We recognize and celebrate Our People: Our Strength by highlighting a specific #TeamJeffco team or department each month! Our goal is to celebrate the great work they do and showcase how they contribute to the overall success of Jeffco Public Schools.
March 2024 SPOTLIGHT: Financial Services Division
What is the name of your team? What division is your team a part of?
Financial Services Division. The focus of this #TeamJeffco Snapshot is our Budget team.
How many employees are on your team?
Our division is made up of 60 employees. Our teams include:
- Accounting
- Accounts Payable
- Budget
- Capital Finance
- Finance, Planning & Analysis
- Geographic Information Systems and Enrollment Planning
- Grants Accounting
- Internal Audit and School Accounting Support Team
- Payroll
- Purchasing
- Risk Management
The Budget team, the focus of the #TeamJeffco Snapshot, has nine team members and their work includes leading the annual budget process for the entire district, modeling and forecasting future financial realities and providing strategic analysis to district leadership and the board of education to support decision-making around district resources.
Jeffco recently rolled out a new, comprehensive budgeting system called Anaplan.
What is your favorite team quote or mission?
What did we learn and what will we do differently?
A day in the life: What types of projects does your team do daily?
Financial Services as a division is focused on providing a wide range of business services that support the entire district, including purchasing curriculum materials and implementing districtwide payroll.
In addition to our day-to-day work, we are engaged in a number of special projects to innovate the processes necessary for the district's financial well-being. We are co-leading the project to identify and implement a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for employees over the next two to three years. We are strengthening enrollment forecasting and ensuring that we plan carefully for the money required to maintain our facilities and equipment. Our team is exploring new ways to mitigate financial risks to the district, given the ever-changing dynamics of the insurance market. We are constantly working to improve the usability and relevance of our budgetary reports and financial forecasts so that the district effectively spends today's dollars on today's students.
What is your big-term goal or project this year?
Our big goals this year include:
- Mapping business processes and defining user requirements for a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
- Launching a new finance, planning and analysis function that will support multi-year planning for capital investments (e.g.., facilities) and enrollment planning.
- Introducing service level expectations for the applicable functions within Financial Services as part of the central office’s commitment to improving service quality.
What fun team hobby/outing does your team participate in?
We have some trivia rockstars in Financial Services - and will gladly challenge any other team to a Trivia Takedown, any time, any place!
Share something you are most proud of when it comes to your team or share a proud moment about your team that happened recently.
I am really proud of the dedication our payroll team has shown to balance all the day-to-day payroll processing with the design and implementation of our new accelerated pay functionality for our Education Support Professionals. The accelerated pay functionality allows new employees, including paraprofessionals, bus drivers, food and nutrition services staff, and others, to receive a paycheck for hours worked up to half of a normal time period sooner than usual. This project took many months of planning and testing and was rolled out successfully thanks to a cross-functional collaboration between Payroll, Information Technology (IT) and Human Resources.
About 87% of district dollars goes toward salary & benefits of our employees. Interestingly, 81% of our employees live right here in Jefferson County!