School leaders, bone up on money
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- December
- 19
If school district officials haven’t gotten the word yet, crafting, and passing, school budgets this May will definitely be tougher than usual, given the economy and taxpayer ire. There are some workshops coming up worth going to. In fact, they get to the heart of the responsibilities that superintendents, fiscal managers, school administrators, accountants and auditors, school lawyers and school board members have when it comes to our money.
From the New York State School Board Association:
On Jan. 22, from 8:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., in North Islandia on Long Island, NYSSBA will host “Fiscal Management in Hard Financial Times: Navigating the Legal Twists and Turns.’’ The main focus:
- Effectively monitoring your district’s financial condition.
- Permissible uses of fund balances, reserve funds and fund transfers.
- Legal requirements that govern the use of alternate sources of revenue.
- The nature and scope of your district’s authority to borrow money.
- Rules applicable to staff reductions and the abolition of positions.
Then there is that mandatory six-hour training on “Fiscal Oversight Fundamentals’’ for school board members. One is in Latham, outside of Albany, on Jan. 24 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. There will be another one Feb. 28, again in North Islandia on Long Island.
According to NYSSBA, Board of Education members will learn how to:
- Identify responsibilities and qualifications of key financial officers.
- Understand internal controls.
- Assertain how school districts are funded.
- Determine safeguards you can adopt.
- Obtain indicators of a district’s financial condition.
- Identify what reports you need to receive, from whom and how often.
- Explore common types of fraud, waste and abuse, and what actions your board should take if you suspect irregularities
For more information, contact the NYSSBA Leadership Development Department at (518) 783-0200 or (800) 342-3360 or via e-mail at info@nyssba.org.
Also, visit www.nyssba.org for more information and forms.
This entry was posted
on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 9:57 am by Laurie Nikolski.
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Maybe education should start looking outside the box! Almost all educators become administrators once they be come superintendents. So why make it a requirement that you have to have teaching experience? Think of the whole new world that would be open to Boards of Education in selecting “administrators” if they dropped the “education” requirement.
How about the PhD how can’t teach high school math because he doesn’t have certification!