June 11, 2002 - Baltimore City Public Schools

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Board Meeting Minutes MR. TILDON: I guess I feel like I just want to say ditto. But I was trying, and I've seen these different times, to just move everything to the left. I'm sort of always on the left side, as opposed to the right. And, I guess, it's going to take some new innovations. We've talked about trying to raise money. We did put the barn in. But are we stretching that out to until it is too far, even if we were to move everything up a year? And then, I guess, I got knocked off my socks when I saw that operating figure. What was it, 180 million? MR. STREUVER: 118 million. MR. TILDON: It was over five -- six years. MR. SMOLARZ: Over the last four years, yes. MR. TILDON: And that's, obviously, an add-on. It's probably -- I go back, and I just have to have everyone know that I've been persuaded of the importance of this facility. We've sort of talked about other aspects of these operations. But our visit to Atlanta -- and the CEO is always telling us facilities, facilities. But there really is a need for us to think outside the box. Bill is admonishing, but I didn't think that maybe all of us could get together and try to really think and push everything to the left. I mean, to get 13 million this year is almost criminal, And for people to tell us that we should be smiling at that. So it's going to take some doing. But I do think that some different kind of approaches are needed, because even as we talk, that's only 42 million, which is much less than half. And by the time you get to FY '08, it'll probably be less than one-third of that. MS. WELCH: Any other comments? Mr. Smolarz, it is now 10:00, and you're finished? MR. SMOLARZ: I've still got a couple more items. Thank you. Page 28 of 41 MS. RUSSO: Thank you very much, gentlemen. And Mr. Smolarz, you're going to stay right there, and Karen Norris will join too, as we discuss Grant Administration. MR. SMOLARZ: On Thursday night, the Finance Committee, we had a very healthy discussion about grants. And we thought that it would be good to share with the Board where we are with our grants process. And to my left is Ms. Karen Norris, who is our Director of Grants, who has come on board on October 8th. So when I know the date, that's a good thing, because I was eagerly waiting not only Ms. Norris, but Mr. Raymond, our CFO, also started on October 8th. So I always remember good days. So with that introduction, I'll let Ms. Norris go through our Power Point presentation, and then we'll, once again, take questions. MS. NORRIS: Great to be here, Mr. Smolarz. And good evening. We're here tonight to give you gist of what we've been doing in Grants Administration since October. And as the Power Point slide, the first slide says, in October we established the Department of Grant Administration. And we have divided ourselves into two primary functions. On one side of the house we take care of grants management, and on the other side we're looking for new funding under grants acquisitions. In addition to those two primary functions, we also support schools' goals under the Master Plan, through endorsements, collaborative greetings with partners, and unsolicited initiatives. And we have released the Grants Oversight Committee, which I Chair. I think it's also important to note that the department was created with existing positions, and no positions today have been added, and everyone, except me, were previously here in the System. So we were able to take staff and use them in a new way to provide new services. We currently have a restructuring in progress with HR to reclass all positions to better align them with the new services that we're providing, and to, hopefully, fill the vacancies that we have in the file://S:\CMS_Content\meetings\2002\J11_02.html 9/23/2002
Board Meeting Minutes department. On the next slide, one of the first things we did when we came was to look at an audit that had previously been conducted before my arrival. And in March, I noticed in grant details, warranted an assessments of the grants management function for Baltimore City Schools. And we just thought that. No. 1, to improve sufficiency in necessity of the process, and then to propose action steps for improvement. Our response to the audit was to review the findings. And, at this time, all of the audit findings are planned for implementation. Progress will be presented to the Finance Committee. And, in truth, we have been doing so on a monthly basis, and we will continue to do so through reporting. The audit findings are guiding our continued improvement, and they help us organize ourselves as to priorities regarding how do we announce grants, how do we monitor grant funds, its administrative procedures, and how we connect with other parts of the School District in order to better communicate and provide services. And we also always have the traditional input for review and consideration in the process, since we touch so many people. Under performance measures, indicators of achievement. We made sure, right away, that we had at least a grant manager identified for each project. And we could not have done this without the help of the CAO and her staff. Again, we wanted to make a bridge between the business side of the house and instructional problematic side. And the very first step was to make sure that we had the programmatic leader for each and every grants project that we're identifies as we have new programs. In addition to working with the CAO, my staff coordinates technical assistance with this grant manager, so the grant manager is not alone in effectively implementing the grant program. We work with the budget. And a great deal of thanks to the Director, Les Lensburg, for all his support. Grants accounting, Amy Johnson, and my staff. Other things that we've done right away in the first seven months. We've created a Grant Master File in my office. So for every grant program, we've been visually collecting in one place the grant's proposal, the grant's guidelines, any reporting instructions, the grant award notice. And we have created a nice encyclopedia for each and every grant project that every office is open and welcome to use. We're also hoping that as we collect these very valuable source documents, and maintain a very logical place, that this will help serve us when we become automated. In addition to the creation of the Grants Master File, we complete monthly financial reporting to the Finance Committee. And we also include great managers in these finance meetings when we have special grants projects that need attention or people need help. Okay. Let's get to some dollars. Our two objectives: On the Grants Management side, we wanted to reduce our carryover and increase the nature we're spending the grants dollars within the grant period. And in tracking the trends from our monthly grants -- restricted grants report, in terms of repairs to the budget and Henry Raymond and Amy Johnson. Just to give you the comparison, in December, our monthly variance was at 32.6 million, and now in April we're down to $24.5 million for grants income. MR. STRINGFIELD: Could you define for us please what variance means? Page 29 of 41 MS. NORRIS: A variance is -- that's a good question. You have a grant award and you have 12 months to spend that money. And in this school district, you have to try to divide your budget into 12 months so you know, approximately, how much you should be spending at any given time. And if there's a variance at a projected month, that we're either overspending or underspending that. That's what that does. MR. SMOLARZ: Well, specifically, to point out, underspending of the grants, which has been a problem that Commissioner Streuver and Commissioner Jones have been working with us over the last year, to reduce and -- the numbers were very large. But just to put in some perspective to awards, they're somewhere close to $300 million a year. What's even more impressive, not only is the $8 million reduction in the variance, but when you see the percentage of that variance with the total budget, it's even less. So it's very impressive. MS. NORRIS: Thank you. Moving on the Grants Acquisition side of the house. To look at some performance measures since October. Some of our indicators of achievement include the identification file://S:\CMS_Content\meetings\2002\J11_02.html 9/23/2002
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June 11, 2002 - Baltimore City Public Schools

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