[CASL-L] Important Budget Questions - Assistance Greatly Needed

[Michele Eligio]

Hello everyone,

To anyone who is willing to read this lengthy email, I would truly
appreciate your help.

We have a new director of finance and personnel in our business office this
year. As such, there as been a complete upheaval to our budget and PO
process.

I am finding that a lot of my requests for POs are being denied as the
director does not feel that the requests fall under the operation of a
library or I am having a problem as items that used to be purchased under
an *Other** Supply* budget number are now being categorized by this person
under instructional materials which the library did not budget for (meaning
we never had to use this number so we didn't allocate money in this
category).

To complicate matters, the amount of money that we did allocate for our
budget categories/numbers a year ago (prior to this person being hired)
cannot be transferred to another category. Finally, we are now being told
that we need greater specificity on our open POs and that open POs should
be used very infrequently as we should know a year in advance what our
needs are. This last change has caused a problem for me in that in my past
practice I would always designate some of the money in certain categories
of my budget to be used as needs arose throughout the year in order to
fulfill teaching/learning support requests at the point of need - basically
what I consider to be "best practice".

I was given the following state definition of what defines a library
program for budget purposes: *The state defines the library program to be
those activities and purchases related to directing, managing educational
media services and acquiring, cataloging, and circulation of books and
other educational materials.*

My questions are regarding how other districts are budgeting for the
library. I don't need dollar amounts. What would help me is to gain a
better understanding of what budgetary categories school libraries are
using, particularly high school libraries.

My categories have always been as follows: Inservice, Periodicals (database
subscriptions and magazines), Books, Dues and Fees, and Other Supplies
which used to be a catch-all category for the following:

1. supplies which can range from book processing materials (labels,
book tape, book slips, etc...),
2. supplies such as scissors, glue, markers, etc... which have multiple
functions supporting teaching, learning, library administration, the
Makerspace area, etc... and
3. various other materials/supplies (paint, brushes, special paper,
puzzles, kits, etc...)


This category "Other Supplies" now is being interpreted by the finance
person as only including directing and managing supplies (basically #1
above). This is of great concern as I am being told that Makerspace items
are instructional and under a different category which I do not have in my
budget.

Additionally, my open PO request for summer reading books just got denied
as they are being considered instructional materials which doesn't fall
under the state definition.  So, one of my biggest concerns seems to be
that I am afraid that the finance person may not see a need for a school
library to provide instructional resources. If I find out during the
meeting on Monday that she will allow a library to purchase instructional
materials and that the push back is over such items being in a catch-all
supply category, I am equally concerned as a lot of these kinds of items
serve multiple purposes making budgeting for them under a slew of
categories and not being able to move money around, if need be,
particularly challenging.

I have a meeting with the principal and the central office finance person
on Monday and I am trying to gather as much information as possible for
this meeting. So again basically I am looking for what categories you all
use. If there is anyone else out there encountering similar difficulties I
would also appreciate your insights.

I thank everyone in advance for first reading all of this and anyone who is
able to respond.





-- 



Sincerely,

Michele Eligio

North Branford High School Librarian

49 Caputo Road

North Branford, CT  06471

(203) 484-1465

 *“Libraries store the energy that fuels the imagination. They open up
windows to the world and inspire us to explore and achieve, and contribute
to improving our quality of life. Libraries change lives for the better.”
~Sidney Sheldon*

-- 
The information in this transmission is privileged and confidential and 
intended only for the recipient(s) listed above. If you have received this 
transmission in error, please notify us immediately by telephone or email 
and delete the original message and any attachments. Any review or use of 
the information contained in this email message by persons other than the 
intended recipient(s) is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, 
please notify the North Branford Public Schools immediately by telephone or 
email and destroy all copies of this message and any attachments.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mylist.net/archives/casl-l/attachments/20200228/711b4002/attachment.htm>