In our work of conducting finance function assessments, we’ve found it’s often hard for school Boards and others who don’t work every day on school finance to accurately gauge the health of a school’s financials and finance office. To help with that conundrum, we have developed a quick EdOps School Financial Health Self Assessment that identifies the most important financial metrics and best practices.
Read MoreOur Consulting Team recently helped a nonprofit education organization strengthen its finance function. While EdOps concentrates exclusively on supporting schools and therefore couldn’t take on this client for monthly finance support, we helped the organization find a financial services vendor that suited its needs.
Read MoreIf you are like many school leaders right now, you are both excited to access all the COVID stimulus available, but also a little anxious about how best to utilize this funding. You are hoping the funds will help you (1) maintain your program in the near-term with all of the demands of a pandemic environment while also (2) maintaining financial sustainability after the funds wind down. You are not alone and we are here to help you think about a plan for allocating these resources. This blog post will give an overview of the funding available and a step-by-step process for building COVID grant budgets.
Read MoreGood financial reports are a school CFO’s most undervalued tool. When EdOps performs a school finance function assessment, we routinely find that the challenges we uncover are caused not by ineffective staff or bad software, but by an absence of clear, concise, understandable, and agreed-upon financial reports. Too often, the financials boards receive are simply a PDF printout of a year-to-date income statement from the school’s accounting system. While this meets the minimum bar of keeping the board apprised of the school’s financial position, good financial reports tell a story. They are tailored to their audience, and they explain not just the “what” but the “so what.” At the board level, good financial reports enable robust discussion of financial options, even from board members without a financial background; they provide an accurate picture of the financials prior to the annual audit; and they lead to faster, more strategic decision making.
Read MoreAs we prepare for an unusual start to the school year, we are striving to make staff feel like valued members of our communities. One element towards that is having routine operations running smoothly so that attention can be focused on the students and their learning experience. Payroll is a predictable element of running a school that, if done well, is hardly thought about by staff – except maybe on pay day! Payroll mistakes, however, can be upsetting, stressful, and take up a lot of administrative time and energy to rectify. This is the first in a series with tips on how to process an error-free payroll based on our extensive payroll experiences with schools. We hope these will be helpful in increasing the accuracy of your payroll.
Read MoreAs we prepare for an unusual start to the school year, we are striving to make staff feel like valued members of our communities. One element towards that is having routine operations running smoothly so that attention can be focused on the students and their learning experience. Payroll is a predictable element of running a school that, if done well, is hardly thought about by staff – except maybe on pay day! Payroll mistakes, however, can be upsetting, stressful, and take up a lot of administrative time and energy to rectify. This is the first in a series with tips on how to process an error-free payroll based on our extensive payroll experiences with schools. We hope these will be helpful in increasing the accuracy of your payroll.
Read MoreAs we prepare for an unusual start to the school year, we are striving to make staff feel like valued members of our communities. One element towards that is having routine operations running smoothly so that attention can be focused on the students and their learning experience. Payroll is a predictable element of running a school that, if done well, is hardly thought about by staff – except maybe on pay day! Payroll mistakes, however, can be upsetting, stressful, and take up a lot of administrative time and energy to rectify. This is the first in a series with tips on how to process an error-free payroll based on our extensive payroll experiences with schools. We hope these will be helpful in increasing the accuracy of your payroll.
Read MoreAs we prepare for an unusual start to the school year, we are striving to make staff feel like valued members of our communities. One element towards that is having routine operations running smoothly so that attention can be focused on the students and their learning experience. Payroll is a predictable element of running a school that, if done well, is hardly thought about by staff – except maybe on pay day! Payroll mistakes, however, can be upsetting, stressful, and take up a lot of administrative time and energy to rectify. This is the first in a series with tips on how to process an error-free payroll based on our extensive payroll experiences with schools. We hope these will be helpful in increasing the accuracy of your payroll.
Read MoreAs we prepare for an unusual start to the school year, we are striving to make staff feel like valued members of our communities. One element towards that is having routine operations running smoothly so that attention can be focused on the students and their learning experience. Payroll is a predictable element of running a school that, if done well, is hardly thought about by staff – except maybe on pay day! Payroll mistakes, however, can be upsetting, stressful, and take up a lot of administrative time and energy to rectify. This is the first in a series with tips on how to process an error-free payroll based on our extensive payroll experiences with schools. We hope these will be helpful in increasing the accuracy of your payroll.
Read MoreOn April 15, EdOps published “Budget Considerations from COVID-19,” detailing planning considerations that LEAs might apply to their contexts when budgeting for SY20-21. This post is a follow-up to share the planning efforts of specific LEAs on DC’s Deputy Mayor for Education’s Contingency Education Budget Planning Response Work Group. The intention of this post is to facilitate knowledge sharing among public charter school LEAs as they prepare their SY20-21 budgets.
Read MoreThe Finance Committee leads the Board of Directors in performing its fiduciary duty to the nonprofit organization that runs the school. There are a number of key responsibilities that a Finance Committee must complete to support the school staff and the full board in their work.
Read MoreMuch is unknown about the impact or the duration of the COVID-19 crisis. In coordination with the D.C. Deputy Mayor for Education’s Contingency Education Budget Planning Response Work Group, EdOps led the development of potential revenue and expense implications the pandemic may have on local education agency (LEA) budgets. LEAs are encouraged to apply these considerations to their contexts.
Read MoreA personnel file audit is the periodic and systematic review of your personnel files to assess whether the documents in each employee’s personnel file are accurate, up to date, and complete. The audit helps ensure legal compliance, identifies HR process weaknesses and highlights HR successes.
Read MoreEffectively analyzing school financial statements across multiple years can be challenging. Changes in facilities, organizational structure, fundraising strategies, or student population (including opening or closing campuses, adding new grade levels, or experiencing demographic shifts) complicate the comparability of financials.
Read MoreLenders want to know if you will pay them back. Whether you are considering traditional bank loans, taxable or tax-exempt bonds, or even special forms of financing created by state or federal government programs, the underlying question is the same. To find the answer, lenders look for assurances that your project and school will generate enough cash flow to service the debt (and that your school will stay open long enough to pay).
Read MoreA well-conceived budget will serve as a “map” when making financial decisions throughout the year. It will reflect what you value as an organization, communicate your priorities to key stakeholders (board, staff, authorizer, families, funders), and highlight any new or changed priorities. Before the more technical work of the budgeting process begins, there are a number of broad concepts that we recommend every school focus on.
Read MoreWe often begin our school budget training for charter applicants by asking the group to identify the major levers that impact total teacher salary expenses. Almost without fail, the two answers given are 1) teacher salary levels and 2) average class size. What most people overlook is that there is a third, equally important lever: 3) schedule configuration.
Read MoreAs many school administrators and staff already know, approximately 90% of funding received by schools is driven by enrollment. Student recruitment can drive enrollment, and thus has a significant impact on the financial stability of your school.
Read MoreOperating with a low supply of cash reserves can be an extremely stressful situation for any business. This can be a particularly daunting challenge for public charter and independent schools as cash inflows do not always align well with required cash outflows.
Read MoreAll too often school leaders go through the process of making a budget – only to let it collect dust once it’s complete. A budget done well transforms abstract goals into concrete numbers and allows you to track progress towards those goals throughout the year. If you are not coming back to your budget on a regular basis as the year progresses, you can stray from your goals and expose your school to unintended risks.
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