Understanding School Budgets
Have you ever wondered why your school has funds for a new gymnasium floor but not for advanced chemistry lab materials? Or perhaps your school has forgone hiring a new math teacher after one retired, even though the students need one. These funding decisions—and countless others—are determined by your school’s budget. And if you’re interested in understanding that budget, you’ll need to invest some time in learning about the budgeting process.
To get started, check out your local school board’s meeting schedule and determine when the finance committee is planning to meet. If you can’t find the information you’re looking for online, you may be able to reach out to a school board member, school superintendent, or your school district’s chief financial officer directly.
Attending or watching school board meetings and finance committee meetings, specifically, will help you get a feel for the funding issues that school district’s face. Funding priorities include everything from transportation to curriculum to staffing to nutrition. And just as a reminder, a school’s budget is funded through federal, state, and local tax dollars, with much of these funds being mandated for specific purposes.
School board meetings are also a great place for parents to provide feedback or offer suggestions when it comes to school funding. Your school’s principle may be able to field your questions about the gym floor or new math teacher, but sometimes the answer to your budget question is more complicated and should be directed to the school board’s finance committee.
The entire budgeting process—from planning to implementation to evaluation—takes place over three years. Planning begins the year prior, implementation takes place the year the budget is in effect, and an evaluation of the budget takes place the following year. While school administrators are planning for the next year’s budget, they are still implementing the current one, and evaluating the last one. Raising concerns about your school’s budget is best done in the planning phase, as there is much less opportunity to change a budget once it’s in the implementation phase.
While the planning phase of the 2022-2023 started last year, school boards were required to make a proposed budget public or adopt a resolution indicating that the proposed budget will not raise tax rates by more than their index by January 27th. And the final budget must be adopted by June 30th, just before the school district’s fiscal year begins on July 1st. If you have concerns about the 2022-2023 budget, now is certainly the time to be in touch with your school district’s administrators.
We often hear all kinds of claims from policymakers—that primarily boil down to the claim that we’re just not spending enough on public education. But the truth is, Pennsylvania continues to increase state-level spending on public education, despite the decrease in student enrollment. Parents and community members, alike, have the right—and responsibility—of knowing how their schools are managed and where their tax dollars are going.