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.