Mailbag: Melissa Writes: A Reflection on Statistical Prinicples ; or, "Bring on the DATA"

Bring on the Data!

When attending a Finance Meeting, one expects to see spreadsheets. At the very least, the data on those spreadsheets need to reflect a realistic snapshot of the real budget world being faced by the program at hand. For instance, using potential revenue increase data for the existing class size of 12 instead of the revenue increase predicated on a class size of 16. Extrapolating the class size to 16 is a gratuitous exercise that either uses 4 imaginary students or is an attempt to count 4 existing students twice.

Likewise, one expects to see realistic salary compensation costs for a full day kindergarten teacher instead of extrapolating the admittedly bargain salary package of the veteran teacher from part time back to full time ($51,173). In the absence of true values, one uses existing average values or similar data available in your existing subset, such as the current compensation for that last kindergarten hire in the district ($70,295).

When preparing a budget, one does not pick and choose values that present projects in the best (or the worst) light. One defines one’s criteria and consistently quotes values from within the boundaries of that definition. Any other approach is disingenuous.