FY24 A.I. Rethinking School Budgeting through GFOA’s Smarter School Spending
Smarter School Spending and the Alliance for Excellence in School Budgeting is a network of school districts formed by GFOA from across the nation working to implement GFOA’s Best Practices in School Budgeting. The Best Practices in School Budgeting is a framework to enhance a school district’s budget and planning process through better alignment of strategic goals/student outcomes and resource allocation.
Schools districts are charged with providing a free and appropriate education to all students, generally with limited funding. Most school districts have a strategic plan outlining the instructional goals they are attempting to meet in providing that education. In order to ensure that those limited funds are spent in support of the strategic goals, we introduce participants to the GFOA’s Best Budgeting Practices for School Districts framework.
Learning Objectives:
- A participant will leave with an understanding of the Best Budgeting Practices for School Districts and how to identify key areas of the framework to introduce into their respective school districts.
- A participant will learn about the challenges and opportunities of implementing the Best Budgeting Practices.
- A participant will learn about the free resources to support the framework available at https://www.smarterschoolspending.org
Carol MacLeod
Senior Project Manager, Research and Consulting Center
Government Finance Officers Association
https://www.gfoa.org/bio/carol...
Carol MacLeod, CPA, CIA, CISA, CGAP, SFO, joined Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) as a Senior Project Manager with GFOA’s Research and Consulting Center. She leads the outreach efforts related to GFOA’s Best Practices in School Budgeting, Smarter School Spending, and the Alliance for Excellence in School Budgeting. Before joining GFOA, she worked in governmental accounting and auditing for over 30 years, including most recently, 11 years as the CFO at Lake County Schools, Florida where her district participated in the Spending Money Smartly project beginning in 2013 that provided the foundational work for GFOA’s Best Practices in School Budgeting.
Michael Knight (Moderator)
School Business Administrator
Greater Lowell Regional Vocational Technical
Michael Knight, MBA is the School Business Administrator Greater Lowell Regional Vocational Technical School District. Michael has worked in the field of school business for 6 years and was credited with implementing cost saving strategies saving over $400,000 annually in his previous school district, Groton-Dunstable Regional. Previous to working in school business Michael worked in technology and construction sales.
Michael’s goal serving as a board member would be to help foster an environment of continuous learning and thought share within MASBO. The greatest strength MASBO has is the membership, there are millions of hours of experience collectively held by the MASBO membership and finding ways to share and memorialize the lessons learned from this experience would be his top priority.
When not crunching budget numbers, Michael enjoys playing golf, hiking with his dog, and watching sports.
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