ASBA/ASA Conference - Financial Information Every Governing Board Member Should Understand

The content of this session was very difficult to understand. I know a bit about budgets, because I manage a 1.3 million dollar budget as part of my full-time job.   The explanations about the funding categories and how funds can be spent was very confusing.

During the session on Financial Information Every Governing Board Member Should Understand we heard (sorry, I can't say learned...it was just too much to understand in 60 min) lots of new terminology with regard to budget.  It was more complex than debits and credits.

I will only share a brief amount of what will learned, in hopes to not bore you.

Budget is the amount of funds you will have to spend for the year.  Cash is the amount of funds available to spend.

Funds are sorted by categories:
M & O = (Maintenance and Operation)

Capital Outlay (fixed assets=furniture, computers, copiers, etc)

Adjacent Ways (ingress, egress, etc.)

Expenditure Process

Purchase Requisition = Document to request expenditure of funds, details on what is expected to be purchased, including estimated costs that are included in the annual budget

Purchase Order (PO) = Document used to approve future expenders

                 Invoice = Third party bill for goods or services

                Warrant = Used to pay funds (like a check)

Voucher = Document to authorize the issuance of a warrant

Competitive Purchasing (in one fiscal year to one vendor)

                Less than$ 5,000 – no bids required

                $5,000 to $49,999 – obtain oral price quotations from three or more vendors

More than$ 50,000 – requires sealed bids

Applies to all vendors, unless they are on the approved vendor list

This is just the basics.  There was more and I think it might be good to ask the Superintendent for a lesson on school finance.