November 16, 2021

Budget Badge Transparency Reporting

Category: EdTech CMS Best Practices Communications Website Design

Foxbright has developed a method to place a Budget Transparency Badge on the upper half of all school and ISD/RESA home pages in order to facilitate compliance with Michigan State requirements. This method has the following advantages:

  • It does not require any home page design modifications
  • Once a website visitor chooses to close the badge it remains closed indefinitely (or until they open it again) so that it does not intrude on the site.
  • It has been reviewed and approved by the Michigan Department of Education

The Michigan Department of Education created incentives for districts complying with certain Best Practices. One of those involved linking to a school dashboard - as described by the following:

"To meet Requirement E - The school board shall agree to provide a link on the district's home page to the url for the MI School Data Portal which will eventually contain the required dashboard indicators pursuant to Section 22f(1)(e)." Guidance on Financial Best Practices as Defined in MCL 388.1618

Installation Instructions

  1. Extract the contents of the zip file to a directory on your web site's server
  2. Edit the file budgetBadge.js and change the values of these variables at the top of the file:
    budgetBadgeDirectory - the absolute path to the directory containing Budget Badge script
    budgetInfoPage - the absolute path of the budget information web page on your site
  3. Open the file test.htm from the budgetBadge directory in your browser. If the budget badge is displayed, continue to step 4, otherwise check previous steps.
  4. Add the following line into the HEAD section of your web site's home page inserting the absolute path to the file budgetBadge.js

Download

Budget Badge - Download November 2017 Version (.zip format)

License Agreement
You may use the Foxbright Budget Badge Script on your website to comply with the State of Michigan's new Budget Transparency Requirements for all school websites.  You may NOT distribute or republish this script, even if you make modifications to it. The script can only be distributed by the author, Foxbright.  The script and HTML code are provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, not even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. You agree to bear all risks and liabilities arising from the use of this script. If you cannot agree to any of the above conditions, you may not use this service nor any of the scripts and HTML code.  This code is being provided free of charge, installation and configuration will need to be done by your website provider or webmaster. This code is being provided "as is" without any support included.  

As a Foxbright client, you can expect:

 

Unmatched Customer Support Our support team is second to none. You’ll always talk to a real person who knows your name, understands your site, and responds quickly. No waiting days for help. Just real support, when you need it most.
True Partnership, Not Just a Platform At Foxbright, we’re here for the long haul. From site launch to training to ongoing support, we’re by your side - anticipating needs, offering improvements, and celebrating your wins. That’s the difference of working with a partner who cares.
Modern Design That Reflects You We believe your website should reflect your school’s personality, not just follow a template. Our designers work with you to create a clean, accessible, and mobile-friendly site that looks great and works even better
Tailored to K-12 Needs Every feature in our CMS is designed with schools in mind. Event syncing, newsletters, built in ADA compliance, mobile apps, and more. No bloat. No workarounds. Just exactly what schools need to communicate clearly and consistently
- Blissfield Community Schools "We have used Foxbright for almost 9 years now and have had a great working relationship with them. Responses are always quick and courteous."
- Blissfield Community Schools "We recently did a redesign of our website and we are so pleased with the new web interface. Their interface is easy to use and intuitive. Foxbright continues to keep up with the trends and over the past 9 years there have been many new features and functions."
- Byron Center Public Schools "We are very happy with this organization. They are great to work with! Sharp group of professionals and always helpful."
- Grand Ledge Public Schools "Foxbright's client service is second to none!"
- Grand Ledge Public Schools "For many people, a school district's website often provides the first impression... and those are very powerful and influential. I can not imagine using a different website technology provider – I think Foxbright is tops in so many ways!"
- Kent ISD “Foxbright is a technology company that knows how to communicate, rather than a communication company that dabbles in technology.”
- Muskegon Area ISD "We been very satisfied with the quality and flexibility of Foxbright's CMS. We continue to enjoy a positive and creative partnership with Foxbright and look forward to implementing new features."
- Saline Schools "When any issue comes up, the Foxbright support team is only an email or phone call away. They always respond very quickly to the issues which wasn't our experience with our last website vendor."
- Saline Schools "The PD yesterday was awesome! The hybrid you did for us was great. It was short, quick, and covered the areas we wanted to in a short time. Thank you for being flexible and rolling with our PD style yesterday. Excited to be ADA compliant."
- Vicksburg Community Schools "Our Head of Technology and I both marveled at how thorough, seamless, simple, and cost-efficient the site transfer process was last Fall and at how easy it is to maintain and change the site to fit our needs. Thank you for all you do to help us look good!"
- Wayland Union Schools "Our experience in working with Foxbright to create the new website was wonderful from start to finish. We finished the project under schedule and our parents, staff and community are happy with the new site."
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