Tools For Understanding District Level Finances

Many variables contribute to the revenues and expenditures of a school district's budget. While a district budget is complex, resources are available to assist in understanding the budgeting process.

1.) ASBR

Every district submits an Annual Secretary of the Board Report. The reports detail all revenues, expenditures, and fund balances for the year. Every district in the state uses the same budget codes and the reports are structured identically. The ASBR's help understand previous year's revenues and expenditures, which provides valuable context.

2.) Calculation Tools

To help predict future revenues, DESE provides calculation spreadsheets. To complete the data entry portion, it is helpful to have the district's county district code (available on the ASBR). Completion also requires knowing enrollment, free and reduced lunch, ELL, and special education data, all available through the DESE's data management tool. The spreadsheet will provide estimates for basic formula, classroom trust, proposition c and other revenues. 

3.) MASA Resources

The professional organization has helpful presentations and calculators. 

4.) Budget Spreadsheet

The DESE calculators help predict revenues. A rudimentary spreadsheet can help predict expenditures. Elementary and secondary eduction, transportation, facilities and operations, and all other areas of the district have personnel, supply, and purchased services expenses. 

Revenue variables to consider:

-Changes to the state adequacy target (SAT) which is set by DESE

-Appropriations are often greater than actual transfers

-Annual real estate assessments and actual collections affect local revenues

Expenditure variables to consider:

-Increased district contributions to employee retirement due to implementation of salary schedule
-Increased district contributions to employee health insurance

-Utility and insurance increases

-Fuel increases for transportation

-Effects of retirement on overall salary expenditures

Easy Stolen Ideas For A Fun Faculty Meeting

"The schools that celebrated authentically on a regular basis created a great atmosphere for collegiality.  Collegiality is not collaboration, but having colleagues who genuinely like and respect one another creates an atmosphere ripe for collaboration."
-Anthony Muhammad, Transforming School Culture


Anthony Muhammad links healthy adult relationships to student academic achievement. Anyone who has worked in a school knows that sometimes April can be a month that strains those relationships. Our school recently had a Friday afternoon faculty meeting that ended with laughter, which is sometimes in short supply in April.

Three, easy to replicate ideas were part of the meeting....along with candy and music. All of these ideas were stolen. I've done my best to give credit to the source.

1.) Chart the year (stolen from Ginny Vanderlicht of the Hook Center): A sheet of butcher paper was hung on the wall horizontally. The left side represented August and the right side represented April. A line was drawn through the middle horizontally. Teachers had six post its, and they posted notes about three highs and three lows through the year. The higher or lower the moment was, the higher or lower it went on the sheet. What's great about this is often folks struggle to come up with three lows and a lot of the highs will be recent. A visual picture of a school getting happier is created. Music was played and candy was eaten while moments were charted.

2.) Argys (stolen from Wendy Lentz): Kind of like the grammys, but with an "arg" sound, like a pirate, our mascot, makes...get it. Teachers nominated and voted for each other for fun awards such as who do you hope brings snacks to the work room, who do you hope checks on you on a bad day etc. A copy of the form can be found here.

3.) Everyone wins bingo (stolen from Scott Friedman, a really funny presenter at MASA): The faculty meeting closed with a game of bingo, which was rigged so that everyone won at the same time. Winners received a soda and a fee pass to leave early for the day. A copy of everyone wins bingo with the call order can be found here. 

Hearing everyone yell "Bingo" at the same time is pretty awesome.

Forty Good Fridays

In my late teens and early twenties I would spend Sunday mornings studying a cracked sanctuary wall. The crack ran behind a wooden cross, which had warped ever so slightly as the building settled and stressed.

It seemed the cross held it all together.

During those Sundays, particularly around Easter, I wrestled with questions. The brutality of the cross and the mystery of the resurrection challenged me. Once, my pastor, a man whose wisdom and perseverance in faith moves me still, told me "Troy, I don't have all the answers. I'm not even aware of the questions." At the time, his acceptance of  mystery perplexed and frustrated me.

I thought by my fortieth Good Friday, I would have more figured out, but it doesn't seem to be the case. The mysteries of faith are still mysteries to me- I question like Thomas.

However, as time has passed, I find myself perplexed but less frustrated. The cross is still brutal, but I realize more and more that the world is too. And it is unjust and lacking in selfless love. If there is any justice or unconditional love, I find it only in the cross. Time has given me opportunity to consider this.

Time has also given me opportunity to share life with folks who have been transformed by The Gospel.

I carry the image of an elderly man in Southeast Kansas with weathered skin who labored each Sunday up the steps to the pulpit to say, "Let's stand and praise the lord." His words delivered with the clipped accent of the reservations near by, he led the congregation in the Doxology with striking gentleness.

At a Methodist Christmas Eve service in Arkansas, a pastor, whose body bounced during hymns and face smiled during the homily, placed a piece of bread in my daughter's mouth as I held her in my arms. He looked into her dark eyes and said, "Eat this and think about Jesus." He was joy filled.

Lately on Sundays, I find myself spending my mornings with a woman who is blind. Every Sunday she is first to volunteer to read scripture and there is a power and peace that resonates from the braille, through her hands, to her voice.

And for four years I had a unique perspective to watch a tribe of twenty somethings, who often looked like they crawled out of tents at a music festival, step out daring acts of faith, turning ashes into glory for kids in foster care. To me they will always personify the greatest, Love.

I enjoy the company and fellowship I find in all stripes of communities, but the encouragement and inspiration I find among believers is unique.

Those who know me best know all the ways my walk is flawed and my faith is fragile. My Thomas faith still wrestles with questions, but I am still compelled.

With this Thomas faith I will pause on Friday, and with it I will wait with anticipation for Sunday.