EDLD 5342 District Goal Driven Budgets

Week 2 assignment Part 1

Goal Driven Budget

A goal driven school district budget is a shared vision of the school district and each campus. The budget should be aligned to the school board goals as well as district and campus improvement plans.  Each of the plans should be developed with maximum stakeholder input to ensure communication of the budget components to allow multiple entities to contribute.  Additionally, school district budgets should include a process to measure goal attainment. District budgets should include funding to support a continual needs assessment to support this process.

As demonstrated in the TASBO Budget Development Power Point, the school district budgeting process should culminate before the beginning of the current fiscal year with a board-approved budget; however, the process should extend the entire year leading up to the state-articulated deadline.  The school district budget should reflect needs uncovered through a continual needs assessment of the prior year’s budget along with consideration for any budgeting adjustments required due to an increase/decrease in the school district funds.  GPISD’s district improvement plan begins with a statement of most recent student performance data, state and federal accountability indicators, and required compliance measures.  These indicators are followed by an evaluation of needs.  Upon reading the district goals, it is easy to see the goals reflect district improvement needs as well as the maintenance of successful programs.  School district funding comes from multiple sources.  The district estimates revenue from the state foundation school program and local property taxes.  Federal and funding from private sources should not be forgotten.  Delinquent tax collections, fees money collected from extracurricular services, and grant funding are often much smaller sources of revenue that must be accounted for in the budgeting process.  Estimating the amounts received from these sources is critical to budget planning.  During an interview with the GPISD Assistant Superintendent for Finance, we talked about the impact of recent decreases in state funding of public schools in Texas.  Since majority of any district’s budget funds employee salaries, staffing formulas are dependent on an accurate revenue projection.  Districts must often reduce staffing when a large budget shortfall is projected.  If a budget shortfall is projected, the district must reduce staffing while still work to achieve district and campus goals.  Communication about these challenges must be communicated to school district community members as well as school district employees. 

The school district budget must include input from all key stakeholders. This is important when there is a possibility that the budget is forecast may vary greatly.  In this type of event, district goals and budgets will need to be realigned to adjust for an increase/decrease in revenue.  The budgeting process should start well in advance of final approval right before the beginning of the fiscal year, with the first glimpses of district revenues described through a district budget forecast.  The district and each campus should involve their site-based decision making committee in the goal and budget-setting processes.  Since site-based decision making committees are required to include educators as well as parents and business leaders, a district can ensure that stakeholders from key parts of the school community are involved in the budget process.  Additionally, these individuals will understand the goals of the district as well as the challenges, should the district budget decrease.