Week 4 Reflections

Overall my impression and feelings are that FIRST is a great plan and approach to standardizing financial rating.  In the past few years budgets have continued to get tighter and people have become more inquisitive regarding the expenditures within the district.  Like with everything in education we must remember that students come first as they are those we serve and the reason we are in education.  There are so many districts who have been financially irresponsible and wasted money it is refreshing to work in a district who has made sound financial decisions by making a fund balance, transparency and consistency a priority in our purchasing department.

In my educational career I have been afforded the opportunity to work in a large district and a small district and have seen these financial differences first hand.  In the district I work in now we have four campuses and right around 2,000 students.  We have a significantly lower salary scale than the districts around us and it is seen in the high turnover rate we have amongst teachers each year.  Personally, I have to fill 3 job titles to get the salary I was getting in a large district doing one job.  The other large difference I would say involves professional development.  In the larger district we were able to train a larger number of teachers and impact the a larger student population than in a small district where we financially can’t afford the expense of a lot of outside professional development.  

 

Although it seems like an easy fix and a way to save money differentiated staffing isn’t easy to get people to buy into otherwise we would probably already see it across the state.  As mentioned in the lecture differentiated staffing will most likely be met by resistance from teachers who don’t want to take on additional roles, parents and community members who may view it is a means of eliminating jobs.  This is something that needs to be taken into consideration especially in a small district like mine who is the largest employer of people in the community.  I believe that if this approach was taken for non-essential personnel, especially after attrition I feel we can present this as an opportunity to be more financially responsible as a district with minimal impact, if any, on the instruction our students receive.

After considering all these things I was able to discuss the possibility of a pay raise with the CFO. This year they were only able to give a step raise and a $600 raise to administrators.  The goal is to have the portion of the budget committed to salaries and benefits under 80% and since we are already over that there was no way a larger raise could be considered.  In addition, we are currently operating under a sliding salary scale for administrators so many individuals within a pay grade are paid significantly different amounts.  The combination of these two things make a 5% pay raise virtually impossible in my district.  This is a difficult situation to be in because since we pay lower than surrounding districts leading to a high turnover rate we would like to give a significant pay raise in an effort to keep some consistency in our instructional staff.  However, if we were to give a pay raise of this magnitude it would mean having to let go of some teachers meaning larger class sizes.  They felt at this time the pros of a pay raise were outweighed by the cons of the impact it could have on instruction.  Moving forward we are hoping that our property values may rebound and we are able to see an increase in revenues to provide some financial flexibility next year to consider a pay raise.

Although I was able to meet with the CFO regarding the audit, this specific activity could not have come at a more perfect time for me as I have been required to attend the last 4 board meetings to make presentations.  At each of these board meetings the issue of the audit and auditors has been on the agenda and discussed.  The board had asked for bids from auditors as they wished to change from the current company because the previous auditor did not present the audit in a timely manner.  After receiving the bid they asked for a team of 8 meeting with the CFO to learn more about how to read an audit.  They wanted to be armed with this information as they asked each bidder to make a presentation to the board and they wanted to know what specific questions to ask the auditors before they ultimately chose one.  After choosing an auditor the auditor sent a list of requested documents for the business office to provide them by September 1 regarding the previous year’s budget.  The auditor then came to the business office last week and reviewed the documents in the business office.  Next, they will take the documents and their notes to their office and return in October with a preliminary report.  The main areas that were addressed in our audit were matters of internal control and consistency which led to the revision of the policy and procedure manual within the business department last year.  These additional controls over spending and the requisitioning of money are critical to improving the efficiency and consistency within our purchasing across the district.  Once the auditor has completed their work they will provide their findings to the CFO and Superintendent as well as make a presentation to the school board.  The findings of the auditor will then be discussed amongst the business department and leadership and determine what measures if any need to be taken to continue improving the efficiency of our budgeting and purchasing.