SJSD finance committee gathers community feedback to improve Citizen’s Guide

Prajukta Ghosh

ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (KQTV)– St. Joseph School District’s finance committee focused on the district’s Citizens’ Guide at its meeting Tuesday.The guide gives community members a clear look at where the district’s revenue comes from and how its spending is broken down.

“So we got a lot of feedback from our community members today talking about what was positive about that citizen’s guide and then some areas for improvement as we look at redesigning that,” said Robert Hedgecorth, assistant superintendent of business and operations.

Hedgecorth said the goal is to make sure the information in the guide is meaningful, which sometimes means taking a deeper dive into the data.

He said the committee gathered a lot of helpful input that will allow the district to be as transparent as possible with the community.

“It’s important because it might get misconstrued, maybe there’s a misunderstanding and so how can we better share our information or share our story so it’s more understandable and paints a picture of where we are going,” Hedgecorth said.

Hedgecorth said financial information can sometimes be misunderstood, which is why clear communication is so important.

“I think in functions and objects, but that’s not how everyone thinks, so it’s more of like how can it relate to the classroom or how does this relate to teachers and how does it benefit my students, which I think this gives a more community relation to how we present data,” Hedgecorth said.

According to Hedgecorth, one of the most valuable parts of the committee’s work is hearing different perspectives from its members.

He said their focus was to get feedback from committee members on how to make the information easier for the public to understand, especially from a parent’s perspective.

“So we won’t have a meeting in March because of spring break, but we will get back together in April and by then we would have our February budget amendment that hopefully shows our operating fund balances improving,” Hedgecorth said.

The committee will not meet in March due to spring break, but will reconvene in April.

By then, Hedgecorth said the district expects to have its February budget amendment ready, which he hopes will show improvement in operating fund balances.