Leading with Purpose - build, inspire, and guide teams to make strategic and thoughtful financial decisions that support schools and students. Ensure every dollar spent creates better learning environments and helps students succeed.

***2-hour session***

We will review the balance sheet checklist and the undesignated fund balance analysis including the encumbrance process. These are the two most common hold-ups in the E&D process. We hope to better explain what is expected and what we are looking for within these two forms in order to simplify and expedite your certification. After our presentation we will have a question and answer period for all things E&D no matter if they are related to our presentation. This session is geared toward all Regional School Business personnel regardless of years of experience and all others are welcome.

"Beyond Balancing Budgets: Financial Leadership That Shapes the Future of Education" - Adam Braun will share powerful, real-world stories from his journey in founding Pencils of Promise and how resourcefulness, strategic thinking, and purpose-driven leadership can drive meaningful change for students to improve their lives — even in the face of financial constraints.

It is critical that school committees are kept informed on the financial well-being of the district. In this session, we'll discuss why it's important, how to tell the story of your district's finances, and how to educate your school committee members to ask the right questions.

NOTE: The 10:50 session that follows this session demonstrates how to prepare these reports in Excel. Bring your laptop if you plan to stay in the room for the 10:50 session.

A review and discussion of the tools and resources available through MAPT's spedtranssavings.org website to address your special education transportation challenges.

This session will discuss how a region tied to a Special Education Collaborative that encompasses 20 school districts in the North Shore of Massachusetts was able to establish its own transportation network to leverage economies of scale with respect to purchasing power and passenger load to save districts money. Initiatives like this are more important than ever given the rising costs of student transportation along with ever limited financial resources available to school districts.

Building on the previous session on financial reporting to the School Committee, this session will discuss the nuts and bolts of using Excel to prepare the data, tables, and graphs to present to your School Committee. Including building the historical database, reviewing trends, forecasting expenditures, and presenting data (BRING YOUR LAPTOP IF YOU WANT TO WORK IN EXCEL WHILE WE LEARN).

NOTE: Attending the previous session at 9:40 is encouraged, but not required.

This hands-on session will illustrate how an LEA can demonstrate MOE eligibility through either: (1) the combination of State and local funds in the aggregate; or (2) the combination of State and local funds on a per capita basis.

TABLE TOPICS

Join us for an engaging and interactive “Listserv Live” session — an opportunity to connect, collaborate, and share insights with fellow School Business Administrators!

After lunch on Thursday, we’ll host a dynamic, one-hour roundtable event where you can dive into timely and relevant topics that matter most to your work. Each of our 25 discussion tables will focus on a specific topic of interest, with a facilitator -  a fellow School Business Administrator - to help guide the conversation and keep discussions flowing.

Student activity accounts provide an additional support within your district. Learn best practices for managing student activity accounts and how they support the 3-year external audit cycle and the two off-year internal reviews.

Informing members of changes to the reporting of rollover encumbrances, and discuss potential adjustments to the EOYR audit agreed upon procedures that might be coming.

This session will equip school finance directors with practical strategies to streamline End-of-Year Reporting (EOYR) preparation using Pivot Tables and Crosswalks, enhancing efficiency and accuracy.

Each regional school district agreement must contain, among other requirements, the detailed procedure for the preparation and adoption of the annual budget, as well as a method of apportioning the expenses and costs of the district, based on the regional school district budget. Regional school district agreements must also have a method of implementing the statutory assessment method and may also have an alternative assessment method. This session will provide guidance on the budget and assessment processes.

This session will assist SBAs with an overall review of the Collaborative Admin Review for DESE. Attendees will gain a better understanding of the overall review process to be better prepared for their scheduled review.

Showing off Power Bi again and running through capabilities for districts to find and use their data.

The presenter will provide information on all the data that you would need to project your Ch. 70 funding. Attendees will have access to templates and instructions on how to attempt projections with information on the variables to pay attention to. Additional information will be given on how to report to your School Committee on why you got minimum aid or foundation aid.

This session will provide an overview of uses of some of the more common regional school district funding sources. Topics will include the use of Excess and Deficiency (E & D) in regional school district budgets, including how and when E & D may be used and what districts are required to do if E and D is over 5%, and the use of other sources of funds (within and outside the general fund budget), including stabilization, transportation reimbursement, and school choice.

Meet with colleagues who share similar geographical issues.

• Nauset 1 - Assabet Valley
• Nauset 2 - Cape Cod
• Nauset 3 - Berkshire County and Western Mass
• Nauset 4 - Lighthouse
• Nauset 5 - North Shore
• Chatham - Metrowest
• Race Point - USBAR