Goal Driven Budget

The Goal Driven Budget

The goal driven budget is a process used to attain a shared vision for the school district and each campus.  This process truly drives the total planning process of the school district from the Board of Trustees, to the district to the individual campus.  By doing this, the budget driven process should reflect a commitment to expending funds in order to achieve those goals.

 Our DIP is organized very effectively.  It starts with the goals of the Board. Then it ties into the goals of the district and then the goals of the campus.  Each goal has strategies that focus specifically on the goal presented.  All of these goals are important to the success of the district and each is then correlated to the budget .These goals are what drive the formulation of our school budget.  Our DIP begins with comprehensive needs assessment data which provides data for goals. It then states the goals for staff, parents, community, school operations, facilities, safety, and finance. These areas are organized in specific areas to be able to determine who, what, where, when and how these goals will be accomplished.  Everything is then summarized and focused specifically by Board Goals, District Goals, and Public Education Goals.  Then the objectives are aligned to these goals and the strategies are aligned with these objectives.  One specific example in our CISD DIP is as follows:,

Board Goal 1: Curriculum Alignment.                                                                                                                                      District Goal 1: Cleburne ISD will meet AYP and achieve a recognized rating by 2012.                               Public Education Academic Goal: Exemplary performance in English/Language Arts, Mate, Science and Social Studies.                                                                                                                                                            Public Education Objective: A well-balanced and appropriate curriculum will be provided to all students. Objective 1: To ensure that at least 75%of all students and all student groups meet the standard on all subject area testing.                                                                                                                                                             Strategy 1: Beginning the 3^rd year of implementation of C-Scope Curriculum Alignment for grades 3-12.

The resources, person’s responsible; timeline and formative evaluation are stated so that all know the goals.  Our individual campuses then correlate to these DIP Goals and tie into them per campus as well.  This is a very outlined approach for the entire district to know where we are and where we need to go.  CScope is one financial commitment that our district believes will aid in achieving many of our DIP goals.

As stated in our lecture with Dr. Artebury, multiple stakeholders are involved in this total driven budget process. The Board of Trustees and the superintendent develop the district goals, and then our District Site Base Committee develops our district improvement plan. The each campus site base committee develops the Campus Improvement Plan. This process reflects the concept stated in the lecture of suggesting to the principals that the campus plan and goals should be a “version of the vision “to reflect the Board goals. This comment was very insightful.  It is important to have a Board that truly knows what the goals of the district should be. Therefore, those goals can be implemented for all students’ success utilizing the total budget driven process.