Question

When it comes to School Finance, based on income and revenues, what are the key elements one should look for when critiquing its budget?

Answer 1

School finance is different from financing of any other institution or business. Most of the schools does not operate for profits and thus their revenue streams depends a lot on the amount of donation and funding they received. The school fees they charge does not provide for all the expenses it incurs during a particular year. While analyzing or critiquing the budget, some of the key elements that can be looked are as follows:

• Analyzing the different funding streams available, it includes:

1.Delegated funding: There are not strings attached and the administration of the school can use the same as per their discretion.

2. Devolved funding: These types of funding comes with some kinds of conditions attached to it, therefore the same has to be analyzed properly while evaluating the school budget. For example, devolved capital funding should be used only for the purpose of purchasing long term assets.

3.Capital funding: These must have been spent on improvement of long term assets.

4. Revenue Funding: The amount received as revenue funding must have been spent within the year only.

• Analyzing that value for money is being achieved while procuring resources: This can be done by analyzing the amount spent on infrastructure and its comparison can be done with the same amount being spent by other schools within the community. The infrastructure may include amount spent on building maintenance, classroom assistance, catering etc. If large differences occurs then the same should be properly analyzed.
• Some other elements that can be considered in analyzing the budget may include effective analysis of overall spending of the school and its percentage as compared to its income. Students fee percentage, cost per student of the school and revenue per student etc.