Community colleges are under pressure to increase completion rates, prepare students for the workplace, and contain costs. Colleges need to know the financial implications of what are often perceived as routine decisions: course scheduling, program offerings, and the provision of support services. This chapter presents a methodology for estimating…

Very little of the professional development literature identifies its costs. Many say good professional development is expensive, but what is meant by expensive, and if so, expensive relative to what? This article shows that effective professional development is not expensive relative to overall spending and that its key elements and their costs…

In this article, the author talks about program evaluation, a strategy commonly used by instructional leaders that can help school business officials improve their budget process. As districts struggle to develop budgets in these challenging economic times, school business officials might consider turning to program evaluation for help. Program…

As state governors grapple with their budgets for 2012, public universities and colleges are facing some of the deepest funding cuts in memory. To make matters worse, most of the federal stimulus funds, which have helped dull the pain so far, will have been spent by June. It seems almost inevitable that IT departments are going to be asked to…

It is the worst of times for state budgets. But across the country, some elected officials say it's the best time to rethink how their states spend money on education. Governors and other officeholders are arguing that their states have no choice but to re-examine assumptions about how schools are using the money they currently receive, given…

For decades, performance-based budgeting has been applied to evaluate the degree to which government programs and agencies are meeting their stated goals in a cost-efficient manner. The same thinking is applied to public education. In today's times of tight budgets and higher expectations, public schools are being asked to justify their budgets…

A major difficulty facing IT departments is ensuring that the projects and activities to which information and communications technologies (ICT) resources are committed represent an effective, economic, and efficient use of those resources. This complex problem has no single answer. To determine effective use requires, at the least, a…

Econometric cost functions have begun to appear in education adequacy cases with greater frequency. Cost functions are superficially attractive because they give the impression of objectivity, holding out the promise of scientifically estimating the cost of achieving specified levels of performance from actual data on spending. By contrast, the…

The participation of the United States in the programing and budgeting process of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) is reported. The document is presented in four chapters. Chapter I, the introduction, traces the growth of the United Nations system, UNESCO background, U.S. representation to UNESCO, and…

Administrators should examine the role and limitations of their budgeting systems and consider overemphasis on control of spending rather than efficiency or effectiveness, limitations on cash-based budgeting, need for information on operating costs, and the short range and fragmented nature of most budgets. (MSE)

Steps taken to alleviate financial problems in Los Angeles county created by Proposition 13 are described. (JD)

This book offers an independent analysis of the New York City education budget for 1981 by the Educational Priorities Panel (EPP). It represents an alternative to the mayor's budget, which calls for $89 million in cuts, and the board of education budget. The first two chapters contain background information on the EPP and an explanation of the…

Cost-effectiveness/benefit analysis is an analytical technique for assessing outputs of educational programs in relation to the program objectives and the associated program costs. It combines the two concepts of cost-effectiveness analysis and cost-benefit analysis into a comprehensive model. The cost-effectiveness/benefit analysis model has been…

The Alabama Education Study Commission conducted a five-year project to find adequate measures of accountability for schools. The result, developed, implemented, and tested in 11 school districts in Alabama, was a Program Management and Budgeting (PMB) system combining elements of zero-base budgeting and management by objectives. PMB has the…

This primer introduces the basics of Program Management and Budgeting (PMB) in an effort to demonstrate how PMB can benefit school systems. Short quotes from previous publications on the topic are paired with cartoons designed to clarify the purposes and workings of the program. The publication begins by defining PMB as an alternative financial…