Users’
Guide: Field 8
In$ite Financial Information
In$ite
comes on-line
Three years ago the State Legislature in collaboration with the Rhode
Island Department of Education began the process of establishing a more detailed and
informative system of reporting educational expenditures for all school districts. The
software selected for this endeavor was the In$ite Financial Analysis Model for EducationTM.
The implementation of In$ite provides a system that effectively tracks all expenditures
through the local school district to the school sites. "All expenditures"
includes expenditures from all funding sources - e.g., federal, state, and foundation
grants, general revenue budget, total food service expenditures regardless of revenue
source, and debt service if part of the school district's budget.
All 36 school districts in
Rhode Island use their own accounting systems and will probably continue to do so. In the
past, the differing systems made specific district-to-district comparisons difficult and
specific school-to-school comparisons impossible, obscuring a clear understanding of the
state's education finances as a whole. In$ite is not a new or a replacement accounting
system. In$ite is a financial reporting tool that works with each district's existing
accounting system to provide a platform of user-friendly, consistent information to begin
analyzing educational expenditures within schools and districts, and from
school to school and district to district.
Common agreements
among all business managers
For the past three years, the business managers in each of Rhode Island's school
districts have been working with RIDE and In$ite to develop the criteria to convert all
school and district expenditures into a common language determined largely by In$ite, but
tailored for Rhode Island's specific needs. A group of ten pilot-district business
managers analyzed their expenditure categories in conjunction with the specific In$ite
categories in a lengthy process of hammering out agreement of detailed common definitions
for where each dollar belongs. These definitions have become the backbone of Rhode
Island's In$ite state-wide implementation and will continue to be refined to provide a
common, consistent map for the placement of every dollar.
In the first phase of In$ite, business
managers upload the information about the district and its expenditures from the
district's accounting system into the In$ite software structure.
In the second phase called
'mapping', business managers cross-walk or 'map' their general ledger categories and
numbers into the appropriate specific In$ite categories and programs based on the common
definitions developed. The goal is that the school districts have agreement as to where
each individual expenditure, however small, should be 'mapped'.
The third phase involves allocating certain
district or "central office" expenditures to the schools, when appropriate.
Certain costs such as food service, transportation, or facilities costs, may be paid at
the district level, but should be allocated to individual schools, as appropriate, to give
a picture of the true cost of running that school. Specific and consistent methods of
allocating these costs have been developed and agreed upon - for example, the food service
expenditures are allocated to the schools based on the number of meals served at each
school. Employee benefits follow the 'mapping' of the function of the employee for whom
the benefits are paid.
During the test and implementation years of
In$ite, district managers and RIDE began using the In$ite system reports to generate some
district comparisons for review. Not surprisingly, when the districts compared In$ite
reports, oddities in the results sometimes raised questions about the input, mapping and
allocation processes. Differences that resulted from issues in the In$ite preparation
process were reviewed and corrected. Others existed because of valid educational decisions
of districts. Over time, the oddities have decreased and confidence in the accuracy of the
district level data has risen. Because this year is the first year of school level data,
oddities at the school level may be more common than at the district level.
Be cautious of the first reported
results from any new set of data
Over the years of developing Information Works!, we've
come to feel that waiting for better data does not improve the data or the collection
process as effectively as publishing the last best effort. The In$ite data is being
reported publicly for the first time, and the methodology supporting it will need to be
understood before valid assumptions can be made. Some oddities in the data do exist.
Please be cautious about making assumptions for your school or district. Often district
decisions or other factors particular to a district easily explain figures that initially
seem unusually high or low. Appropriate school or district financial managers should be
able to answer your questions or concerns. Some of your questions may be answered in the
section below titled "In$ite category structure and definitions" which contain
both definitions and the logic of what is included in each Instruction detail category.
Continued>>
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