Although just one person in a district, whether it’s a Budget Director, CFO, Business Officer, etc., typically has the ultimate authority over the district’s annual budget, the process to build that budget requires input and action from sometimes hundreds of participants. With so many critical voices, collaboration is crucial for a successful budget adoption process, one that is rarely quick or easy. Let’s look at each step of an efficient budget adoption process, and see who needs to be involved along the way.
Because the process typically starts with a roll-forward of the current budget, the first step in building an annual budget is to determine a district’s overall revenue and expense estimates. Budget staff work closely with budget owners (such as schools, departments, and programs) to ensure an accurate expense forecast for the remainder of the year and to identify any known cost changes (like negotiated salary/benefit increases, purchased service contract changes, etc.).
Whether a district is having to make reductions or is in a position to add new funding, collaboration is needed to determine which strategies to adjust. Budget adjustments are typically first recommended by budget owners as a proposal. Then, district leadership, along with input from the community and board, must decide which new strategies are believed to have the most significant impact on student achievement, or, conversely, which areas of budget reduction would be least impactful.
Prioritization conversations are often tricky, regardless of the financial situation in a district. Operational budget changes, like the cost of a new transportation route or a new security system at the central office, are often prioritized alongside strategies that seem to have a more direct connection to kids, such as a new curriculum, additional teachers, or classroom technology. The expertise of the practitioners should be leveraged to fully understand the likely impact of changes to the budget and ultimately the strategic plan of the district.
While the format and level of engagement can vary district to district, communities and Board members also play a vital role in this phase. As the overall budget plan develops, input from a variety of external stakeholders is gathered to ensure total support for the plan.
Once the overall strategy is developed, and fund-by-fund allocations are determined, principals and department and program managers are called back into action to divvy up their budgets into line-item detail. This typically happens over the course of several weeks using Excel or budget spreadsheets to assign dollars and headcount to a large, complicated account string. Here, collaboration generally takes place in the form of emails back and forth from budget managers to stakeholders and additional communication with finance staff to ensure the spreadsheets are completed accurately, and on time by the various rules of district funding sources.
For districts that use Allovue , this process is greatly simplified because they can seamlessly create expenses and staffing plans within each allocation. With the built in approval flow, finance staff can manage stakeholders and make sure that the line items are created accurately.
Once the spreadsheets are built, it’s all hands on deck for district finance offices to reconcile account codes, load budget information into the financial system, and ensure the master budget is accurately reported. This budget review process often takes weeks for districts to complete. Districts that utilize Allovue can simply export their budget information into their existing accounting system and within seconds, have their master budget accurately reflected.
After the budget is updated and reflected in the financial system, standard reporting packages are produced to propose the budget to the Board of Education. If all goes as planned, the budget is adopted. If not, it’s back to the drawing board to make adjustments as necessary.
The steps above may vary from district to district, but whatever path your process follows, a multitude of integral stakeholders will be involved in your budget adoption process. The ability to collaborate and communicate throughout that timeline is of vital importance to the efficient development of a strategic budget.