Staffing is one just one of many critical tasks performed throughout the year at every district with a significant upsurge in the summer. There is perhaps no greater impact on budget than the outcomes of these staffing decisions and as such require effective communication and coordination between the Superintendent and or Director of Human Resources and the Business Administrator. This is necessary to gauge the effects on budget from the hiring decisions by validating payroll to budget.  |
| Sample Excerpt Comparison from Excel Spreadsheet consisting of over 60 positions |
To ignore this crucial analysis puts the budget at risk; opening the school year blind only to find out in the months to come whether you're under or over budget. Remember, salary and benefits command upwards of 70% of all budgets.
Many people outside of Education see summer to be a time slow to no activity for schools, they could not be more wrong! Summer comes with a plethora of challenges in a compressed time frame for all within central office requiring such tasks as curriculum revision, staffing, grants management, training, professional development and many other functions. While all offices remain busy, it is the Business Office that must oversee and undertake a variety of assignments that are critical to the successful operations of a district that begin in June with end of year purchasing, budget close out ("Roll-overs" vs. Accounts Payables), project management and construction, facility cleaning and preparations, transportation, and my favorite, the Comprehensive Annual Financial Report... aka. the Audit. All of this in addition to the regular day to day responsibilities of meetings, correspondence, phones and email, despite the fact that on any given day someone is on vacation and that someone is the one needed to resolve or accomplish one of those tasks.
If it sounds like a lot to juggle your right; however, that is what BA's do and they do it well with a lot of help from their staff, other district administrators, colleagues and a strong support system through their professional associations. In New Jersey that group is the New Jersey Association of School Business Officials (NJASBO) currently led by John Donahue, Executive Director and Derek Jess, Immediate Past President and Tom Fanuka, President.
While every aspect of summer operations is important and all require detailed analysis, oversight and leadership - the focus of this post is on validating payroll to budget. It is as simple as keeping track of the employee changes in real time as they happen instead of waiting months to see where you actually are. While simple, it requires coordination of data and input from personnel in payroll, benefits and human resources as well as direction from key administrative personnel. Many of us begin this task at budget time somewhere between October and December with November's payroll a typical starting point. The analysis includes comparison of salaries budgeted (encumbered) vs. actual (payroll) employees to determine true availability of cash balance in each of the salary account lines. This analysis carries through each program and function of the district to include leave replacements, resignations, non-renewals, retirements and new programs/additions. Keep in mind, the budget for September 1 to pay all employees was finalized back in March/April almost 5 months prior. A lot can and does change in personnel during this time and the larger your district... the larger your budget and the opportunity for major variances.
Often hiring decisions net new employees based on upward changes in enrollments or new program demands that result in new positions not even in the budget which can be anywhere from $70,000 to $90,000 on average including benefits that must be covered from other line items or absorbed by other personnel gains such as "breakage" resulting from a senior person leaving and a lesser experienced person being hired. Keep in mind this must all be accomplished within the current 2% CAP.
Bottom line..... Don't Wait to find out your short! Plan ahead by working with your team to monitor your true position prior to September. Often this means crunching numbers before they are in the system or your departments are ready for this task; however, a better estimate allows for a more informed position in other decisions related to budgetary resource availability.
Payroll is a significant element in the dynamics of a company. It is the most tangible covenant between employer and employee – the point of agreement for rendering service. So this ought to be covered in the budget well.
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A welcome head's up. :) Thanks! I think this is one of the cases where a good accounting software should be employed, to have the payroll computed properly. Seriously, the accountant can't probably afford to mess up pay rates at this point.
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