Budget Allocations

District 5 – Budget Allocations
You have $40,345,388 to spend for the District 5 budget.
There are two parts to the Case Study.
Part 1: Prepare the District 5 budget by using the District 5 Spreadsheet which is Attachment.
Based upon the facts of the case study, you are to take the funds allotted by category and allocate those funds to the schools in District 5. You can designate the schools as follows: Elementary Schools (14) as E1, E2,…, E14; Middle School (5) as M1, M2, …, M5; and High Schools as H1, H2, H3.
Part 2: Prepare, in an essay, your proposed formulas for allotting the five categories of funds among the schools in District 5, justifying how your formulas are the most equitable methods of distributing funds including scholarly research.  You may use previous years as the basis for one or more of your formulas.
Under No Circumstances Can You Exceed Your Total Budget!
The only fund that you have with any flexibility in transferring funds from one account to another is the AT-RISK account. You can use some of the money to address at-risk needs and the remainder can be transferred to any other account to offset deficits in those accounts.

Budget Allocations
Once you have allocated the funds to each school, you should write a brief explanation for the rationale you used to allocate the funds. Be sure to address class size and other factors you considered when making your allocations.
The following information will help you understand the data necessary to complete the allocation of funds to the schools in District 5. You may leave a modest fund balance in your total allocation ($1.0 million or less) but you may not exceed your total allocation.
Case Study Facts

The state funds five school districts. In this project you are only responsible for funding schools in District Five. In the past, the State has funded each district on a lump sum basis for regular current expenses, for exceptional children, and for capital outlay, using ADM as the basis of allotting the funds. Due to the threat of a funding equity lawsuit, the General Assembly has ordered DPI to allot the regular current expense funds categorically for the next budget year. The General Assembly will postpone dealing with exceptional children and capital outlay funding equity until a future year.
Below are the five categories of allotments designated by the General Assembly and some general information.
Instructional Staffing: $31,718,048 is available in this category.

Budget Allocations
The state-wide average teacher salary, including local contributions to those salaries, is $35,000. Federal/state-mandated benefits add 16% plus $2,000 annually to the cost of each position (total cost for an average teacher of $42,600). Funds in the instructional staffing category can be used for classroom teachers, teacher specialists, counselors, media coordinators, psychologists, social workers, nurses, and teacher assistants. All of these have the same average salaries except teacher assistants, who cost 50% as much as a teacher.
Staff Development: $63,468 is available in this category.
Instructional Supplies, Materials, and Equipment: $888,105 is available in this category.
This category funds the following: textbooks, media center books, supplies, and equipment, as well as classroom supplies and equipment.

School Administration/Support: $3,552,421 is available in this category.

This category funds principals, assistant principals, school office clerical staff, and building level office supplies and equipment. The average principal earns 170% more than the average teacher (12 months of employment), the average assistant principal earns 120% more, and the average clerical support earns 60% of that of the average teacher.
At-Risk: $4,123,346 is available in this category.

Budget Allocations
This is the category intended to “level the playing field.” The General Assembly has directed that all districts must receive some of this money. Since none of the other allotments included any increases for salaries or student enrollment growth, these funds may be used to supplement other categorical funds. This is the category that where you have some flexibility. Be aware of the schools that house exceptional children and ESL children. They are as follows: EC students are in E1, E7, M1, M2, and H1; ESL students are in schools E13, E14, M3, M4, and H1. Exceptional children students are identifies on the Grade Level Enrollment tab of the simulation spreadsheet.
Heading    Subheading    Type of Information given or required

Budget Allocations
School    None    The represents the type of school such as elementary, middle school or high school. Rows 3-16 represent elementary school E1-E14; rows 17-21 represent middle schools M1-M5; rows 22-24 represent high schools H1-H3
Grade Level    None    This column gives the grade level configuration for the school.
Number of Students    None    This represents the total number of students in the school. If you will refer to page 2 of the spreadsheet (tab label –Grade Level Enrollment) you will see the distribution of students by grade level.
Instructional Staffing    Number of Teachers    Place the total number of teachers that will be allocated to this school under this heading. Remember that Instructional staffing has two (2) components teachers and teacher assistants.
Instructional Staffing    Number of Teacher Assistants    Place the total number of teacher assistants that will be allocated to the school.
Staff Development    None    Place the total amount of staff development dollars allocated to this school. Round the allocation off to the nearest dollar and do not put dollar signs or commas in your in the box the program will do that for you. Example if you are going to enter $2,000 then you would key 2000.

Budget Allocations

Heading    Subheading    Type of Information given or required
Instructional Supplies    None    Place the total amount of instructional supply funds allocated to this school. Round the allocation off to the nearest dollar and do not put dollar signs or commas in your in the box the program will do that for you. Example if you are going to enter $2,000 then you would key 2000.
Administrative Support    Number of Principals    Administrative support has three (3) categories that require funding, principals, assistant principals and administrative clerical support. In this column place the number of principals that will be allocated to this school.
Administrative Support    Number of Assistant Principals    Enter the total number of assistant principals allocated to this school.

Budget Allocations
Administrative Support    Number of Administrative Clerical Support Personnel    Enter the total number of administrative support personnel allocated to this school.
At-Risk Funding    None    Enter the total amount of at risk funds allocated to this school. Once adequate at risk funding is provided to at-risk students the funds can be used to supplement other categories. You need to worry about exceeding individual accounts as long as you have adequate funds in the at-risk funds to cover the overage. The distribution of ESL students is isolated to schools E13, E14, M3, M4 and H1. This means that those schools would require additional funds to serve the at-risk students. Placement of exceptional children students can be viewed on the Grade Level Enrollment tab.
Balance    None    This figure will give you a running balance of your total funds. As you make your allocations that number will be reduced and will turn red if you exceed your funds.

Explanation of rows.
Row(s)    Description
1    Headings for each of the funding categories
2    Subheadings for funds that have more than 1 category of funding
3-24    Represent individual schools
25    Represents total number of personnel allocated by category.
26    Represents the conversion of total number of people into dollars.
27    Represents the budgeted amount in specific categories for the district
28    Represents the balance in each category for the district. You may exceed the budget in individual accounts as long as you do not exceed the total number of dollars in the total district budget.

District 5 Funding Model

District 5:
2014-2015 State Funding – $43,885,467
Average Daily Membership (ADM)        2013-2014 – 13,450; 2014-2015 – 13,050
# of elementary schools        14
# of middle schools        5
# of high schools        3
# of alternative schools        0
# of special schools        0
% free or reduced priced lunch        48%
% LEP and ESL        0.5%
% with multiple handicaps        0.5%
Per-pupil county appropriation        $1,000
Average per-capita income        $15,650
Average age of classroom facilities        42 years
Salary factor        95%
Annual student growth rate        -3.0%
Rural, suburban, or urban        Rural

Assignment Rubric
Each assignment will be graded according to the following criteria for content (which will include the preparation for the assignment), writing quality, and form and style.

Content

All aspects of the complete and appropriate (i.e., the topic, content, and the course objectives to the assignment, conceptualization of ideas, logical flow of ideas, and overall preparation for and organization of the assignment). Points will be deducted depending upon the degree to which the assignment fails to meet this expectation (see Course Grading Rubric).
Points
Comments

Quality of  Communication*

Quality written or oral communication is demonstrated by the proper use of conventions of the English language (e.g., capitalization, spelling, grammar, syntax, and punctuation; high level of vocabulary; integration of research; etc.), where applicable. Points will be deducted depending upon the degree to which the assignment fails to meet this expectation (see Course Grading Rubric).
Points
Comments

Preparation
(readings, field work, etc.)*
Demonstrates problem solving ability and conduct, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate research and literature for assignments where appropriate. Points will be deducted depending upon the degree to which the assignment fails to meet this expectation (see Course Grading Rubric).
Points
Comments

Format*
Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.) (APA) Points will be deducted depending upon the degree to which the assignment fails to meet this expectation (see Course Grading Rubric).
Point
Comments

Note:    An * indicates that these criteria may not be applicable to all assignments. Where these categories are inappropriate, the percentage assigned will be applied to the assignment content.

By admin in Essays on July 31, 2016