Rabbi Jim: Still Learning

  It’s been on your To-Do List for a long time. It’s not a small task you can simply hand off, so you continue to cut and paste it onto each new To-Do List. You promise yourself you’ll deal with it. But you don’t. I get it. I’ve been there. You run through the reasons you haven’t dealt with it: too much work, politically dangerous, too expensive, difficult to implement, people won’t accept it, you’re already juggling a million balls; maybe it’s not that important – or – maybe it’s only important to just a few people. Perhaps you’ve made a few small moves that have bought you some time and lowered the temperature. But it’s still on your list for a reason. And there are costs to leaving something this important unresolved. ·       The people who need this product, service, or program are still waiting for you to act ·       You carry the professional and psychological weight of knowing there is something important you need to address. · ...

“Economics” is commonly defined as the study of how people allocate scarce resources. Educators, school finance professionals, and Board members in Jewish Day Schools live that definition – not just daily, but year after year. Schools can neither raise tuition dramatically to cover rising costs; nor can they say “yes” to every new initiative. With a few computer keystrokes, one can balance a budget, but good people might lose their jobs, dreams of educational upgrades will be put on hold, and donors and parents will either be thrilled or upset (or both!). In addition to building endowments, it is no wonder that Jewish communities around the country have also been looking at state and federal funding for day schools to give them not just some breathing room, but opportunities to expand their programs and increase salaries and benefits for teachers. Depending on the size of the endowment, and the amount and duration of government funding, a school’s budget process will continue to re...