School Biz Today

Tales from the Business Office...

How Can I Recharge My Brain????

I know for most of us, this time of year can be very taxing. There are books to be balanced, books to be closed, and then of course, books to be opened for the new year. Sometimes with all of these duties we need a little “boost” for our brains.

I just read an article about ways to rejuvenate our brains and I want to share of of them with you.

1) Learn new information and skills during your entire lifespan. This helps keep your brain strong even in the later years of life. The things that challenge you the most have the most value for your brain.
(Side note: The new accounting system we started using 3 years ago should have made me an absolute genius by now!)

2. Exercise regularly. Exercise has a positive effect of enhancing successful aging. Exercise can improve our energy levels, and we all could use that!!!! Exercise can also reduce the risk of depression and anxiety, and who in a district office doesn’t go through periods of depression and anxiety!
3. Share time with friends.  See why the CLASS meetings are so important!  You can all tell your superintendents that you just have to enroll in CLASS for the 2010-11 year so that you can recharge your brain!!!!!   What superintendent doesn’t want a clerk without a recharged brain!!!!!
4. Take control of your health and make sure you are in control of your body.  Talk with your doctor, open communication can help your physician make sound decisions that are best for YOU!
5. Leave time for relaxation and a time to process our environment. Our brains require time to process information, in order to gain more benefit from our daily experiences.  I know this one is very hard to most of you.  Keeping up with family, work, church activities, and home is very challenging.  However, please try to leave a little time for relaxation, you deserve it!
6. Don’t retire from life. I know several are retiring this year and there are several more retiring during the next couple of years, so we need to remember that when we retire from our “business office jobs” we are not retiring from life.  We need to maintain a strong sense of purpose in life and remain actively involved in daily route as it is beneficial to our lifelong health and well-being.  For most of us this won’t be a hard because after we retire our lives will be filled with grandchildren, travel and hopefully #5 (relaxing).
7. Reduce and eliminate smoking, drinking and other drugs. Of course, we all know this information, but it never hurts to hear it again.
8. Have a well developed plan for financial security.  You will feel more in control if you keep tract of your expenses, and know where your money is going.

9. Adopt a nutrient-rich diet. That is a very hard one, because for me it it tastes good, it’s probably not very good for you, however, we do need to be aware of high calorie food.  Understanding why we eat and what we eat is one of the most critical things we do for our health and longevity.
10. Communicate and interact with others is critical to maintaining a strong connections. Isolation has been shown to reduce our over all health. Two more points for enrolling in CLASS for next year!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK so that is my wisdom today. I want to wish each of you clear sailing as you work diligently to meet all of your deadlines.  Keep these 10 items in your mind and try just a few of them and let me know how it works for you come October at our first CLASS meeting.

Have a wonderful summer!

2010 – 2011 Budget settled?

Yesterday the Legislature closed session and settled on keeping the base state aid at $4012 for the 2010-2011 school year. This is both good and bad news for schools. The entire balancing act is based on an 1 cent sales increase in sales tax.  I do not want to be Dave downer. However, what happens if people are not buying. With no excess  discretionary money (unemployment up, pay cuts, no raises, etc)  money from taxes is not necessarily the answer. I am hopeful, but I have to believe Districts are still going to have to cut.  They are still going to have the conversations about what happens next. I have felt for a long time we are in the middle of the Hurricane.  The calm before the Storm. We need to be prepared….. Stay tuned.

Congratulations & Best Wishes As You Retire!

Wednesday, May 5th,  is our final CLASS meeting of the year.  It is hard to believe that we have come to the close of yet another school year.  This year we have several CLASS members who are retiring and beginning a new life of traveling, playing with grandchildren, quilting, gardening, and just relaxing.  I want to take this time to “congratulate” all of those special people who have given so much to their community, the CLASS meetings, and the welfare of children.  I want to wish them the best and feel so privileged to have been able to work with them, share ideas with them, laugh with them, but most of all to have become friends with them.

So to all of those who will be cleaning out their desk drawers, packing up boxes, and looking forward to a new chapter in their life,  I wish them well and I want all of them to know……..they will be missed!

Potential Funding for Next Year

The House released the proposal for state funding for next year.  The effect would be the following:

2010-11 Estimated computed general fund budget at BSAPP of $4,005
with the following adjustments in weightings.

  • Eliminates high enrollment weighting
  • Reduces low enrollment weighting
  • Reduces vocational weighting from .5 to .4825
  • Reduces bilingual weighting from .395 to .3812
  • Reduces medium at-risk weighting from .06 to .0579
  • Reduces high-density at-risk weighting from .10 to .0965
  • Reduces at-risk weighting from .456 to .44

This  just got me to thinking. At ESSDACK our funding is different in many ways. For example we do not have Restricted use money or the spend or lose clause.  What would be the effect if the Legislature gave schools money without the limiting a carry-over.  If this had been in place would school boards been more frugal in preparation for the downfall in the economy. What I mean is we saw it coming.  It did not happen overnight. Would the Union’s have forced Schools to spend the excess on teacher salaries?  Could a school bank, and emergency fund of one year’s worth of salaries and expense. I am curious, if the financing of schools was more business like would we have been better prepared? I anticipate another 2-3 yrs until full recovery.  I know we will see a lot of change in that time.  I certainly do not have the answers but this whole topic does give you something to ponder. When things do turn around, can we not let the crisis pass without finding ways to prevent our schools from going through this again in the future.

Life is Good

Thank you to everyone who came today to learn about blogging. I appreciate your attandance and look forward to seeing you all in May when we learn about the insurance premiums for the 2010-2011 year.

ESSDACK Clerk Meeting

This is the March clerk meeting. Learning all kinds of new stuff about blogging. Thanks John

Classy Learning

Learning today about blogs. Very interesting

CLASS 2010

The CLASS 2010 Group met today, March 9, 2010 at the ESSDACK office to learn about blogging and share information on district central office management day to day operations.  John Jones was our guest speaker and discussed ways we can get started and share our information with each other.

Growing a 403b program that benefits all…..

IRS rules that were to be effective 1/1/09 significantly changed the 403(b) world because they included a requirement for districts allowing 403(b) products for their employees’ use to serve as “plan sponsors” like 401k plans in the private sector, which inherently puts a greater fiduciary responsibility on the district offering the plan.  Since there are numerous 403(b) vendors who all historically offer different products and pricing models, the compliance obligations for district “plan sponsors” under these new IRS rules seemed almost insurmountable.  ESSDACK saw an opportunity to create a new model that assists Kansas school districts as “plan sponsors” in meeting this compliance need, and from this grew the ESSDACK 403(b) Consortium Plan. The foundation of the ESSDACK plan was built with the following five goals in mind.

  1. Full Compliance with New IRS Rules for 403(b) plans
  2. No Cost to the Districts
  3. Full Disclosure of all Plan Costs
  4. Maximize Return to Investors
  5. Tool to Help Recruit and Retain Teachers

We believe we have constructed, with the help of Brian Johnston (Attorney with Polsinelli Firm), Ameritime (Independent Financial Advisors), and TPP (Independent Third Plan Administrator) a solid program to augment KPERS and Social Security as retirement vehicles. The plan uses an Asset Under Management model. Simply pooling numerous entities funds in a common program allows for us to reduce costs, and thereby maximize the return to the investor.  It also allows the elimination of all front-end or back-end “loads”, surrender fees and other termination costs that may prohibit the future use of other lower cost/higher performing investments.  Moreover, the costs of the ESSDACK plan reduce as more money is contributed to the plan.

The program is structured with for actual break points in pricing.  They are as follows:

  • $1,500,000
  • $2,000,000
  • $4,000,000
  • $8,000,000

ESSDACK has had the program in place for 18 months and has already reached the 3rd tier of pricing. As illustrated in the following diagram. The program now has 24 participating districts, 1021 participants, and over 4 million in assets.

If you would like to find out more about the program or how it can benefit your K12, college or university, give me a  call 620-931-2588 or email me at finance@essdack.org.

Pete Lundrigan
CFO/CIO

Service Center Finances, just how does it work!

One of the questions I get most often is how are Services Centers funded. ESC (Educational Services Centers) are self funded. We are truly like any business we have to generate revenue and watch expenses to survive.  We receive no direct money from the State. other than the occasional grant.

The term Interlocal is used when describing a ESC.  Meaning we are bound by our membership.  This legal construct extends all the rights and privileges of a School with the exception of being able to levy taxes.

Our revenue stream comes from several sources, which include the following:

  • Membership
  • Learning Centers/Charter School Administration
  • Consulting Services in and out of state
  • Program development/Partnerships (Blackboard, IKON, PD360, etc)
  • Grants

This is by no means an exhaustive list. , but is used to illustrate the breath of services we provide to our members and non-members alike.

From the perspective of the CFO our biggest challenges is out thinking the economy.  Budgeting occurs on a day to day basis and requires constant monitoring.  Unlike a school (with the exception of recent years), when the budget is set the district can anticipate a very specific amount of FTE dollars from the state.

I hope this helps answer any questions. Until next Time…..

Pete