The Budget Alignment Advisory Committee (BAAC) was established by the Board of Education in the summer of 2011 to: “identify, sort and prioritize present and known potential costs relative to their degree of direct alignment to, or impact upon, the District's goals and the strategic plan.” This charge means BAAC will establish relative values for identified costs compared to other identified costs; it will not recommend budget cuts or cost reductions.
The committee includes parents, community members, teachers, support staff members, Board members and administrators. The full roster of committee members is available (BAAC ROSTER).
BAAC reported its findings to the Board of Education on December 5, 2011. The full report is available, which includes an executive summary. One of the key pieces in that report that the administrators will utilize to inform its work in the third step is the role group ratings and results (Section A).
To help understand the role group ratings and results, it is important to understand how the role group results chart is designed. While BAAC discussed that no change to any expenditure item would be preferred, given the budget challenges facing in District 34 means difficult decisions will need to be made. Each expenditure item is either categorized under the heading of "aligned to the strategic plan" or "current practices." Once assigned to a column, each expenditure item was then placed into one of three categories: A, B or C.
Items in the A category are at the top of the chart (green section), B in the middle (yellow section) and C at the bottom (orange section). If an expenditure item is in category A, it means BAAC determined that function can withstand little (if any) change. If an item is in category B, it means BAAC indicated that function could withstand a medium amount of change. If an item is in category C, it means BAAC indicated that function could maintain a lot of change.
The letter designation (C, O, T or S) to the right of each expenditure item represents where each of the four role groups categorized the expenditure item:
Community (Parents and Community Members) - C
Operational (Teachers and Support Staff) - O
Tactical (Administrators) - T
Strategic (Supt., Deputy Supt. and Board Members) - S
If at least three of the four role groups agreed on which category (A, B or C) where a particular expenditure item should be placed, it was placed in that category. If there were not at least three role groups in agreement, then the expenditure item was placed in category B.
The BAAC meeting summaries are included below.
The District has divided the District’s nearly $68 million budget into more than 100 expenditure categories. Those are listed below and include information describing the expenditure, the intended outcomes, students impacted, funding sources outside of local taxes (grants, federal funding, etc.), and the exact expenditure in that area.
Those expenditure categories are all available below and represent approximately 97% of the District’s $68 million in expenditures. Salary information is based upon averages of that job classification.
|
