This course has been very challenging, but I have already found it
helpful to me in my current role. In our school district we run a fiscal
year that ends on 8/31. That means that May, June, July, and August
are utilized for budget planning for the next fiscal year. In fact, at last
night's school board meeting our Assistant Superintendent of Finance
presented the first run of the budget to our school board. The school
board members are considered to be an internal audience. As the body
that governs the school district these members are responsible for
making financial decisions that control costs and efficiency, and they
must ensure we are spending money in a way that helps us reach our
goals. The budget presentation to the school board utilizes the ideas of
cost accounting I have learned in this class. In fact, I have been actively
helping prepare for the budget presentation. I utilized the same
departmental budget preparation skills utilized for Project 2. The
presentation includes district assumptions about revenue (for example:
property values and tax rate, a 95% tax collection rate, average daily
attendance (ADA) calculated at 95% of our 7,891 students, amount
from the New Instructional Facilities Allotment, estimated state aid
from the Foundation School Program, and estimated federal funds
from Title I, II, III, IV, IDEA, Carl Perkins, ESSER I, ESSER II, ESSER III,
ESSER SUPP, and TCLAS grants) and district assumptions about
expenses (for example: teaching and staff salaries, supplies and
materials costs, program costs, transportation costs, plant maintenance
and operations, debt services, constructions, security services, health
services, counseling services, etc.). Once the assumptions are
presented then the school board is given a report on the budget based
on Fund, Function, and Object codes. Note: budget codes are set by the
Texas Education Agency, and all activities and funds should be traced
back to a specific code. For example, Fund code 199 is the general fund,
code 599 is the debt services fund, fund 688 is local capital projects,
etc. Each fund code can be broken down by function (11 is instruction,
21 is instructional leadership, 51 is plant maintenance and operations,
etc.) or by object (6100 is payroll costs, 6300 is supplies and materials,
etc.). All of this information allows us to give the school board members
a per student cost of education. This projected per student cost is
compared to our historical per student cost. For most school board
members they want to know the per student cost and if revenues are
greater than expenses so we are projected to run a positive budget. For
the budget presentation I took all fund codes that correspond to federal
grant moneys. I was able to create a budget for these grant funds for the
fiscal year 23 (22-23 school year) and present a per student cost for
each fund and a per student cost for all grant funds combined. This
breakdown allows the school board members to better understand our
utilization of federal funds compared to state and local funds and help
assess the success of our programs funded by federal grant moneys.
While school accounting is different than business accounting, my
experiences in this course and my skills gained have helped me take a
step toward my future. I can now use my skills to help us be more
efficient and effective in using our moneys to educate students. This
course has taught me that I will utilize both financial and cost
accounting as a school district CFO.
