Procedures and Practices

Category: Procedures and Practices

When Special Education Doesn’t Cost Everything plus the Kitchen Sink

At fiscal year end we sometimes see that actual costs are significantly below budget and one of the causes can be “savings” in Special Education. I put “savings” in quotes because this does not usually reflect a reduction in costs. It often reflects improper budgeting, which can lead to a number of unfortunate consequences. Other priorities may have been

August 11, 2015 Short URLBudget, Government, Procedures and Practices, Public Schools, Uncategorized, Working Together

Contracts in a Nutshell

I shouldn’t keep being surprised when I run into ill-defined processes for contracts. My experience is that clarity in this area is the exception rather than the rule. Small districts may have no purchasing department. In such cases the Chief Business Officer (CBO) owns the process directly. In larger districts he or she will have a purchasing supervisor, manager or director. The CBO

August 10, 2015 Short URLaccountability, best practice, CBO, contracts, purchasing, technologyBasics, Laws and Regulations, Procedures and Practices, Public Schools

Coding the LCAP

A colleague at another district said “When you figure out how to reflect the LCAP in the budget, let me know.” Really? I think you have too much faith in me. For those of you not in California, the problem is this. When we adopt a budget we have to be able to show how our

July 6, 2015 Short URLaccount codes, accounting, chart of accounts, LCAP, Local Control Accountability Plan, local control funding formula, problem solving, SACSAccounting, Budget, Daily Work, Procedures and Practices, Productivity

Procedures – or Not?

When I started my first “real” job at a California bank I was shown volumes of procedures manuals. Once, when I didn’t know what do next, I called someone at head office and was icily informed “It’s in the manual.” Then I switched jobs to different bank, one that prided itself on being small, regional and customer focused. I

February 28, 2015 Short URLAccounting, Government, Management, Procedures and Practices, Productivity, Public Schools

Indirect Costs: The Basics

What are indirect costs? Imagine your district has received a reading grant. The grantor is providing funding for a teacher and instructional materials. Indirect costs are all those additional costs associated with running the grant. These will be hiring costs for the teacher, including recruitment, fingerprinting, and credential analysis. When the teacher puts in an order for

December 31, 2014 Short URLindirect costsAccounting, Basics, Cost Accounting, Procedures and Practices, Public Schools

Bank Reconciliation

Continuing my occasional series on “the basics” this post addresses something I almost skipped, thinking it was perhaps too basic. Then I worked with an employee who reconciles the district’s clearing account, cafeteria account and student body accounts. I realized that the concept of bank reconciliation might be foreign to younger employees. Growing up in the era of

December 25, 2014 Short URLbank reconciliation, best practice, public schools, reconciliation, school financeAccounting, Basics, Daily Work, Excel, Procedures and Practices, Public Schools

When Your Chart of Accounts Gets Out of Hand

Is your school district’s chart of accounts not working for you? Here are some questions to ask when designing a new one.

December 25, 2014 Short URLaccountability, accounting, best practice, school districtAnalysis, Basics, Data, Procedures and Practices, Productivity

Indirect Costs When Revenue is not Fixed

I wrote about the so called magic formula for budgeting indirect costs on a fixed amount grant. This calculation uses the grant revenue amount to determine how much of the grant you can budget to spend and how much needs to be set aside for indirect costs. However it is important to remember – actual indirect

October 1, 2014 Short URLindirect costsAccounting, Basics, Cost Accounting, Procedures and Practices, Public Schools

Carryover Complications

Say a school is allotted $20,000 (with carryover allowed) and they only spent $15,000. The carryover amount is: a) $5,000 b) something else Often the answer is b) “something else” This is because the central office will usually give the school site the net award amount – i.e. the award minus the indirect cost on the

August 11, 2014 Short URLcarryover, grants, indirect cost, indirect costsAccounting, Basics, Procedures and Practices, Public Schools

Grants, Entitlements, and Carryover

When I started working at a California school district one of the first things I had to learn was the difference between a grant and an entitlement. A few years ago the state accounting manual was revised to refer to funding sources (resources) as either those with a fund balance or those with unearned revenue and no fund balance.

June 14, 2014 Short URLcarryover, entitlements, fund balance, grants, unearned revenueAccounting, Basics, Finance, Government, Management, Procedures and Practices

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