Budgeting for Small School District

Budgeting for Small School District

As the budgeting director of the small school district, I will first examine the expenditures part of the budget. Examining the expenditure elements of a budget to reduce them is often referred to as retrenchment (Maher et al., 2020). I will use this approach to identify areas where costs can be reduced. In so doing, I will start with non-personnel items included in the budget. Notably, this will entail reducing costs in the school systems accumulated through expenses such as internet, telephone, equipment, and supplies. According to Zor et al. (2019), reducing items within a budget requires careful consideration to ensure the budgetary allocation remaining for them matches the existing budget needs. Essentially, this will be the case for the subject budget.

After examining expenditures, various items for budgetary cuts will be identified. An example of an item that will require a budgetary cut entails the elimination of positions that are budgeted for but not filled. Notably, this is so because such positions lead to loopholes for the graft of allocated funds (Adeiza et al., 2019). Additionally, the examination will seek to cut expenditures related to classes or programs that are under-utilized or fully utilized. The school will seek collaboration with the partnering foundation to maintain the current remuneration of teachers to avoid cutting their pay pending the budget deficit. Also, assessing the budget will entail combining classes that can be taught simultaneously. Notably, this will save on the resources used within a single class-sitting and the remuneration made to teachers. However, this might lead to some teachers lacking enough classes to teach. Therefore, the school will seek to assign them duties within the premises to avoid laying them off. For instance, they will be given jobs in the foundation’s innovative and supportive programs in partnership with the school funds. As a result, the budget cut will be done successfully.

References

Adeiza, M. O., Aruwa, S. A. O. S., & Bashir, A. M. (2019). Public Budgeting: A Theoretical Review on Preventing Misappropriation. IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science (IOSR-JHSS). 24(07), pp. 66-71.

Maher, C. S., Hoang, T., & Hindery, A. (2020). Fiscal responses to COVID‐19: Evidence from local governments and nonprofits. Public Administration Review, 80(4), 644-650.

Zor, U., Linder, S., & Endenich, C. (2019). CEO characteristics and budgeting practices in emerging market SMEs. Journal of Small Business Management, 57(2), 658-678.

ORDER A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

We’ll write everything from scratch

---

You are the budget director of a small school district that has a budget of $10 million and serves 2,500 children in six schools: three elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. The school district receives its budget from the state, and state officials have told you that the state is running a deficit and the school budget is being cut by $250,000. The state provides the revenue; however, the school district does have a partnership with a foundation that provides funding for innovative and supportive programs. What part of the budget would you first examine? Why? After that examination, what would you cut? Why?