My district is the second largest district in California that serves approximately 130,000 students and employs close to 6,000 teachers. When I interviewed my HR director, she confirmed that many years ago she experienced huge challenges managing such large numbers of employees and school budget allocations in both the HR department and finance department. She said only a handful of employees worked for each department and was constantly overwhelmed with the amount of responsibilities. This caused much stress for both departments and there was a lot of finger pointing and accusations of mismanagement on both parts. The business department accused HR of spending frivolous amounts of the budget on hiring unqualified teachers that leave the district after only a few months and ineffective retention support programs. The HR department felt the business department only saw them as numbers and not people. When it came down to budget reductions, HR always felt they would receive the brunt of the cuts.
As I researched the amount of money that is spent on staffing and instruction, I found an article from the American Association of School Administrators that found approximately 61% of a school budget is allocated to staffing and instructional needs. This is a huge portion of the school budget that is necessary but does not leave much money for any of the other functions/departments of a school site or district. I can see how the HR department might get some negative press for always taking a majority of a school's budget.
My HR director did report that relations between both departments have improved with our current superintendent. The district went through a huge re-organizational process to determine the needs of each department. In the last few years, there has been an increase in the numbers of employees’ for each of the departments to alleviate any undue stress and ensure effectiveness of both programs. The business/finance department responsibilities were divided up into smaller departments to ensure accountability. These changes align with our districts focus on departmental collaboration when working on the district budget. More importantly, the finance and HR departments are vital in creating and maintaining balanced school budgets. By combining the number crunching, aspect of the finance department and the face-to-face integration and relationships built from the HR department, my HR director feels that this has made such a huge difference in productivity and effectiveness of each department.
American Association of School Administrators. (2012). School Budget 101. Retrieved on 7/7/2017 from: https://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Policy_and_Advocacy/files/SchoolBudgetBriefFINAL.pdf.
Wednesday, August 2, 2017
HR & Finance Department Relations
My district is the second largest district in California that serves approximately 130,000 students and employs close to 6,000 teachers. When I interviewed my HR director, she confirmed that many years ago she experienced huge challenges managing such large numbers of employees and school budget allocations in both the HR department and finance department. She said only a handful of employees worked for each department and was constantly overwhelmed with the amount of responsibilities. This caused much stress for both departments and there was a lot of finger pointing and accusations of mismanagement on both parts. The business department accused HR of spending frivolous amounts of the budget on hiring unqualified teachers that leave the district after only a few months and ineffective retention support programs. The HR department felt the business department only saw them as numbers and not people. When it came down to budget reductions, HR always felt they would receive the brunt of the cuts.
As I researched the amount of money that is spent on staffing and instruction, I found an article from the American Association of School Administrators that found approximately 61% of a school budget is allocated to staffing and instructional needs. This is a huge portion of the school budget that is necessary but does not leave much money for any of the other functions/departments of a school site or district. I can see how the HR department might get some negative press for always taking a majority of a school's budget.
My HR director did report that relations between both departments have improved with our current superintendent. The district went through a huge re-organizational process to determine the needs of each department. In the last few years, there has been an increase in the numbers of employees’ for each of the departments to alleviate any undue stress and ensure effectiveness of both programs. The business/finance department responsibilities were divided up into smaller departments to ensure accountability. These changes align with our districts focus on departmental collaboration when working on the district budget. More importantly, the finance and HR departments are vital in creating and maintaining balanced school budgets. By combining the number crunching, aspect of the finance department and the face-to-face integration and relationships built from the HR department, my HR director feels that this has made such a huge difference in productivity and effectiveness of each department.
American Association of School Administrators. (2012). School Budget 101. Retrieved on 7/7/2017 from: https://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Policy_and_Advocacy/files/SchoolBudgetBriefFINAL.pdf.
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