MADISON — On April 28, the Madison Metropolitan School District presented the Board of Education with the preliminary budget for the 2014-15 school year, aligning resources with the district’s strategic framework.
“We believe that our path to success —the path to closing opportunity gaps and seeing the best results for all children– depends on our ability to stay focused and follow through on implementation of our framework with tenacity and determination,” Superintendent Jennifer Cheatham said. “In order to do that, we are presenting a budget that strategically aligns resources to our strategy as a district.”
The district used a zero-based budgeting process to build the preliminary budget from the ground up, challenge assumptions and align resources with the district’s strategic framework.
The preliminary budget reallocates two million dollars and 26 staff from central office out to schools. It also built additional flexibility into the school budget process so principals and school leadership teams can make the best decisions in their local context, aligned to their school improvement plans. In addition, the preliminary budget realigns central office funding to support key parts of the strategic framework, including recruitment and hiring efforts, new educator induction or the district’s technology plan.
Through the zero-based process, the district was able to align resources to the strategic framework while keeping the levy increase to 2.1% or $3.95 million less than the Board’s full taxing authority.
“We are a district that is on the move, working hard to become a model urban school district. By staying focused on implementing our strategy and aligning our resources to what’s most important, I know that we will be able to serve all of our students better than ever before,” Cheatham said. “We believe this budget will keep our focus, and we look forward to working with the Board through this process.”
The preliminary budget is posted to the district’s website and the Board of Education will finalize the timeline for approval and public hearings at Monday night’s meeting.
