Tri-Town School Union, Massachusetts
A multi-district school union streamlines complex budgets

Primary Objective

Building a More Efficient and Transparent Budgeting Process

Tri-Town School Union adopted ClearGov to modernize its budgeting process, improve efficiency, and provide stakeholders with a more transparent, user-friendly view of how every dollar is spent.

Background

A Veteran Administrator Leading a Multi-District Union

Tri-Town School Union serves six schools across three separate Massachusetts school districts: Boxford, Middleton, and Topsfield. Each school district has its own budget and stakeholders. 

Steve Greenberg, Assistant Superintendent of Operations of Tri-Town School Union has spent over 30 years managing school finance and operations. He brings a deep understanding of budgeting, financial planning, and operational management to his role, which requires balancing the needs of three distinct communities.

Challenge

Managing Three Budgets Across Three Districts with Excel

Tri-Town School Union prepares three separate budgets each year. It relied on Microsoft Excel for more than 25 years to manage them. Greenberg personally built and updated hundreds of formulas across multiple workbooks to track revenues, expenditures, and personnel costs. 

Each general fund budget alone contained about 300 line items, which required extensive manual updating of prior-year data and formulas. Budgeting was also highly participatory, meaning that numerous stakeholders across three districts had input into the process, which increased its complexity and time requirements. All personnel costs were managed through a separate “salary workbook,” and non-salary expenditures were managed through appendices, making succession planning a concern for future administrators.

This labor-intensive approach stretched the budget cycle from September to May—a nine-month process—and increased the risk of errors.

I love that we were able to implement ClearGov Digital Budget Book, ClearGov Operational Budgeting, and ClearGov Personnel Budgeting. It’s not just a win from my office in terms of efficiency and accuracy and presentation. It’s a win for the communities because now you get to see, I think, a better way how every dollar is spent.

Solution

A Clear Path from Excel to ClearGov

One of Tri-Town School Union’s member towns had already adopted ClearGov, which prompted Greenberg to explore its capabilities. He decided to implement ClearGov Digital Budget Book and Operational Budgeting to tell a clearer, more dynamic budget story, improve efficiency, and prepare for future leadership transitions.

After a full cycle using those two products, Greenberg added ClearGov Personnel Budgeting to replace the Excel-based salary workbook. He explicitly stated that the Personnel module “functions similar to the ClearGov Digital Budget Book,” which made it easy for him to adopt and integrate with the tools he was already using.

Implementation

Hands-On Data Entry and Hands-On Support

Greenberg implemented ClearGov by uploading historical data and manually entering budget line items for the first year to fully understand the system. This approach allowed him to ensure accuracy and learn the platform’s capabilities. 

He also scheduled regular meetings with ClearGov’s support and implementation teams to work through the few challenges that presented themselves. Greenberg credits this ongoing support with helping him successfully transition from spreadsheets to ClearGov.

When we took on ClearGov Digital Budget Book and ClearGov Operational Budgeting and saw how user friendly they were and the ability to update and bring in the data and create that budget, we saw the opportunities not just for telling the story in a better manner, but also creating a great deal of efficiency and saving time in developing that budget.

Results

Cutting Time, Increasing Accuracy, and Enhancing Transparency

By moving from Excel to ClearGov, Tri-Town School Union achieved a faster, more reliable, and more transparent budgeting process.

Key achievements:

• Reduced Budget Development Time: The district shortened its budget-building cycle from nine months to just three months using ClearGov’s Digital Budget Book and Operational Budgeting modules.
• Eliminated Manual Formula Maintenance: Staff no longer have to maintain and update hundreds of formulas, saving time and reducing the risk of errors. Greenberg described using ClearGov as giving him “peace of mind” due to no longer being at the mercy of so many formulas.
• Improved Budget Presentation: ClearGov’s Digital Budget Book automatically generates charts and graphs based on budget data, which Greenberg said “brought the budget to life” compared to his previous one-dimensional Excel files. Tri-Town School Union stakeholders have said they appreciate the clearer, more dynamic budget presentation.
• Streamlined Internal Processes: Meetings with senior leadership have been consolidated, and inefficiencies in the previous budgeting process have been phased out. Greenberg said ClearGov has “absolutely changed the way I work with my team,” creating new efficiencies and reducing stress.
• A Better Approach to Succession Planning: ClearGov Digital Budget Book, Operational Budgeting, and Personnel Budgeting give future Tri-Town School Union administrators an easy-to-learn, well-organized system to manage the school union’s budgets.

Tri-Town School Union transformed its budgeting process by moving from manual spreadsheets to ClearGov’s integrated platform, achieving major time savings, stronger accuracy, and a more engaging way to communicate budgets to stakeholders. Greenberg’s hands-on implementation and partnership with ClearGov’s support team have set up the Union for long-term success. ClearGov can help you streamline your budget process, improve transparency, and present your financial story with clarity and impact.

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