Robert J. Dickey, Keimyung University, Daegu, South Korea

There are many roles for TESOL program administrators to play. While many teaching professionals enter the field of administration with clear ideas on how they see themselves as “team leaders,” they may feel far less certain on other administrative duties. Still other aspects of administration may have been overlooked altogether. This article is the first in a series investigating various managerial roles of program administration.

Dan Tannacito (2013) has put together a delightful little book that introduces many of the responsibilities of program administrators in TESOL International’s new English Language Teacher Development Series. But the reflective format doesn’t answer many questions. For more information specific to TESOL programs management, we need to find some other books, including a pair, Management in English Language Teaching (1991) and From Teacher to Manager (2008), authored by teams led by Ron White.

Here I’d like to focus briefly on the budgeting aspect of program management, which is probably the least understood (and most disliked) element of administration. Yet properly handled, it is perhaps a program administrator’s most powerful tool for change. The process of negotiations in budget development can lead to a better understanding of the competition for the same scarce resources (Goldstein, 2005), both in your program and across the larger organization your program operates within. Administrators who demonstrate willingness and competence to budget will be granted more freedom to do so.

Few program administrators are asked to do the accounting and financial planning (but if you need a crash course, White, Martin, Stimson, & Hodge, 1991, offer a broad outline). A practical introduction to budgeting is found in White, Hockely, van der Horst Jansen, and Laughner (2008). Simply put, a budget is a financial plan for specific activity, over a given period (typically one year), with an expectation that the plan will be followed. A good starting point is to imagine whom you will serve (how many students, what type of classes), and then analyze what it will cost to serve them and how much money will come in for the classes. Estimate costs realistically—a bit higher than you expect, and anticipate income lower than you hope. A 10% shortfall in income alongside a 10% excess in expenses can spell disaster!

Let’s face it—you, the program administrator, may not be a budgeting expert and may not know all the costs for everything, but you and fellow teachers know where the waste is far better than those more distant executives and the accountants who can count beans but don’t know how to lead a course of English study.

A friend calls budgeting “party planning.” What resources do we need to make a party successful? What will that cost us? Whether a party or a large school, the planning is the same; just swap out musical entertainment for teachers, cake for books, and so on. We need a place to do things (rent?) and many other less noticed facilities (restrooms access, car parking, etc.). While you may be able to avoid actual cash expense in your party, you still need the “things.” The fundamentals of budgeting aren’t complicated. It comes down to making choices and living with those choices. Wise choices are often tied to efficiency.

So what is efficiency? Hanushek (1986) points out that there are several types of efficiency, some posited on optimal levels of income and expense; he suggests that this type of measure is less accepted in public schooling, where few agree on outputs (student performance measures). Nevertheless, for our purposes, where funds are limited and there are business managers arguing for control of expenses, we will consider it here.

Most program administrators don’t have much flexibility on the income side of the equation, but we can make choices about our expenses, our costs. Cost versus benefit is the underlying premise for analysis of expense efficiency. Cost-benefit analysis is simple, and important, in making budget decisions. In simplest terms, is this expense worth it? Is there a better bargain available? This analysis requires options:

1. Do nothing (do not spend money).
2. Do the proposed.
3. Do the proposed at a more expensive (better performance) level.
4. Do the proposed at a less expensive (lower performance) level.
5. Let someone else decide (from choices 1–4, above).
   
   

Deciding to do nothing and letting others decide are both managerial decisions for which we program administrators must take responsibility. By extension, then, one could argue that failing to fight for the authority to make decisions is also a managerial decision.

TESOL program administrators need to address the information gap with the accountants. Monitoring the actual financial figures versus those budgeted, on a regular basis, can show areas of opportunity and where things must be reconsidered.

Budget efficiency is not merely fewer field trips and photocopies, nor working staff harder for less pay. It’s true that salaries (wages) and benefits are the largest costs in most TESOL programs, but larger class sizes and decreased amenities may result in fewer students coming through the doors (and therefore less revenue). Efficiency is as much art as science when working with human factors, such as students and teachers. Budgeting also must be based on institutional factors beyond the controls of most program administrators, such as budget model requirements.

Over the decades a number of budgeting models have been developed, including four major themes: zero-based budgeting (ZBB), incremental budgeting (the most common), program budgeting, and performance-based budgeting. Each has advantages. Incremental budgeting is simplest, assuming a modest increase (or decrease) in the overall budget from the previous year, and a roughly similar percentage change is reflected in each major budgeting category, such as personnel, facilities, supplies, publicity/printing, and other (administrative) costs. ZBB is the opposite: ignore the past, design everything new, all categories start from $0. Program budgeting is more typically about policy decisions, whereas in performance budgeting revenues are received based on measurable outcomes (e.g., number of students entering the program, advancing to next level, and graduating), with expenses roughly tied to the projected income in both of these designs. All of these still typically feature a “line-item” budget where categories of income and expenses are broken down as narrowly as possible, often with a narrative for each “line” (e.g., two junior instructors x 15 hours x 30 weeks x $20/hr). So how many bags of potato chips will you need at that party?

It’s wonderful in times of plenty, with money to do anything, but those days are gone. Still, there are alternatives. Teachers are the most creative employees in any organization, when they are given freedom to dream—yet dreams must be tempered with reality. While many teachers may decline a role in budgeting, all should be offered the opportunity to participate in the tough choices over finite resources. How much of the limited financial resources should be dedicated to extracurricular resources, how much for classroom materials? Should commercial texts or workbooks be replaced with photocopied handouts or web work? Are teachers willing to assist in student recruitment or clerical tasks? Can teachers make choices specific to their own classrooms, or would higher volume group purchases make more sense?

Let’s stop blaming the budget for everything we can’t do for teachers and learners, and take control of the beast. When you show higher administration that you are willing to work with them on the financial side, you, and your teachers, will increase your autonomy and find ways to make things work to your benefit. Even if the revenues remain the same.

References

Goldstein, L. (2005). College and university budgeting: An introduction for faculty and academic administrators (3rd ed.). Washington, DC: National Association of College and University Business Officers.

Hanushek, E. A. (1986). The economics of schooling: Production and efficiency in public schools. Journal of Economic Literature, 24, 1141–1177. Retrieved from https://web.archive.org/web/20100703034036/http://www.albany.edu/faculty/schen/old/Hanushek1986.pdf

Tannacito, D. J. (2013). English language teachers as program administrators. Alexandria, VA: TESOL International.

White, R., Hockely, A., van der Horst Jansen, J., & Laughner, M. S. (2008). From teacher to manager. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

White, R., Martin, M., Stimson, M., & Hodge, R. (1991).Management in English language teaching. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Robert J. Dickey is the incoming chair of the TESOL Program Administration Interest Section (becoming chair at end of the 2014 TESOL Convention in Portland). He has spent nearly 20 years teaching and administering programs in South Korea. Before that he was a senior manager for various nonprofit organizations in Southern California.