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The Five Simple Steps to Acquiring State Funds
Dear new friend:
So, you’re now in charge of bringing millions of dollars to your school district, and you’re a little nervous.
I get that because I’ve been in your shoes. I fought the data wars for eight and one-half years. Let me help you with a story and some vital information.
First, the story: in my third year as my system’s student data manager, I lost about a million dollars, give or take a few hundred thousand. I’ve blotted most of the traumatic details out of my memory, so it may have been closer to $5 million, but who’s counting? 🙂
The money wasn’t lost permanently, thank God, but missing long enough to cause major turmoil for my boss and me.
It was all because I didn’t focus on the basics of school system BEP funding acquisition every day:
- Set up your district information correctly,
- Schedule all your students correctly,
- Send all your district information to the state,
- Check the results, making corrections as necessary, and
- Repeat until June 15.
By my third year in the data war trenches, I wasn’t oblivious to these principles, you know? I was aware that we had funding problems.
As I used to tell my English students, there’s always a big but, right? That same year, the school district transitioned to a new student information system, and I was the “expert.” For me, the transition to a new SIS was the equivalent of teaching a new language while simultaneously trying to make it up and learn it.
I checked the funding figures now and then as the months rolled by, but one day, the moment of truth smacked me in the face.
“How’s funding?” said Glenda (not her real name, of course). It was a legitimate boss question to ask in April, about three months before closing the books on another school year.
“Not good,” I said. “We’re missing some.”
“How much?” Glenda asked, eyebrows rising slightly.
“Ummm,” I said, looking down. “About a million?”
Now, it doesn’t matter what organization you work for, misplacing a million dollars — even for a few weeks — will get people’s attention, at least, and get you jailed, at worst. The million represented a potential loss of about 20 teachers’ annual salaries in our county.
Got to hand it to Glenda — she didn’t fire me on the spot, thank God. She didn’t even chew me out. The model of restraint, she just raised both eyebrows and pursed her lips, looking at me the way my best high school English teacher did when I told her I didn’t have an assignment completed. (That happened too many times back when we used chisels and stone tablets, of course.)
That day, Glenda asked a few questions. Later in the week, she gave me explicit directions.
Here’s a short version of the outcome.
- Glenda told me to get the problem fixed (I did),
- She told me never to let it happen again (I didn’t).
Hopefully, new Data Warrior, that little story gives you some relief from the anxiety because (A) you probably can’t mess up a whole lot worse than I did, and (B) the annual data war isn’t over until the fat lady sings, which happens on June 15 most years. In other words, I could — and did — find that missing million by working past my usual end date.
But stress? Yes. I don’t want you to have to go through what I did. You might not be as fortunate. If you don’t get anything else from this post, take this with you: DON’T WAIT until April or even October. Work on the simple, essential steps every day.
- Set up your district information correctly,
- Schedule all your students correctly,
- Send all your district information to the state correctly,
- Check the results, making corrections as necessary, and
- Repeat until June 15.
Simple, right? Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
In a future post, I plan to give you practical pointers on how to take those steps. (And yes, I do have an app to help with step 4: FundMax.)
In the meantime, remember that I’ve been in your shoes. I want to help, so ask questions, suggest changes, and tell me what you think about this post in the comments section or an email — RKBrison@TennSRS.com.
Thanks for reading — be blessed 🙂
Randy B
P.S. If you want to learn more about my company and how we can help you save time and maximize funding, visit TennSRS.com.
And to be clear,
- I’m no longer a Tennessee school system employee (I changed careers at the end of December 2019),
- I am in business to help school districts maximize funding in the least time possible (I offer services for which systems pay me), BUT
- More than anything, I want to help people.
And that’s why I’m writing this. Sure, I can probably save you time (time is money, right?) as you bring in your district’s money (money is money, for sure).
But regardless of whether you ever do any business with me, I don’t want you to have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to funding acquisition. There really are five simple steps in the process of making sure your district gets the dollars it deserves.
And if I can help you, I want to.