User's Guide Home 
Field 8:
School Expenditures
What You Are Looking At and For
You are looking at a promise to
have school level financial data in the future.
Fiscal
Accountability
In$ite, a financial reporting
software system developed by Coopers & Lybrand, is being put in place to track
spending at the building level in significant detail that can be reliably compared across
districts. All 36 school districts in Rhode Island have always used their own accounting
systems and will continue to do so. However, these different accounting systems have
little or no consistency across districts, which make comparisons impossible. Together,
district business managers are reaching detailed agreements about definitions for where
each dollar is posted, so that district-to-district and building-to-building valid
comparisons will become feasible. When this new system’s data are fully reliable, the
following expenditures will be reported for each school:
1.
Instruction
Teaching (Instructional teachers,
substitutes and instructional paraprofessionals) and Classroom Materials (pupil technology
and instructional materials).
2. Instructional
Support
Pupil Support (guidance
counselors, library/media services, extracurricular and student health), Teacher Support
(curriculum development, staff development, sabbaticals) and Program Support (program
development, therapists, et al.)
3. Operations
Pupil Services (transportation,
food service and safety), Facilities (building upkeep) and Business Services (data
processing and business operations).
Most districts have only just begun to put their first
year’s worth of numbers (1995-96) into the In$ite program. The first reliable sets of
information from In$ite will appear in the 1999 report.
Special
to the District and State Templates
At the district level, two other
In$ite fields will be added to the three above for a total of five measurements.
1. Other
Commitments
Contingencies, Capital (debt
service and capital projects), Out of District
(pass-throughs, retiree benefits and enterprise opportunities) and Legal Obligations
(claims and settlements).
2. Leadership
School Management (principals and
school office), Program and Operations Management (curriculum directors, et al.) and
District Management (superintendent, school committee and legal).
This Year’s
District and State Templates
Since the Coopers & Lybrand
data is not yet usable and financial information is critical to understanding student
achievement, the following information is provided at the district level for this year by
using Form 31. Form 31 is the Department of Education’s financial reporting
instrument which is submitted annually by each district.
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