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Budget advisory committee to receive 2nd‑interim materials; staff proposes training and visualization tools
Summary
Committee members were briefed on the 2nd interim budget review process and will receive department budgets, personnel and PO reports ahead of the next meeting; staff suggested data‑visualization services (ClearGov/OpenGov) to make budget data more digestible for the public.
The Mountain View Whisman School District Budget Advisory Committee received a briefing on the district’s 2nd interim budget review process and asked staff to provide department-level reports and training materials ahead of the committee’s next meeting.
Rebecca Westover, the district’s chief business officer, told the committee members they will receive three documents for each department and school site: the department budget roll-up, a personnel report, and a purchase order (PO) report. “So you would get the department budget. You would get the PO report for every department, and you would get the personnel report for every department,” Westover said, adding that staff would supply an exemplar (last interim report) so members could practice reading the reports before the current interim data are produced.
Members asked for lead time to review the materials. Westover said the reports are sometimes available only a few days before department review meetings; staff aims to provide the interim documents about four days before the committee meeting while offering office hours to explain how to read them.
Committee members also discussed public-facing budget visualization options. Westover described commercial services that ingest district SACS documents and produce interactive graphs and charts; she noted the district has evaluated vendors and that a typical hosted solution costs about $15,000 per year. Members expressed interest in using a visualization platform to make budgets easier for parents and the public to understand.
The committee agreed to: receive the 2nd interim packets in advance; schedule optional office hours for training on interpreting PO and personnel reports; and allow staff to explore visualization tools and report back with options and cost estimates.
No formal action or vote was recorded; the committee’s direction was to receive materials and to prioritize learning how to read the reports before the board’s 2nd interim review.
