North Star Update

Name of Project: Budget Process
Name of Initiative: Supports to Staff

Team members:
Richard Geil
David King
Rebecca McCreary
Doug Schuster

Give the gist of what your project is about including the long-term goal.
The goal of this project is to develop a comprehensive resource allocation process to align resources with the Agency’s strategic priorities. To support this goal, this project includes the development of new on-line tools, resources and trainings for budget managers that will allow them to actively engage in the Agency’s budgeting and financial monitoring.

What are the things that your team has been working on?
• Adjusting the accounting system and structure to match the new organizational structure.
• Improving the Dashboard financial reports for budget managers.
• Improving the budget knowledge and budgeting skills of budget managers.
• Developing business rules and work flow models needed for on-line processes.
• Developing new on-line tools for staff and budget managers.
• Implementing document scanning into the accounting system.

What has your team accomplished?
• Instated new budget manager and department oversight Dashboard reports.
• Implemented regional-based accounting and budgets.
• Developed a method to identify Agency expenditures by North Star initiatives.
• Developed a new on-line ability for budget managers to view the detail components of their line item budgets.
• Facilitated increased budget manager participation in preparing the 2008-09 amended budget and 2009-10 proposed budget.
• Began scanning paid invoices and other documents into the financial accounting ledgers (these images can now be viewed on financial reports via the Dashboard).

Why are these important to Agency’s goal of increasing student achievement?
Increasing student achievement requires the focus of resources on strategic priorities. To achieve maximum efficiency and effectiveness, management must be actively engaged in resource allocation, cost-benefit analysis and financial monitoring. To do this, they must have access to accurate and timely data for decision-making purposes.

What can the staff expect in the future?
• A paperless purchase requisition approval system.
• A Web-based budget transfer process with description for future reference.
• Improved Dashboard reports for supervisors on leaves, calendaring, etc.
• An automated budget checking of resource availability for expenditures.