Retirement benefits for faculty are an important, but relatively understudied, topic in postsecondary education. To date, there have been very few studies that have used qualitative research methods to examine how workers make financial decisions about retirement, and no qualitative investigations of faculty choice between DB and DC plans. To help…

The funding of public education in America has been a primary concern for government officials at the federal, state, and local levels for several generations. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, this expenditure accounts for the single largest allocation in most state and local government operating budgets (Stanley and…

Presents ratio analysis of financial statements as a tool applicable for use by nonprofit institutions for evaluation of financial and operational performance of an institution. It can be used as a screening, forecasting, diagnostic, and evaluative tool for administration and governance. (MD)

Ratio analyses are useful, but care must be taken not to overstate their importance or disregard their limitations. Internally designated, nonstandardized recording techniques in interinstitutional comparisons, inflationary distortions in internal analysis, and judgments made on trends can obstruct the manager's efforts to assess a higher…

Reviews the history of the budgetary procedures of the New Jersey Department of Higher Education and outlines the development of the grant program budgeting as a major source of revenue since 1984. (MD)

Empirically evaluates three measures of effectiveness of school district cash management: the rate of return method in common use and two new measures--efficiency rating and Net Present Value (NPV). The NPV approach allows examination of efficiency and provides a framework for evaluating other areas of educational policy. (Author/IRT)

Analyzes ways in which asset allocation, investment guidelines and objectives, and investment performance may create indirect income redistribution among institutional constituents, including redistribution from future to present constituents. Comments on the implications of inflation and deflation for these aspects of endowment fund management.…

Illustrates how nonendowment cash flows (tuition, grants, and gifts) affect the portfolio allocation decisions for the endowment and are "efficient" in terms of the total wealth of the institution. A mathematical appendix displays the reasoning behind the model. (Contains 12 references and 4 tables.) (Author/MLF)

Presents a portfolio model for management principles that can be applied to state and local government tax structures to determine how governments can minimize tax variability for any desired rate of growth of revenues and apply the principle to the issue of funding education. (Author/MD)

Examines the relationship between school districts' geography and management strategies and their collective influence on student transportation cost, using 1990-91 data from 533 Missouri school districts. Management factors influence transportation costs more than geography does. When both factors are considered, contracted transportation is more…

Examines three school districts [Richmond Unified School District (California), Coachella Valley Unified School District (California), and White Pine County School District (Nevada)] that faced financial disaster and then worked their way back to solvency. All three overspent revenues in the general fund, had unrealistic budgets, and lacked…

Teacher salaries are the largest item in school budgets but difficult to forecast. Presents a technique for forecasting teacher salaries called transition-based budgeting. This can increase the accuracy of budget projections by 300 percent. (Author/MD)

Changes in cash management practices from 1978 to 1981 were investigated in a random sample of 145 North Carolina school districts, stratified by attendance size. Analysis using chi-square tests indicated the level of investment sophistication (as measured by the proportion of cash invested) has increased, especially for large districts. (RW)

Reviews 1997 school finance legislation, comparing legislative activity levels from 1994 to 1997. In 1997, 32 states passed legislation pertaining to capital-outlay funding, tax bases, and taxation for education funding. Half passed legislation for state aid, technology, special-purpose education, budgeting/fiscal management, and school personnel…

State governments are in the midst of one of the most severe fiscal crises of the last half century. The magnitude of the fiscal challenges facing state and local governments highlights the importance of sound fiscal planning and access to key financial indicators. The objective of this article is to develop a financial condition indicator system…