Site Based Budgeting
Beginning in FY 2008-2009, Douglas County School District (DCSD) instituted Site Based Budgeting (SBB) on a district-wide basis. Believing that the best and most informed decisions can be made closest to the end user, DCSD moved to eliminate the central allocation of resources to schools and instead moved to a site-level decision making process. DCSD made the change to Site Based Budgeting in order to create a more effective, transparent, and equitable funding system across the district.
DCSD recently implemented new budget software, Questica Budget, to build and manage the District’s operating, personnel and capital budgets. The last piece of the implementation is the release of publicly available, interactive and accessible reports through OpenBook. The first report displays the 2025-2026 Adopted Budget General Fund Expenditures and Reserves. It excludes transfers to other funds and transfers to charter schools. As shown in the image below, viewers can select between a bar graph of the dollar amounts, pie chart of the percentage of the total by each division or summary formatted as a table. Each breakdown by Division is drillable to two additional layers of detail: first the cost center (school or department) and then the expenditure type (ledger category). The second report displays the 2025-2026 Adopted Budget Full Time Equivalents (FTE) for the General Fund. It excludes employees funded outside of the General Fund (such as in Nutrition Services or Transportation). The interactive tool has a similar layout with two levels: first by cost center and then by job class (type of position).
DCSD Adopted Budget 2025-2026: General Fund Expenditures and Reserves Accounts