School Finance Week 2 Assignment Part 5

At the suggestion of my superintendent, Dr. Pauline Hargrove, I interviewed our Assistant Superintendent and Business Manager, Mr. Greg Perry, for this portion of the assignment. I gained a great deal of insight from Mr. Perry as he walked me through the budgeting process. Mr. Perry explained the Texas Education Agency’s Summary of Finance Template and the importance of also using the school finance templates from Region XIII. Mr. Perry uses the Region XIII templates to determine the amount of money the school is eligible to receive from the state. Since the TEA Summary of Finance template is comprised of figures set for two years in each legislative session, the school may receive more money from the state than it is entitled to receive. Knowing the amount the school should receive prevents problems, since the excess amount must be returned to the state.

Mr. Perry then explained the budget calendar and the roles of several groups in developing the budget.

First, the Central Office Administrators and Staff are responsible for conducting research into staffing and facility needs. These staff members also play a part in developing budgets for their individual departments. Four departments reside in the Central Office: Business, including the Superintendent; Curriculum, Food Service, and Community Relations. Each of these departments must submit a proposed budget to the Assistant Superintendent/ Business Manager.

The campus principals are each given an allocation based on a per student amount. Each campus gets the same per student amount, and if cuts are made, those cuts are applied to the per student allocation. Each campus principal must develop a budget with input from the campus site based decision-making committee. This budget must fall within the allocated amount, be approved by the site based committee, and be submitted to the Assistant Superintendent.

Site Based Decision Making Committees have the responsibility for approving campus budgets. The campus budgets should reflect the goals set by the committee.

The District Improvement Committee receives an overview and explanation of the district budget. This committee has the option of looking at specific items in the budget and submitting additional items for possible review and inclusion in the budget. An example of one of these additional items would be a teacher benefit the committee wanted to investigate.

Teacher Organizations always have the opportunity to bring forth ideas and requests, but their main involvement in the budget has been to request information regarding salary schedules and the date of their release.

Key Stakeholders have the right to examine the budget and attend public hearings on the adoption of the budget. Required notices for budget and tax rate hearings are placed in the paper so that stakeholders have the opportunity to attend.

The Board of Trustees is given a copy of the budget to examine so that they may ask questions and be informed. The Board ultimately hears the presentation/ explanation and officially approves and adopts the budget.

The budget adoption process is a lengthy process that involves many people. It is important for people to have input and explanations throughout the process so that a fair and appropriate budget is adopted. I have learned so much more about the “big picture” of the budget process than what I previously knew from developing my department’s portion of the budget and from my service on district site based committees. I am grateful that I got the chance to interview Mr. Perry and learn so much.