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 School
District Budgets, by their nature, are forward looking and are
estimates of the cost to operate the public education of the
district.
School District Budgets are divided into three components;
Administrative, Capital, and Program. The Administrative budget
component includes expenditures for office and administrative
costs; salaries and benefits for certified administrators; data
processing; public information; legal fees; property insurance;
and school board expenses.
The Capital budget component includes expenditures for school
bus purchases, debt service on buildings, leasing expenditures;
tax certiorari and court ordered costs; facility costs, salary
and benefits of building staff; service contracts, maintenance supplies and equipment; and
utilities.
The Program budget component includes teacher salaries and
benefits; instructional costs such as supplies, equipment and
textbooks; co-curricular activities and interscholastic
athletics; staff development; and transportation operating
costs.
The population growth in a school district is most often
measured from state sponsored statistical demographics studies
or by performing a district wide census. Accurate population
growth measures provide early signals of increasing demand for educational services. This is why census
statistics are advantageous to relative statistical demographic
studies (these studies tend to use Federal Census numbers often
years out of date).
Censys
Censys was developed to support school districts in managing and
measuring district population growth. Using a survey mailing
method of census collection, districts use this information when
planning each budgetary component.
Censys contains a database of building addresses within a
district. On a yearly basis, the district produces a census
mailing to the district population. The census mailer is a
series of survey questions that request the district resident to identify themselves and the relative ages of the
children in the household. It is here were information about
incoming students becomes vital in capturing early growth
measures.
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