Leslie Sosa

EDL 650
May 19, 2018

Finance Interview

In order to foster knowledge of the best practices regarding management of a school system
and its resources, I attended a district budget meeting and interviewed a financial leader in my district.
It is important to understand best practices and system procedures related to finances in order to
ensure a safe, efficient, and effective learning environment. Here are the questions and answers from
the interview:

1. Does Federal and/or Connecticut law say anything about how much a district must allocate to its
budget?
Municipalities cannot lower funds the town gives you unless there’s a significant decrease in enrollment.
They base the funds on Oct. 1 enrollment. This date was set to allow districts time to adjust for people
who move, etc… This has been the official date for a long time in CT.

In new Britain, the BOE sued the town because the town was not providing full amount to BOE.
(See Appendix 2: Letter from the State of CT).

287 million comes from state to Hartford. Municipality fills the gap that the state cannot provide. The
funds are distributed in three installments as follows: Oct. 50%, Jan 25% April/May 25% .

Alliance district- 33 of lowest performing districts in state, receives extra money to close achievement
gap. (See Appendix 3: Letter on Alliance District ).

CT tax regions--each municipality has their own BOE. Per Mescol vs. Horton, enrollment is a deciding
factor for amount of funding received.

2. How is the budget formulated?

Typically in other towns, they don’t know how much they’re going to get. Hartford is different and we
know up-front how much we will receive. When formulating the budget, the BOE finds out from city how
much money will be awarded. They ask principals two questions: “What do you need?” and “What do
you want?” Then, the budget department puts it all into a database and approves or denies it.

There are many other steps along the way in order to ensure the budget is appropriate. The
Superintendent checks where we are, looks at priorities, and then looks at each school for needs with
reasoning/rationale for each need. Then, the Superintendent approves or denies it, before presenting the
budget to the BOE. The BOE may make changes as necessary to adjust, then it goes to board of council.
This year is particularly different in our district. In accordance with our new District Model of Excellence
guidelines, there are many staffing changes at the top, schools closing, and schools merging, which
brings on additional challenges to the budget this year.

3. Who votes on the budget, and why?

Formally, the BOE votes first to they can approve Superintendent’s proposal. Then, it gets sent to City
Council as part of the Mayor’s overall city budget. The City Council has until May 31st to respond. From
there, the city gets back to the BOE and the BOE has to vote again on what they were given.

4. How much autonomy does a building administrator have over their budget?
In the past, each building administrator had a lot of autonomy, with our previous Superintendent, Dr.
Adamowski. This is not the case anymore. There was no standardization in terms of curriculum and
materials across the schools throughout the district and it was not sustainable to have everyone doing
different things.Now the budget and autonomy are more centralized and standardized. For example, all
schools in Hartford use the same textbooks.

When creating a budget for their schools, administrators have to look at: number of enrollment to
determine staffing, SPED compliance, family needs (breakfast, lunch, dinner), and class size
requirements.

5. Who monitors and evaluates school management and operational systems?

Principals report to one of two Assistant Superintendents: Chief of Elementary Instruction or Chief of
Secondary Instruction. Primarily instruction is evaluated, but they also look at attendance, retention, etc.
culture, and other measures of evaluation.

Operationally, the Department of Finance looks at global aspects for the district such as meters, copiers,
and other materials that need to be monitored. Monitoring is ongoing throughout the year. Any costs
over $500 is considered fixed asset for insurance purposes and gets tagged to track items by MHIS, which
takes care of our technology inventory.

6. How do you ensure that the district is using its human, fiscal and technological resources efficiently?
Fiscal--we start out with budget, purchase order submitted and charged to account codes, items
received, invoice gets sent to downtown. There are controls and steps in process.

Big ticket items: sped, transportation, staffing, (speech pathology--usually independent contractor), HR
looks at FTE (Full time equivalent) and schools are not allowed to go over FTE number.

We are audited every year by the city and external/independent auditors. Ex: school based child
medicaid program, tuition reimbursements (4-5 areas per year).
Adopted budgets have to be kept permanently, they have to see what else has to be kept. MUNIS is our
financial software. One of the functions of MUNIS is generating and distributing direct deposit slips. 97%
of employees are on direct deposit.

7. How much consideration is given to maintaining a safe and secure environment, addressing real and
potential challenges to physical and emotional safety and security?
Someone overlooks security systems, SPOs etc., environmental issues.
Money must be found to address real and potential challenges to physical and emotional safety and
security. Sometimes it is necessary to freeze spending on all non-essential items to cover new costs that
come up and schools cannot end the school year on a deficit. However, every year, schools must budget
for “Unanticipated Events” as one of the budget categories in order to be prepared for such events.

8. How are responsibilities distributed and who supervises management structures and practices to
improve teaching and learning?
(See Appendix 4: Operational Systems)

9. How do you identify and prioritize strategic and tactical challenges for the school?
School wide=based on demographics of student population
District wide=budget, BOE makes strategic plan every 3 yrs. With yearly progress reports.

10. How do you, and who is involved in developing long-range plans?

Higher-ups decide 4 priorities/goals/objectives. As we go down the line of command, each person looks
at the “nitty gritty” details and finds ways to make it a reality. Tasks are broken down by year, month,
etc. Boe, superintendent, chiefs, principals, teachers all have their own roles.

11. How is technology used to manage operational systems?

MUNIS is our financial software. It enables us to distribute direct deposits and track staff attendance.
We also use Student Activity Software for finances.
Power School is used to maintain student academic records, attendance, and basic demographics.
MHIS is used for our technology inventory.

All our operations are regulated by state statute laws and reports must be given to state. Ex. teacher
retirement, payroll info,

We want to buy software that will help us with our procedures and practices that are cost effective.
Decisions on what to buy are made by the people that are impacted. For example, when deciding if we
need to buy copiers, teachers, secretaries, and principals, would be involved in making the decision.
Appendix 1: Alliance Districts
Appendix 2: Letter from the State of CT
Appendix 3: Letter on Alliance District
Appendix 4: Operational Systems