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School Business Insider
From Compliance to Collaboration: Redesigning the School Budget Process
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- [00:01]
John Brucato
You're listening to ASBO International's School Business Insider. I'm your host, John Brucato. Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business. Hello everyone and welcome back to School Business Insider. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Michael Jewick, assistant Superintendent of Operations at Howard Suamico School District in Wisconsin and soon to be Superintendent of the Kohler School District in Wisconsin. We dive into his article for School Business now we versus Me and talk about what it really means to build a collaborative, transparent and mission driven budget process. Dr. Juick walks us through how school business officials can move from compliance driven budgeting to value based decision making and how engaging stakeholders from principals to school boards leads to smarter, more equitable resource allocation. We also get into the challenges and lessons learned from putting together this philosophy into practice. Mike, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you.
- [01:21]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Well, thanks John. I'm happy to be here. Excited to share a little bit of our story and hopefully it helps some other folks learn along the way. We've had a great experience and happy to share that and also happy to hear how we can do better.
- [01:34]
John Brucato
Absolutely. So excited to dive into just really what you've done to transform the budgeting process and just the mindset. But before we get into that too much, can you tell me a little bit more about your professional journey? What what led you to school finance and operations? And as I teased, sounds like you have a new chapter in your educational career.
- [01:52]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yes, indeed. As you said July 1, I started as the superintendent for the Kohler School District. Very excited about that opportunity and really feel that my professional journey has prepared me for that experience. So currently, as you said, serve as the Assistant Superintendent of Operations for the Howard Suamico School District. And that's been a a great path and that really started I was a superintendent for a much smaller district and that led me to this opportunity. And I've been fortunate to be a middle school teacher, an elementary school teacher, an associate principal and athletic director, a director of teaching and learning. And I think those experiences have really shaped how I approach school finance. And just having those experiences allow me to connect with the conversations, the dialogue, plus being surrounded by great teammates and great leaders allows us to continue to grow and lean into some of those conversations that at first were a little uncomfortable.
- [02:55]
John Brucato
Sure, sure. Well it sounds like all you need to do is drive a bus. And it's not like you've done everything in a school district, so that's great. So how is your experience with really coming up through the educational ranks framed your approach to budgeting, you know, maybe even including your doctorate, how has that influenced you as a leader? Maybe just in your leadership style and really how it correlates to the budget?
- [03:20]
Dr. Michael Jewick
I think sometimes we get a false narrative around the finance department or the finance team and that we're here to say no. And I think that's something that at times it's a little bit of a point of pride of we can steer the ship and we can keep things moving, and we're tight on that. But I think for a lot of folks, the reason you get into a school is about impacting our students, providing them with opportunities, and impacting our staff in a positive way. And so when you put those experiences together, they've really helped shape my mindset. And again, blessed with a great team that shares this mindset of our roles are to support our students, our staff, and our schools. And so we've taken that approach with our operations team. Sometimes the term customer service I think is overused, but we understand our role is here to be there for folks. And that's no different in the budgeting process is how can we focus on the right work? How can we find a way to say yes? We might not always get you the way you want to go from a finance perspective, but if there's a way we can help you accomplish what your goals are within the parameters, we're going to try to do that. And that's been something that has been a philosophy. And one of my styles is, is there a way to. Well, is there a way to say yes? And again, our direction might be a little bit different than maybe I would have looked at it when I was in the teaching and learning role, for example.
- [04:46]
John Brucato
Sure. So sounds like you're very much solutions oriented, which is. Which is great. I can relate a lot to that. Having that mindset. Has that caused you to take a lot more time in terms of dissecting what the. The asks and the wants and the needs are from a budgeting perspective. Because saying no is the easy route. Right. Because that kind of just ends the conversation. Talk to me about how maybe your solutions mindset just takes a little bit more effort. And has your business office always been attuned to that kind of thinking?
- [05:17]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, I definitely think it involves building the relationships and having those conversations. Our Principals know, for example, that they can talk to us about what are they looking to accomplish, and we're gonna be here to listen. And again, we're gonna try to find a way to support them. And that's been something that our business office over the last few years has really worked on, of just building those relationships, being at the table, helping our folks understand that we're here to support you as well. It's just we have a different job to do at times and just building that mutual respect of what those roles look like and how do we find those solutions, as you mentioned, so that we're able to support what is our direction, mission and vision of the organization and ultimately, what's the experience like for our students.
- [06:07]
John Brucato
Right. So I first learned about kind of your philosophy through the School of Business now article that I'd mentioned. What inspired you to write the we versus Me article? And was there a moment or experience that really catalyzed this thinking?
- [06:21]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, anytime we can contribute to the profession, we enjoy that. I think that's been something of. We're not afraid to do that with the Howard Suamico School District. We'll put our necks out there a little bit. I'm really proud of the work that as a district, we're able to do and able to share, but it's also about how do we continue to get better. We've done some presentations where we acknowledge right out we want to keep getting better at this, or this is something that didn't go well. And so this particular piece really stemmed from a conversation that I had with one of our elementary principals. And we were going through our process where we were really looking at what were some of those budget requests. And it was a pretty. What I considered kind of a simple conversation or simple concept, but I don't know that it was something that he had been a part of before. And he said something along the lines of, Mike, I understand that this is part of the bigger picture. It's not just about at my school. And I now know how I can help with a larger thing so that in the future, when I need some of that assistance, we're ready and my colleagues are ready to support me. And I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but that was the gist of it, and it was just a great conversation that I wanted to share because I think sometimes we take things for granted of. Well, our principals, for example, know we're here to support that. I don't think they always know that. And so I think that relationship building, telling Those stories, sharing that impact moment, that's what really kind of started the process of contributing this specific article. And I think it was important too, because I think it was also a reminder for me of writing it down. Sometimes is extremely helpful to share that story and remember that purpose. Even when those times aren't as smooth or you're running into a little bit of that wall, it still keeps me grounded in why we do what we do and the impact we've been able to have.
- [08:17]
John Brucato
Did you find there was resistance from your educational leaders familiarizing themselves and in demonstrating what their. Their role is in this machine that is public education? Or were they willing to say, okay, I'll take some time and learn how my decisions influence the overall budget and vice versa?
- [08:35]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, I think there's definitely a philosophy and a culture of growth here in Howard Suamico. And so we pride ourselves of how do keep getting better. Now, as I wrote in the article, and I think anytime we talk about this, when we're talking about finances and the impact on folks is that can be very personal. Whether that's compensation or your building budget or your department budget, that gets really personal very quickly. And so there was still some resistance of why do we need to do this? This is one more thing that we need to do. How do we prepare for this? When we started putting those pieces together and connecting the dots for folks, that was helpful. And again, for me, it goes back to those relationships. This is something I couldn't have done in my first few months here. This was a collaborative effort of as we went through our strategic planning, our goal setting those areas, it was bringing those items together. So even now, when we're refreshing our strategic framework, the budget component is something that's built right in. If we wanna do these things, how are we going to do that from a budget perspective? And that's not what I found in other districts to be the norm. And so I think we're able to really get to that next level because people have bought in and they've been willing to step into a little bit of an uncomfortable space because their goal is ultimately the same as ours of how are we going to make sure we provide opportunities for kids, support our staff and support our community ultimately with our school district.
- [10:04]
John Brucato
Sounds like it took you some time to build some trust and credibility. Was that a major player in making this philosophy come to life?
- [10:12]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Definitely. I think that's always a portion of just anytime you're transitioning into any type of role is those relationships and making authentic relationships, not superficial or Necessarily just the way we do business. And if you're going to implement some, I would say, larger changes, but something that's going to impact folks a little bit. Being able to have that relationship and that dialogue already started makes that process a little bit easier. When I started with Howard Suamico was July of 2020. So I don't need to rehash everything that was going on in the world at that point in time. But when you're in operations and you're starting new in an organization, you have some early wins because we had to go through a lot of different things and folks saw that. And so while relationship building was different with video conferencing and masks and all the stuff that was going on in the world, those actions built those relationships. And so now I would have to probably approach that a little bit differently in building those relationships. But it was critical for our overall success of just building that trust and following through. And those relationships were there. So they knew it wasn't just Mike trying to be a pain or questioning what we were doing. It's about a larger mission and how do we accomplish that.
- [11:31]
John Brucato
That's great. So for those who may not be familiar with your recently published article, can you talk to me about what the core distinction is between we and me budgeting?
- [11:40]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, definitely. I think for a lot of us, well, a lot of us, a lot of folks, it's the use it or lose it type of mindset. And I think that often trickles down most at the building level within a school district. And so we really took that approach of we had some purchases that we needed to look at that were larger purchases that weren't happening outside of some of those areas. We need trade books in one of our elementary schools and they need a significant amount. Well, how do we reposition some of those dollars, reallocate some of those resources where I'm gonna be a little bit more strategic in my middle school budget because the following year when I know that's on the horizon because we've outlined some of these larger projects, I'm. I can lay that out to the team of folks and we'll be able to adjust that. We were able to also develop and a lot of districts have this and we had it to a certain extent. But what were some of those long term plans and especially in the area of technology and curriculum and instruction, those resources, how are we looking at this is going to be a heavy technology year? Well then how do we structure our implementation for teaching and learning in those off years of technology and we tried to take that approach of we versus me. Just so we were thinking along the same lines because it became about the team, about the organization and about making sure those resources were there for folks and also kind of removing that use it or lose it type of mindset throughout the process.
- [13:17]
John Brucato
Well, I mean, the fact that you were implementing some kind of long range planning just warms my heart as one of my passion projects in school of finance. So I'm guessing the way you were approaching this was it's not necessarily that we just keep on adding and adding to the budget. We're almost kind of each department, we as in the collective we of tech and curriculum and building leaders, we're all kind of taking turns in terms of priority. Is that how you were approaching these conversations where you're saying, well, we, you know, we have to replace X amount of tablets or computers this year, but the following year that'll free up X amount of dollars for maybe a curriculum initiative. Is that really kind of how your approach is working and how were you able to kind of articulate that not so siloed approach to budgeting to your staff and your team?
- [14:05]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, that's exactly right. We were really looking at that. And I think for especially when you talk about curriculum, instruction or teaching and learning, the capacity of the educators is one of the biggest things to look at. And so in addition to how do we plan where those areas are from a financial perspective, it was what could our folks take on just because we had resources we could allocate for curriculum xyz if we didn't have the professional capacity that wasn't aligned? Well, some of those conversations needed to take place too, because it's easy for facilities, technology, yes, there's work in that, but we can buy a bunch of devices or we can take on this project and contract it out to someone. But we needed to go beyond just the financial aspect of where could we build in those moments of capacity and also just building in that strategic plan on this is where we're going in a curricular area. This is what the actual plan looks like. And just because we can buy those math resources doesn't mean we should because our folks aren't going to be ready for it. And so I think that was those conversations were taking place and I was fortunate and I work with great people. But our last director of technology who retired last year was a phenomenal budgeter. And so he had his plans were down to the penny. And that made it really easy of having those teammates that were valuing Those areas to be able to start to build around what does that look like and that buy in from other departments so that we can put these pieces together. And then also just the visual demonstration of you can see in the next three years, here's where technology is going to be and where we need to be. Okay, let's align that with our curriculum and instruction. And then we also take that to the building level of we need these smaller resources now, how do those fit in? And then where's the capacity at new technology for our staff curriculum and at the building? And so as we started to mesh and have some of those conversations, that became really helpful for that planning for the future. And it's something we continue to work on and continue to get better. And when we have new folks in different chairs, it's kind of refreshing. How do we foster that and continue to build on that concept that's allowed for what I believe is some really solid dialogue and removing some of the siloed approach to budgeting for our district.
- [16:44]
John Brucato
Well, keeping your eye on capacity is so important because just, just because you can doesn't necessarily mean you should.
- [16:50]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Right.
- [16:51]
John Brucato
I mean, as a former tech director a long time ago, doing a device refresh replacement cycle is pretty straightforward. I mean, there's maybe some new features with new devices, but it's not usually revolutionary. It's evolutionary. But when you go to introduce maybe new curriculum or new strategies on teaching, there's a lot of professional development that needs to be front loaded before you actually get into the classroom and start teaching kids. It sounds like you've kind of figured that out and have gamed that out for the next few years.
- [17:20]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, that's something where the background experiences we touched on when you're the one who's responsible for professional development for a district and curriculum adoption, new teacher orientation, all that kind of stuff. Stuff. It gives you a different perspective. And I've been fortunate.
- [17:36]
John Brucato
You've been in the trenches, right?
- [17:37]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Exactly. I've been fortunate to have those experiences and I loved it. But again, it goes back to having that. I look at it a little bit differently, but it's having phenomenal teammates that are able to buy into that. And our teaching and learning team, I can go down a list of each one of them and how they've had a positive impact on how we operate in operations and in finance. But as well as their strategy, I can tell you what their strategy is because we've had those conversations. We've also been impacted by some legislative changes in our state that were a Significant both financial impact and also workload for our staff. Well, we outlined that plan looking at the resource allocation, looking at the capacity, and then just looking at overall, how quickly can we get resources? Well, that entire conversation was really centered and focused by our teaching and learning team. That wasn't started in the business office. It was vetted through the business office, but it didn't start there. And that's something where those types of examples. I'm really proud of our team where we're thinking about that and it's not just, well, here's my allocation for the year. No, let's have a strategy and a plan. And again, I'm so proud of them for thinking along those lines and just being able to build that in. So it's not just the no button or you know what, sometimes I think in the finance world we get falsely represented of we're going to be sticklers on everything. Right.
- [19:10]
John Brucato
So, I mean, that's a great segue to my next question. Why do you feel that the we versus me budgeting shift is so important now for public education?
- [19:21]
Dr. Michael Jewick
I think it really boils down to, say, the lack of resources. We're faced with challenges annually in Wisconsin. We get a new budget every two years. Well, that's what we know, and we don't know beyond that. So having, what are some of those levers? What are some of those strategies that we're going to implement? We need to be ready for that. And it's also something that if we're working together on it, when it gets to the time of either us meeting with legislators to share our story with us, having to go to an operational referendum here in the state of Wisconsin, we've had those conversations. More folks are able to share our story. We're truly collaborative of we can identify, hey, this is why we did some of those things. Well, that's really powerful when we have other folks speaking to those different areas. And so we've been presented with what I would say are some unique challenges just of overall resources, that if we're truly evaluating what we're doing and having a plan, it sets us up and positions us better for the future. And so I think that's been a little bit of a driver. But I think it's also just the culture we have at our district of we're going to collaborate on things, we're going to ask questions, we're going to push each other, we're going to try to find ways to be better. And so that continuous learning and continuous improvement process and mindset has been another big time driver in all of this.
- [20:48]
John Brucato
Well, you know, to your earlier point, I think school business officials can sometimes be sticklers, but definitely rule followers. In the article you mentioned from moving from a compliance mindset to a value based one. What does that really look like in day to day practice?
- [21:04]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, it's finding a balance for our team. We have a number of folks on our finance team. I need them to be sticklers on certain things. Like I can't have our team losing those values either.
- [21:16]
John Brucato
Like they, you want people breaking the rules. Right? No one's going to jail.
- [21:20]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Exactly, exactly. Like there's things that we're going to be compliance based on. But I think understanding and seeking to understand is more in the how are we becoming part of an overall organization, not strictly being in finance. Our new superintendent, I think said this the best. Well, a few weeks ago he made a comment just in our staff meeting with our district office team, just about everybody's individual impact that they have on our students. And he kind of went through a list of here's how your job impacts what's going on. And it was powerful of. It wasn't everybody's job description, but it was just a breakdown of when you make this decision, understand that this also impacts. Except it was all framed in a positive sense. And I think that was just a really powerful way of looking at that and reiterated we all have a role in this. And so while yes, I want we need to be sticklers on it, I can't have us not following through on our requirements. And also I need us to be very fiscally responsible as well. I need us to also be creative through that. And I think that's something where when we talk about what are we going to prioritize, what do we value as an organization, those parts and components need to be blended into that compliance piece.
- [22:43]
John Brucato
I love that exercise because I think sometimes, especially in the business office or more so the non instructional offices, you can lose the forest through the trees.
- [22:53]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Right.
- [22:53]
John Brucato
You're so focused on the minutia and the compliance and regulation. You can sometimes lose sight of why we're doing what we're doing. So that's, that's so encouraging to hear that. You know, your team was able to say, well this is, you know, when you do X, Y and Z, this is really the direct impact on students. That's, that's awesome.
- [23:11]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, because it's, we, we all need to make that organization work. And sometimes I think people outside of education think school's just going to class. Well, we're still running an organization and a business and there's a lot of other components that go into that beyond just the, you know, the school house walls.
- [23:30]
John Brucato
Right, right. So you talked about how you involved your elementary principal earlier in our conversation. Can you tell me how your approach to involving other principals, department heads, non financial leaders in the budgeting process has gone? And maybe you could share some, some tips with our listeners that you've seen, some strategies that have been successful.
- [23:50]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, no, that's, that's definitely. It's been. We, we went through a whole presentation model and went through here's things that we see on the horizon. So leaders also focus on what are their future goals and what are some of their future plans. And we're, like I mentioned earlier, we're going through a new strategic framework process. So this is kind of now continuing. We're kind of starting over with some of that.
- [24:14]
John Brucato
Sure.
- [24:14]
Dr. Michael Jewick
But I think it really gets into what are we prioritizing as an organization? And that even goes from the entire organization into those departments or buildings. What are you truly prioritizing? And so as we went through our process, we had, it was a lovely spreadsheet. And folks probably listening to this podcast can appreciate a good spreadsheet when you see one.
- [24:35]
John Brucato
Everybody just perked up that's listening.
- [24:39]
Dr. Michael Jewick
And it was nothing that's like earth shattering or groundbreaking, but it just allowed us to where are these things that you're requesting in the budget fitting into our strategic priorities? Where are they fitting in? How are you prioritizing those? And so we color coded that they could pick their option. Pretty simple, but it allowed them a chance to truly reflect on. Does this fit into our overall mission of what we want to accomplish? And where is this on my priority list? And if it's something that I'm going to prioritize, then let's make sure we're able to communicate the why I have no problem in being a former elementary teacher. I get it. There's a time I use the sparkly pencil example. There's times when those things are important. And while it may seem like it's a low priority, that kid that needed that incentive or that reward, sometimes that's what they have and that's so critical to them. But I think it's also, then let's prioritize that. What is that a part of? What is that connected with our vision? What are we truly focusing on with that work? So our spreadsheet kind of breaking, going back there, we kind of broke that down. This is where our Areas were, this is why we're gonna prioritize this, and this is where this is built into our budget and really understanding that why. And then as we broke those items down, we started to get that total. And when folks see what they start to get to on some of those items, they want to see and see what that budget impact is. I think that also allowed them to kind of reevaluate. All right, which ones of these should be green and which ones maybe do I need to change to a yellow on my priority scale right here?
- [26:15]
John Brucato
Sure. So before you got to the master spreadsheet attack of trying to do the we budgeting, did you have to take extra time in certain instances to kind of just do like a budgeting 101? I think back to when I first started a school business official, I inherited a budgeting process that was very much kind of like a black box. The business official put everything together and just handed out numbers essentially to building leaders and said, here's your bottom line number. You can spend this much. You know, did you have to kind of reverse engineer some, some old school thinking or was everybody really kind of of the same mindset, speaking the same language?
- [26:52]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, we were in, I think we were in a good spot, had a very collaborative leadership that, that I followed too. And, and so the gentleman that I stepped in after, he did a real nice job of engaging folks and, and really focusing on the vision. So some of that groundwork was set. Obviously you put your spin on it and coming in in the middle of a pandemic created a whole different world of conversation. But I think that mindset and that consistency was there. It also helps when you have a 19 year superintendent that helps for some consistency and is somewhat unheard of. So that was a really nice addition to have of how do we keep that culture? How do we keep that mindset moving forward? And so I think we were able to build on some work that was done to keep folks thinking about that and just kind of keeping that as a focus of the dialogue now. Budgeting 101. Yes, we've done a lot of it. And sometimes I feel like I'm teaching the same lesson again. And that's okay because this is the world we live in. This world. I can't expect, you know, our principals to know everything that's going on with the budget process, but we need to make sure we're educating them along the way. And so we've been given opportunities to really explain the budget from a number of different perspectives. We also went through an operating referendum in 2021. So we needed to educate everybody on the budgeting process through that. That experience to. To get folks out to the polls and vote. So we had opportunities that kind of lent themselves to kind of a natural progression. But we get time, and it's usually twice a year at our admin meetings where we go through very specific budget items. And when we have either the state budget coming out or advocacy efforts, it really kind of amps up where our folks are able to talk about a number of different things about the budget and about the process, and I think that's been helpful. Now, I don't know that any of them are going to be willing or wanting to jump into a finance director role anytime soon, but maybe they're that much closer, right? Exactly. They have at least a little bit of a head start on that, and that's been really helpful with their engagement. And again, it's a great group of people, and that makes the world a difference, too, where that mutual respect is there and you're able to present on something and they'll ask you more questions. Tell me more about this. I want to understand this. And I think that's been really helpful of just having a culture of learning where we're going to look at everything and we're going to talk about all those different areas, even if it makes you a little uncomfortable or you're going to be a little confused after we go through some of those budgeting aspects.
- [29:43]
John Brucato
Sure. You mentioned the operating referendum, if I remember correctly, in Wisconsin, is that a referendum to increase local taxes over a certain threshold that you have to go out and get voter approval on?
- [29:54]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah. So it's. There's a. We have a state law and our revenue limits and what we can utilize for our operating expenditures if we want to raise that revenue limit. This is. I'm trying to give the simplified version, but if we want to raise that revenue limit, then we need to ask the voters or the constituents for permission to do that. And so we have a little bit of a unique situation with some debt restructuring and some things that's different from other Wisconsin schools, but it's kind of asking them to exceed that revenue limit set by the state.
- [30:26]
John Brucato
Well, and the reason I ask is that's not something you probably do every single year or try not to. So if you go out for an operational referendum, the stakes are arguably a little bit higher than maybe a typical budgeting year. So even more important to articulate to your staff and to get them up to speed on how the budgeting process works not just in this year, but how our decisions now are going to affect our budget in the following years is even more critical. Under an operating referendum.
- [30:55]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yes. Correct. It's just being able to share that information. Because I think the other part is, while we'll be collaborative on stuff, folks in the community are going to ask the people in the classrooms and the people at the building those questions. And so if we can make sure that they're as knowledgeable as possible on those different areas, that's helpful. Because while I can present that, there's gonna be folks that just based on my title alone, are gonna be somewhat skeptical of what I have to say. And so that's been a good charge. And I think when folks are obviously engaged in something, they're gonna take some more ownership in it.
- [31:34]
John Brucato
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, avoid as many shoulder shrugs as possible from your building leaders. Them being able to just articulate the basics is a win, you know.
- [31:43]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And they've done a really good job of just. Or they know where the answers to the questions are. And we try to make sure we keep as much stuff updated, too, where it gives them an out, too, if they start, you know, going into the deep end a little more than they wanted to.
- [32:00]
John Brucato
Right. So it sounds like you are blessed with an incredibly collaborative team at your school district, but I have to imagine maybe you've. You faced some pushback or some competing interests among. Among your stakeholders. Can you tell me how you've handled those and how you've reconciled those?
- [32:14]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, I think you always do. And I think this is the principal I mentioned. He's a big reader on the moving other people's cheese. He uses that one a lot and he loves that. So I'll give him credit on that, even though I know he's taking from a piece of literature there. And so I think that's been something where we've built up some capital with folks. And I talk about those relationships because there's times when we need to push into that a little bit more or ask them to step out of their comfort zone. And so I think the relationship building has been huge of just being able to. They know we're going to come from a good spot. They know we're going to support them, but they also know there's going to be time, we need help, and we're going to have to push back and ask for some assistance on that. And so that's been critical. And I even go into this budgeting cycle right now is we've Been able to just kind of adjust our mindset a little bit more to evaluating different areas. When we're looking at either a staffing position or something that's a larger expense or even some of our smaller expenses, is that something we need to refill after that retirement? Is that something we need to look at having or we used Esser dollars for those positions. We knew those were going away. So what's been kind of our off ramp of conversations have started to be the norm a little bit more where it's not solely financially driven, but there's a greater seat at the table. And so we're having those conversations and that's been really helpful to get folks to just ask some of those questions. So we're talking about that on the front end versus that being something that happens on the back end. And then we're put in a position in the finance department where no, we can't do that. And then we're back to that culture of no's.
- [34:11]
John Brucato
Right? Right. Well, we talked a lot about involving the curriculum and non financial leaders in your school district and this really in this philosophy. But you know, in your article you also mentioned the importance of building relationships with your school board members. Can you tell me how that ties into this overall budgeting philosophy as well?
- [34:31]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah. So that's been something that again, very fortunate. And this is learning from our previous superintendent. And again, when you have 19 years worth of knowledge in that chair in the same district, that helps tremendously. And part of that was just how do we build again the relationships with our board? And we've been fortunate. Where I want to say it's been three, four years, we haven't had a new board member. It's been all our same board members. And that's unheard of right now. But part of that is how do we onboard folks, just like when we talk about bringing a new teacher or a new staff member on, we need to make sure that they have that great experience. Well, that tone is set really early on with our board members, our superintendent, and again, they haven't had to do it in a few years, but he would meet with them before they ran for office just to talk to them a little bit about, hey, here's just how this works, here's where things are. And that's always been a really good kind of setting the tone for how do we build this as a collaborative relationship. And then early on when we onboard a board member, part of my job is I have an hour where I meet with them and we just talk about finance and just different areas that they might have questions on in operations. And ultimately it turns into an hour of talking about finance, let's call it like it is.
- [35:50]
John Brucato
Is an hour enough though? Have you found that maybe that's just like a little primer to the whole thing? I mean, obviously they're going to learn throughout going through the motions, but I can't imagine an hour is going to do it, right?
- [36:00]
Dr. Michael Jewick
No, it doesn't. But they also have to meet with every other one of our departments. So it's a long day for them to begin with.
- [36:06]
John Brucato
Like drinking from fire hose kind of day.
- [36:08]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Exactly. And we, you know, we have the typical onboarding packet, that kind of stuff. But I think it's the continued conversations and relationships because all of them, regardless of kind of why they ran for the board, they want to understand school finance and a lot of them, while they're interested in it. I think we all know that folks want to know, but then they don't necessarily want to know when you talk to them for an hour on it.
- [36:35]
John Brucato
Yeah, when you start getting into the weeds, you get some glazed over looks, right?
- [36:39]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Exactly, exactly. So we've been able to really build in those relationships early on, have those conversations, engage them. And I think something that I've just become more comfortable in as a leader is building that relationship with a board member. I think back not that long ago when I was scared or intimidated by that relationship. Well, I've just kind of, I don't know, I've grown professionally where now I'm not worried about that. And I know there's always, always a balance there. But I take it from a, I want to know more and how do I educate and explain that to you. And so we're very open with our board of here's where things are. I meet with them regularly. We have board members with very different levels of interest in this, from our data scientist type background who he loves the spreadsheets to another one of our board members who just wants to continue to learn. And so being able to have those conversations, updating them on this is what we're doing. This is where we're going through the process and this is kind of where we need your help as well. That's been something that we've been able to engage them with. From the education component to really the decision making component.
- [37:56]
John Brucato
We talked a little bit about moving from a compliance mindset to, to a value based one. What role do vision and values play in conversations with the board now that we're talking about that you know, members at large.
- [38:08]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Yeah, definitely. The board's role, and I said this in my superintendent interview, too, is the board's role is really to look out and up. And that's been something where that's been. The approach we've taken with the board here at Howard Swambuckel is let's set the vision. That's your job. Set policies and look out and up. And then you hire us to do different jobs. You want to be updated. We want to make sure we're providing you with the detailed information so that you can fulfill your civic responsibility. But that's really what that approach is. And with that partnership and that support of where are we going as an organization, then it's our job and our responsibilities within the organization to start to build that. And so our board has been engaged with setting our strategic framework, with helping to set our vision and our direction, and that allows us to do our jobs, and we're consistent. They might ask some additional questions of, well, why are we doing that? Connected to this? But they're ultimately focused on that out and up, and they hire professionals for a reason, and they've done such a nice job of valuing us to make sure we're executing on the vision, our direction, and supporting where are we going together through that entire process.
- [39:28]
John Brucato
So really supporting the board and their governance role and them in turn, supporting you in your management role.
- [39:34]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Definitely, definitely. And it's that. That was. It's something where that relationship. And we had a presentation a few years ago at the ACE conference about this. Of that relationship and that building that trust. And I think it's something where the time you invest on the front end of just getting to know. Answering those questions, I think helps in the long run because we've been able to build a tremendous amount of trust. And that's really rewarding, too, to be a professional where you know you're respected and valued, that means something. But it's also nice to be able to accomplish something together. And everybody's engaged in that work from the board table into ultimately the schoolhouse.
- [40:18]
John Brucato
So as you think back, your time at Howard Suamico, what would you say are some of the biggest challenges in shifting to a collaborative model? Sounds like the district at large has been relatively collaborative, but what you've just walked me through in these first 40 minutes is really impressive. So I have to imagine there were a couple stumbling blocks along the way. And so what were those, and what maybe have you learned from them?
- [40:41]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Definitely, there's a lot of different variables in play, and so I think at first it was a little frustrating of how do we increase kind of the financial seat at the table. How do we really try to work through this? And that took a little bit too. It wasn't. And as, as I said at the beginning and as I talk about these things is we've done a lot of really neat things and been able to do a lot of really good things, but there's still a lot of stuff we need to work on and continue to grow it. And so I'm just happy to share a part of that journey. So I think that was just a little bit of a challenge of how do we make sure the right people are at the table. And through my role and the structure of our organization, I've been able to be a little bit more a seat at the table where I think some of our colleagues, they may not always be at the cabinet level. They may not always be sitting at kind of that C suite meeting. Well, that's something that we've been fortunate with our structure to be able to do that. And I would say it was kind of continuing to knock on the door. When the door opened a little bit, I pushed it in. Hey, we're going to have this conversation. And being okay with that being a little bit uncomfortable. And I don't know that everybody gets invited into that space or has kind of the permission to do that. As I said when they, when they hired me here is I'm going to push on some things and you need to be okay with that. And if you're not, then we got to have a different conversation or, you know, maybe this isn't the organization for me. And so I think that's a big thing on the front end is knowing what are those boundaries, knowing where you can push asking those questions of how do you want me to be involved in this? And then also having some positive accountability with that of you asked me to help you in this role. Let's do this. And so I think that's where we were able to kind of set the tone of we're going to ask questions this way. This is why we're going to do this. But I also need to make sure that I explain the overall why to you, because that's where we could lose folks. And a little bit of we needed to be very clear on our why so that people didn't take it as all the new guys just coming in and coming after my budget allocation. No, this is where our why was. And so it was starting from knocking on the door a Little bit to continuing to push to explain that to folks and just being able to work through some of those challenges because there was times it was very frustrating of like, okay, we're making some of these decisions and we're not thinking about this. Well, how do we start to continue that dialogue and work through that where it doesn't become so frustrating that it's kind of. I throw my hands up, it's how do we continue to build this and how do we get folks on board with this philosophy?
- [43:26]
John Brucato
Well, building and maintaining a collaborative culture like that is incredibly rewarding, but takes a lot of work and a lot of communication, a lot of coordination. How do you maintain momentum and buy in over time, especially if you're faced with maybe a more than challenging budget year?
- [43:42]
Dr. Michael Jewick
I think it's just being clear with folks and being able to explain that. And we've been able to walk through why we've made decisions. We did. We rolled out a couple months ago a plan to our administrative team of this is where our budget reality was. And it's not a great picture. There's some things that need to work through, and we've already been able to put a pretty big dent in that. So it's not as doom and gloom as it probably started. But I think it was understanding or understanding where their knowledge base was, but also being able to walk them through the process. And we've tried to be very, very supportive on this is how we're going to walk through this process to ultimately get this to you. And this is why we need you to walk through that process. So I think that transparent, open communication has been key and just walking them through, because for a lot of our teammates, they're not a licensed business official. They have no interest in that world. And so how do we make sure we're explaining to you what you do? Because I think for many, if you're not in those specific roles, you don't know what somebody does on a daily basis. You don't know what their actual role is. So how do we help you to understand that and then bring you on board so that you become a champion for the finance team or just those strategic decisions that are coming on the horizon?
- [45:13]
John Brucato
Right. So if a school business official listening today is maybe in a district that is a little bit more siloed or traditional in their budgeting practices, what kind of advice could you give them to maybe break out of that cycle into more of a we budgeting model?
- [45:28]
Dr. Michael Jewick
It's getting to know your teammates, it's getting to be A part of those different teams. It's asking questions, it's taking interest. Something that we did early on is we would do our one on one meetings with our operations team. We would go to different sites in different buildings just to see, hey, this is the work that's going on. And also to build relationships. I've gone on learning walks with our teaching and learning team to see what's going on. I also have something that I've been fortunate to do where I haven't adopted classroom. So every other week for about an hour, I go to one of our. Well, this year it's an elementary, third grade classroom and just work with. Work with the kids. And I help out. We do some fun projects. And I did a math classroom a couple years ago. Chemistry. Chemistry was a little overwhelming, but math was perfect. But it's connecting with those folks and just people knowing that you're engaged and you want to be involved. And that's been really helpful in how do you build those relationships? It's taking interest, and then sometimes those relationships are tested when a difficult conversation needs to be had.
- [46:31]
John Brucato
Sure, sure. All right, Mike, you have some big moves coming up in your career as you prepare to step into your new role at Kohler as superintendent. How do you plan to apply the we versus me mindset?
- [46:45]
Dr. Michael Jewick
It's the same type of thing. It's about building relationships, a smaller school district, but it's also a very. As you know, Kohler has a very big factory and a very big presence in the community that spreads across the world. So it's really about how do we make sure that we're building together. And for that, especially in Kohler, it's about the internal and the external community that we're really gonna build on. And again, it goes to me to here's the relationships, here's the direction that we're going, here's our vision. How can we work together on this to make sure that we're providing those opportunities for kids because folks are on board with how do we make sure kids have opportunities? And that's what we should really be about in the schoolhouse and making sure from a finance perspective in other areas. We're here to support you. And I think folks can all get on the same page with that and be able to talk about a variety of different areas to include school finance.
- [47:44]
John Brucato
Great. Well said. Well, Mike, thank you for taking some time to talk to me about your philosophy around budgeting. And I wish you all the best stepping into your. Your new role in July. So. So it was great. Speaking with you today.
- [47:56]
Dr. Michael Jewick
Thank you, John. Appreciate the time today.
- [48:00]
John Brucato
Thank you for tuning in to School Business Insider. Make sure to check back each week for your favorite topics on school business.