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Mary McVey

January 20, 2021

EAD-510: Education Finance

Clinical Field Experience B: Schoolwide Budgetary Needs

Collaborate: Current Budget

Dr. Terri Mendoza, the principal of Saint Joseph High School, met with me to discuss the

planning process for our school’s budget. This past year was especially hard as numerous

changes due to COVID-19 regulations for schools in California that disrupted the organization of

the budget planning. However, under normal circumstances, the timeframe for developing an

operational budget usually takes place over the course of an entire year. The principal meets with

the financial office and advisory board monthly to review the current budget and compare it to

past financial information. However, it is more realistic for administration to meet in the last half

of the school year to discuss the budget. One meeting is for initial thoughts and overview, the

second meeting is to assign departments with required changes, and the final meeting is to ensure

that all of the changes are implemented. Each department has recently come together and agreed

that our current and future budgets need to focus on raising enrollment, replacing in-person

fundraising, and updating our technology assets. Once a proposed budget is generally agreed

upon, it will go through one additional round of modification before being submitted to our

board for final review, where the principal must be ready to defend the budget by showing “the

consequences of additional cuts,” as the current “financial impact may look more prudent when

compared to reduced expenditures in the future” (PMAlliance, 2018).

The stakeholders involved at these meetings include the principal, all of administration,

the financial department, the heads of each academic department, and a representative from the

L.A. Archdiocese. As a Catholic, private school, we must answer to them in regards to financial

policies. We answer solely to the Archdiocese as all final fiduciary decisions and allotments

come from them and their financial advisors. For example, the Archdiocese recently made it

mandatory for all of their high schools to provide free iPads to students. This 1:1 ratio
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requirement for technology nearly destroyed our budget as acquiring and ended up forcing

administration to make budgetary cuts to other departments.

Collaborate: Analysis of Current Budget, Previous Budget, and CIP

It is no secret that the impact of COVID-19 shutdowns and regulations have put a major

financial strain on private schools that rely on tuition for in-person teaching as its primary

income source. Dr. Mendoza has stated that she often wakes up at night with anxiety about the

hardships her school is facing and how they will make it out of this devastating economic slump.

Comparing and contrasting the two budgets shows how much the state’s policies have affected

our financial numbers. Specifically, the main difference in the budget include the drop in overall

enrollment and tuition, the cost of safety protocol items, and the drastic reduction of student

activities spending. This significantly hurts the school’s goals outlined in their current CIP as it

was suggested that its main targets for improvement should be enrollment, with a call to increase

spending in technology based activities. These two different budgets reflect how much how

much have had to pivot our financial goals to just staying above water, rather than trying to

expand upon our CIP.

Summary: Background, Expenditures, and Revenue

Saint Joseph High School is an all-girls, private, Catholic school that prepares students to

become “all of which woman is capable” (Saint Joseph High School, 2020). There are currently

482 students with about 45% of them receiving scholarships, financial aid, and tuition assistance.

They are of mixed ethnic, racial, and religious backgrounds as just about every cultural group

and faith is represented on our campus. Additionally, our major programs include a well-rounded

athletics program, academic achievement surpassing many of the other schools in our area, and a

thriving arts program. Our budget expenditures include all of the normal categories and codes,
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but has recently been restricted to focus on developing our safety and technological programs.

This includes equipping the campus and students with more advanced technology and altering

the grounds to become an even safer place to receive a college-prepatory education. The

projected expenditures for this current year are $7,573,679 and the projected revenue is

$7,282,450. Since we are financially controlled by the L.A. Archdiocese, we must explain these

losses to them.

Summary: Key Findings

Since enrollment has dropped, out tuition income is down and the budget this year was

forced to account for the potential of even more students leaving. Without the incoming tuition,

we were unable to budget for the amount of scholarships we usually give out to our students. We

also had to pause the fundraising for a school pool indefinitely. These two items being removed

from the budget makes us look like spending is down, but in reality, we are actually just making

less. An example of this is how we were forced by the state to prepare as if students were to

come back to campus. We had to make room in the budget for an unprecedented expenditure of

$75,000.00 for cleaning supplies. We were already past our spending limit in the last budget, so

it was difficult finding the money for this new budget line item.

While the students are missing our in-person events and activities, we have actually

saved over $30,000 from last year’s budget by not having entertainment expenses. However, this

does not align with our CIP as the school’s mission is to “enable each student to develop her

intellect, abilities, and gifts through challenging classes and diverse co-curricular opportunities”

(Netzel Grigsby Associates, INC., 2016). With such a significant shift in our two budgets, we are

essentially failing our students in accordance with our CIP.

Additionally, the results from the assessment surveys show that our stakeholders are

worried about the financial future of the school. The results discussed an alarming trend of

declining enrollment. The results also pointed to financial mismanagement as there were

accusations of nepotism that has led to unqualified people being in charge of large programs

where spending has gone unchecked. Unfortunately, the budgets seem to support the theories

presented in the surveys as the data was found to be unclear, with many departments having

money taken out of their accounts, only for that same money to disappear and be unaccounted

for in the files. I believe that stress and a lack of supervision has led to these discrepancies in the

yearly budgets.

Summary: Preliminary Suggestions

The two most meaningful suggestions based on the gaps identified in the survey are to

reduce spending for school activities and to restructure administration, essentially eliminating

certain staff and reinvesting their inflated salaries. For the first suggestion, this is an easy fix that

has not ever been thoroughly attempted. It is befuddling to see a school that is in the red in their

budgets spend money on frivolous items for school events. For example, many rallies have

included a $3,000 DJ and $2,000 balloon arches. This overspending was addressed by multiple

survey responders as they have noticed it getting out of hand this past decade. By simply

reducing the amount of money spent on lavish school ceremonies and activities, the budget can

become a much more justifiable financial plan.

The other suggestion to restructure the administrative staff is necessary. According to the

budget, almost 75% of our yearly expenditures are for salary and benefits, with the majority of

this money being distributed to those in administrative positions. The call to eliminate 1-2

administration members would significantly help the budget and cut down on nepotism in the
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workplace. For example, out of 9 administrators, 5 of them are related by birth and marriage.

This is an issue that needs to be addressed as some of those particular staff members are the ones

accused of over spending in the departments they head. I believe it is in the best interest of the

school to listen to the suggestions of the school’s stakeholders by reducing wasteful spending on

events and removing an administrative position.

Reflection: Continuous and Sustainable School Improvement

A formalized needs assessment is a crucial step to developing a school budget that is

reasonable, fair, and works toward the overall improvement of the school. A school must hear

continuous feedback and conduct needs assessments in order to determine gaps between their

desires and the reality of their financial standing. It is imperative that school leaders “know

which particular interventions are most promising for increasing student achievement and cost

the least, because monetary resources are often in short supply” (Sorenson & Goldsmith, 2018,

p.161). It is never wise to plan the future of a school based on assumptions. By performing a

needs assessment, school officials are being offered insight from other outside perspectives about

their current needs and projected factors for growth, as well as concrete data to identity which

programs need “improvement or exclusion” (Sorenson & Goldsmith, 2018, p.161).

Reflection: Implications for Future Practice

As a future leader in education, it is my goal to be in a position where I can implement

change in a very real way. It is important that I spend the time now researching, learning, and

analyzing the current and future trends my beloved school is facing. Turning a blind eye to our

problems has only caused more financial difficulties and has not been healthy for our yearly

budgets. By performing these exercises and speaking to our stakeholders through the survey, I

am preparing our school for a more promising financial future.

This assignment has helped me practice my efficiency in PSEL Standards 1 and 9. Both

standards require effective school leaders to be ready to implement the goals outlined in their

school’s mission. In accordance with the first standard, leaders need to be able to successfully

and “strategically develop, implement, and evaluate actions to achieve the vision for the school”

(National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2015). By learning how to create,

distribute, and analyze a needs assessment survey, I have had the opportunity to develop my

skills and match the data to achievable goals. Standard 9 stresses that we are able to ‘manage and

monitor operations and administrative systems that promote the mission,” including fiduciary

items (National Policy Board for Educational Administration, 2015). Comparing two different

budgets and speaking with my principal has given me direct insight into how operations are

managed by administrators in relation to the school budget.

References

National Policy Board for Educational Administration. (2015). Professional Standards for

Educational Leaders [PDF]. Reston: National Policy Board for Educational

Administration.

Netzel Grigsby Associates, INC. (2016). Saint Joseph High School: Strategic Plan 2017-2022.

California, Culver City.

PMAlliance. (2018, March 05). 5 Ways to Defend Your Project Budget: PMAlliance Project

Management Blog. Retrieved January 21, 2021, from https://pm-alliance.com/defend-your-

project-budget/

Saint Joseph High School. (2020). Mission and Philosophy. Retrieved January 14, 2021, from

https://sj-jester.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=407559&type=d

Sorenson, R. D., & Goldsmith, L. M. (2018). The principal's guide to school budgeting.

Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.