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In schools with budgetary powers, districts need to provide schools with the information they need to create, implement, monitor, and evaluate their own budgets. Access to a computer network on which schools can input their budgets and shift funds from one account to the next provides schools with immediate, current fiscal information (Wohlstetter & Mohrman, 1993). Not only does this save time and paper shuffling, but it can also be used to provide schools with information about other performance measures, such as attendance rates and parent survey results (Odden, 1994).
Most of the exemplary school-based managed districts we studied had already developed a computer network linking schools to the central office or were planning to do so. There was a great deal of variation across districts in how far advanced they were in this process. With Schools of the Future, for example, Victoria was going to have a fiscal and student information system that would be available on-line to schools. The system would include revenues listed by their source, budgets for each program, an automated invoicing and purchase ordering system, a student scheduling system, and a process for recording student information. Denver, however, was still a couple of years away from having schools on-line, but was planning for it.
A couple of districts enabled schools to input their budgets on-line and use the system to shift funds between accounts. In Jefferson County, schools could create their budgets on computer terminals using various menus. One menu, for example, gave the value for various site positions. From these menus, a work paper was created for the budget. Over the year, changes could be made by transferring between codes. This system provided schools with instant information about the status of their accounts. Such systems allowed schools to monitor their own budgets and also reduced the oversight role of the central office.
In most districts where schools were on-line, the technology did not allow schools to make budget changes and it only provided information about the budget allocated to the site. Thus, although schools could create a budget or view their accounts, they could not make purchases or transfer money from one account to the next. In Chicago, the computer network was used only to input the school site budget. After that, expenditures were processed with a lag time through paperwork. As a result, many schools were not really using much technology in the budget development process. Although schools were on-line for budget information in Rochester, for example, the budget specialist did not think that schools were really using this resource.
Districts recognized that these constraints were unnecessary and were exploring ways to expand the capabilities of the computer network, once again trying to scale up and reduce the gap between real and ideal practices. Milwaukee was working to expand its computer capabilities to include information for budget forecasting to assist with longer-term (three to five years) planning. Likewise, Chicago was moving toward a system where schools could process requisitions electronically and create checks for nonprofessional services.
In addition to information transmitted via computer networks, most districts provided schools with other budget information. This included both planning information, such as a district budget manual that took schools through the steps of developing a site budget, and monitoring information, such as monthly budget updates (if this information was not available on-line). Often the budget manuals emphasized that the budgeting process should be used as a tool for achieving local priorities and goals. Edmonton's manual required schools to list specific school priorities, measurable school results related to each priority, primary indicators used to determine the extent to which the result had been achieved, and descriptions of the activities and strategies used to achieve the results. The school was then supposed to create a budget to accomplish these goals.
Monthly budget updates were provided in some districts to enable schools to assess their own progress. Rochester, for example, provided schools with a computer printout each month that listed how much had been spent to date. Every expenditure was provided in detail so that the schools knew how much had been spent on supplies, service contracts, and every other code in the budget. In addition, schools in Rochester had access to data regarding student enrollment and attendance. There were several districts, however, that did not provide information as frequently or comprehensively. The budget specialist in Milwaukee, for example, felt that the schools needed better information for the current year and the district was working to improve this service.
There was evidence suggesting that schools that received this information appeared to be using it. The elementary school principal in Jefferson County, for example, provided the school site council with monthly budget updates, including the balance by line item. At the same time, however, this practice was not consistent across schools. In Chicago, the teachers were relatively unaware of the monthly status of the budget and were focusing on curriculum and instruction issues instead.
Access to information about innovative budget processes was another form of information that a few districts provided to schools. This information was used to help schools improve their own budgeting processes. A couple of districts promoted and encouraged sharing information with lots of informal opportunities for schools to learn from one another, such as through district-sponsored principal meetings and teacher networks. The central office in Bellevue also facilitated sharing by serving as a clearinghouse, referring one school to another. As a consequence, many schools in Bellevue used similar budgeting systems despite the wide flexibility given to them by the district office. Similarly, in both Jefferson County and Prince William County, experts from outside the district, including the superintendent from Edmonton, were brought in to provide new perspectives on the budgeting process and informal opportunities, such as the principal liaison groups in Jefferson County, existed for schools to learn from one another.
There was, however, evidence that most districts' political cultures made it difficult for schools to share with one another. Milwaukee, for example, was described by people we interviewed at the elementary school as an extremely competitive system which made sharing across schools unpopular. Rochester schools were forced to share information about how they developed their budgets through a "freedom to access of information" act, but the information had to be formally requested from the district which was politically difficult for schools. As a result, information sharing was idiosyncratic and dependent upon school initiation and district support.
Another kind of information available to many of the schools we studied was feedback from constituents. Feedback was used in some districts and schools to help set priorities for the upcoming year. Chicago, for example, required school site councils to convene at least two "well-publicized" meetings every year to gather input from the entire school community on the School Improvement Plan, the school budget, and the annual school report. Edmonton also required public budget meetings and further, the district conducted yearly district-wide surveys of staff, students, parents, and community members.
Exemplary schools used such feedback from constituents to develop their guiding framework, or mission statement, and to inform the budget process. A guiding framework provided direction to the budgeting process because it forced the school to determine its priorities and to allocate its budget accordingly. In Edmonton, the school site budget was viewed as a tool for meeting local needs and priorities. Feedback from constituents in the form of survey information was used within the school to help develop budget priorities. In addition to district surveys, parents and teachers in Edmonton were surveyed constantly throughout the year by the schools. The parents at the elementary school said they rarely attended budget planning meetings, because they trusted the school staff and knew that their priorities had already been stated through the surveys. In effect, sharing information built up enough trust that responsibility was delegated while still maintaining a sense of ownership over the decision-making process.
In sum, information served a twofold purpose for most districts. While it was recognized that schools needed information to be effective in the budgeting process, concern was also expressed about the importance of the district's oversight role. In Edmonton, problems in misallocations at school sites led to increased central office control. Frequent reporting of information provided the district with an accountability mechanism. Therefore, information also had a compliance orientation typical of information sharing in traditionally managed districts, reflecting once again the gap between ideal and actual budgeting practices. The computer networks had the potential to meet both the need for central office oversight and the need to provide schools with frequent, comprehensive information. Ideally, they could provide schools with quick access to budget information while still allowing the central office to easily monitor school-site budget activities. This was one way that districts were scaling up to reduce the gap between ideal and actual budget information practices.
In the smoothly functioning site-based managed school, professional development is typically a bottom-up activity in which people at the school site define their own training needs and how services will be delivered (Wohlstetter & Mohrman, 1994). With respect to budgets, we found that the district office continued to provide most of the training and professional development. Thus, despite the fact that many schools in our sample could go outside the district to purchase services and had at least some discretion over professional development funds, they continued to rely on the district for budget training.
To assess the nature of professional development in relation to budgeting, we determined the types of staff development activities that were needed, whether or not these activities were being offered in the districts, and, if so, whether it was an ongoing, sustained activity. To begin with, participants in the budgeting process need a wide range of knowledge and skills in order to effectively create a budget. Since budgets at the school site were usually developed in committee, this included both group process skills, such as consensus building and learning how to work in teams, as well as technical skills specifically related to budgeting, such as how to develop and monitor a budget.
In this study, almost all of the districts provided schools with at least some training to assist participants in the budgeting process, but over half of the districts did not provide technical training. In Bellevue, an orientation was held for district schools covering such areas as the contract and policy procedures for site-based management teams; decision-making, consensus-building, and conflict resolution skills; how to process information during council meetings; and leadership training. The district had not provided very much technical training for school-based budgeting, however. Similarly, Rochester had a department in the central office for school-based planning to provide training in process skills to the school site teams, but there had been very little technical training for budgeting. This lack of technical training frequently lead to frustration among school staff about their lack of understanding of the budget process. For example, while central office staff in Rochester felt that school-level participants were very knowledgeable about the budget formula and did not need training, teachers at the elementary school we visited were, in fact, frustrated by their lack of budget skills.
A few of the districts provided schools with both process and technical training. Much of the technical training was designed to teach schools how to create a budget using the district's guidelines for school-based budgeting. This training included seminars on learning how to use the computer systems and on how to develop a budget according to district specifications. Chicago, for example, provided training to principals in the operation of the various automated systems used to input the budget. The school staff that received technical training appeared to be more comfortable with the budget process than those who did not, but they were not necessarily more involved. At the elementary school in Chicago, for example, teachers had turned most of the management of the school, including the budget process, over to the principal.
Most of the districts we studied held in-services to help school-level participants develop process skills, such as problem-solving and effective communications, at least once or twice a year. Rochester, for example, held an annual in-service on how to reach consensus and how to work in teams. In the few districts where technical training was provided, it was also usually offered at least once or twice a year. The number of sessions offered varied from district to district. In Milwaukee, a formal in-service that covered budgeting was held at the beginning of each year while Prince William County provided at least two in-services a year for bookkeepers and a training session on budgeting for principals.
Some of the districts we studied provided schools with some initial in-service training, but it was not sustained. School-level participants in Denver, for example, received initial training in participation skills, consensus building, and other team-building skills. In these districts, very little additional staff development was provided after the initial training sessions, even though participants changed routinely each year. Some respondents cited the lack of support staff in the central office as the primary reason for so little follow-up. While Lawler's (1992) findings suggest that professional development is only needed until the staff are competent in their new roles and responsibilities, it appeared that some of these districts were terminating these activities too soon.18
Several models of staff development emerged in the districts we studied. Sometimes staff development was a central office-initiated activity, but more often schools initiated their own. District-initiated staff development usually dictated which school-level participants should attend and often only a few were selected to attend training on the budget. In Edmonton and Victoria, principals were primarily given training while Milwaukee and Prince William County provided training to school principals and business managers. Part of the training for Edmonton principals included year-long positions in the central office so that they could be more aware of how the district operated before returning to their school sites. Often the sites used these few trained people as resources within the school to, in turn, train other school staff. Thus, teachers at both the elementary school and the high school in Prince William County seemed to have a good grasp of the budgeting process despite the fact they had not received training from the district. In effect, school-level people became partners with the district in delivering training around the budget.
Other staff development activities were school-initiated. Schools requested assistance from the district or other service providers and the training was developed and tailored to the school. Most school-initiated staff development was in the form of one-on-one assistance. Some districts offered telephone numbers where schools could call to get questions answered and central office personnel were available to come to the school site. The central office in Prince William County had two people who spent almost all of their time answering budgeting questions on the phone, while Edmonton had one person dedicating 90% of his time traveling to schools to provide training. Some training was tied to demand. So, for example, in Chicago, the Department of Purchasing was available to present purchasing seminars and the budget office in Prince William County could hold additional budget in-services if schools requested such services. Similarly, the district's budget personnel in Bellevue were available to make presentations at principal and school manager meetings and other similar gatherings upon request.
Overall, schools generally relied heavily on the central office to provide training for budget-related skills. At the same time, however, much of the training was school-initiated, either in the form of requests for one-on-one assistance or to increase the number of training sessions held. Because of the lack of technical training in most of the districts, however, staff development was relatively fragmented and largely dependent on the availability of one-on-one assistance. As a result, there was a large gap between ideal professional development practices, in which staff development is continuously provided until the school site staff have achieved the expertise needed, and the actual practice in the districts. Furthermore, there was little evidence that districts were scaling up to close this gap, but central office personnel were beginning to recognize that more assistance was needed. As the budget specialist in Denver stated, "Staff development is a terrible need and we don't meet it."
A decentralized reward structure enables schools to reward staff for skills and performance and according to local priorities. In general, there were basically two characteristics of the formal reward structures that were decentralized in the districts we studied. First, districts did not pay teachers or principals for additional skills learned. There was no assessment of budget skills and no bonus tied to mastery of such skills. Second, some districts paid teachers for additional work. Such policies were usually initiated and worked out through collective bargaining agreements.
Another characteristic of site-based rewards was that they were more intrinsic than financial in nature. In general, schools provided lots of "pats on the back" to their teachers and other staff. The elementary school in Jefferson County provided teachers with flowers for Mother's Day and an appreciation dinner, while the high school teachers were recognized by the Parent/Teachers' Association during National PTA week. Among our sample schools, there were a few instances of financial rewards. The high school in Milwaukee, for example, chose to use one-sixth of its local budget to compensate council members for their time. Similarly, schools in Bellevue issued stipends for leadership roles that were played. Many schools also used staff development opportunities as a reward. Staff, however, did not always perceive these opportunities as part of the reward structure. At the high school in Denver, several teachers did not consider staff development money to be a reward. Many of the site-based managed schools we studied theoretically had the power to reward faculty, but choose not to exercise it. Most schools could shift money around in the budget to award bonuses to teachers for learning new budgeting skills, but the schools opted not to do this. During interviews, several principals mentioned that they avoided such distinctions among faculty since this usually led to feelings of "winners and losers." Furthermore, the organizational culture frowned upon such differentiation.
In order for school-based budgeting sites to truly control the reward/compensation system, the high involvement framework calls for a shift from district policy, and collective bargaining agreements, to a school-based policy where the reward system for faculty is aligned with school goals. At this time, there is currently some experimentation occurring with decentralized compensation/reward systems. These are usually district-driven reforms and they are not often present in school-based managed districts. Some districts in Colorado, for example, are experimenting with delegating authority over compensation structures to school sites, but Denver is not. In fact, the schools in Denver wanted to compensate teachers for not using their sick leave or for working overtime and were constrained by district rules and regulations. Thus, the evidence suggests that innovative reward structures are being adopted as separate, stand-alone reforms, instead of one component of a more comprehensive approach to systemic school reform.
[Part 5: Conclusion]