School+Finance+-+Week+3

__Rick I have combined all of our input and I think we should post everything just like it is except for Part 3. We probably need to combine some of it. Wow, this week was alot to me. I am going to copy and past all of this to my wiki. Thanks..__ __Part 1__ District 1 has a significantly higher WADA than District 2 even though they have a lower ADA primarily because of the higher number of "weighted" students, especially the much larger percentage of economically disadvantaged students.
 * || District 1 || District 2 ||
 * Percentage of Economically Disadvantaged Students ||= 93.3% ||= 20.7% ||
 * Total Refined ADA Adjusted for Decline || 3,893.754 || 4,032.937 ||
 * Weighted ADA (WADA) || 5,555.815 || 4,794.076 ||

District 1 has 93.3 % off its student population that is categorized as economically disadvantaged. District 2 has only 20.7 % off its student population categorized as economically disadvantaged. These two Districts have substantial differences in economically disadvantaged populations. Total refined ADA Adjusted for Decline in District 1 is 3893.75 and 4032.98 in District 2. District 1 WADA is 5555.82 and District 2 is 4794.08. With these figures in mind it brings up the question, why does a district with a smaller ADA have the larger WADA? Before attempting to answer this question I want to define WADA. WADA (weighted average daily attendance), in Texas, is defined as students with additional education needs are weighted for funding purposes to help recognize the additional costs of educating those students. Weighted programs include special education, vocational, bilingual, gifted and talented, and compensatory education. A weighted student count is used to distribute guaranteed yield funding. I would also like to note that district 1 is the district with the lower ADA but the higher WADA. Now let us evaluate each district’s programs that pertain to WADA. District 1 has 48% LEP students where District 2 has only 2%. This alone significantly affects WADA. District 1 has 9% Special Education population and District 2 has 7%. This is not a significant difference but will virtually affect the WADA. Another major difference in the 2 Districts that affected WADA is the Bilingual population. District 1 has a population 41% and District 2’s population is a mere 2%. With just this little amount of information the question should be easily answered. The ADA is weighted by the state to provide funds to meet the needs of the students in District 1. WADA helps to provide a lower ADA income district with funds to meet the needs of students with educational needs.

__Part 2__ It is interesting to see that District 1 has such a smaller number of expected revenues and fewer staff to work with approximately the same number of students, especially since the district has many more students that may potentially be at-risk.
 * ||= District 1 ||= District 2 ||
 * Revenue per WADA @ Compressed Rate ||= $5,044 ||= $7,206 ||
 * Total Target Revenue for the M&O || $28,023,530.86 || $34,546,111.656 ||
 * Total Number of Teachers, Librarians, Nurses, and Counselors ||= 281 ||= 307 ||

The Revenue per WADA @ Compressed Rate is substantially different between the Districts provided. District 1 stands at 5044.00 and District 2 is at 7206.00. Both districts have approxiametly the same number of students but the WADA@ Compressed Rate is much more for District 2. This is easy to see if you look at the Local District Property Values of each district and keep in mind “hold harmless”. This allowed district 2 to hold on to their local revenue and therefore made their compressed rate much higher. The Total Target Revenue is slightly higher in District 2 at 34.5 million that in District 1 at 28 million. Once again the main reason for this is the higher Revenue per WADA @ compressed rate. When you multiply WADA times Compressed Rate WADA, District 2 stands about 6.5 million more. District 2 has more teachers, librarians, nurses, and counselors than does District 1. District 2 has 307 where as District has 281. This throws up a red flag to me. I would think that these districts are backwards. Due to the large number of students with additional educational needs in District 1, it would appear that District 1 needed to be the district with more personnel. District 2 has less WADA but still maintains 26 more teachers. For such examples as this, I feel that “hold harmless” is not making Texas School Districts equitable and should be done away with.

__Part 3__ The intent of the Weighted Average Daily Attendance is to provide more money and professionals working with directly with students in districts that have students with specific needs. In examining the two districts we were given as samples, it is clear that the intent has not been accomplished. Although the idea makes perfect sense, the reality is that the system does not provide enough funds to compensate for other factors.

District 1 has a smaller ADA than District 2, but a significantly larger WADA. In particular, the number of Economically Disadvantaged students in District 1 is substantially higher than in District 2. District 1 also has more minority students, more LEP students, more Special Education students, more Bilingual/ESL students, more CATE students, and more GT students. In some of these areas, the difference in numbers is huge. Because of the WADA, District 1 receives more funding from the state than District 2. For example, District 1 receives $3,835,006 in the Compensatory Education Allotment, compared to only $633,369 received by District 2. District 1 also receives Chapter 46 funds, while District 2 does not. These additional funds should provide an advantage to District 1 in serving the students who are “weighted” due to a specific need, but apparently, they do not.

Because of the disparity in property values, District 2 has significantly more available funding. The target revenue for District 2 is $34,546,111. District 1 has a target revenue of only $28,023,530. With an additional $6.5 million to spend, District 2 provides more teachers, librarians, nurses, and counselors (307 to 281) than District 1. Based on I&S tax collections, it is likely that District 2 provides much newer facilities than District 1, as well. In comparing TAKS scores, District 2 students clearly perform at a higher level than District 1. In All Tests Taken, 89% of District 2 students passed, compared to only 61% of District 1 students. In each subject area and subgroup, District 2 students performed better than District 1 students. The same is true when examining SAT and ACT college admission tests.

Although many factors influence student performance, the additional funds provided by the state to District 1 are not making a significant difference based on the information provided. It is true that the WADA has made it possible for District 1 to receive more state funding than District 2, but overall funding is still higher in District 2. Although the intent of WADA is to provide additional funds for students in need, the money may not always translate directly into student gains.

Just as presented in the assignment, the intent of the WADA (Weighted Average Daily Attendance) was to provide more money and professionals working directly with students in District 1 Example than in the District 2 Example because the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, but the action failed to accomplish that goal in this case. It is unknown what all could have influenced this to occur. After reviewing the snapshots and summary of finances from both districts it is very evident that the goal was not met. District 1 is very close to being 100% economically disadvantaged. They are in much need of additional funding to provide more professional working directly with the ED students. When looking at number of staff for each district, District 1 has 26 fewer teachers, librarians, nurses, and counselors than District 2 that is near equal in size. This is totally backwards. When reviewing the different programs funded under M&O you find many differences between the 2 districts and many similarities. Regular program allotment in both districts are right around 20 million. Knowing that both districts have nearly the exact same enrollment this is a positive relationship between the districts. There is also a similarity between the districts concerning the Special Education Adjusted Allotment. District 1 has 9% Special Ed. population and allocated 1.9 million in funding where district 2 has 7% Special Ed. Population and allocated 1.6 million in funding. Both districts are in alignment with each other on percentage of students in Special Education related to funding allotment. The Career and Technology Allotment is at 24 % population in District 1 and it appears that their allotment coincides with their population District 2’s population is a mere 14% and funding is only at 633,000. With the amount of funding that District 2 has available the funding for CATE should be higher. CATE instruction is a very important part of education today and I feel that district 2 should be funding it at a higher rate. When comparing districts, District 1 has 3.8 million in Compensatory Education Allotment and District 2 has a mere 630,000.00. It is very evident that District 1 has a large number of free and reduced meals, and therefore has a substantial amount of funds available for at-risk students. This allows District one to provide their students with more opportunities with these additional funds. This allotment also helps to make up the very small local revenue funding. It is apparent that District 2 has fewer free and reduced meal students, therefore having much less Compensatory Education Allotment. The Bilingual Education Allotment is much different between the two districts. In District 2 there is only 46,000 allotted for the 2% bilingual population. With such a small percentage of students that are bilingual, the funding appears to be in line with the population. District 1 is much different than District 2. District 1 is 41% Bilingual, with a LEP population of 48%. The funding for District 1 is 834,000. With nearly half of their population bilingual, this funding seems absurd. Even with compensatory education assisting with the learning of the bilingual students, the lack of funding in bilingual allotment is still very low and is very negative to the success of their students. The Transportation Allotment varies somewhat between the two districts. District 1 has allocated 215,000 in transportation and District 2 allotted 392,000. This would draw my attention being that each district has same number of students but District 2 has almost double the money allocated. There could be very good reasons for the substantial difference. The routes could be longer meaning district is bigger and could require more fuel or even more bus routes. More routes would require more buses. District 2 could have older buses that require more maintenance. Or it could just be that District 2 buys new buses frequently and have a better fleet than District 1. If this were the case I would have a problem with them not adjusting some of the funds in transportation to another fund that needed more funding. The High School Allotment funds were very close in their figures respectively. They are determined by grades 9-12 ADA. They are spent on under achieving students and/or college readiness programs. It is designed to encourage students to work toward college attendance. The allotment is set in stone with the students ADA. There are three programs that had no funding allotted and are as follows; The Public Education Grant, New Instructional Facilities Allotment, and the Virtual School Allotment. Neither district had a student that was participating in the Public Education Grant program therefore, there are no funds allocated for this program. With no funding allotted in the New Instructional Facilities, we assume that neither district have funds set aside for New Facilities. The Virtual School Allotment is funding that would provide students to participate in Virtual School Learning. Apparently neither district offers Virtual School and/or they do not fund for it. In conclusion, the overall evaluation of the programs funded under M&O there are some differences and some similarities between them. We have tried to hit the top spots and bring out what we feel are the biggest aspects of the 2 districts programs. Both districts could use some minor adjustments in their allotments for M&O programs.

__Part 4__ Based on the district’s 2010-2011 Budget and a brief interview with our business manager, I have learned a great deal about our district’s finances. As a campus principal, I have some experience working with budgets, but mostly from the perspective of expenditures. Working with the business manager, I gained some valuable experience in the area of revenues and how the revenues relate to the expenditures. Mainly, we focused on the revenue that goes into the Maintenance and Operations Fund.

In terms of revenue, the majority of our (M&O) funds come from local revenue (primarily the local property taxes), with the rest coming from state and federal revenues. 72% of these funds come from local revenue, 23% from state revenue, and 5% from federal revenue. State revenue includes funding for Regular and Special Education Programs, Career and Technology, Gifted and Talented, Compensatory Education, and Transportation. Most of the revenue from local, state, and federal sources goes directly into the General Fund to be appropriated for district expenditures. Some of these funds go directly into the programs which generated the funds. Allotments for special education, CATE, GT, etc. are appropriated for those programs. The vast majority of the funds are not specifically dedicated to particular programs or activities and may be used in any area (M&O). Of these funds roughly 75% are budgeted for payroll. 49% of the budget is appropriated for Instruction. Remaining funds are distributed into the other “function” categories including media services, curriculum, staff development, administration, guidance services, health services, transportation, and co-curricular activities. Based on this information, I would say that most of the funds do show a direct relationship between source and allocation.

__Part 5__ Based on the figures above, I would predict that District 2 has much newer facilities and probably has additional resources such as science labs and computer labs that are much better equiped to offer students a high quality education. The impact on student learning is probably significant due to the opportunities that students in District 2 are given above and beyond what District 1 can provide. When looking at the above figures you would be fine to say that District 2 has the most funds available to make payments on existing debt/school facility bonds. District 2 has an enormously larger Property Value and their I&S Fund is considerably larger. With this in mind it is much easier for District 2 to provide new and updated facilities as well as maintain existing facilities. This is not saying that District 1 does not have new and updated facilities or that they fail to maintain current facilities, it just means that District 2 has more opportunity to do more. Part of the superintendent’s job is to provide a safe and secure environment conducive to learning. Being able to maintain facilities and keep them up to date allows them to provide this environment. With all things in mind I will say that District 2 does probably have the better facilities than District 2 solely on the Property Value and I&S Fund. I cannot say that District 1’s facilities do not provide a safe and secure environment conducive to learning but I can say that District is able to provide more opportunities.
 * ||= District 1 ||= District 2 ||
 * 2010 Local District Property Value (DPV) || $145,968,635 || $2,916,187,709 ||
 * I&S (Interest & Sinking Fund) Tax Collections ||= $94,871 ||= $8,836,256 ||
 * Chapter 46 (EDA) Totals ||= $572,716 ||= $0 ||
 * Which district has the most funds available for payments on existing debt/bonds? ||= No ||= Yes ||

__Part 6__ Although District 1 receives a great deal more than District 2 in Compensatory funds, the huge difference in property values generates enough revenue for District 2 to have a a much higher expected revenue and the ability to provide more in terms of staffing and facilities than District 1 can provide.
 * ||= District 1 ||= District 2 ||
 * Compensatory Education Allotment ||= $3,835,006 ||= $633,369 ||

Compensatory Education funding is somewhat confusing. Funding is determined based on a district’s student population that receive free or reduced meals. However, allocation of these funds is mandated to be spent on at-risk students. Not all students whom are on free or reduced meals are considered at-risk. It is weird to me that we are drawing funds on certain students but allocating the funds to other students. In our District comparisons District 1 has 3.8 million in Compensatory Education Allotment and District 2 has a mere 630,000.00. It is very evident that District 1 has a large number of free and reduced meals, and therefore has a substantial amount of funds available for at-risk students. This allows District one to provide their students with more opportunities with these additional funds. This allotment also helps to make up the very small local revenue funding. It is apparent that District 2 has fewer free and reduced meal students, therefore having much less Compensatory Education Allotment.