Goal Driven Budget

Week 2 Assignment 1

As Dr. Arterbury stated in the lecture, the purpose of a goal driven budget is to assist in the attainment of a shared vision for the school district and each campus. The district goals should be the bridge that brings the instructional and financial departments of the district together.  One cannot be sustained without the other. Therefore, creating a goal driven budget is essential.

Input is gathered from our District Advisory Committee, Site Base Advisory Committees, and the Executive Team to create the district goals for the upcoming year in late spring/early summer. That input is taken to the Board of Trustees and the final district goals are created and approved by the board. The campus Site Base Committees create their campus improvement plans based on campus needs assessments using various data resources. The campus goals must be aligned with the district goals. The District Advisory Committee reviews the campus improvement plans and creates the district improvement plan.

Our district improvement plan does not identify the budget resources that will be utilized for the attainment of the district goals. Although, I know that our district is driven by our goals, it is not clearly aligned with the budget. During the budget crisis, our district was very transparent and verbalized the need for the budget to be aligned with the district goals. However, it is not written into the district plan. This is definitely an issue that needs to be addressed in our district.