This chapter explores the relationship between strategic planning and budgeting. It describes how community college leaders can use strategic and foundational plans (academic, facilities, technology, and financial) to drive budgets and resource allocations in support of institutional goals and objectives. Finally, it identifies challenges of doing…

In this paper, a model and tool is proposed to assist universities and other mission-based organisations to ascertain systematically the optimal portfolio of projects, in any year, meeting the organisations risk tolerances and available funds. The model and tool presented build on previous work on university operations and decision support systems…

To navigate today's fiscal challenges successfully, school districts must constantly examine the long-term fiscal implications of policy, programmatic, and human resource decisions on their organization. They must look at the effect of such items as bargaining agreements, contracted services, placement costs, transportation costs, benefits,…

The New Mexico Public Schools Facilities Authority (NM-PSFA) is a relatively small state agency (50 staff members) that manages the allocation of funding for public school facilities in the state while assisting school districts and state-chartered charter schools in facility planning, construction, and maintenance. Like the majority of other…

Given the current economic constraints facing the country, school districts in the U.S. have been pushed to develop annual budgets through a new lens and to accept the reality that budget adoption is a complex, political process. Whether a school district is rich or poor, growing or declining in enrollment, serving a specialized population or…

Discusses steps three and four in a budgeting process that uses Program Evaluation and Review Techniques (PERT). Step three involves developing time estimates and scheduling each of the activities in the PERT chart. Step four involves responsibility identification and coordination. (Author/JF)

Construction management involves (1) identifying the problems and the problem areas, (2) reviewing the various options to which these problems might respond, (3) making decisions based on this evidence, and (4) implementing those decisions as quickly as possible after they are made. (Author)

A PLANNING MODEL IS SUGGESTED FOR THE STATE DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SO THAT CHANGES IN THE SYSTEM AND THE PROGRAM CAN BE MOST EFFECTIVELY ACCOMPLISHED FOR THE REALIZATION OF LONG-RANGE AIMS, INTERMEDIATE GOALS, AND IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVES. STEPS TO CONSIDER INCLUDE EVALUATION OF RESOURCES, MATCHING RESOURCES WITH AIMS, AND FORMULATING PLANS. A VITAL…

In this era of rapid social change, educational administrators have discovered that new approaches to problem solving and decision making are needed. Systems analysis could afford a promising approach to administrative problems by providing a number of systematic techniques designed to sharpen administrative decision making, enhance efficiency,…

A systems approach to college administration and planning is probably the most valuable tool available for coping with the complex problems facing institutions of higher education today. A system is defined as a set of interrelated elements, units, or subsystems that work together toward a common goal. If a college functions as a system, the…

The methods of operations research (OR) can make many contributions to the solution of the complex problems which beset urban education. OR techniques such as PERT are useful aids to planning school construction, budgets, and research projects. System planning models can be used to represent urban educational systems and to predict the effects of…