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

[president at ctcasl.org]

Question: What state defines a SCHOOL Library as such and what year is that from???

 

The AASL position on an EFFECTIVE SCHOOL LIBRARY 

“As a fundamental component of college, career, and community readiness, the effective school library: 1. is adequately staffed, including a state-certified school librarian who • is an instructional leader and teacher, • supports the development of digital learning, participatory learning, inquiry learning, technology literacies, and information literacy, and • supports, supplements, and elevates the literacy experience through guidance and motivational reading initiatives; 2. has up-to-date digital and print materials and technology, including curation of openly licensed educational resources; and 3. provides regular professional development and collaboration between classroom teachers and school librarians”

 

These would have budgetary implications…

Barb

From: CASL-L <casl-l-bounces+president=ctcasl.org at mylist.net> On Behalf Of Michele Eligio
Sent: Friday, February 28, 2020 2:19 PM
To: casl list serv <CASL-L at mylist.net>
Subject: [CASL-L] Important Budget Questions - Assistance Greatly Needed

 

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

  <https://drive.google.com/a/northbranfordschools.org/uc?id=1NdD50SPZn6mT0FBGcSvkTrqzGq7NTaet&export=download>   <https://drive.google.com/a/northbranfordschools.org/uc?id=0B_TGJPFB-lDPYWNPLXl5ZXZCazlRVFZCdktRUllodzgxYXRn&export=download>  “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

 


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