EDLD+5342+Week+3+Part+2

For my calculations I used the following formula: ((**WADA** x **Revenue WADA at Compressed Rate**) + **High School Allotment** + **Salary Adjustment**)
 * District Comparisons || District 1 || District 2 ||
 * Revenue per WADA @ Compressed Rate || 5094 || 7206 ||
 * Target Revenue || $28,422,060 || $34,545,564 ||
 * Teachers, Librarians, Nurses, Counselors || 281 || 307 ||

I needed the adjustment for transportation but did not have the allotment from the previous year to show the difference. This difference in transportation allotment would have been added into the Target Revenue as well.

I came to use this formula after visiting with our districts Assistant Superintendent of Business Finance. We had a very good discussion about these figures and about school finance in general. She showed me a template created by Mr. Garcia from Region 13 that breaks everything down for a district as far as financial revenue. The district must do some data entry from the PEIMS department, but all of the calculations are done in the template. VERY USEFUL!!!

From Rob:


 * District Comparison- Part 2 **

WADA @ Compressed Rate- $5,044 M & O target revenue- $5,641.53 per WADA / $31,343,964 Total Professional Personnel- 281*
 * District 1 **

WADA @ Compressed Rate- $7,206 M & O target revenue- $8,890.86 per WADA / $42,623,438 Total Professional Personnel- 307*
 * District 2 **

I am getting a little different numbers than some of my colleagues but will reach consensus by the end of the week. I actually am leaving the country tomorrow for a family reunion that was scheduled last year. Please accept my own thoughts for the submission of this project as I will not be back until next week. I will submit my information on my colleague’s blogs and wikis for consensus consideration due to time constraints. They are aware and have been more than accommodating (great to have a team). I sat down with our CFO for a long time on this so regardless of whether the numbers ultimately match exactly, the outcome is going to be the same. WADA is, quite simply, an estimation of what a district should get to educate the average pupil in their district. There seem to be some discrepancies even within my own group as to the calculations. I have yet to find an official template but will continue to look.
 * From Rob**

The following is from Tim Brittain, CFO, HISD: A new funding method adopted in 2006 during the implementation of HB 1 was established assigning each school district a target revenue amount. This amount is used to calculate the target revenue as the means of funding a school can earn from local and state sources in a given year. Each school district in the state of Texas has a unique target revenue amount that drives the amount of state aid received in a school year.The number is calculated and assigned by the Texas Education Agency based on an amount per Weighted Average Daily Attendance (WADA). WADA is determined by the number of students enrolled in the district, how often they attend class, and what type of services they require. The target revenue calculation involves analyzing the 2005-06 expenditures in the district and dividing by the calculated WADA in 2005-06. The target revenue varies district to district and is based on the amount of revenue the district received in 2006.

Target Revenue = State and Local Revenue / WADA

The Total Refined ADA Adjusted for Decline is 3,893.75 for District 1 and 4,032.94 in District 2. Therefore when WADA is calculated District 1 has a WADA of 5,555.81 and District 2 has a WADA of 4,794.07. Clearly the number of students in special programs in District one has had an impact on WADA. Our government has had to provide more funds to District 1 to enable them to meet the special needs of their students; so their WADA is larger than District 2. This is exactly what WADA was meant to do.

While the enrollments in Districts 1 and 2 are very similar (3903 and 3890), their funding is actually very different. This is largely due to the sources of M&O or Maintenance and Operations funding source. M&O comes directly from the local property tax rate. District 1 has a local tax rate of 1.109 yielding revenue of $36,909,639, while District 2 has a local tax rate of 1.330. In contrast, the total revenue is $49,495,121, which is a difference of approximately $3500 per student.

The snapshots from the two districts are from 2009. There were many changes coming out of legislation in that year. Researching the To The Administrator Addressed letters on the Texas Education Agency’s website, we found that in 2009 changes were made to the following methods: basic allotments, revenue targets, teacher salary allotments, and many other factors. Maintenance and Operations funds many items, namely personnel costs, and the difference in numbers of staff members is significantly different in District 1 to District 2. District 1 has 250 teachers, nurses, librarians, and counselors, but District 2 has 291 of the same types of positions. With this difference, students’ needs can be served at a much smaller teacher to student ratio, for example. This factor alone will contribute greatly to the student achievement.