Abstract
Management of a primary school in Slovenia is binded to preparing content of budget plan by law and by legal requirements of a local community. Budget plan is a result of financial planning. By Slovenian law management of a primary school is responsible for preparing for budget plan. Management of a primary school in Slovenia is actually a headmaster, usually elected by teachers and thus having no preliminary financial education. The only employee in school, assisting management in budget plan preparation, is an accountant. In our study, we tested if attitude of management to planning together with communication between management and accountant, impacts legally adequate content of schools’ budget plans. This was tested on a sample of public primary schools in Slovenia with the t-test for independent samples and the principal components analysis. We found that only communication between the management and accountant impacts legally adequate content of these plans. These findings suggest more financial trainings for schools’ management and increased role of local communities, as well as state’s institutions, in controlling if plans are law-compliant. Since schools are major consumers of public money, inadequate schools’ plans impact negatively local community’s and state’s budgets.
Highlights
In Slovenia, a key role in preparing the content of a budget plan in a public primary school has a principal or headmaster, as the highest and the only management body in primary school, together with an accountant as a financial expert
From our observation method used at trainings and auditing in the role of State internal auditor of public schools and kindergartens for more than 15 years, we noticed that content of financial plans is determined by law, it is not adequate with the law
Using survey and data analysis, we found out that all primary schools responding to the questionnaire, were preparing budget plans
Summary
In Slovenia, a key role in preparing the content of a budget plan in a public primary school has a principal or headmaster, as the highest and the only management body in primary school, together with an accountant as a financial expert. We noticed that the ECONOMIC RESEARCH-EKONOMSKA ISTRAZIVANJA management mostly does not have attitude towards legally adequate content of budget plans and that there is simultaneously bad communication with accountants. By our knowledge based on training principals and auditing schools, this is the main reason why management of primary school leaves preparation of budget plan to an accountant. Many authors studying problems of planning a budget have rated the attitude of school management towards planning as one of the most important in a budget planning process and legally adequate content of a budget plan in primary schools. Many authors studying problems of planning a budget have rated the attitude of school management towards planning as one of the most important in a budget planning process and legally adequate content of a budget plan in primary schools. Koontz and Weihrich (1988, p. 58) consider that planning includes a selection of mission, objectives and activities to achieve them; required to make decisions, it is a choice between alternatives direction of future operations. Sivabalan et al (2009, p. 849) show that organisations’ regard to budget plans is more important for planning and control than evaluation itself
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