Superintendent Is Most Important in District Budgeting!

EDLD 5342 Week Two Assignment, Part 4 – Superintendent’s Roles and Responsibilities in the Budgeting Process 4-20-2012

Summary

In preparing for this assignment I chose to send my superintendent and his assistant superintendent over the business operations of our district nine questions regarding the budgeting process and the superintendent’s role. I looked at the performance outcomes on page 2 of the Lamar University EDLD 5342 Week 2 Assignment – Involving Stakeholders in the Development of the School District Budget to create my questions. I also attended the board meeting where the assistant superintendent presented a power point presentation titled “General Fund Budget Transition” that detailed the preliminary budget for 2012-2013 and spoke with him regarding this matter after the meeting. In my district they use the Texas Education Agency Summary of Finance (SOF) to determine the expected cash flows from TEA. The budgets are built using the District’s assumptions, not the assumptions on the SOF. As stated in the TEA Resource Guide January 2010 p 27-28, our district assistant superintendent of business operations complies all school budgets into the district budget and communicates any revisions to appropriate administrators and bodies and leads the budget review teams. He collaborates with the superintendent of schools while the superintendent of schools is responsible for the development and communicating the budget process guidelines and calendar to the board of trustees. The superintendent of schools communicates the status of the budget with board of trustees and all stakeholders, listens to the public during the budgeting process, oversees the work of the assistant superintendent, conducts final review of all budget items including proposed district budget. “Beyond transparency and full disclosure in all expenditure transactions, the wise superintendent hires only the most competent business staff and personally ensures the integrity of financial affairs”, (Harris, S. (2009).Valenti p1699).

Reflection

In visiting with the superintendent of schools and assistant superintendent of business operations who are the top two administrators that deal with the district budget and funds to support teaching and learning, I am reminded of the grave responsibility to all the community stakeholders to use every dollar of the local, state, and federal funds to benefit the future of our world, our students. As stated in the textbook (Harris, S. (2009). Learning form the best: Lessons from award-winning superintendents. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press.), “the superintendent’s role is to provide professional guidance and educational leadership to promote student success”.