School District Budget Essay

As the newly promoted director of student achievement for Washington, D.C Public Schools, I am fully committed to the expansion of current program offerings as well as the creation of additional programs. To achieve this, I will make use of the principles learned in my graduate budgeting course to assess the current financial situation, plan the department’s future direction, create and implement the new annual budget, and lastly, evaluate the success of the programs and the budget in preparation of repeating these steps.

Consider each of the local sources of income that support school districts. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each in relation to equity, yield, and taxpayer acceptance?

Working as the budget director for the mayor of the city of Kelsey, we have recently been getting numerous complaints from the citizens about an increase in crime and also an issue of the public demanding for more police officers. With the population of the city growing daily, the increase of crime is continuing to progress as well. The mayor has informed us that this past year is the highest increase in crime in the city’s history, that the federal government has reduced the federal pass-through money for the state and that the budgeting group needs to revamp the budget for the coming year. Within this document as the

Capital budgeting is a precise substantial process that the (FLDOE) integrates in their financial management measures that the agency uses in determining investment and current expenditures. It is the development which includes the determination and the evaluation of the investments and the possible outlays by an organization. Florida Department of Education (FLDOE) is motivated on attaining the preeminent outcomes that an educational structure has in relationship with high quality services. The agency, hence from end to end integrates various activities that is focused on improving public education issues while reducing educational total cost. The agency relies on capital budgeting as a tool to ensure that all capital and resources are being well utilized. The process of capital budgeting entails the emphasis on key aspects that includes determining debt capacity, funding and other activities that may include refunding and the restructuring of the existing debt obligations.

A budget requires an organized layout that categorizes revenues and expenditures within particular funds to account for operations, administration, student services, salaries, benefits, transportation, and curriculum development, to name a few. The four funds for budgeting are the General Fund (10), Special Revenue Fund (20), Capital Fund (30), and the Debt Service Fund (40). Categorizing items into funds facilitates the budgetary process by grouping revenues and expenditures to compare expenses and make adjustments to meet educational goals as needed.

The budget is a plan of how to spend available funds wisely, and entails a list of all expected revenues and expenses. The budget is compiled annually and marks the beginning and end of the fiscal year. While the primary burden of the budget lies with the finance department, it is the responsibility of all faculty affected by budgetary practices to provide insight into the projected financial future of the school. The goal and evidence of a successful budget is to have the actual numbers of the financial year equal or come close to the estimated

Central Office leadership, when constructing a budget, must consider all aspects of the educational process including the effects of management of support services such as facilities, transportation, and food service. Local school districts are allowed to request bonds passed by the voters of the school district zone for specific projects or general projects. The bond proposals can come in through many different avenues such as capital outlay, sinking fund, operating millage are all ways in which this can be done, each having different purposes and ways in which funding can be used. A district must understand the vital impact for effective long-term planning for facility management and transportation. If the district is not effective in

One of the problems in the debate over funding and choosing reforms is whether these reforms will be effective or not. The future expectations play a heavy role in making these decisions. In the neoliberal society we live in today, sometimes speculative logic drives decisions leading to disasters. Without objective metrics to test the effectiveness of reforms, no legislation for change will be enacted. The data available currently is too general such as student population, age distribution, and graduation rates (Bailey). The School Funding and Budget Stability Act of 2016 provides $15 million for institution effectiveness which should be spent on implementing the following analytical tools & metrics:

In addition, state and local government have to plan their budgets for this year, that is, it requires a balancing of revenue forecasts

Money is the key to success or not. In doing so, I learned that creating a budget is a two year long process. California’s budget actually exceeds the federal budget, spending over $100 billion a year (Castaneda 2017). With that, most of the revenue comes from our state tax when we pay for products and individual income taxes. Like the education district, the state budget goes along the state economy. In doing so, the process takes a while starting with April where the administrative departments prepare budgetary requests. In May, agencies prepare preliminary program budget where in July-August the department of finance and governor issue policy direction. Throughout the months of September and November, the Department of Finance reviews the proposals of the agencies as well as the Commission on State Finance and experts forecast revenues (Field 2013). At this point, the next year begins with Governor submitting budget to legislature which follows into February as the legislative analyst publish its findings. In doing so the next few months, the legislative branch conducts hearing, committees work out compromise, and by June the budget is signed by the Governor (Castaneda

A municipal budget is a financial plan that details the level of spending needed to bring the municipal services to the community at the same time maintaining the municipal assets by letting a clear balance between the assets and the liabilities. The budget document allows the mayor and the council to make decisions regarding the services that they provide to the community in the municipality. It acts as a guide to the infrastructure development programs as well as the management process. The budget ultimately is used to also determine if a tax increase is required. The annual budget of the Municipality of Red Lake that was presented for the year 2014 presented an adequate overview of the entity. Budget structures are made up of one to

The school district would have be deficit spending based on the budget example, and would be required to use the district fund balance to balance the budget if no cuts to the general budget were done. If the district did not change any of their budget, they would have a negative fund balance after 11 months, and would end the fiscal year with a negative fund balance of nearly $77,000 (see Appendix A). It would be a difficult decision for a district to allow the fund balance to go into red, however without proper monitoring it could occur.

Education is the most important possession a person must have. It is the keys to success, wealth, and knowledge. It is the only possession that cannot be taken away from a person and it will open up the windows of opportunities. Education will help us grow as an individual, have better understanding of life, and give us a financial stability; but what happens when education get cuts down. By making budget cuts to education, is this helping out education or letting it down. In the news article, “Highlights Impact of Budget Cuts to Education” by State School Chief Jack O’Connell, his claim is that governor should not cuts down education budget, but instead protect education and invest it in the future.

Iowa is very unique when it comes to school finance. We use the single count date for the purpose of funding the state’s school districts. This is a count of the number of students in attendance on October 1st. This is when the federal government requires a count of the number of students eligible for the free and reduced price lunch program for purposes of Title I funding. An advantage to using the single count date is that it is reasonably easy and it also helps to cut down on administrative costs. There are many disadvantages to using this system. The single count date does not give districts any type of financial incentives for holding onto

The operating budget requires prepreration of data from sales, production, manufacturing, selling expense, and general and administrative expense budgets. The budget varaiance is the difference between the budgeted amount of expense or revenue, and the actual amount. The budget variance should be used when the actual revenue is higher than the budget or when the actual expense is less than the budget.