For this assignment, I visited the “Miscellaneous Procedures” page on the “Financial Review” page of the Georgia Department of Education Reports website. There was a discussion on this page of student activity funds, which is the topic about which I interviewed my mentor principal.
I asked him if use or oversight of special revenue funds (book fair, athletic receipts, etc) has ever proven problematic in his experience. He told me that it is not so much as it is problematic as time consuming. He told me that, “The biggest issue of concern is that we must document each individual exchange of funds. This is mostly time consuming for book fairs in the media center, tickets at athletic events, and collecting money for field trips. Years ago, we were required to receipt each individual transaction with a receipt book, which was very impractical.” I also asked him what mechanism he uses to ensure that these funds were accounted for and appropriately used. He told me that, “We have invented procedures to more easily summarize the needed info.” As an example, the school purchases sports tickets numbered sequentially and record the beginning number and ending number. The difference tells us home many tickets were sold and so, how much money should have been collected. The school uses a cash collection form that teachers use to list the amount of field trip money each students paid and the date they paid it. A whole class is summarized on one sheet of paper.