Money, Money, Money: Where Does it Go?
By Crystal Best
There have been sudden recent talks about education and shortage of teachers, substitutes, and bus drivers. With a recent vote giving Jenks the budget for a 19 million dollar bond, it had me wondering: Where does the school budget go?
Does it mostly go to the teacher? Classes? Building upgrades? How will we use this bond? We know the school gets a big sum of money at the beginning of each school year, and in this article, I’m going to figure out what they do with that sum.
The 19 million dollars bond that was just recently passed, according to Tulsa World, was to help fund textbooks, copiers, and technology along with security across the district. They also got money to fund the continued expansion of the Freshmen Academy, upgrading the tennis courts district wide, improving the Aquatic center, and much more. Along with this, getting an additional 820 thousand dollars for transportation needs.
Each month the district gets a certain amount of money that they get from the state and some money from the federal government that they are allowed to spend. This bond will just help do the specific things that the district wants finished that can’t fit into the normal budget they get each month.
According to the business office of Jenks in August of 2023, the Jenks Public School district started with roughly 30 million dollars. This then gets spread out to all the schools in the district in smaller portions. By the end of the month, they ended with around 26 million dollars.
On their financial documents, it breaks down into the different expenses they usually have or have money allotted to. For example, they have child nutrition, which is the food program and the expenses of buying the food they need, and on it shows how they were issued 284 thousand dollars to fund this.
A picture of the financial report for August with child nutrition and the money issued for that month. Picture taken from (Business Office jenkps.org).
Later, it showed that this was cleared and they could spend 254 thousand dollars for that program. That way, right next to the cleared section it has what they had leftover, which was just 46 thousand dollars. The cleared section is how much money has actually been taken out of the account.
The financial report for August with what money was cleared and how much money was left over (Business Office jenkps.org).
This is an example of how their funds work and how I will present the financial reports so that they are easier to understand. Blue is for what the funds are for, red is for what was issued, green is for was cleared and will be leaving the account, and orange is for what’s left in the account.
One of the interesting things in the report is the expansion with different numbers at the end. I did research and found that on Attract Capital, expansion means the money is used to broaden the company’s assets. For example, employees or launching new products. In the case of the school district, it's for hiring teachers, substitutes, upgrading computers, etc.
The financial report for August with the Expansions circled (Business Office jenkps.org).
From my current knowledge, I can evaluate that B31, B32, and so on could possibly be the different schools like the elementary, the middle school, and the other schools in the district. This then shows how much money is distributed to each school and then the schools themselves get to do with what they want.
Most schools typically get 100 thousand dollars each with the exception of two, one being 58 thousand dollars and the other being a 1 million dollar one. It shows that all the schools have approximately used all of the budget that they were allocated for the month, leaving almost nothing for some by the end.
The financial report for August with the money issued circled for all the expansions (Business Office jenkps.org).
By November, they seem to have lowered the costs they need slowly but surely and how much of the budget they used for the month has lowered too. Some schools are even getting more money deposited in the bank than what they are spending for the month.
There are tons more of personal expenses that the district does have. For example, Linked In describes Karen Henderson as a site coordinator for West Elementary before and after school childcare program. She spent money on Office Depot and Walmart, for undisclosed reasons, but it’s safe to assume she is grabbing crayons, coloring books, and more for the kids to play with and use.
The financial report for August with the money that was cleared circled and the money that was left highlighted (Business Office jenkps.org).
The card statement for August with Karen Henderson reports of what she bought at Walmart and Office Depot (Business Office jenkps.org).
There’s a whole list of what schools can use personal expenses for especially with the budget they have on it. Though these are important, not enough context is provided for me to make assumptions for what these purchases could entail.
When it comes down to it, the money is a form of helping education grow and adapt. Though I don’t know what some of the expansion money was for, I can assume it was to fix a field that needed it, upgrade that playground someone thought was a bit too run down, or help a program finally get the funding it needs. In the end, no matter where the money really goes, it’s all for the same two things: To better a kid's future, and for better education.
