Additional Stakeholder Input in the Budgeting Process

            To best understand the different types of input for the budget process, a list will be the best example for each section to describe what they would request from the budget.  Some of the request will be redundant but most of these areas have some of the same needs.

Central Office, Administrators and Staff:  staffing, technology for records, travel, office supplies

Principals:  Staffing, technology for teachers, travel, funds for departments and new programs, technology for students

Site Based Decision Making Committees: Any budgetary concern that would be used to achieve a goal set by the committee.

District Improvement Committees: These committees are used for facilities, teachers, policy, etc.  Some of these committees could be formed for only one purpose, a bond, for example.  This bond would be debt that the voters would assume but raising awareness for that bond could be costly and that would have to come out of budget.

Teacher Organizations: Some teacher organizations would prefer to make request for certain benefits towards teachers, for example, better copiers or high pay.

Key Stakeholders: Businesses in the area may request more after school programs that focus on the field or expertise of their company so that the community becomes better trained to work in that companies field.

Board of Trustees: The board does not get paid for the work that they do, but these members did get elected to make changes or improvements.  Board members, from time to time, may see needs that can be addressed by a budget allotment and you and the board would make those decisions to add to the budget.

Superintendent’s Roles and Responsibilities in the Budgeting Process

            Our interim superintendent is Dr. Robert Denton of Salado.  He has served as superintendent in many districts but with most of his tenure coming at Sherman ISD.  I am lucky enough to pull information from Dr. Denton as well as Mr. Wiggins who accepted his superintendent position at Port Lavaca Calhoun at the end of last year.  We did not have a formal sit down interview but all week I have been calling and asking them questions that pertain to this class. 

            In both cases, the superintendent leads but does not dictate the budget process.  Many times the superintendent does feel the need to lead the discussions but must intervene when needed.  The superintendent should have in mind the board of trustees at all times and what the vision of the district is during the budget process.  He or she should have, in sight, the goals of the district and when any decision is made, it must be made with those in mind.  The superintendent has the final say when it comes to developing the budget but it must be a collaborative decision where to cut and where to add and all must understand the reasons to do so.  Transparency is the key to a budget that is goal, data and stakeholder driven.

Understanding the TEA Budgeting Guidelines Summary

            Funding for public schools is broken down into three areas from which revenue is generated, federal, state and local.  Your federal funds are generated by your WADA and the students associated with your special populations.  Those funds, on average, account for five percent of your districts funding.  Your state funds are generated by your WADA and the special populations but those funds, on average, make up 35 to 40 percent of your districts funding.  Local funds are based off of the local taxable value of the property in your district.  This taxable value will have a tax rate that is associated with it.  That tax is rated on a per $100 value and is usually around $1.00 to $1.50.  This is very dependent upon where you live and the decision of the voters in that district. 

            This information is very hard to understand because so many needs are being addressed in our public school systems.  The complexity of the funding system is built to address those needs and produce equality in the funding system.  It is very evident that the financial coordinator and the superintendent must work together and stay up to date on changes in the legislature.  Not being stagnant in your education and professional development plays a large role in understanding the funding of your school district and making correct decisions in tax rates and budget constraints.  For example, raising your tax rate could be a good way to generate revenue for the district, but raising your tax rate only to have it recaptured by the state would not be a smart move for any superintendent or board.

Five Most Important Dates in the Budget Process

November - District Improvement Plan is presented to the Board – This plan should be goal and data driven and should be developed using stakeholders from different aspects of the community.

March - Budgets due from campus principals, directors and coordinators – These budgets should be developed using the campus improvement plan as well as speaking with the personnel at your campus.

May - Budget Retreat – This is the meeting where we are given the final projections using previous year’s data on how much money we will have to spend next year.  After that is done, the admin team, consisting of principals and directors, use the money the best they can to attain those campus goals.  These meetings are useful because it allows for other administrators to see your budget and how you are planning to attain the district goals.

June - Budgets are presented to the Board by the principals, directors and coordinators – Each person responsible for a budget must present to the board and be prepared to answer questions if needed.

August - Budget is approved by the Board – The most important part of approving a budget is that fact that it is not a deficit budget.  Boards are happy to approve a budget that is balanced.

Goal Driven Budgets

            As I discussed in my assignment relating to Austin ISD’s District improvement plan, your campus budget should be a goal driven budget and not a superintendent driven budget.  Dr. Arterbury states, “The purpose of a goal driven budget is to assist in the attainment of a shared vision for the school district at every campus.”  Communication is always key in your dealings with stakeholders and it holds the same value when dealing with their money.  The challenge arises when you take into account that everyone may have a different vision or idea for what the district should be or become.  That is where you, the change agent, should come in and unite those visions into one. 

            How do you unite all of those different ideas into one shared goal?  Well it will not happen overnight, but it must start with your relationship with the board.  Those board members are elected to represent the community and are given the assignment by their fellow community members to make sure the district is making progress toward the community’s goals.  Therefore you must harbor their relationship to find a shared vision between the eight of you and develop some shared goals.  Those shared goals should be disseminated throughout the district using the district improvement plan and then campus improvement plan.  Those goals should be echoed in every improvement plan meeting and also have a beginning and ending along with being measurable.  Did I mention that goal driven is just as good as data driven?  Your goals should be data driven as well as community driven. 

            Now, with our goals being identified and measurable, now we can collaborate with our administrative team on how to get those goals accomplished and that is where budget comes into play.  Each team member should look at last year’s budget and look at this year’s goals and ask themselves, “Does this budget meet our goals?”  Budget concerns can be a wide array of topics but each team member should examine each budget item and see if the item is goal and data driven toward the districts vision.  Some district’s administrative team members must present their budgets directly to the board and inform the board members why items or money in certain areas are needed.

            Having a goal driven budget is being able to explain every dollar that is being spent and why spending that dollar helps the children of that district.  If you can do this year in and year out, you will be making a difference in a student’s life.

District Improvement Plan Review

            Funding is a hot topic in the state of Texas when it refers to education and this year it will be hotter than most.  Much of that is brought on by the lack of attention funding has received in the previous sessions in the state government.  In Salado ISD, a chapter 41 district, we receive 59% of our funds from local revenue, 36% from state and 5% from federal.  Our operating cost for a year is roughly 11.5 million dollars and we have a K-12 enrollment of 1357.  Broken down our cost per student is around $8500.  With that said, some of our students do not receive their share of those resources.  In a perfect world, we could consider giving that money to each student and telling them they are responsible for getting educated and you are free to get educated in any way you would prefer and in any discipline of your choice.  Now that is farfetched and poses a whole other set of problems but is that the only way you can have equality in education?

            As you would guess, Austin ISD has a much larger budget and I have not done the breakdown on the amount of money per student but I am sure it is somewhere in the ballpark.  Their district improvement plan is vast and covers many different goals of their district.  They have many more programs to support a large amount of students and these programs support students with many different needs.  Living close to Austin, I have been familiar with their district and the community.  The challenging part about Austin ISD is what also makes it great.  Being the state capitol has many perks and many opportunities to drive revenue into the district.  The downside is there is land in your district that is not taxable.  The University of Texas, Texas School for the Deaf and all of the land owned by the people of Texas is not available to be taxed which leaves the bulk of the responsibility on the home owners. 

            Both improvement plans have many differences but if you look closely they are very much alike.  Salado and Austin ISD have their children in mind when they set out to make their district better.  A budget for a district is much like the budget for your home.  You have bills that you must every month and year but what are your goals for your home and your family.  Is it a new car every four years or maybe paying off your home?  At the school district level, you have goals for your district and how to make it better.  Change is the only constant and if you are not improving your district then your district is stagnant.  Just paying the bills and the employees every year is not enough.  You must have goals, those goals must have a beginning and an ending and they must be measurable.  These goals cannot be nameless and faceless and must be accompanied by who is responsible for them and they must be data driven and open to the public.  The district site based committee should develop the district improvement plan so that there is buy in from the community and ownership of the district and its direction.  The improvement plan should include budget amounts and be considered transparent, as all things should be when dealing with community monies.  The improvement plan has a purpose and in my opinion is looked at as a burden more than a path. 

Equality, Equity and Adequacy

            Equality refers to the root word of everything being equal and that holds true for our classrooms.  You want all of the children being given an equal share of their education.  Senate Bill 7 tries to support equality by giving money to districts that they would not normally generate themselves so that they may in turn provide a more equal education.  Another example is the funds that are designated for certain areas of the educational process.

            Equity refers to the needs of the individual student and what these needs may be.  This allows for funding to be greater or lesser depending on what needs each individual student has.  Two examples of equity are students on career and technology paths generate more money for a school district and students who require special education will do the same.

            Adequacy is the term that refers to what level your children are achieving and is it good enough.  An adequate education is what every district strives for and should be striving for a more than adequate education.  Meeting the needs of your students and making sure they pass the standardized testing gives the school district a good picture of their provision of an adequate education. 

Three Basic Issues Impacting the State Formula

            There is nothing basic about the state funding formula for public schools in Texas.  Woody Brewton, long time superintendent in Lorena, and I were talking and when he was informing the state legislature on school finance and when he was asked the question, “how many people in Texas totally understand the state funding formula?”  Woody replied with, “Six people totally understand the formula.”  I understand our formula must meet the needs of many districts, but when it is so complicated that only a few people truly understand it, that is the most important issue.

            The second issue facing our funding formula is Senate Bill 7 or Robin Hood.  I know it has its merit and its heart is in the right place but is this method best for funding Chapter 42 school districts?  Taking money from taxpayers in one district and giving it to another the proper practice?  If someone moves into a district and pays taxes, should that money not go to the children in that district?

            Federal funding is the third issue that faces school districts and not just in Texas.  Since 2002, the federal educational plan or No Child Left Behind, allow for federal monitoring of students and that job their schools were doing.  Average Yearly Progress is the monitoring system that the federal government uses yet their contribution is very small to the overall cost of running a district.  Now this monitoring is needed and we want to keep the states’ rights to educate its children, but the federal government should be contributing more than it does.  If the federal government wants to monitor and govern what the schools are doing, then there should be more of a contribution to the betterment of its countries children.

Three Most Historical Moments in Texas Public Education

            It took great foresight of our fore fathers to see value in education.  The landscape in the 1800’s looked much different in sight as well as in mind.  To provide an education to all who wanted it and to know that it was the government’s responsibility lets us know how important education has been to the people in Texas.  When you plant pecan trees, you will not reap the benefits of the harvest for many years.  That simple metaphor holds true for Texas Public Education.  An early investment my not pay off overnight but will pay large dividends in the future.  With that, the first historical moment came in 1836 when the Texas Declaration of Independence sited the failure of the Mexican Government, “to establish any public system of education, although possessed of almost boundless resources…” among the reasons for severing political ties with Mexico.  This simple act is where it all started and why we do what we do today.

            The second major historical event was the passing of the Gilmer-Aikin Act of 1949.  This act prescribed the reorganization of state education administration while also established the “Minimum Foundation Program,” which created a funding system that provided revenue for education from both state and local sources.  Those sources were broken down into eighty percent of the funding would come from the state and the local funds would furnish the remaining twenty percent.  This act also created an elected State Board of Education that appointed a commissioner of education, and reorganized the administration of state public school policy through the Texas Education Agency.

            Lastly, the third major historical event is Senate Bill 7, better known as Robin Hood, passed in 1993.  This bill allowed for the state to recapture property tax.  The bill has come under much scrutiny, but its heart is in the right place.  The purpose for recapturing revenue from high-wealth districts in using it to fund lower-wealth districts was to improve equity in the funding system.  Although Robin Hood seems too many of those wealthy districts wrong, there is nothing lurking around the corner to take its place.  Once the state opened that box, it will be hard to call back.  That money that has been taken from the wealthier districts and given to the districts having less is counted upon.  If the lawmakers were to do away with Senate Bill 7, the state would have to make up for that lost income for those lesser districts.

Activity #25, Competency 3

            This email and phone message was sent out via School Messenger.  A copy of the web page used for sending out messages to the community is attached.

Activity #4, Competency 3

            I conducted the Math vertical team meeting on January 5, 2011.  In this meeting we spoke about a few key issues that affect the learning of our students.   The area of curriculum and calendar we the most discussed.

            I polled all of the meeting attendees and all of them spoke to me very frankly about my ideas and my presentation of them.  Some of our topics stir a lot of emotion with the team and each member thought that I handled the meeting very well.  I am not going to go into  the issues that were brought up but with the loss of a superintendent and the introduction of change in its first year is not a good combination for a staff.

The minutes are available for viewing on my wiki.

Activity # 23, Competency 7

            We interviewed teachers for an open position that we had in the Math department.  The situation was that a math teacher that we currently employed was awarded another position in their home state and we would let them out of their contract if a replacement was found.  We interviewed three people after receiving twenty five applications.

            We had the math department as a part of the interview committee along with both principals.  We had a very relaxed atmosphere and we allowed for the math team to conduct the interview.  In the end, there was a split decision.  The principal and I were decided on one candidate that was totally certified and experienced while the department was sold on a young candidate that was uncertified but showed a lot of promise.  In the end, the principal made the call and explained the reason for her decision to the interview committee and they understood, but still thought that the unqualified person showed great promise.

            The principal is held responsible for every hire and dismissal at their school.  Using a committee to hire a position gives good insight to your teachers on the process as well as different ideas on how a candidate did in their interview.  In this case, the principal had to explain the process she would have had to go through to hire an unqualified person and then sending out a letter to the parents about her hire.  Then coupled with the fact that this hire is coming at the holiday break would be too many chances to take on an unqualified inexperienced teacher.

Activity #3 Competency 2

Upon learning of our level 3 intervention in ESL Science, our district board and leadership team with the help of our district site base committee put together our plan for improvement.  See the attached plan for explanation of intervention.

            We were very efficient upon learning of the data, disseminating the information and putting a plan together for intervention.  Areas for improvement would be in community relations department.  Using the district site base for intervention ideas and dissemination is good but may not be the best method for informing the community and gathering intervention ideas from the community.  If we took advantage of a broader audience then we may get better ideas for intervention as well as some community involvement and volunteer ideas to help with the intervention.

The intervention is available on my wiki.