Chase Cole Harvey
Final JMC 500 Project
Professor McBride
Portage Community School District was allowed $31,412 in total travel expenditures according to the 2004-05 budget summaries. They spent almost $1,000 under that amount.
Portage averages about one or two board members and four administrators per year going to national conventions at an average for everything about $1,400 per attendee district cost.
Some citizens think that spending budget funds on conventions is only worth it if teachers/administrators are able to get something substantial out of it. Evan Thom says, “As long as these trips are beneficial, I don’t have any problems with it.” Thom is a recent college graduate living in Portage and has children who will attend Portage schools when they’re old enough.
School District Administrator Dan Pulsfus said that “these travel expenses are normal.” The travel expenses this year went up about $300 from last year’s total. He explains the importance of in-state and out-of-state conferences for administrators and teachers and says, “They are very beneficial, because you constantly get new ideas, grant and networking opportunities. We expect results from attending, current legal updates which save the district thousands annually. There is no way we can get what we get from
a convention by just reading.”
School budgets are more closely watched after Greendale School District was caught being irresponsible with tax dollars. The Greendale School Board made excess costs wasting millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year taking away resources for facilities and students. Portage wants to make sure that this sort of thing will never happen in their school district, and are coming up with a new paperless budget system always accessible by the internet.
The $31,412 last year was set aside for lodging, meals, and travel. There is a clear reimbursement policy that states meals are limited to a total of $45 per day. Lodgings have to be moderately priced accommodations that do not exceed the rates charged by the convention headquarters.
Business Manager Peter Hibner said, “The only ‘controversial’ circumstance I can recall in my 15 years is that an administrator once charged a wine cooler and an appetizer to the district credit card”. The wine cooler was apparently inadvertently charged to the card, and the administrator did reimburse the school district. As to the appetizer, the remaining board members, with the exception of one, saw no problem with the charge since the total expenses were within the guideline amount.
The average hotel cost is normally under $80 per night, and board members sometimes even doubled up at state conventions. Pulsfus explains, “The largest is the WASB always in Milwaukee in January! Doesn’t that sound fun? We send 5-7 board members/administrators each year.” It was six last year. They stay in the old Hilton downtown Milwaukee for the state convention and get a special price for about $125 per night per room.
Portage has a $70 per day max at nationals for meals. Tampa, Dallas, San Francisco, and Chicago are typical cities for conventions, but never in east coast cities because of the expense, and never in Vegas “for our own good” Pulsfus explains. He continues with national conventions stating, “It usually costs me about $300 out of my pocket for myself, plus nearly $1,000 for Carol (his wife) if she comes along for her share of expenses” This includes flight, hotel share, meals, and sharing of any taxis.
As of 2005, the school district has six total administrators with credit cards. Most of the supervision of reimbursement for expenses rests between Hibner and Pulsfus. The school board literally has access to all bills/expenses, but Pulsfus says, “they don’t read every one.” He explains this is because the expense sheets show every small expense down to pencils and erasers and Portage is always under the spending limit. The finance committee, made up of three board members and two citizen representatives, also randomly reviews expense reimbursements.
Currently, Portage is getting ready to go to e-procurement cards for the district. They are going fully to direct deposit with all payrolls. They are also coupling their e-procurement with a paperless purchasing procedure, including supervisors “okay” of P.O., issuing P.O. numbers, e-verification of purchasing and e-billing and bill paying.
Portage is switching to this to save money and time. Over 75% of the accounts payable checks that are issued are for $300 or less. In other words, a lot of time is spent processing many small purchases. Hibner explains, “a teacher fills out purchase order, secretary checks department budget to make sure funds available, principal then signs purchase order, purchase order delivered to central office, accounts payable clerk assigns P.O. number and verifies enough money in building budget, business administrator signs purchase order, accounts payable clerk keeps one copy for business office, sends one copy to vendor and one copy to teacher, teacher checks in materials and gives business office the approval to make payment, business office sends check to vendor.”
The e-procurement card is like a credit card. The district would decide which people would have the cards “probably administrators, other supervisors and school department heads,” Hibner says.
E-cards can be set up with many parameters including limit dollar amount of purchases to budget and a cap on the number of transactions per month. When possible, all purchases would be made with the e-card. The individual who possesses the e-card would be responsible for assigning a budget number to the respective monthly purchases and sending the report to the business office for approval.
The business office would then be cutting one check to the e-card vendor (Mastercard) and the report of all purchases would always be available on-line. Hibner says, “By switching to an e-card purchase program, we estimate that part of a position can be eliminated, and another benefit of this program is that the district does receive cash rebate dollars for purchases”. The district would be participating in a group program with other Wisconsin school districts and many large districts in Illinois. Since the total dollar amount of purchases for the group is so large, Mastercard has agreed to a cash rebate.
Local mail carrier and father of three Jeff Krohn says, “It sounds like a good idea to me. You can never be too efficient.” Pulsfus says Portage Community School District is always trying to stay ahead and to never run into budget and finical problems. “We have to keep the communities best interest in mind every move we make,” he says.