Money Minute: In Baseball, We Count Everything

Last March, my wife and I packed our bags and headed to the desert for a long-overdue trip to Arizona to catch a Cubs spring training game.  There’s something therapeutic about the sound of a wood bat connecting with a ball and the smell of fresh-cut grass in the middle of March. As I sat in the stands, scorecard in hand, I was reminded of one of the reasons I love this game so much: in baseball, we count everything. Every pitch, every foul ball, every caught stealing—it’s all tracked, measured, and analyzed to tell the story of the game.

As Directors of Special Education, our "game" is just as data-driven. While we may not have a traditional scoreboard in the outfield, we are responsible for "counting" every dollar, every FTE, and every student encounter to ensure our programs remain sustainable. Just like a manager checking a pitcher’s pitch count, we need to know exactly where we stand at any given moment in the fiscal year.

Tracking the Stats

To keep my own "scorecard" organized, I rely heavily on the Special Education Revenue Tracking sheet. This tool allows me to move beyond the guesswork and see the full picture of our district’s financial health. It’s where I track the "stats" that matter most:

• Federal Allocations: Monitoring the shift from initial to final allocations for FIN 419, 420, and 422.
• State Revenue Estimates: Keeping a running tally of budgeted versus actual revenue throughout the year.
• Third Party Billing (TPB) Metrics: Counting the salaries, FTEs, and encounters that drive our interim and final rates for services like OT, PT, and mental health.
• Maintenance of Effort (MOE): Ensuring our total special education expenditures—from transportation to benefits—align with our historical data and student counts.

Navigating school finance without a clear tracking system is like trying to manage a bullpen without a pitch count. By "counting everything" in a centralized sheet, I can provide the clear, data-backed narrative our districts need.

As for the Cubs? They may still be working on their stats for the season, but at least my revenue tracking is in mid-season form!

Rob

Rob Dehnert, Faribault Director of Student Support Services