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…

Program budgeting is a system that focuses on outcomes rather than on inputs, relates resources to outcomes, includes more than one time interval in the budget document, and states outcomes in measurable terms. If the assumptions underlying program budgeting are accepted, the system can be an effective tool for identifying new ways to do jobs…

Data suggest that the rhetoric about how local people can solve their own problems through gifts of relatively unrestricted money is open to question. (Author)

Describes specific factors contributing to questionable validity and reliability of cost information used by mental health administrators. Presents a case study in which 17 different cost figures were derived for a single program using various methods currently employed. Discusses implications of nonuniform cost data. (Author/RC)

This document discusses planning for educational development by means of a Planning, Programming, Budgeting System. A PPB system is defined and its basic operation is described. Various ways in which the broader purposes of governments may be classified in terms of their objectives are presented with emphasis on how the learning objective might…

This report explores the need for cost-benefit analysis in non-traditional education for the disadvantaged and presents practical suggestions and steps needed to carry out an effective analysis, based upon the experiences in the Community College of Vermont. Steps in such an anslysis include: (1) understand the informational needs of the various…

The practices of program budgeting, costing, and strategic planning in higher education are examined. It is suggested that many postsecondary administrators and other groups have viewed a particular technique as the answer to their problems and converted a valid management technique into a management fad. Program budgeting, a system whereby the…

These materials from Beaverton Schools, District Number 48 (Oregon) provide an annual program review process within the context of the regular planning and budgeting processes. Information obtained from the review process (an analytic and decision-making process) is intended to serve as a basis for determining what program levels should be…

Where research activities operate under "fixed" budgetary and resource conditions, allocations of funds must be carefully planned for effective program implementation. Although relatively little information is available on how small research units could use the principles of programed budgeting, a technique for ascertaining program…

This report presents a strong argument and general guidelines for the development of a Management Information System (MIS) for the Community College System of Connecticut. Also included are ideas to assist state budgeting and finance officers in making a Planning, Programming, Budgeting System (PPBS) an effective operation in that state. Part I of…

The methodology of costing an education program by identifying the resources it utilizes places all costs within the framework of staff, equipment, materials, facilities, and services. This paper suggests that this methodology is much stronger than the more traditional budgetary and cost per pupil approach. The techniques of data collection are…

Planning, Programming, Budgeting Systems (PPBS) provide a new approach to the optimum use of limited school system resources in improving the learning process. In conjunction with Management Information Systems (MIS), PPBS is a tool which school officials can use to communicate to taxpayers the necessity for current school programs and the manner…

Two distinct types of planning-programing-budgeting systems (PPBS)--manual and semiautomated--have been developed in the ESEA Title III, Intermediate Unit Planning Study (see EA 002 750). The PPB systems are for use by intermediate units and by school districts in Pennsylvania. The first type is detailed in this document and is referred to as the…

The purpose of the study was to provide "baseline" data for determining the feasibility of further investigation into the use of quantitive judgmental data in evaluating school programs for determining program budget allocations. The specific objectives were to: 1) Apply a Cost-Utility Model to a "real world" situation in a public secondary…

The School Planning, Evaluation, and Communication System (SPECS) is an overall design for districtwide program assessment and development. It is both a way of interrelating planning and evaluation of individual programs and a way of comparing the outcomes of all district programs with the district's community-defined educational goals. Component…