Finance

Once again, Finance in Education is a topic that I struggled with in Professional Teacher this semester because as of right now the concepts are above and beyond my head. Finance is not something I have dealt with at least not on that level. I have done some budgeting obviously to be able to go to school, pay the bills and play on the basketball team. Sometimes it's meant working a part time job while going to school and playing basketball, but compared to trying to budget for an entire school or school division my budgeting seems quite small on the grand scale of things.

When asked to write a post about Finance I had to start doing some research.  What I understood from class was that education in Manitoba is financed in a few ways. A large percentage of the revenue comes from the provincial government (nearly two-thirds), another very large sum comes from the municipal government (almost a third), and a very small portion, roughly 6% from "other revenues" such as private organizations, first nations, and/or other school divisions. I also understand that this budget granted to Manitoba schools is distributed in a variety of ways. For starters regular instruction costs contribute for over half of the Manitoba Education expenses. That is simply paying the teachers and aides that provide instruction accounts for over half the budget granted to a school by the Finance Minister . Roughly three percent goes to administration, four percent to transportation of students, another four percent to support services for students, over ten percent operations and management and nearly twenty percent on exceptional. All I really took from that was that considering teachers don't exactly earn the highest wage of all professionals out there, they sure do suck up a lot of the Education Budget.

So I did some searching and I found an article from the Manitoba Teaching Society outlining The Provincial  FRAME Reporting System. What is says is that since 1983, the Government of Manitoba has introduced a province-wide, uniform reporting structure for the education programs and related service of Manitoba public schools known as FRAME, which stands for Financial Reporting and Accounting in Manitoba Education. What it does is it sets out a comprehensive reporting structure for the operating information of a school division and school district. It also provides a budgeting and auditing system. The FRAME budget identifies the amount of funds voted and allocated by the school board to each education program and service in the operating budget authorized for the upcoming fiscal year as well as the student population and teach population of each program. 

The FRAME reporting structure consists of nine main education programs and related service functions pertaining to public schooling each pertaining their own identification number: 100 Regular Instruction; 200 Student Support Services (formally the Exceptional Program); 300 Technology Education (Vocation Instruction); 400 Community Education and Services; 500 Central Divisional/District Administration; 600 Instructional and Other Support Services; 700 Student Transportation; 800 Operations and Maintenance; and 900 Fiscal Services. Beyond that there are a number of sub-functions in which these main functions are divided into.

I still do no entirely understand why so much of the budget comes from the provincial government while this much comes from municipal, but I'm not convinced that anyone completely understands why. What I do like about using the FRAME structure in reporting Education Expenditure across Manitoba is that it is consistent across all school boards and districts across Manitoba and that it provides a uniform definition of educational programs and related services. It easily paints a picture of where the money provided in the budget goes to which is the question every one wants to know right? Where does the money go?