FILE: DA
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
The Plaquemines Parish School Board recognizes the importance of prudent and responsible fiscal management. The Board also recognizes that as a governmental entity, it has a fiduciary duty to the public to manage its finances properly. Furthermore, the Board recognizes that its primary mission of educating the children of Plaquemines Parish depends on the proper performance of the Board’s finance, budgeting, accounting, payroll, purchasing and reporting functions.
The School Board shall strive to achieve the following goals and objectives for its fiscal management responsibilities:
To make sound financial decisions based on timely and accurate information.
To maintain transparency, so that the public is kept abreast of the financial condition of the Board.
To ensure that productive working relationships with other governments at the parish, state and federal level are maintained, in order to help protect funding sources.
To ensure that the educational functions of the Board are always supported by the fiscal functions.
To always remember that the public has placed their trust in the Board and never to betray that trust.
In order to help achieve these goals and objectives, the Superintendent and his/her staff shall do the following:
Prepare and submit annual budgets, in accordance with Board policy and state law, which should consider the short-term and long-term resources and needs of the Board.
Regularly monitor actual results of operations compared to the budget.
Ensure that accounting data is timely entered into the accounting system, in order to provide relevant information for reporting and decision-making purposes.
Formulate policies for budgeting, debt management and fund balances, in order to help give direction to financial decision-making.
Ensure that only qualified and competent personnel are hired to carry out the fiscal functions of the Board.
Ensure that all personnel are properly trained and supervised.
Ensure that proper internal controls are established and followed, in order to protect the integrity of the accounting data and assets of the school system.
Regularly inventory and monitor capital assets to protect them from theft and to ensure that maintenance expenditures and possible replacement costs are properly planned for.
Ensure that communication between the Finance Department and other employees and departments is maintained.
Ensure that Finance Department personnel are always committed to carrying out their responsibilities to support the educational functions of the Board.
Ensure that the purchasing function complies with all Board policies and state and federal law.
Strive to fulfill all reporting responsibilities timely and accurately, including the reporting of grant operations to state and federal agencies, the reporting of accounting and financial data to the state Department of Education and the reporting of financial statement and independent audit results to the state and federal governments.
Strive to achieve excellence in budgeting and financial reporting in accordance with the criteria established by the Government Finance Officers Association and Association of School Business Officials.
Make regular public reports on the financial status of the school system and maintain productive relationships with the media and local leaders, in order to help maintain the public trust.
Adopted: June 6, 2011
Ref: Board minutes, 6-6-11
Plaquemines Parish School Board