DISTRICT OVERVIEW |
|
| Student Enrollment | 80,500 |
| Total Schools | 170 |
| State | Tennessee |
| Allovue Modules | Allocate, Manage, Budget |
Districts like the Metropolitan Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) promote equitable and intentional spending using Allovue to align district- and site-level spending with strategic priorities.
Since 2017, Allovue and MNPS have partnered to provide leadership, administration, and department budget owners with access to budgeting and spending plans that are tied to goals embedded within the chart of accounts. This shifts the district narrative from “how much money do you need?” to “what are you trying to accomplish and how does this support the strategic plan?”
Facing stagnant enrollment, flat operating budgets, and rising inflationary costs, MNPS needed to reevaluate their budgeting process and maximize every dollar—or cut budgets. To address the budgetary constraints, the Superintendent and finance office required greater visibility into department-level budgets to see how dollars were being spent.
Meanwhile, in an effort to more closely align spending with district priorities, the Superintendent presented a new strategic plan outlining seven district priorities for the upcoming school year. Central office needed to ensure that the spending plans and goals of each school site aligned with at least one of the district’s priorities. To be successful in this effort, the district needed to establish, implement, and monitor accountability metrics for each school site.
MNPS created a priority-based budgeting (PBB) implementation team to align staff and spending with programs and outcomes at the school-level. The district implemented Allovue Budget which allowed them to add segment codes within their chart of accounts to track and align site-level goals and priorities, while significantly reducing their dependency on spreadsheets and word documents.
Working alongside the Customer Success team at Allovue, the PBB implementation team trained the finance office to see the budget in terms of goals and resources instead of numbers and account codes. This established a budget narrative that clearly articulated what budget dollars were set to accomplish.
Additionally, the PBB team helped department budget owners identify the positions, initiatives, and non-personnel budget line items that supported the district’s strategic priorities. This provided insights into what areas of the strategic plan were receiving the most budgetary support and allowed the district to objectively weigh new funding requests or reallocation decisions.
Published May 2023