Transparent and Responsible Budgeting

Although our district, by law, posts the budget reports on its website, they are lengthy and not easily deciphered. It doesn't feel transparent. Other outstanding districts across the country are finding ways to make it happen.

I would like to see financial transparency reflected in easy to understand chunks on the district website. Finances could be broken up with graphs and into categories such as bids/quotes/contracts, monthly financial statements, property tax information, financial audits, purchase orders, facilities budgets for each school, transportation, and/or salaries. In order to be considered accessible, community members shouldn't need an accounting degree.

In order to maintain a stable budget, we must ensure that projections for enrollment are moderate based on the data, and, like making a home budget, see that the amount estimated to be spent is reasonably below that estimated to come in. Savings could also be made by collecting more bids and quotes for services and supplies, engaging with our amazing local community and businesses for support, seeking out more grants, and including our district families in innovating to fill in any gaps. We have so many resources around us and can accomplish much more working together. We need board members pushing towards these goals to reassure our community that their tax dollars are in good hands, that our district will be capable of offering the best resources to its students, and that we will be able to retain excellent teachers.