TEA Budgeting Guidlines

The TEA Budgeting Guidelines are very informative and really helped me realize just how complex the whole budgeting process is.  It is very comprehensive as it gave a great overview of what a budget is and how the process works. 
    I liked the descriptions it gave about site-based budgeting and zero-based budgeting.  When I met with out chief financial officer, he told me that our budget was a combination of the two.  However, I believe most of the budgeting decisions for the district are still site-based.  When I read TEA’s description of site-based budgeting, I realized that this is exactly what I am asked to do every year as a campus principal. 
    The section on TEA legal requirements would be very beneficial when preparing a budget.  There are a lot of legalities involved and so it is important to make sure the district is in compliance.  This is where the TEA Budgeting Guidelines would be beneficial.  It would be easy to forget one of these important steps without these guidelines in place. 
    The TEA Guidelines also listed all the stakeholders as well as their roles and responsibilities.  This would be invaluable information to help ensure that you do not leave important stakeholders out of the loop.  This information also serves to make sure that the groups are operating in their correct capacity.  For example, this section lists the campus improvement committee.  Using this chart would ensure that you do not leave the CIC out of the process while at the same time serves as a reminder that they are to review the preliminary budget and non-allocated fund requests.  This would be important information to have on hand while preparing the year’s budget.  As a principal, this section lists all of my duties involved with budget preparation. 
    I would also rely heavily on the budget calendar when preparing a budget.  Our class assignment of listing the top five dates helped me really understand these dates better.  Many of these dates serve as guidelines to help the budget process stay on track.  These dates would be key in helping meet the mandatory dates.  The dates would serve to help meet the end of August deadline to have the budget adopted.  No one would have all these dates and actions memorized, so having them listed in one place is a great resource. 
    I found this document to be very thorough but also gave me a little information overload.  I found appendix I, School-Based Budgeting Guidelines Sample to be helpful.  This document took all the important parts from the TEA Guidelines and synthesized it into a budget plan.  The appendix gave a simple five step process to budget planning.  I would find this information very helpful to reference when planning a budget. 

Goal Driven Budget

A goal driven budget is very important to the district planning process.  All districts implement goal driven budgeting to some degree; however, many districts are probably not implementing this process to its fullest degree.  According to the lecture the purpose of the goal driven budget is to, “assist in the attainment of a shared vision for the school district and each campus.  Goal driven budgeting is implemented in any district to the point that a common goal is shared and funds are allocated towards that goal.  This process many times fails to take into account input from various stakeholders.  Input from all stakeholders should lead to a definite connection between the Board of Trustees and the district and campus goals stated in the improvement plans.  When this level of connection occurs, it is evident of a goal driven budget. 
    In Rice ISD I know our budget is goal driven up to the point I have been involved with the process.  On each campus site based committees work with the principal and other campus level stakeholders to develop goals for the campus along with budget requirements.  Principals meet with the superintendent to make sure the campus goals are in line with the district goals.  In late August the board approves the budget for the upcoming year after several budget reviews.  Because of the involvement of the board in this process, I assume the goals and budget reflects the Board’s goals, but I do not know exactly to what degree.  The Rice ISD district improvement plan is specific with goals; however, it is very non-specific with money amounts.  It simply states if the funds are locally or federally provided. 
    Our deputy superintendent is the one who oversees the budget.  His primary job responsibility is to work with the Summary of finance Template that is provided by the Texas Education Agency.  He also is responsible for making sure the goals of each campus and district are aligned.  Our deputy superintendent makes sure there is open communication to all budget stakeholders. 
   

Deputy Superintendent Interview

I was only able to speak with our deputy superintendent briefly about this assignment.  In our district the superintendent is primarily over things dealing with curriculum and instruction while our deputy superintendent serves as the chief financial officer for the district.
    The first thing he wanted me to know was that our budget planning is primarily site-based; however there is no official site based team.  The district is small with only three schools.  Principals and program directors are asked for input into the budget.  Some items are zero-based as well.  Knowing your ADA and WADA is very important when planning the budget.  These must be taken into account.  ADA is basically how much money the school will get based on attendance.  WADA takes into account that is cost more to educate some students than others.  These numbers determine your funding.  Out ADA last year was 738, but our WADA was 1149.  We also get money from free and reduced lunch students of about 120,000 and title I money is about 119,000. 
    Requests for budget proposals go out in March to principals and program directors.  They meet with faculty and staff to determine needs.  These are returned by the end of April.  The proposals are returned and discussed.  A preliminary budget is drafted by mid June.  The final budget is approved by the board in late August after 2-3 budget studies.  Funds do not roll over from one year to the next.  The budget is approved at the August board meeting. 
    With everything going on in our district right now, I appreciate his willingness to give me this information, especially with some actual numbers.