Smarter School Spending - Framework
Best Practices in School Budgeting
Background
GFOA has developed a series of Best Practices in School Budgeting, which clearly outline steps to developing a budget that best aligns resources with student achievement goals. This document provides the framework and summarizes the key themes from those Best Practices.
The budgeting process framework presented in these Best Practices is focused on optimizing student achievement within available resources. It encompasses a complete cycle for long-term financial planning and budgeting, including planning and preparing to undertake the budget process, developing a budget, evaluating how the budget process worked, and adjusting accordingly. Within this cycle, the district’s instructional priorities provide a guide for decision-making.
Recommendations
GFOA recommends that all districts go through the following steps as part of their planning and budgeting process.
The planning and budgeting process begins with mobilizing key stakeholders, gathering information on academic performance and cost structure, and establishing principles and policies to guide the budget process.
Step 2. Set Instructional Priorities.
The budget needs to be rooted in the priorities of the district. Intentionally created instructional priorities provide a strong basis for developing a district’s budget and strategic financial plan, as well as presenting a budget document.
Current resources and expenditures must be thoroughly analyzed in order to find capacity to pay for top instructional priorities.
The “strategic financial plan” is the long-term road map for implementing the district’s instructional priorities. A “plan of action” describes how the strategic financial plan will be translated into coherent actionable steps.
Step 5. Ensure Sustainability.
The planning and budgeting process should be one that can be replicated in the future in order to ensure the district remains focused and plans accordingly for reaching its student achievement goals.
