This course combines job-embedded assignments with videoconferenced classroom sessions.

IUs or PAIUnet member districts with 10 or more participants are encouraged to request to become a host site.

For more information, please contact 814-542-2501, option 8 or leadershipseries@tiu11.org.

This course is made available by Penn State Continuing Education in collaboration with PAIUnet.

The Leadership Series

The New Fiscal Reality

This course is aimed at all active K–12 school and system leaders employed in the following positions: principal, assistant or vice principal, superintendent, assistant superintendent, intermediate unit executive director, intermediate unit assistant executive director, and director of an area vocational-technical school.

It will focus on the New Fiscal Reality facing school administrators in the upcoming years. Each of the five live sessions will explore a different aspect that school leaders need to consider and prepare for.

Course Dates (Spring 2013)

Classes will run from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. on the following dates (Thursdays):

February 28
March 14, 28
April 11, 25

Register online for spring 2013.

Course Overview

Sessions will be live at the University Park campus and broadcast via videoconference to numerous locations statewide. These sessions will be archived for viewing at a later date if a schedule conflict causes absence at one of the evening sessions.   

February 28, 2013
Session 1: An Introduction to the New Fiscal Reality

• Key economic and political factors impacting school districts' financial operations at the national, state, and local levels
• Looming issues in Pennsylvania, such as lower Act 1 limits, future state aid, staffing vs. salary growth, uncontrollable PSERS costs, and health care increases
• Implications for a school district's financial future

March 14, 2013
Session 2: Budget Planning: Operating in the New Fiscal Reality 

• The uncertainty of state aid and local taxes and other local revenues
• Rising expenditures, such as energy, transportation, and insurance
• Necessary but difficult adjustments, such as tougher bargaining, layoffs, program reductions or eliminations, postponement of maintenance or constructions
• Structuring a budget for short-term balancing and to reduce a structural deficit through multiple years' projections

March 28, 2013
Session 3: Focus on the Objective: Student Learning 

• The relationship between spending and student outcomes
• Using student performance data to drive resource allocation decisions 
• How to target your funds to priority areas

April 11, 2013
Session 4: Financial Performance: From Measurement to Management 

• Concentric circles to focus and prioritize budget reduction discussions
• Major areas for revenue enhancements and expenditure reductions from operations
• Benchmarking to improve processes and reduce costs 
• Budget reduction procedures and examples of successful budget reductions 

April 25, 2013
Session 5: Ethical Leadership and Decision Making in the New Fiscal Reality 

• Ethical frameworks for decision making
• Illustrations of ethical decision making in budget reductions