Impact of school management on legally adequate content of a budget plan: The evidence from Slovenia

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.