We love summer camp almost as much as we love school finance solutions.

 

In the spirit of exploring, navigating obstacles, and sharing stories ‘round the fire, here are a few “trail guides” for improving clarity and communication around your district's budget processes.

This content is also available as a webinar, presented by Tyler →

Trail Options

 
Our trail options are: Compliance Path, Service Path, Transparency Path, and Clarity Path.
 
Only two of these paths will lead to stronger financial accountability in your district—they encourage clear communication and budget responsibility across schools and departments (not just in the central office).

Compliance or Service?


Financial compliance is typically motivated by threat of punishment. Service models in K-12 finance move from a strict focus on compliance to the training and support of non-finance leaders. 

This shift cuts down on time wasted later on the backend—e.g. someone having to spend (waste) lots of time cleaning up accounting structures for how positions may have been split-funded between Title I and the general fund.

Vector illustration of a brown wooden post with two wooden arrow signs labeled "compliance" pointing left and "service" pointing right. The post base is nestled among yellow, green, and orange plantlife.
Vector illustration of a single, light brown path in a green, grassy area that splits into two directions toward a hilly area. In the foreground left stands a bushy tree.

Transparency or Clarity?


If transparency and clarity were nature trails, transparency would be a ‘low difficulty’ loop on a hazy day, and clarity would be a ‘high difficulty’ excursion ending in bright, spectacular views. 

Clarity is more intentional than transparency.  When data is clear and contextualized, people understand it. They know what’s invested in their budget. They understand key information about procedures, their purchases and deadlines, and they feel empowered to make smart decisions.

Now that you've picked your paths, it's time to...

1. Gear Up

The Lippitt-Knoster Model for Managing Complex Change says that effective, sustainable change (no matter how small) requires five key elements: vision, skills, incentives, resources, and an action plan.

Vector illustration of an orange, teal, and yellow camping backpack. To its right, illustrations of the pack's contents: a compass representing skills, a camera representing incentives, a map representing an action plan, water bottle representing resources, and binoculars representing vision. Above the items reads "be prepared"

To learn more about the Lippitt-Knoster Model, and what happens if just one element is missing, jump ahead to 24:28 in Tyler’s webinar → 

2. Expect Obstacles

 

Ambiguity


People across your district have different views about your finance operations. Our 2023-24 Education Finance Survey revealed a range of experiences and finance knowledge gaps among 1,855 district leaders, school leaders, and teachers.

 

We hope you can use this non-partisan survey report to start conversations about finance topics in your own district.


Resistance


“But we’ve always done it this way!” is a common roadblock in K-12 finance. Yet most of the operational technology systems that schools are using today were built last century.

 

Over the next decade, many of these systems will begin to fail. When that one person who understands the code-base retires, there will be no choice but to start fresh. So why not start now?  

Vector illustration of a see-through, beige-colored snack bag ripped open - with brown nuts, seeds, and orange and yellow pieces of dried fruit

3. Build Trust

 

Access — who can see what and when? 


Non-finance leaders should be able to easily monitor their resources throughout the year. A few tips for increasing access:

 

Involvement — who helps decide? 


Principals and department heads can better weigh trade-offs if they’re involved in the budget process. What budget model pennant does your district fly?

 

  • REACTIVE: all decisions are made by the finance team
  • INFORMED: budget owners know what’s in their budgets but have minimal discretion in making changes
  • PROACTIVE: budget allocations are transparent and formula-based; budget building is collaborative
  • PREDICTIVE: budget data is available to everyone; investment rationale is clear and goal-oriented; finance team is there to help build plans
Vector illustration of four camp pennants in green, red, blue, and yellow labeled Reactive, Informed, Proactive, and Predictive.

Knowledge — how do we teach for understanding? 


Give that one person who ‘knows how it’s done’ a break. Build trust around financial operations, not fear. Some strategies to get everyone on the same path: 

 

  • Offer training and support for school leaders to learn the basic foundations of systems and finance operations.
  • Set expectations around spending and explain their importance. Create 30-60-90-day success metrics.
  • Pursue professional development designed for finance and district admins, like solutions-focused webinars.
Thanks for camping out! We hope these ideas were helpful.

The Allovue team is made up of experienced K-12 district leaders, finance managers, technologists, and creatives who are passionate about providing the best education finance solutions for school districts.

Our software includes a tool to create allocation formulas without spreadsheets, a collaborative budgeting module for strategies-aligned planning, and a spending management portal for administrators.

green-pullquoteWhen I started Allovue, I imagined a world where executives of billion-dollar companies would look on with envy and say, “I wish we had the kind of tools they have in Education.” I still believe that world is possible—a world in which the leaders facing the most difficult resource allocation challenges who are tasked with making the most consequential decisions are fully equipped with world-class innovations to get the job done.

jesstransparent

Jess Gartner, Group VP for
Allovue & ERP at PowerSchool

See what your constellation of finance data could look like.

Check out this 6-min product tour, presented by Meg! Want to see more?

Vector illustration of a light teal, blue, and yellow telescope pointed at the night sky.