The Alliance for Excellence in School Budgeting: Helping schools align resources with their areas of greatest need.

• Author: Bubness, Matt
• Position: GFOA BEST PRACTICES

Governments of all kinds have worked hard over the last year handling the ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic. School districts have faced particular challenges in keeping students and staff safe while providing instruction and other needed supports to their students. No one knows how long it will take for things to get back to normal, and the issues schools will have to overcome between now and then are numerous-particularly the looming shortfalls in revenue from local and state sources. As a result, being strategic and targeted in balancing school budgets will be more important than ever.

Another pervasive challenge for schools, like all governments, is addressing systemic racism and the need for services to be provided equitably. This will require an in-depth examination of the way services are funded to ensure that the budget and budget process adequately and fairly address the needs of all constituents, and to ensure not only an equitable distribution of resources, but also that those services create equitable outcomes for all. The pandemic has further compounded inequities in the services the public sector provides, and school districts are struggling to provide continuity of services to the students who are most in need because of food insecurities, lack of access to high-speed Internet for virtual learning, or additional supports for learning and physical needs. Addressing these issues--in addition to the challenges related to loss of learning from pivoting between in-person, virtual, and hybrid instruction--will be a key area of focus for a number of years, as school districts try to mitigate the impacts of the pandemic and better address inequities related to systemic racism.

How the Alliance can help

GFOA's Alliance for Excellence in School Budgeting is especially important now, as the COVID-19 pandemic creates a whole host of new needs and challenges, and funding levels are threatened. The Alliance was created in 2015 with a small group of school districts from across the country whose mission was working to improve their budget processes by making better resource allocation decisions to support improved student outcomes.

The Alliance, which now includes more than 100 members, provides best practices in school budgeting; GFOA's SmarterSchoolSpending.org website that includes a wide range of tools, examples from school districts, and other free resources; and, in recent months, webinars on topics including fiscal first aid for school districts, communicating in uncertain times, and COVID-19 financial and related impacts.

Collaboration is central to making meaningful and longstanding improvements to the budget and planning processes. This is why GFOA requires that each Alliance district attends meetings as a leadership team made up of the superintendent and/or lead academic person, collaborating hand-in-hand with the chief financial officer (or other lead budget person) in making budget and planning improvements. (See the sidebar to learn about the Alliance's November 2020 virtual meeting.) Budget process improvement requires the cooperation of the senior-level academic and finance staff and the support of the superintendent. This agreement helps ensure that improvements are collectively owned and shared by both academic and finance staff. A good budget process needs to be a collective exercise to ensure alignment of funding with desired outcomes.

Preparing for the budget process also requires participants to analyze current levels of student achievement and to engage internal and external stakeholders. Examining and broadly communicating the current environment provides stakeholders--whether academic, finance, or members of the community--with a realistic view of what is or isn't possible. This is even more pertinent for many districts at the moment, given the funding and logistical challenges created by the pandemic. These steps build better understanding and cooperation to develop robust goals with measurable outcomes. From there, districts can conduct root cause analysis to make sure the true underlying problem is being addressed and, finally, develop and prioritize strategies and programs to achieve the district's goals within its available means.

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