr. Powell also sees that it is a gesture to the teachers of their value and importance.  On the negative side the morale boost, mentioned before, is indeed only short-term.  The overall hit to the budget is significant, and does not always get enough boost in morale to offset the cuts made in other areas.  Another negative mentioned by Dr. Powell is the pay increase creates a feeling of obligation and expectation.  For so many years districts were able to provide a step in pay.  Over time teachers became accustomed to receiving the increase in pay, and felt betrayed and let down the year the district was not able to offer such a pay increase

School Finance Week 3 Part 4-M&O Funds

In CISD our maintenance and operations budget is almost equally funded by state and local money, with a very small amount from the federal funds.  Our district has a little over 15, 000 students between two high school feeder patterns.  Our economic disadvantage rate is just over 50% overall.  We are fortunate to have a Career and Technology Center among our facilities, which does bring in additional funding and has proven to be a major boost in attendance and academics at both high schools. 

When I reviewed the School District’s State Aide Report on the TEA website for last year I discovered that our district collected a little over $5 million dollars less than expected in the M&O Collections.  CISD owed the district back money in the end, and pulled in less local revenue than expected.  This was addressed by a second round of RIFs (reduction in force).  The current general operating budget reflects a target revenue of $97,566,539 and an expenditure of $101,348,877, which will hit the Fund Balance for over $3.7 million dollars.  Our fund balance continues to hover in the “OK” range with over $19 million, but cannot take many hits such as this.   Instruction accounts for 63% of our budget.