NCWDDP
Module 7: Fiscal Management
What You'll Do
In Module 7: Fiscal Management, you’ll learn all about the fiscal side of being a Director. Child welfare services funding, much like anything, requires an eye to finance. It includes multiple allocations and funding sources, including components of state, federal, and local funding and CWS allocation methodology. As a Director, you will be required to use tested and recommended fiscal tools to support budgeting and resource development. You’ll also need to support sound fiscal principles in managing budget and human resources.
What You'll Learn
This module will be broken up into two segments. The first segment will cover the key components of Federal, State, and Local Funding for child welfare services. For example, Titled federal funding is received by the state and distributed to counties based on the methodology of each allocation (Title number refers to the specific need that is being addressed). State funds also provide a share of funding for various programs, services and activities, whereas County General Funds are used to cover costs like Overmatched Costs.
With the segments of funding for Child Welfare Services covered, we can shift our focus to Time Studies. These studies are a method of claiming staff salaries, benefits and overhead costs. The time study process is a work activity survey to document what programs and tasks staff were engaged in during a specific time period. Each quarter time study information must be summarized by categories for input into the county expense claim (CEC), and the summary displays hours by program by staff in the respective salary pool.
It is not an overstatement to say that Time Study Hours are the single most important data element used in the CEC to allocate costs to the program level. The time study process is vital to department funding since the State uses expenditure data to build many of the county allocations, so be sure to engage with fiscal staff to share fiscal and program information to ensure that all codes are accurate and maximized.
How to Prepare
In preparation for your Module 7 Learning Experience, here are some resources to review:
"CWDA Fiscal Essentials (Pt2)"
Some Things to Think About
As you begin to consider what you’ll learn or reinforce as part of Module 7, consider the following:
"What are your biggest concerns about learning/ understanding or managing your child welfare budget?"
"Have you been responsible for managing an agency budget or any part of it in the past?"
"What do you think is working about your counties’ budget and financing?"
"What do you think should be your next step in budgeting and finance?"