Simone Carpenter
Strategic budgeting is the effective and efficient allocation of resources in alignment with district priorities. This blog, the first in our series on strategic budgeting, covers the creation and use of an initiatives inventory — a crucial first step toward helping school districts optimize their resources and ensuring every dollar is strategically invested in educational success. For a closer look into strategic budgeting, we invite you to explore our comprehensive paper.
The Initiatives Inventory: What is it? Why is it important?
In K-12 education, schools are tasked not only with academic education but also with meeting students' comprehensive needs. To handle the expanded and increasingly complex set of student needs, schools have introduced more staff, specialists, and numerous programs and efforts, collectively known as "initiatives."
Over the years, managing these initiatives has become an overwhelming challenge. As more and more programs get added, school districts struggle even to list all the programs offered, much less detail the specific goals of each program, the students served, and the effectiveness of each program.
DMGroup has developed an effective process to help districts gain a comprehensive understanding of all the initiatives going on in the district: the Initiatives Inventory. An Initiatives Inventory is a centralized, focused document that catalogs all programs and initiatives within a district. It details essential information such as program objectives, program design, outcomes, and costs — both dollars and time. The Initiatives Inventory provides a clear and organized overview of strategic investments in a district.
Key Questions Answered by Initiatives Inventory
The Initiative Inventory process involves gathering information from key stakeholders, including department leaders and district chiefs who oversee initiatives and the principals who implement them.
Some of the key questions answered are the following:
What are the objectives of this initiative?
How is that objective measured?
Where does data related to performance live?
What campuses implement this initiative?
Whom is this initiative meant to serve?
How many students are impacted by this initiative?
How do you define success for this initiative?
Why is this initiative important? Which strategic objective does it align with?
Although some of these questions may seem extremely basic and straightforward, DMGroup has found that it is important to gather all this information to confirm alignment and have a shared understanding.
Assessing Impact
After assembling an initial overview, the next step is assessing whether these initiatives meet their intended goals. Outcomes data is reviewed and analyzed, and qualitative insights are gathered from principals managing the implementation of initiatives in their schools. For example, we ask:
Is this initiative implemented on your campus?
If not, do you want it to be?
If it is, how important is it to you?
How effective do you think it is?
What other initiatives are you implementing at your school that aren’t listed here?
With the answers to these few questions, district leaders have access to a wealth of actionable information about how programs are actually working in the field, as well as making sure principals and other site leaders have a chance to add their perspectives to this important discussion.
Assessing Costs on a Fully-Loaded Basis
The last set of data that District Management Group gathers as part of the Initiatives Inventory is information about the fully loaded cost of each initiative. To get an accurate and complete understanding of fully loaded costs, we look at costs specific to the initiative, such as the cost of curriculum, licenses, supplies, etc. However, we also analyze personnel costs, which include staff and leader time. The cost of staff time for initiatives is significant and rarely calculated in the cost of initiatives — they are viewed as fixed salary costs. Accurately capturing these costs ensures that districts understand the full financial cost of their initiatives.
Leveraging the Initiatives Inventory for Strategic Decision-Making
An Initiatives Inventory is a starting point in strategic budgeting that helps districts get a well-structured and organized view of their initiatives so they can manage and optimize their resources strategically. This tool is designed to be a "living" document, continually updated to reflect the most current and actionable information. This document can quickly provide insights as to where there might be redundancies, overlapping initiatives, or gaps in program offerings and can reveal areas for deeper examination.
With an Initiatives Inventory in hand, districts can move to the next steps of the strategic budgeting process - in-depth Academic-ROI analyses — to determine which programs are most effective for which populations of students and at what cost. This helps districts ensure that resources are being used most effectively to deliver for students.
If your district is looking to gain control over its numerous educational programs, consider implementing an Initiatives Inventory as a foundational step towards strategic management.
For more detailed guidance on creating and utilizing an Initiatives Inventory, read our comprehensive paper on strategic budgeting practices or contact DMGroup for advice and support.