Analyzing Current Allocations

How are you currently using your resources?

Many times as we look at school budgets, we see only the nonpersonnel items, which normally are 15 percent or less of a school's budget. To get a complete picture of resource allocation possibilities, you will need to look at the total school budget. People, time, money, and professional development are all the elements that must be considered as you analyze your current spending. This section of the tool requires information from your school budget and staffing sheets, but asks you to arrange it in a way that is more easily understood than the average school budget book.

Resources: People, Time, Money, and Professional Development

People Forms 1A–G will show the number of staff you have and how you are deploying them. To complete the forms, refer to your budget and master schedule for the information. Use the appropriate (elementary or secondary) Form 1A to record this information.

Teachers—Full Teaching Load

You will need to calculate cost by adding salary and fringe benefits to get the total expense of each group of teachers. This information should be available in your school's budget. Some districts charge schools the average cost of a teacher; others charge actual cost. Use whichever method the district uses to charge your school for teachers and other staff. Your budget office can also provide the percentage increase to use for fringe benefits. (For example, the average cost of a teacher may be $50,000 with a 28 percent fringe benefit addition. That brings the cost of the teacher to $64,000. This is the figure to put in the ?cost? column of Form 1A).

In the column "Amount Paid for by Nongeneral Fund" write the number of dollars paid for by either entitlement funds such as Title 1 or competitive grant funds. If you are using competitive grant funds, you should mark an asterisk next to that amount because these funds are generally only available for a specific time period and cannot be relied on as an ongoing source of support.

The program will calculate the "Cost per Student" column for you. The chart is broken down by grade level and subject taught because in reallocating resources to support school improvement efforts, you might want to decrease class size at certain grades and/or in certain subjects which will probably require an increase somewhere else in the budget.

The "Comments" section might include information about how staff is allocated to a school, how much latitude the school has in making changes in positions, and district priorities related to the position, such as class size reduction. Marking it now will make it easier for you to complete the pie chart exercise that follows. It is particularly important to note whether or not the school has the authority to eliminate or change the position.