Week 2 Assignment: Part 4

Reflection: After my conversation with the Deputy Superintendent a few things stood out. The Superintendent’s role and responsibility in the budgetary process is first and foremost to be a good steward of taxpayer dollars. The steps taken to ensure that budgeted funds are conservatively managed are be to laid out in a plan that is communicated to all stakeholders. Once a plan is established district goals need to be reviewed, needs assessments conducted and reported, a District Improvement Plan created and then the activities listed in the DIP will need to be prioritized so that funds can be budgeted accordingly. When the process is properly implemented the decisions, while difficult, will be manageable. The Superintendent does not create the ISD budget, rather he/she facilitates the process and makes the recommendation to the Board of Trustees annually.

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In the current financial situation that all Texas ISD’s are currently experiencing, one of the more sensitive topics is prioritizing needs with limited funds. The role of the superintendent in the budgeting process, according to the Deputy Superintendent in my district, is to craft a transparent process that is thought out and articulated. He mentioned that the purpose of the budget is to drive instruction and increase student achievement. Often lost in this process is the fact that personnel costs consume in excess of eighty percent of budgeted funds. He mentioned that while the ultimate goal was to improve student achievement, areas other than academics play a very important role (Example: transportation). The superintendent’s role is to design a budgetary process that creates a timeline, establishes procedures and identifies stakeholders that will be important contributors to the collaborative effort. The strategies and activities that require budgeted funds should be targeted and a result of an identified need that is in the needs assessment. The activities must be ‘doable’, meaning that the fiscal demand is realistic. Tangible, realistic targets should be clearly established and progress, positive or negative, should be monitored on a continuous basis. With limited funds, the budgeting committee should systematically create a list of priorities ranking all activities based upon their impact on the previously established goals. Without a doubt the total budget necessary to fully support the activities listed in a District Improvement Plan that are based on evidence in the Needs Assessment will be greater than the funds available. My Deputy Superintendent referred to the process that our district is currently employing with the creation of a 2012-2013 budget that will be 4.5 million dollars less than the 2011-2012 budget year. He spent a few minutes speaking about the priorities. The district put together several budget cutting strategies/recommendation and then prioritized them according to the amount of impact that would be felt in the classroom. Tier I recommendations would have the least amount of impact on classroom instruction, and Tier III would visibly impact classroom instruction. By prioritizing the possible areas to cut cost the recommendation to the school board was made less difficult. The decision to cut programs and personnel are never easy but going through a process like this a Superintendent is able to rationalize and explain to all stakeholders why the recommendation is being made. In closing, the Deputy Superintendent said that the Superintendent’s role in the budget process is to ensure that there is a sound process in place during the creation of the process and then to make difficult decisions and recommendations based on the process and documents created to support the decision and that meet the goals of the district.