Reflection on the TEA Budget Guidelines

     Principals in my current district are expected to attend each regular meeting of the board of trustees. Aside from ensuring that the board knows we are unified as a team with them, attending the board meetings over the past ten years has exposed me to discussion and explanation of many aspects of district management that many administrators with my years of experience have not had. The budget process takes up, appropriately, a vast amount of time on the board agendas. If I am being honest, I have to admit that when budgets were brought up, I would pay attention until I got lost in jargon about WADA and taxable values. Once I lost the track of the conversation, I would tune into something else further down in the board packet and wait until the matter was approved so we could move on to a more interesting agenda item. As a principal, I was genuinely interested in only the bottom line for my campus.

     After reading the TEA guidelines, I have a greater appreciation of the complexity and minutia of the process of developing a comprehensive district budget that encompasses all aspects of district operations. This greater understanding of the jargon, the process, and the ingredients of the district budget process will definitely help me understand our district budget and help me become a contributor. Understanding all of this really helps me tie all of the district level planning (whether financial or instructional) together into a package that, until this course, were compartmentalized in my mind. I realize now just how key the key leadership positions of each department (such as PEIMS, Transportation, SPED, Title I, and Maintenance) are in attending to all of the balls that must be juggled and balanced to make the budget formula work. I also have a greater appreciation of the importance of choosing a core leadership team comprised of individuals who are experts in their areas of responsibility: people whom one can trust but with whom the superintendent can work closely in an open and collaborative fashion. I have learned that the position of business manager (or director of finance) is one that requires expertise in finance in general but specifically in school finance as the requirements here are so different from the regular business world.

     At the risk of sounding short sighted in my past, the understanding of the budget process has opened my eyes to the interconnectedness of the different positions in the district administrative team and the connection between district improvement planning and the district budget. It’s as if I recently discovered my nose. I know that the knowledge gained from reading the TEA Budget Guidelines will take years to master but having the basic knowledge will allow me to participate and contribute as a member of a district level team. My learning this week has not made me a budget expert but it has prepared me to become a junior team member who is prepared to contribute.


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