LIVE from the Red Clay Board of Education Special Meeting on WEIC

(originally posted on delawareliberal.net)

Pinned: 7:08pm:  RCCSD Board Approves the District’s WEIC Plan/Draft/Outline 4-1 with 2 not present.  More details to come once I get home

Final Update:  Apologies for the complete discombobulation of a post, but here you go.  (Apparently I need to brush up on my live-blogging skills).

If you ask me, what I saw Red Clay’s board vote on tonight was accepting a plan with no source of funding that’s going to cost a lot of money, take 7 years minimum to implement, and affect thousands of children and hundreds of educators and support staff keeping them all in uncertainty until 2022.  Keep in mind the State is $130 million short already next year, and Dover has said any financial changes will be “revenue neutral”.  If that is true, ANY cost to get the WEIC plan moving must be offset by a reduction in spending somewhere else in the gov’t. Below are the paraphrased details that I could type up as the meeting went on.  They’re disorganized, but there’s some good information in there.

The Players: CT: Catherine Thompson, Board Member.

KR: Kenny Rivera, RCCSD Board President

TA: Ted Ammann, Assistant Superintendent RCCSD

Jill Floore – RCCSD Chief Financial Officer

How will we know what the funding for WEIC is going to look like?

– Governor’s budget comes out in Jan 2016, that will provide the first look at funding changes.

What about giving the Board of Ed power to adjust operating tax like they do Tuition Tax and Debt Service tax?

– RCCSD plan includes a provision to permit local school boards to adjust operating tax rate without referendum, until a rolling property reassessment takes over.

What’s the rolling property reassessment going to look like?

– 1/3 of the properties in the district’s tax base will be assessed at a time with an undetermined amount of time to complete each phase of the reassessment and this would be a statewide rolling reassessment process managed at the County level.

What about transportation for students who choice to schools outside their feeder patterns after the lines change? By law, students have the right to remain in the program/school they are in until graduation:
– Ted Ammann, Asst. Superintendent for Red Clay: “One of the early points we thought we’d get into an argument with Christina about but we didn’t” was over how to transport choice students.  If the program is in Christina, CSD will handle transport, if in RCCSD, Red Clay handles it.

But then Ted threw in the Sterck School:  “Not unlike how its done with the Sterck School, if a student attends there a Christina bus goes to their development to pick them up.”  While that is true, Sterck School for the Deaf is a statewide program, not a district program. Tuition tax paid in the student’s residential district pays for the student to attend the program.  So if a student who lives in Red Clay goes to Sterck (in Christina), a Christina bus does pick them up but Red Clay’s taxpayers are paying for that.  So no, Mr. Ammann it is not like how it’s done with the Delaware School for the Deaf.

Another point of confusion for me came up when Christina’s special programs in the city were mentioned:

CT: If a student likes the program they’re in, they’ll have the opportunity to stay in the program. So would we see overcrowded schools in RCCSD?

KR: That would be on Christina, example: if the student is in Glasgow, they’d choose to stay in Glasgow. Paid by Christina.  So we might see undercrowding in the first few years.

CT: What about Christina’s Special Ed programs: Pyle Academy, DAP, Douglass?

TA: If we get the buildings, we will only offer programs we decide we want to offer. If Douglass program building comes to RCC, CSD wouldn’t be able to host the program there. RCCSD is in no rush to take buildings, so they may permit CSD to use the building to phase out current students.

Delaware Autism Program (DAP), like the Delaware School for the Deaf is not a Christina program, it’s statewide, meaning that tuition taxes paid in the students resident district pay for attendance.  DAP also isn’t in the city.  Christina only pays for students who live in the Christina School District to attend these programs. Sarah Pyle Academy is also tuition funded. Whichever district the student lives in is the district paying for them to go there.

Ted Ammann also stated that Red Clay, rightly so, will need to do a full assessment of the Christina city buildings to figure out what needs to be done to them to get them up (or down) to Red Clay’s specifications at a cost of 8 cents per square foot. This would also be included in the “Transition Funds” requested by Red Clay to come from the State.

Red Clay also plans to have a 1:1 technology program fully implemented by 2022, when the WEIC transition will be completed.

The idea of creating a Wilmington City “sub-district” of the Red Clay Consolidated District was brought up along with what modifications to Board representation and governance would have to be made as the transition moves forward.

Board President Kenny Rivera believes that the WEIC plan will generate the additional resources needed to move education forward in Delaware.

As I said above, the Board approved a plan with very little detail to it and no clear picture of costs associated with it, on the premises that “the State will give us the money” and it’ll be figured out by July 2016.

Merv Daughtery, Red Clay’s Superintendent said if July 2016 gets here and there’s no funding, then there’s no plan.

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5:43pm – Support resources for Low-Income and ELL: Jill Floore, CFO – multiple models have been discussed but there are no final details.

ELL: One specific weight for weighted funding?  Or sliding scale depending on English proficiency?

Committee unanimously endorsed property reassessment. Long discussion on equalization funding formula, frozen since 2009.

In 2015 dollars, less per pupil state funding than in 2008.  Extra time programming, SROs, ELL ‘discretionary funds’ were the most frequently cut.

5:39pm

Revised WEIC Timeline:

Approval Phase – First half 2016
Planning Phase – July 2016-June2017
Transition Phase – July 2017 – 6/18
Implementation Phase – 7/18 – 6/22

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Red Clay’s Board of Education has called a special session public meeting this evening.  The lone topic on the agenda is WEIC.

This will be my attempt at live blogging the meeting, start to finish. You can check out the agenda and related documents from Red Clay’s BoardDocs site: http://www.boarddocs.com/de/rccsd/Board.nsf/Public

Meeting is scheduled to begin at 5:30pm.

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Accuracy Matters

I wrote up a short email to the Wilmington Education Improvement Commission (WEIC) tonight after learning that a member of the commission has, again, stated inaccurate information regarding the New Castle County Tax Pool and its distribution to the 4 districts that participate in it.  I do know that more than one correction attempt has been made but the inaccuracy persists.

I know WEIC has a seemingly impossible task to accomplish and I know there’s a nearly incomprehensible amount of information out there about finances and funding alone, but when you give out inaccurate information and accurate information is offered back to you, own it and acknowledge it.  The tax pool might not seem like a major bullet point when it comes to the funding portion of WEIC but it matters.  If you’re wondering, the inaccurate statement was along the lines of Red Clay paying money to Christina, Brandywine, and Colonial through the tax pool.  Essentially, Red Clay is the only “giver” in the pool, everyone else is a “taker”.  There was a time when that was accurate but that was more than 5 years ago.  Since then BOTH Red Clay and Christina contribute more to the pool than they get back.  BOTH.  Whether you personally believe that or not, numbers don’t lie.

In the context of explaining to Red Clay residents that WEIC is charged with implementing a plan to merge all Wilmington schools into the district that does not adversely affect Red Clay tax payers, saying that Red Clay pays money to everyone else in the pool (suggesting an existing adverse relationship between the pool recipients and Red Clay taxpayers), that’s a big snafu carrying a big negative connotation. And it needs to stop yesterday.  The email I sent is below:

To the Members of the Wilmington Education Improvement Committee;

It was brought to my attention that a member of the Commission has again publicly disseminated incorrect information regarding the distribution of tax receipts from the New Castle County Tax District (AKA- the tax pool) to the 4 participating public school districts in the county.

The comment was to the effect of, Red Clay Consolidated School District pays money to the other three districts, Brandywine, Christina, and Colonial, through the tax pool.  At one time, this was an accurate statement.  For the last several years however, Red Clay and Christina have paid out more to the pool than they received back.  The change occurred when needs-based funding was piloted in the Brandywine School District resulting in Christina and Red Clay both becoming net contributors (paying more money in than they receive back) and Brandywine and Colonial becoming net beneficiaries (receiving more out of the pool than they contribute).

Please reference the attached image detailing the tax pool collection and distribution for fiscal year 2015.  Note that Christina and Red Clay both are allocated less from the pool than they contribute (indicated in the far right column).

I understand WEIC is tasked with an incredibly complex task and an incredibly short time period to accomplish it and that errors will be made in the presentation of information but I urge the commission to acknowledge errant information and abstain from disseminating it further.  Funding is one of several hot-button topics, and I feel it is crucial to utilize accurate information whenever possible.  Please feel free to contact me with questions, concerns or comments.  Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

Brian Stephan
Parent, Keene Elementary 1^st Grader & Gauger-Cobbs Middle 6^th Grader
Christina School District Citizen’s Budget Oversight Committee
brianstephan@gmail.com

Christina School District SBAC vs PLI

I’m not even going to write anything, just a graph I modeled off one I found in a blog comment.  It merits some serious discussion and action at the highest levels of our State government, in our Districts and schools.

Christina School District Smarter Balanced proficiency scores compared to the percentage of low income students by school.  modeled on Red Clay’s data, found here: http://www.delawareliberal.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/RedClayPovertyScores.png

Poverty. Affects. Education.

PLI = Percent Low Income, ELA = English Language Arts

Everyone Out of the (Tax) Pool!

And now for something completely not different:  The New Castle County Tax Pool.  Ahead of the WEIC town hall scheduled for this evening at Cab Calloway, here’s some information on the New Castle County Tax Pool, as it was brought up during the last WEIC town hall (and some errant information was given by WEIC regarding how each district contributes to the pool).

I’ve written and given presentations, blog posts, Facebook posts on public school financing for the last couple of years and I haven’t mentioned the tax pool hardly at all even though it does significantly affect the tax revenue (in a negative way) for both Red Clay and Christina.  So what is it?

Once upon a time, there was only the New Castle County Public School District, one district serving the entire county’s public school students (interesting concept..).  Then, the county was broken up into the 5 main public school districts we know today: Red Clay, Christina, Brandywine, Colonial and VoTech.  For the purposes of the tax pool in this post, VoTech is excluded.  For the 4 other districts, check this out:

At the time of the NCCSD dissolution, its current operating tax was $0.468 per $100 assessed value.  That tax rate still exists today, it is embedded in our current school taxes as part of the operating tax (also called current expense tax).  What does that mean?  Christina’s current operating tax is $1.42 / $100 AV.  That $1.42 is a sum of two tax rates: The NCC Tax Pool rate of $0.468 cents + Christina’s direct operating tax: $0.952 cents / $100 AV.   The operating tax revenue is actually collected in two portions.  For reference:

District	NCC Tax Pool Rate	District Operating Rate	Total Rate
Christina	$0.468	$0.952	$1.42
Red Clay (pre-referendum)	$0.468	$0.758	$1.226
Colonial	$0.468	$0.738	$1.206
Brandywine	$0.468	$0.818	$1.286

Rabbit hole alert!  The money collected with the tax pool rate gets put into a big pot.  DDOE uses wizardry to allocate the pool money out to the districts.  Ok, it isn’t really wizardry but the formula is all kinds of jacked up and outdated.    

If you’re feeling adventurous and would like to play along at home:  the “formula” is as follows and is performed for each of the 4 districts:

A) Total Div I Units – Special School Units = Net Div I Units
B) Net Div I Units / Total Net Div I units = Allocation Factor
C) Allocation Factor * Tax Pool Receipts = how much tax revenue is returned/lost for each district from the pool.

A couple of charts and graphs I threw together:

In this bar chart separated by School District, the red bars indicate the gross operating tax receipts collected by each district in millions $ (money collected via Operating Tax).  The green bars show the after-effects of the New Castle County Tax Pool. You can see that both Christina and Red Clay are net contributors to the pool (they pay in more than they get out).  Brandywine and Colonial are net beneficiaries (they receive more from the pool than they put in).  The purple bar shows the after effects of the payments each District makes to Charter and Choice schools, illustrating how much general operating revenue remains for running the Districts. Infer from these graphs what you will, but I feel it is beyond doubt that our public school funding mechanisms are woefully obsolete.  

In fiscal year 2015 (school year 2014-15) the four school districts made payments to charter schools totaling approximately $35,000,000.  50% of that was paid through Christina alone.

WEIC wants to have a conversation about public school funding.  We all need to be part of that conversation because the funding issue extends well beyond the City of Wilmington.

Mythbusters: School Tax Edition

Got this comment on CSDWeAllWin’s Facebook page today.

Today I had a friend say all the programs and cuts Christina school district was making is nuts. All because people wont sign a referendum. My answer was Christina School district asked for almost 100% raise in funding on their first attempt. This was highway robbery. They then asked for I believe a 15% increase and it was shot down… You know why??? Everyone I talked to who googled the referendum, saw the previous request. They thought their taxes were doubling. The district did this to its self… So lets do a little math and see if the money is spent correctly. 2014 budget 228 million dollars. 16255 students. That is $14,026.45 / student. I googled the “average private school tuition 19711″… the answer was $11970.00. If it can be funded privately for 2000 less per student and provide a better education… Something isn’t adding up. We cant continue to throw money at a mismanaged program. I really don’t want to hear go to a budget meeting. I want to hear my math is either incorrect or why we should pay $2000.00 more per student for your education. What is better? I’m beginning to think the whole system should be private. Talk me off this ledge please.

So let’s go.  Sorry they don’t want to hear “go to a budget meeting”.  But GO TO A BUDGET MEETING!  Public school finances are too damn complex to talk about on Facebook and really get a solid handle on them.  But why not try again?

Their math isn’t wrong but it is the wrong kind of math. Districts do not determine per student funding by adding up the budget and dividing by the number of kids enrolled, although that seems like a much better way to do it than the way it’s done now.

Christina, and all districts in Delaware, have little control over how much money is spent on each student. Nearly all the formulas used to figure that out come directly from the State of Delaware. However much money the State determines each student “deserves” *in total*, Christina foots approximately 35% of it through property taxes.

In previous years, the District was responsible for <30% of the cost. Over the last 8 years the State has continued to chip away at the amount of money spent on education. This year is no different. The State raised the amount each student must get by 0.52% and at the same time said they wouldn’t be funding that increase, which means local money from each District has to cover that increase.

Christina School District per student general ed funding

This is the breakdown of our non-special services, regular education per student funding for 2015-16 school year. This is the amount of money, collected through our property taxes, that Christina School District spends per student. We, in this District, do not pay $14,000 per student. We pay an average of $3,913 per student in grades K-12. So what the hell is that $13,000 cost per student number you find on the District profile on Delaware Dept of Ed’s website? That’s an average of ALL sources of funding for our students, that’s all money that comes from the State + all money that comes from the District + all money that comes via the Federal gov’t that rolls up to an AVERAGE cost per student in our District.  It is NOT what we pay from property taxes per student.

You can pay $12,000 to send your child to a private school in Newark. But you, the parent, are paying that entire $12,000 for your child. Send your child to a public school, and you’re paying a fraction of what it costs to deliver an education to your child.

My property tax bill for schools last year (on my $189,000 townhome assessed at $50,000 ) was around $1,120. I have two children in the District. I paid $560 in taxes for each of their educations last year. If I had both of them in private school, my school tax would still have been $1,120. Plus $24,000 for private tuition. I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell can’t afford $25,120 a year for school right now.

The current total *school tax* rate is $2.09/$100 assessed value of property. Of that $2.09, $1.42 of it is the *Operating Tax* rate. The Operating Tax rate is what was up for referendum twice. (I won’t get into the New Castle County Tax Pool dipping into that $1.42, that’s another discussion).

The first increase that the BOARD wanted (not the District) was, I believe, $0.65 phased in over 3 years. OMG THAT’S 46% INCREASE IN TAX……RATE. Increase in your tax RATE. That does NOT = a 46% increase in your taxes paid. Why?

Let’s say that $0.65 was approved, and it all went into effect right away. The rate went from $2.09 to $2.74. The tax RATE is now $2.74/$100 of assessed value. For my house @ $50,000, my NEW school tax bill this year would be: $50,000/$100 = 500. 500 x $2.74 = $1,370

$1,370 is not double of $1,120. So what % increase is that in my ACTUAL taxes paid? $1,370-$1,120= $250 $250/$1,120 = 0.223 x 100 = 22.3% increase. Not even close to doubling.

Well we know the first time failed hard. So what if the second time passed? The DISTRICT asked for and the Board approved a $0.37 increase phased in over 3 years. Let’s take the same scenario. It passed, and all $0.37 went in right away. Our new tax RATE is $2.46/$100.

My new tax bill is: $50,000/$100 = 500. 500 x $2.46 = $1,230. Well how much did it go up this time?! $1,230-$1,120= $110. $110/$1,120 = 0.098 x 100 = 9.8% tax increase. Again, not even close to doubling.

Again, total budget/# students isn’t wrong math but it doesn’t do jack to help figure out how we spend money per-student and whether or not the money is being spent “correctly”.

I said before, during, and now after the referendum, I’m available to talk to anyone about this. I’ll answer any question you throw at me. If you don’t want to come to a budget meeting (although you should), I’ll come to you. Public school finances in this State are not easy to understand. It’s way too damn complex, but I’m willing to help anyone get a better understanding of it. Google won’t do anything for you. Talk to someone who actually knows something about how it works (or doesn’t work).

Credit Where It’s Due

Last night 6 of Christina’s Board of Education members did something extremely unsavory yet equally necessary.  The preliminary budget for 2015-16 was approved with all proposed reductions, some of which are shown here.  In what undoubtedly be one of the most challenging years in this District’s history, the Board did make the call when they had to and for that, I thank them.

Notable reductions, as mentioned by CFO Silber last night, School resource officers utilization will take the form of 1 officer in each high school, 1 officer within the City of Wilmington to be shared by Bayard Middle and Sarah Pyle, and 1 officer to be shared by the 4 middle schools in the Newark area.

Elementary counselors will have their utilization changed as well.   Each elementary school will have a counselor, but the days and hours the counselor is present will change from full-day and full-week hours.

EPER pay: the same number and type of EPER positions will be available in the District. The amount of funding to fill them will be reduced by $629,000 leaving around $900,000 to be allocated to the schools for use in filling some of the positions. The decisions on what positions will be filled is up to the each school’s leader.

As I mentioned previously, building discretionary budgets are reduced by approximately $800,000

Management and payment of all leases for multi-function copier machines has now been taken off the schools and will be paid and managed by the District business office.  Previously each school made payments for their copiers out of their building budgets.  That will not be the case this year.  Speaking of which, if you or anyone you know works in a CSD building with a leased Canon copier/printer, tell them to send all their print jobs to and do all their copying on those machines.  The lease agreements & payments with Canon cover all expenses associated with those machines except paper.  Any other printer, the District is responsible for toner, maintenance/replacement, paper, ink, etc.  Seems silly at first but toner and printers are expensive and that adds up quickly in schools.

Anyway, the analysis and breakdowns will continue.  Right now I’m trying to find someone to start an IV drip of caffeine for me.

Declining CSD Enrollment

Comparing last year and this coming school year as far as enrollment and discretionary building budgets, the overall picture gets gloomier.  It is important to remember that projected enrollments are always lower than what the actual numbers will be come Sept. 30.  How much lower is what we really need to look at.   In this table (color scale is mine) we’re looking at decimated discretionary building budgets from 2014-15 to 2015-16.  Enrollment numbers are very surprising as well.

We’re looking at a preliminary reduction of almost $750,000 and a loss of 708 students.

Discretionary budget and enrollment changes 2014-15 to 2015-16

If we’re looking at just actual and projected enrollment numbers over the last 3 years, it’s not any better:

Enrollment changes 2013-2015

I know looking at tables and colors and numbers everywhere is confusing as all hell.  I’ll try to help.

From 2013-14 to 2014-15 the District initially was projected to lose about 798 students, they actually lost 530. (Shown as Student Recovery: 268).  From 2014-15 to 2015-16 CSD projects a loss of 976 students.  Obviously we’re not at September 30 yet, so we don’t know what the actual numbers will be.  But assuming CSD recovers the same number of students, it’s still down around 700 students.

You can see the District consistently projects losses greater than what they actually turn out to be which, for budgeting purposes, makes some sense.  But the hard truth of the matter is that CSD continues to hemorrhage students and continues to operate the same number of buildings.  Some big, drastic changes are in order.

The final piece of the financial mess is factoring in the Charter growth and cost.  I’m writing that now.

Please keep in mind, all of this is preliminary.  We have no idea what things will look like in September.  And the budget is still a proposal at this point in time, subject to CSD Board of Ed approval tomorrow night at August General Business meeting.

CSD School Discretionary Budgets Down for 2015-16

In my last post I mentioned that District enrollments are down by over 900 students and how that translates into fewer earned teaching units from the State.  Those enrollment numbers also mean a decrease in school discretionary budgets, because those funds are calculated based on actual enrollments.  Not only are buildings seeing fewer discretionary dollars because of referenda failures, but also because of fewer kids coming to District schools.  The table below shows student enrollment by school in 2014, the projected enrollment as of July 21, 2015.  Based on 7/21 numbers, each school has a preliminary allocation for this year and of that allocation, 85% is “pre-loaded” into their accounts at the beginning of the school year, before all the taxes come in during the month of October.

Some of the decrease is attributable to Charter and Choice migration too, let’s not forget that.

See for yourself what Charter funding and the referendum process do to our school budgets:

Where Are The Kids?

Troubling enrollment projections for the 15-16 school year in Christina. Last night at the CBOC meeting we were shown that enrollment counts as of July 21 (an early indicator of what student counts will look like on the first day of school).  Historically July 21st counts are off by one or two hundred students in a few specific areas of the district, namely the Wilmington area schools and secondary schools.  This year is an outlier in a big way. Enrollment counts are off by about 900 students District-wide and not in the usual areas of low student counts.  The low numbers are at all grade levels in the city and in the suburbs.  900 students is a HUGE number and by far eclipses the usual couple hundred.  Such low enrollment right now translates in to 78 fewer teaching units.  Without students, the State sends no money and the District cannot carry those positions solely on local funding.  

So what’s the reason for such a drop in enrollments?  We’re not sure. The choice period is closed.  We know more students are migrating to charters but definitely not 900. 

As far as the budget?  The cliffs notes version: District has compiled $9.1 million in reductions which cuts the structural deficiency from $14 million next year to around $3 million.  There are major decisions that will need to be made in the next 3 months surrounding what the District needs to look like to get it out of the red.  Program elimination, realigning schools, any number of cost saving measures.   I’m going to go through the notes I took at last night’s CBOC meeting and try and translate it into some meaningful chunks of info.  Lots of vital information shared last night.  

By the way, if you have friends, neighbors or family members that have school age kids in the district, please give them a friendly reminder to make sure they are registered with the district!  Teaching jobs depend on registration and enrollment!

Belting it Out

About the line item detail expenses for a school district in Delaware, where do you find them?!  The answer is:

1. A myriad of sources supply funds for just about everything and everyone in the district, there is no “single” stream of revenue. Example: $100 of a teacher’s salary may actually be $60 from the State of Delaware and $40 from local property taxes.  Or depending on the type of teacher or program they are in that $100 might be: $45 State, $45 Local, $10 Federal.  Those funding splits change all the time.  So it’s darn near impossible to continually list the splits in every document published.
2. The way the State reports District expenses is not exactly how the District reports and expends money. (That online checkbook?  Garbage. Don’t even look at it).  District Data is substantially more accurate than the State’s.
3. Different departments and operating units in the District spend funds on the same services and each unit must report its own expenses individually so they may then be rolled up to final budget totals.

Ever wonder why the federal government’s budget is thousands of pages long?  Let’s hit point #3:  Everyone has to report everything they plan to spend money on.  Money is only spent on things listed in the final budget for the district that is approved by the Board of Education every year.

Stay with me here:   Let’s visualize how Christina School District is organized in terms of the purchasing things.  Think of a tree from the trunk on up to the very tippy top branch.  Now, turn the tree upside down so the trunk is at the top and all the branches are below.  The trunk is Christina School District.  Where the trunk first divides into the real thick branches are the largest operating units within CSD:  Education, Finance, and Facilities.   We’ll climb down the Education branch called the Chief Academic Officer (Deputy Superintendent).

Following down the branch it divides into 4 smaller branches:  Elementary Ed, Secondary Ed, Special Services, Enrichment.   Down the Elementary Ed branch it divides into 24 smaller branches called Elementary School Principals.   Now we’re at the bottom of the upside down tree.  At any dividing point along the tree from the trunk on down to last branch, money can be expended and it can be expended on many of the same things (copy paper, for example).  Where each branch divides is a purchase point.

To help keep all those branches straight, we’ll assign a 5 digit account code to each one so we know which branch is which.  Now, let’s say every single account code (branch) needs a ream of paper.  How does CSD (the trunk) keep track of who needs the paper, where to send it and how much is needed?  Each branch sends a requisition for paper  with their account code up to the trunk.  The District sends out for the paper and it’s brought to the branch that ordered it.  Now apply that process for absolutely everything purchased in the District.   Requisitions sent from individual account codes to the District, District converts to purchase orders (read: buys the stuff) and it is delivered to the account that ordered it.

Keene Elementary requires copy paper.  The building leader sends a requisition for copy paper to the Director of Elementary Ed, then it goes to the Deputy Superintendent (these steps happen quickly) and over to the Chief Financial Officer.  If the requisition is for something listed in the Board approved budget (copy paper is definitely in there), it is changed to a purchase order and Keene gets its paper delivered.  If it is NOT for something in the budget or is for a larger than normal quantity of something in the budget, a conversation happens between the CFO’s office and the building leader regarding the need for the requisition.   That’s how it goes for everything, including things like contracted services and consultants.

The Final Budget is all the individual account code expenses rolled up into a relatively short list of annual totals.  Monthly financial reports are the monthly expenses of that relatively short list of items and account codes.

You still don’t know exactly where to find individual line item expenses yet, do you?   That’s not a coincidence.  There’s WAY more to this than meets the eye.  Which is why I shoot down the argument comparing School District finances to household budgets or personal checking accounts every single time I hear it.  Just cinch the District’s belt, right?   Which belt?  There are 267 of them. Ok, there may not be that many but there are a lot!  Stay tuned!