Week 2 School Finance - Superintendent Interview

Interview with Superintendent Summary:

We started out with a discussion on how budgeting in our district is handled on a yearly basis. We talked about local control of funds, where we receive funds and how they are tracked throughout the year. Specifically in regards to budget preparation, we talked about the spring and summer. Typically, this is the time of year the process takes place. In our district, a majority of the nuts and bolts of budgeting falls directly on our business manager (BM). We talked about how in board meetings questions concerning budget, expenditures and revenue are directed to the BM, and the superintendent mainly delivers the figures from various reports. It is basically a team effort with a majority of the team being the BM.

In regards to the planning process, we talked about how we are constantly looking back to see how this year compares to last years budgets in regards to expenditures, revenues and total budget. The superintendent’s role in the process is to oversee, ask questions and decide on critical changes to the budget during the planning process.

I asked about the sample calendar in our FASRAG resource from class. We talked about the components and how we follow all the required aspects of the calendar. Our BM adheres to a basic calendar of events that, for the most part, does not fluctuate. Although in this legislative session the timeline to budget approval was stressed with the finance rules being clarified so late in the summer.

I asked him about grant funding and how much of a challenge it was to budget and account for grant expenditures in multiple years due to their overlap. He explained that this all falls on our BM to track properly. Grant expenditures are programmatically planned for with an application. The key is to tie all expenditures to the application and account for them in the correct year.

The final portion of our conversation on the budgeting process was reflective. I asked him, “If you were to start over, what would you change about this process.” He answered with a resounding, “Nothing.” He complemented our BM and how he never has to worry about the funds of the school district be handle inappropriately. He then reinforced a philosophy of his that was a part of an interview we had in the beginning of this program, “Be sure to hire the right people because if you have the right person in a job, it will run smoothly and you can comfortably lay your head down at night.”

Reflection:

Since the beginning of this program, I have been excited to learn about school finance. Now, I am completely aware of the complexity of the process and humbled by the effort needed to complete a budget annually. I have been privileged to work closely with two different superintendents in my administrative career. Each superintendent had an opposite approach to annual budgets. One was a key part of the creation, evaluation, and completion of the district budget, and the other was closer to hands off as the BM budgeted for the district. I can see benefits and drawbacks to each view, but after my interview with my current superintendent and reflecting back on a previous more involved superintendent, I think I would want to be as involved as possible. My current superintended has stated in a previous interview, that, “a superintendent cannot do the whole job well, your must be willing to delegate.” I believe that, but this is not one of the things I want delegated away from my participation as superintendent. I think that is more clear now.