Issue 5 of 8
Community Budget Advisory Council
Create an independent Community Budget Advisory Council (CBAC) with the time, knowledge, and responsibility to review real budget line items and recommend alternatives before the March–May approval process.
We must create a Community Budget Advisory Council (CBAC) that has the time, knowledge and responsibility to provide input on budgetary choices.
- Purpose and Positioning
- CBAC should serve as a vehicle for rebuilding trust between the community and the district. To that end, it should be an independent body, to share feedback and work collaboratively with the district, with sufficient time and respect to be able to provide alternatives to initial proposals. The group must review and discuss recommendations related to actual budget line items, not just informational or hypothetical materials.
- Participants
- All schools in the district must be represented, as well as members of the community. Participants must be knowledgeable of the school Budget process, to ensure that the group can dive into reviewing the actual budget challenges, without having to spend precious time starting from scratch on learning the basics.
- Process
- For the purpose of expediency, efficiency, and efficacy, this group should focus on the areas of the budget that are the most likely to make an impact given the overall budget size. This is not a line item review of every invoice, but an effort to identify priorities and uncover large impacts.
- Output
- The CBAC recommendations should be published publicly and presented to the district and BOE for no obligation consideration in advance of the March-May budget approval process.