School Finance Microcredentialing Program

1. Review Underlying Principles of Good Stewardship: Planning, Accountability, Governance
2. Define Good Stewardship of our Resources including recruiting, rewarding, and retaining staff
3. Explore the roles of CFO/Business Manager, Board Member, & Superintendent
4. Discuss the “Story” that numbers tell and how we can begin to understand the story
5. Determine what good financial reporting a board member should get in order to understand the “story”
6. Review a basic fund report and fiscal indicators and apply understanding of those to financial principles
7. Use knowledge of the roles to determine communication structures between the board and superintendent including when, where, and how to ask questions
8. Explore good meeting and communication structures that work: Work Sessions, Active Participation
9. Determine how board policies fit into the financial process
10. Analyze what good Internal Control Structures are
11. Apply internal control practices to board policies and processes
12. Build on a board member’s prior working knowledge
13. Evaluate revenue increases/decreases on the fund report
14. Evaluate expenditures increases/decreases on the fund report
15. Examine role of revenues and expenditures in Fund Accounting and the Fund cycle
16. Develop good questions to ask on the fund report and determine supporting documentation
17. Evaluate how to determine the impact of expenditure increases and decreases on the budget compared to the fund report

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1. Apply district spending to district goals and vision
2. Determine how a district should prioritize spending to meet funding 
3. Review district best practices in the process for making purchases
4. Analyze how you determine if district is following that process
5. Distinguish between ongoing and one time spending and apply those types to budgets
6. Review Long term funding and the topics of deferred maintenance and deferred interest costs in borrowings
7. Distinguish between a working budget, a long range budget and the Gateway budget
8. Define and be able to calculate Levies and Rates
9. Analyze expenditure costs and how to plan for the unexpected
10. Determine areas of potential internal control breakdowns in expenditures including credit card purchases, gift card purchases and payroll
11. Evaluate how to determine the impact of expenditure increases and decreases on the budget compared to the fund report
12. Examine how a budget appropriation is different from a fund balance
13. Examine the true costs for construction projects

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1. Examine different revenue streams for schools: Tuition support, property taxes, state grants, federal grants
2. Examine in detail the complexity formula and its impacts on schools
3. Review Levy and Rate from module two and how those two determine property tax revenues
4. Analyze circuit breaker for operations and debt service
5. Determine impacts of revenue from debt issuances and how the community needs assessment impacts the debt
6. Determine the underlying assumptions including estimates & alternatives used for various debt issuances and how those assumptions impact the amount of dollars borrowed. 
7. Construct good questioning techniques for the 1028 hearing 
8. Examine transfers from education to operations and how districts should be determining the transfer percentage
9. Explore the relationship between the school district and the other units of government in the area: City, County, State 
10. Analyze those relationships in connection to circuit breakers
11. Analyze when you need a referendum

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1. Examine the BIG 5: - ADM trends, Revenue trends, Expense trends, Cash Reserves, Debt Outstanding
2. Evaluate the difference between lagging indicator and leading indicator– are you doing some future planning?
3. Analyze the DUAB dashboard and review dashboard for your district
4. Examine the Demographic trends in Indiana
5. Apply those trends to your own districts with the guiding questions “Can you grow enrollment? “
6. Coordinate with other officials  to review the work with residential TIFs to get more enrollment
7. Examine a demographic study and apply those trends to project future numbers of students. 
8. Analyze best practices in strategic planning and apply those to your district. 
9. Evaluate who we should listen to– what are good sources of financial information?
10. Analyze what to do when the superintendent or CFO is struggling and developing a support plan for that school administrator. 
11. Review a cash reserve policy guideline 
12. Compare model cash reserve policy guidelines to your district's policy for compliance with recommended guidelines of 16-20%

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