EDLD 5342- Defining and describing a goal driven budget

A goal driven school district budget should be carefully created to realize the shared vision of a given school district.  The budget for any district should be aligned to the school board goals as well as district and campus improvement plans.  Each of the documents should be fashioned with maximum stakeholder input to ensure communication of the budget creation process and to allow multiple entities to contribute.    Additionally, school district budgets should include a process of evaluating goal attainment.  Districts budgets should include funding to support a continual needs assessment to support this endeavor.

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.  The beginning of the GPISD 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.   Forecasting the amounts received from these aforementioned sources are critical to budget planning.  During an interview with the GPISD superintendent, we discussed 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 forecast.  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.

As discussed in the week 1 lecture of EDLD 5342, the school district budget, just like any other district-level planning document, must include input from all key stakeholders to capture their input as well as communicate the status of the budgeting process.  This is especially important when the budget is forecasted to 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.