Phoenix Union High School District (PUHSD) has its roots in Territorial Arizona and has served generations of residents as Phoenix evolved from a dusty agricultural town into the fifth-largest city in the nation. For decades, Phoenix Union High School was the lone high school in Phoenix. Desegregation funding makes up approximately 24 percent of…

At the core, budgeting is about distributing and redistributing limited financial resources for continuous improvement. Incremental budgeting is limited in achieving the goal due to lack of connection between outcomes and budget decisions. Zero-based budgeting fills the gap, but is cumbersome to implement, especially for large urban school…

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the degree to which the Selective Abandonment budget process objectives were achieved by analyzing stakeholder perceptions. Use of this evaluation may enable the district to become more effective, efficient, and more fiscally responsible when developing future program budgeting plans. Program evaluation was…

School business officials are best equipped to lead in funding operating and capital needs because they understand the need for a methodical means of funding ongoing costs over time and the benefits of planning for future financial needs rather than letting emergencies dictate spending priorities. A capital-financing plan makes it possible to…

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 program budget is an alternative to the traditional line-item budget. Such a budget would interpret the expenditures of the school system in terms of the programs the school system provides rather than in terms of the resources it utilizes. This report outlines a structure for such a Program Budget System (PBS) in the Worcester, Massachusetts,…

In outline form, this document presents basic information on the school district, the reasons the district considered zero-base budgeting (ZBB), the formation and membership of the advisory School Cost Analysis Team, the district's investigation of the ZBB concept, an overview of the ways the district used the ZBB process, the identification of…

The "Local Technology Plan Guidelines" serve as the basis for the Department's annual technology data collection. This report takes a look at the data submitted by 344 school districts, examining the progress Massachusetts school districts are making in meeting the recommended guidelines. In doing so, it will gauge the degree to which…

Planning is the key to maximum usage of resources by public school systems. Long range and intermediate goals must be identified. Priorities must be assigned to programs, and program budgeting practices must be modernized. (BD)

Wyoming has become the first State in the nation to transform the concept of program budgeting into reality in every local school district. Such budgeting procedures, which link education costs directly to instructional programs rather than to general categories of expenditures, were introduced this year in all 60 of Wyoming's local school…

With the introduction of zero-base budgeting (ZBB), the district took a major step toward providing more and better information on which to base allocation decisions. This manual provides an overview of the complete process to be used in formulating the budget for the second fiscal year during which ZBB is to be used. The formulation of decision…

The New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) criticizes state-mandated program-oriented budgeting as limited, laborious, inflexible, and more concerned with efficiency than with sound education. NJEA sets out its own guidelines on school budgeting, which favor the traditional line-item budget. (SJL)

The purpose of the three sections of this document is to provide simulated activities that will help each participant acquire the necessary skills to work with zero-base budgeting (ZBB). The specific objectives are to provide activities that will assist a manager in determining whether or not ZBB should be considered for implementation, to provide…

This report to California's governor and legislators was prepared in response to Government Code Section 16285 and supplements a four-volume Department of Finance report. It discusses the results of a survey to determine the impact of Proposition 13 and subsequent fiscal relief legislation on specific programs carried out by California school…