Christopher Brist, Millicent Frazier, Becky Pugh, Dixie Shoemaker

Part Five: Budget

The district uses state issued funds that are based on the average of the three FTE
counts compiled in the previous school year. Creekside Elementary had a projected enrollment
of 359 kindergarten - fifth grade students for 2014 - 2015. The sixty plus Pre-K students do not
count towards FTE. The per-pupil allotment per FTE for elementary school media centers is
$16.00. The total budget for Creekside Elementary for the 2014-2015 school year, based on
this allotment should be $5744.00. The actual budget is $5,990. The library also receives an
additional $8200 from Title I funds to contribute towards the purchase of books. Creekside has
one for-profit book fair each year in October that coincides with the issue of the first report
card period. This year the book fair sold $2,252. The school may choose between two options
for collecting the schools portion of profit from the fair. Option 1 is to receive 50% of the fair
total in Scholastic Dollars or Option 2 is to receive 25% of the total in cash. This year, Creekside
choose to take the $563 in cash so that there were no purchase restrictions. Teachers at
Creekside have to opportunity to apply for several grants throughout the year, such as Donor's
Choose. Each year the district sets aside $200,000 dollars in ESPLOST funds. The district
originally set aside $1,000,000 of ESPLOST funds that are being divided over a five year period,
arriving at the $200,000 per year. Teachers and media specialists apply for equipment each
year, and they are awarded based upon a scoring rubric that the Instructional Technology Dept.
created. When $200,000 in spending is reached, they stop awarding money until the next
year. The district is in the third year of the five year mini-grant period. The media center also
has the option of receiving funds from general funds when new computers are needed in the
media center. The media specialist also works with the school administration to set aside
monies, not media funds, to purchase new computer for teachers.
Budget Sources

Spending (previous year)

Additional Information

State Funds

$5,990

Books

$8,000

State requirement: 10 books per

student- Actual- 39 per student

Title I

$8,200

Software

$4,593

State requirement: $6 spent per

child annually for collection
Actual $12 spent per child

($950 required for card catalog

Destiny)
Book Fair

$563

Total Budget $14,753

Other

$1,397

Total Spending $13,990

FTE per pupil allotment for media

centers: $16
Difference between spending and
budget $763

Christopher Brist, Millicent Frazier, Becky Pugh, Dixie Shoemaker

GAC Certification requires that media centers house 10 books per student and that they
spend $6.00 per student annually to build the collection. Creekside has almost thirty-nine
books per student and annually spends a minimum of $12.00 per student, using the Title I funds
issued. Below is a description of items that were a part of the budget last school term at
Creekside.

Miscellaneous Purchases - $500

Supplies - $500
Software - $4,593 - $950 of which is for required maintenance of online library catalog Destiny
(The media software budget is used to pay for yearly software subscriptions. The money is
replaced with Title I funds. This is due to the times the monies are released by different
agencies - ex. Last year the Media Center was given $8,000 to spend for books through Title I
funds)
Other Books - $397
Each desktop computer costs $756.83.
It would seem at first glance that the budget is adequate when it is looked at from the
surface, and in many ways, it is sufficient. Firstly, the library has definitely achieved the state
standard of housing books per student, and purchases per student annually. These figures,
however, lead to some future budget possibilities. Since the book to student ratio is so large,
one needs to look at the collection to determine if books are up to date and still relevant. Is
there any weeding that needs to be done? If the majority of the collection is up to date and
relevant, than a decision to reduce spending on books yearly from $12 to the required $6 per
student could open up some much needed funding that can be allocated to a vitally needed
maintenance budget, as suggested by Doug Johnson in Indispensible Librarian. The current
budget has no room for regular maintenance of materials, either by repair or replacement of
print, non-print, and technology equipment. The software budget is a substantial portion of the
annual budget and uses nearly all of the state allocated funds. While these funds have
traditionally been replaced by Title I funds to purchase books, this is shaky ground to stand on
budget wise. Two steps to reduce this stress can potentially benefit the budget for a future
term. In Tactics for Tough Budget Times, Ann Martin suggests prioritizing purchases, and
weeding through other resources in addition to books, such as researching and conducting
surveys to determine the usefulness and value of online databases and other yearly
subscriptions. This is a viable option for Creekside to analyze the software purchases for the
media program. Each purchase (aside from the required Destiny catalog) can be studied for its
usefulness and value within the school. Similar programs can be compared to see if there is a
better or comparable program that can be purchased that costs less. The school can further
investigate whether the district can get a better rate (per school) if a subscription were
purchased for the entire county; the subscription would then benefit all schools, versus the
school purchasing it individually. Another option to consider in addition to, or in place of, this

Christopher Brist, Millicent Frazier, Becky Pugh, Dixie Shoemaker

suggestion is to do as Christopher Harris suggested in Blending Funding, which is to connect

with other budget funds within the school and share the costs of subscriptions that support
various initiatives. Does a resource heavily support new common core initiatives and reduce the
need for workbooks? Then perhaps the textbook budget can contribute to its price. Sharing the
purchase price among other budgets can increase the funds available in the media budget for
newer technologies and media center specific needs. Finally, large purchases of technology
equipment and computers can be submitted to the ESPLOST grant program with a well written
outcome-based funding explanation (Indispensible Librarian, 2013) for their purchases to
increase the likelihood they are chosen by the initiative. This can take weight off the annual
budget and then only a maintenance plan can be worked into the budget to support the
purchases.
All in all, the budget, as is, can be worked with and developed into an adequate funding
source for the library program. With the proper planning, research, analysis of the current
library inventory, study of the continual cost of yearly subscriptions, and a blended funding
model, the budget can be stretched and molded to be quite effective for the needs of Creekside
Elementary.