New data on the time, money, and emotional cost of K–12 fund management.
When you ask CFOs if their current
approach protects money and people most say yes.
* Answers when CFOs were asked “How confident are you that school-level, locally generated funds (e.g., activities, athletics, fundraising, field trips, etc.) are put to their intended purpose?”
But when you ask the same CFOs
to rate their financial risk most say
it’s moderate or higher.
* Answers when CFOs were asked “Please rate the level of financial risk exposure for your district oversight of school-level, locally generated funds.”
Same people.
Same survey.
Two different answers
about district risk.
To find out, we went deeper:
to the school staff who handle money
and the parents who send it in.
Here’s the truth:
The closer you get to the work of managing school funds, the more challenging it becomes.
CFOs know this.
They say managing funds at the district level is much easier than the school level.
And the same is true about
the time investment.
Schools spend four times longer than districts do on managing funds.
But the real cost doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet.
About half say that handling money causes them stress.
About half worry they’ll be personally blamed if a mistake happens.
But the worst part?
More than half say managing school funds pulls them away from their primary work.
For bookkeepers, it means less time keeping the office running smoothly.
For teachers, it’s less time educating students.
Parents feel the strain, too.
About half feel payment fatigue
and half have experienced a problem in just the past year.
This ties back to where we started.
CFOs are confident that the current approach protects people and money.
But school staff and parents are much less optimistic.
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Informal payments.
Manual processes.
Informal payments.
This includes cash, checks, and personal payment apps like Venmo.
Most schools use two or more of these informal methods.
The more informal methods, the harder school-level work is.
If a district uses all three, only 10% of CFOs think school-level work is easy.
Each informal method makes the district work harder, too.
Using all three eats up an extra 29 hours a month.
Manual processes.
Think spreadsheets, pen and paper, or personal tools.
More than three quarters of school staff are forced to use manual tracking methods.
All this manual work eats up time and creates stress.
These are the activities that take up the most district time.
They all come from inefficient, manual processes downstream, at the school level.
And all that inefficiency? It’s where risk can hide.
Get the complete reportIn the last three years nearly two-thirds of schools have experienced incidents with locally-generated funds.
For districts, it’s 97%
And one in five have experienced legal claims or lawsuits.
With all these challenges, it’s not surprising CFOs feel exposed to risk.
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