Stakeholder Input to the District Budget

During my meeting with the assistant superintendent for finance and operations, I asked him about the level of input provided to our district budget process by the following groups of individual stake holders:

Ø  Central Office Administrators and Staff – these personnel are the leaders in the budgeting process of the district. They make recommendations and decisions about their departments and about the programs which they administer at each campus. They also help problem solve when difficult decisions need to be made. 

Ø  Principals – their input is invaluable in determining discretionary budget levels at each campus and in developing plans for expenditures of departmental funds to accomplish campus and district goals at their campus and with their student bodies. Principals garner the input of the campus staff, parents and campus improvement teams (SBDM). Their input reflects that of stakeholders from the grass roots of education, such as parents, teachers, and community and business representatives.

Ø  Site Based Decision Making Committees – These team members provide a wide base of experience and varied perspectives that help principals make decisions about expenditures and about how previous expenditures have fared as programs or initiatives are implemented. Most of their input relevant to the district budget development is funneled through the principal during district level budge planning meetings.

Ø  District Improvement Committee – in our district, the DIC has a huge impact on the professional development budget of the district. This group of people help develop the goals and direction of the professional development program.

Ø  Teacher Organizations- in our district, these organizations really have little impact except as their agendas influence the input from committee members on the DIC. The assistant superintendent expressed that in larger districts, input from these organizations is often felt as their membership is greater there. He also stated that in states where teacher unions exist, the input from those organizations is greater than in Texas.

Ø  Key Stakeholders- in Belton ISD key stake holders are consulted as part of large-impact district level committees such as the Long Range Facilities Planning Committee which is responsible for planning when bond elections will be held to address district growth needs and how much the district will ask from the voters.

Ø  Board of Trustees – The board is the approving body of the budget and has large input throughout the development process. They carry the responsibility of budget approval. In our district, the board has continued to be a unified voice that has supported the district administration’s direction. We have been fortunate that the district vision has moved in the same direction that the board has desired. This is not by accident as a great working relationship has been nurtured and has existed between our board and the district administration for years – even through transitions from previous to new board members.

The type of input received from stakeholders in Belton ISD did not surprise me. I have been a member of several planning committees in the district including our Student Health Advisory Committee and the District Long Range Facilities Planning Committee over the past ten years. Not only are teachers, students, parents, business people, and community members invited to be members of the committees, but their active participation is solicited and encouraged. I have personally witnessed a string of meetings during which public input has changed direction of district initiatives by revealing the community’s needs, desires, and concerns. I work in a district that is located in and serves an involved and caring community. As a district, we respond to them and have developed a great working relationship that has helped us remain fiscally responsible to our taxpayers while providing improvements that have continued to guarantee our high quality of education.

An Interview with the Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations

On August 31, 2011, I interviewed our Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations. This individaul is the direct supervisor of the Executive Director of Finance. He began the description of the administrative staff responsibilities in preparing the budget with an explanation of district policy.  District policy states that it is the responsibility of the superintendent to prepare and submit to the Board a proposed budget and to administer the budget. The assistant superintendent briefly described the basic steps used in budget development in Belton ISD which begins in January when campus principals and department heads meet with district level leaders to discuss developing needs and the analogous goals developed to address those needs as well as requests for funds for personnel or materials to meet the goals. The administrative team that meets with each campus and department head begins each meeting by reviewing the district goals and the mission and vision of the district to ensure a commitment to those common goals. The Human Resources department holds meetings to review staffing guidelines based on projected enrollment while the district leadership team looks for ways to balance the requests made from campuses with published staffing guidelines. At the same time, requests for capital outlay projects for each campus in support of identified district and campus goals are considered along with programmed replacement cycles for technology equipment. All of these meetings are led by the superintendent who asks the tough questions and provides guidance and alternate ideas. In our district, the leadership team made up of the Superintendent, deputy superintendent, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, and the assistant superintendent for finance and operations are all involved in the process as a team. Their individual experience and expertise is valued and listened to. But it is the superintendent that is ultimately responsible for preparing the budget so she takes responsibility for the final decision.

     I was not surprised that the superintendent is involved so heavily in the process of budget development. The budget is the item that can produce positive or negative public sentiment at the drop of a hat (or at the rise of a tax!) If managed improperly the budget can sink the superintendent. It is the item that takes the most amount of paper in the board packets prepared for each monthly meeting and it is the fuel that keeps district operations flowing. All of our great instructional ideas are in jeopardy if the budget is not planned properly or aligned with our instructional goals. In Belton ISD, we have been fiscally responsible in our expenditures, in our debt service, in our bond issues, and with our investments. At a time when other districts have had to lay-off personnel, Belton ISD has made no lay-offs and was actually able to provide a 1% pay raise this year. All of this reflects well on our superintendent. Although she would be quick to give any due credit to her core team, she is the boss and is held personally responsible for budgetary decisions. 

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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Top Five Events in Budget Development

Top Five steps in the budgeting process:

1.  Conduct needs assessment (to include a review of projected enrollment and projected taxable values) and identify campus and district initiatives and goals. – I think this step is important because in a goal driven budget, expenditures must support the goals of the district. Most districts will agree that the essential goal is to improve student achievement but each district will pursue that ultimate goal through varying initiatives. The review of enrollment and projected taxable values is an important aspect of planning because it represents the number of customers your budget will serve, and will help estimate the amount of revenue you can expect to fund the servicing of those customers.

2.  Conduct Staffing decision-making (to include benefits packages) and produce proposed pay scale for next instructional year. Since 80%+ of the budget consists of personnel wages and benefits, the number of staff to be employed to serve your students in the coming year is of incredible importance.

3.  Prepare draft budget. Obviously preparation of a draft budget allows stakeholders to see in concrete terms the direction of the leadership. The ability to see the ideas allows other stakeholders to provide input in order to help review and adjust the budget.

4.  Budget hearings and workshops with the board of trustees are important steps in the process of budget development because it is the official step that includes public comments and input from outside of the district staff and administration.

5.  Approve the budget and Set the tax rate – This is the final step in completing the budget aside from periodic amendments that may be necessary throughout the school year.

The review of the steps in the budgeting process forced me to examine in detail all of the recommended steps in the TEA budgeting calendar/guidelines. The process is not one that is easy to break into five general steps because it contains so many steps and goes on continuously throughout the school year. Certain pieces of information that are necessary for the budgeting process to be “complete” only become available at particular points in time. So, the process can not be completed in one all-nighter in mid April. The process must be followed and pursued daily, weekly, monthly. The budget then is never “Complete;” it is approved for the current school year and then the work begins again for the next year’s budget. It is a never-ending cycle. 


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Goal Driven Budgets

If the school district is a car then the goals of the school district set by district leadership and the board are the steering system; the people, systems, and initiatives of the school district are the engine that turn the wheels; and the budget of the school district is the fuel by which it runs. In a school district, leaders – including the superintendent and his/her staff – along with the school board and other key stake holders, set goals for the school district based on comprehensive needs assessment. Among these goals are benchmarks for improvement of all aspects of the instructional program. To take the car analogy further, there are many different models – as many as there are school districts in the state. Each district sets goals that fit their student body, their communities’ needs, and their particular geo-political/social situation. But it is the goals that steer the vehicle and determine where the “fuel” of the budget drives the engine. Does the engine have more accessories such as air conditioning and a CD player (analogous to intervention programs or particular initiatives)? Or does the engine have more cylinders (analogous to more personnel)?  This is an illustration of “goal driven budgeting.” The goal driven budget is one that places the instructional goals of the district in the driver’s seat – the position of steering the district toward improvement. A budget is then created that supports those goals through expenditures that fund the resources the district needs to accomplish the goals set by the leadership. There should be a direct relationship between how money is spent in the school district and the goals that the district has adopted. If the goals indicate a priority, then the budget should also indicate that same priority.

I will use my district improvement plan as an example. Our district Policy CE(LOCAL) states:

“Budget planning shall be an integral part of overall program planning so that the budget effectively reflects the District’s programs and activities and provides the resources to implement them. In the budget planning process, general educational goals, specific program goals, and alternatives for achieving program goals shall be considered, as well as input from the District- and campus-level planning and decision-making committees. Budget planning and evaluation are continuous processes and shall be a part of each month’s activities.”

One of our board goals is, “All campuses in BISD will achieve success on the State's student achievement and quality of learning indicators to prepare students to live, learn, and lead in an ever-changing global economy.” In, with, and under this goal is the district thrust to utilize new instructional models that are supported by cutting edge technology. One of the strategies to support this goal is to fund the transformation of our alternative high school to a New Tech Model. To support this strategy, $3 million was dedicated through the budget for various trainings, observations, technology, personnel, and the required partnership with the New Tech Network that are necessary to initiate the transformation. This was funded with proceeds from a grant. Additionally, to support the transformation, renovations to the current building were needed. The conditions of the grant prohibited using grant funds to pay for renovations so the district dedicated another $3 million of local funds for the needed renovations. Obviously, the success of this endeavor is a priority for the district. Another example is a second strategy to support the same goal of implementing a new instructional design at our new middle school. Over $400,000 was dedicated to the training of faculty and staff needed to implement the Challenge Based Learning model of instruction at the campus. Additionally, to support the new instructional model, a one-to-one iPad initiative was funded with an additional $500,000 of local funds.  It is obvious that the goal and the supporting strategies were written with specificity followed by the pursuit of the funding. Dr. Arterbury suggested in the lecture that the board goals should be reflected in the campus and department goals to ensure alignment. We definitely see this alignment in the district and campus improvement plans in Belton ISD. Each district goal is a board approved goal for the district and each campus improvement goal is a direct translation of the district and board goals as they are applied to each individual campus. Each department and campus then uses funds to pay for personnel and materials to specifically address each goal. 


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