The collection of live reporting for the Financial Planning Committee meeting on 3/5/09:
Friday, March 6, 2009
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Live reporting - FPC continued
Teacher compensation needs to be understood to develop the assumptions. A percent makes a difference when the schools account for 33% of the overall budget.
Big discussion on how to present the data to create the proper conversation.
Jeff will look at the revenue and expense assumptions to see if there would be any changes.
The assumptions will be critical as these numbers will be what will drive the model.
Meeting next week on the 12th
Doug will update the changes and we'll pick up from there.
Big discussion on how to present the data to create the proper conversation.
Jeff will look at the revenue and expense assumptions to see if there would be any changes.
The assumptions will be critical as these numbers will be what will drive the model.
Meeting next week on the 12th
Doug will update the changes and we'll pick up from there.
Live reporting - Financial Planning (continued)
When doing the benchmarks with other communities, need to define why which towns are used for which categories. For school comparisons, the number of students needs to be similar. When you get to Police, Fire, and DPW, they get problematic as they are not an apples to apples comparison.
Discussion on the teacher salary percent increases, mixing the cost of living and the step/lane changes is confusing, need to be more clear.
Discussion on the teacher salary percent increases, mixing the cost of living and the step/lane changes is confusing, need to be more clear.
Live reporting - Financial Planning Committee
Attending: Roche, Cameron, Hardesty, Ogden, Trahan, Whalen, Wilschek (late), Bartlett (late), Nutting (late)
Absent: Kelly, Zollo,
Review of Steve Whalen's charts/tables. He updated the numbers he has prepared for the past two years. He has two new charts, one that shows Franklin is third from the bottom in percent of revenue from property taxes (~46%). Another shows Franklin at the top of the listing in terms of the percent of revenue from the state (~30%)
Need to look at the past history across the state for operational vs. debt override results, what does that show, would be good to have.
Reviewing the draft compiled by Doug Hardesty: Working through the draft, page by page, looking carefully for the wording and what it conveys to try and get the message tight and accurate.
Absent: Kelly, Zollo,
Review of Steve Whalen's charts/tables. He updated the numbers he has prepared for the past two years. He has two new charts, one that shows Franklin is third from the bottom in percent of revenue from property taxes (~46%). Another shows Franklin at the top of the listing in terms of the percent of revenue from the state (~30%)
Need to look at the past history across the state for operational vs. debt override results, what does that show, would be good to have.
Reviewing the draft compiled by Doug Hardesty: Working through the draft, page by page, looking carefully for the wording and what it conveys to try and get the message tight and accurate.
"Take a deep breath; you can do this"
Well said!
The world is changing because of social web technologies. Our kids are using them. No one is teaching them how to use them to their full learning potential, and ultimately, as teachers and learners, that’s our responsibility. To do that, we need to be able to learn in these contexts for ourselves.
This is Wil Richardson writing about a new report from the Harvard Graduate School Of Education. You can find Wil's complete posting here. He also has the link to the Harvard report or you go directly to the report here, and then go to Wil's page.
Recommended viewing
Technology has created a world where learning takes place here and now.
How do we want to prepare our children for the future?
one laptop per student
Dr Scott McLeod is continuing his series on recommendations for the Iowa schools. In part 3, he writes:
In addition to funding, numerous other challenges exist as well. One of the biggest is the current predisposition of schools to invest in teacher-centric technologies like televisions, DVD/VCR players, projectors, electronic whiteboards, and document cameras. They’re important and useful but they’re also primarily used as yet another way for teachers to push out information to students. In contrast, laptops, netbooks, digital cameras, small high-definition camcorders, digital voice recorders, webcams, digital scientific probes or sensors, and other devices are primarily used by students to facilitate their own academic learning. If we want Iowa students to gain the technology skills they will need to be productive citizens and workers, schools should be making as many investments in these latter, student-centric devices as possible. There also are a number of free or low-cost online software and tools that students and teachers can use in creative and productive ways.You can read the full article here. It is rich with links and additional media (pictures and video).
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