In something of a complement to my post on Wednesday regarding the factors influencing decisions about providing arts classes in higher education, Friday I attended a retreat on budgeting with the rest of the college leadership.
Now if that sounds like something you would dread attending, I was right there with you. I had a copy of The Economist in my portfolio just in case things got too boring. However, it was really a very engaging and educational experience. I have a feeling that the facilitator that was hired to run the session probably anticipated the dread with which we were approaching the day because she started out by telling us we needed to change our perception of what we were doing.
She began with a story/parable about walking along a road and seeing two emaciated men banging away at blocks of stone. Asked what he was doing, the first man sighed that he was chipping stone. The second man seemed to be working with a greater spirit than the first and when asked what he was doing, the second answers with a beatific look on his face, “I am building a cathedral.”
I had heard that one before, but I had to admit that it did pretty much describe how most of us probably approach budgeting–as a burdensome chore. The fact is, we can approach it thinking about what doing a good job on the budget can enable us to accomplish. Its hard work, but no harder than constructing, painting and lighting a set for a play.
The problem for most of us is that no one admires what a good job we did on the budget like they will for the set. Few of us had the guidance of experienced people in crafting a budget. I have clear memories of the different areas of knowledge imparted to me by technical directors and master electricians and carpenters. My memories of practical instruction in budget and finance by mentors is a bit more hazy.
And, of course, it is easier to dream of building cathedrals when you actually have money to budget toward that goal, small as it may be.
In any case, inspiring parables aren’t going to keep morale high very long if things turn mind numblingly boring. Fortunately, this wasn’t the case. We soon broke up into groups. By luck of the draw, (actually, they had us count off by fives), I ended up in a group with the two people whose decision making most impacts my budget. The topic was–what aspects of the process most impact your budget and operations.
Since the theatre does a pretty good job of supporting ourselves with earned revenue compared to other areas, I don’t receive much of my budget from them. However, some years they will take money from our revenue, some years they won’t. But I never know. I said this sort of thing made it very difficult to plan and gave me no incentive to have money left over at the end of the year. Fact is, we could actually be more self supporting and engage in an equipment replacement program that would not require us to ask them for money if our surpluses were allowed to accumulate.
No sort of action or solution was suggested. Nor did I expect one. It was good to have a fairly safe forum in which to address this situation. It probably helped that I was relating a “building a cathedral” opportunity where I envisioned our small annual surplus being used toward a bigger goal.
The day was full of shuffling around to other groups to address other aspects of the budgeting process. One particularly interesting session had us looking at the strategic plan which is what is supposed to be guiding funding priorities. We were tasked to boil each section of the plan down to a sentence that provided a helicopter view of the section so that anyone in the organizational chart could read it and understand how their work contributed to the plan. One of the results was that the language we used to describe our section was similar to that of a couple other groups. This was encouraging because obviously, you want a degree of unity between parts of the strategic plan.
The problem was, that the facilitator was initially unclear about the significant differences between three of the sections. There was something of a suggestion that parts of one section really should be organized under the umbrella of a different section. I was rather impressed by the effectiveness of the exercise in revealing that some clearer delineation might be needed so that everyone in the organization understood their place.
The last phase of the day was creating a common set of criteria for funding that would be shared across the organization as budget requests were passed up the ladder.
These criteria were:
-Aligns with strategic goals
-Leverages resources, strengths and opportunities
-Possess motivation and capacity to implement
-Has data justifying the need and plan to assess the impact
One of the biggest problem faced in the current budgeting process is apparently the lack of supporting data. Requests were being passed up without sufficient rationale based on numbers, industry needs, etc
Then we looked back at the problems with the budgeting process we identified at the beginning of the day and tried to determine if the criteria we had created would help address them. In the end, the problems we felt they couldn’t address were the result of either external factors we didn’t have control over (i.e. the way the overall state system operated and things they required). The other general area was the mysterious process by which things that never even entered the budgeting review process got funded. A working group was formed to address how to make that process more transparent and perhaps more aligned with the common criteria. I am optimistic about the ultimate outcome of the efforts. I don’t think we will ever be rid of funding that circumvents the process, but I am fairly confident there will either be more transparency or less of it occurring.
Most of all I was quite pleased with the entire experience. It is certainly an exercise an art organization might use in order to get everyone invested in the budgeting process and discover the problematic areas related to the practice. It definitely needs a skilled facilitator to lead it. Money has great potential to be a contentious issue and it is easy to get side tracked by specific issues rather than working to identify the root causes.