School Board adjusts budget

EAST COUNTY — One month into the new fiscal year, the Manatee County School District announced it must adjust its budget by $3.9 million.

District officials said they are working on a corrective action plan to account for unexpected costs since the School Board adopted its 2013-14 budget in September — such as the need to hire additional Exceptional Student Education (ESE) paraprofessionals and gifted teachers to meet state requirements.

Those costs include $489,000 to hire 27 ESE paraprofessionals, $317,000 for seven gifted teachers, $407,000 for nine voluntary pre-kindergarten (VPK) teachers and $200,000 for nine VPK teacher aides.

All current pre-kindergarten ESE classes are at full capacity or over capacity, district officials say, while 60 gifted students are not being served and 140 such students are considered under-served.

Another cost — $800,000 — came from an error in transitioning teachers from Central High School, which recently closed, to other high schools.

To make up the money, the district will freeze hiring of non-essential employees beginning in November, reduce the central office’s budget by $1 million and take $700,000 from reserves, among other things.

“We are responsible for oversights and miscoding for $1.5 million,” district spokesperson Steve Valley said. “We accepted full responsibility for these errors and made no excuses. Actions and new processes have been implemented to avoid future occurrences.”

The district now expects to have a projected fund balance, or reserves, of $9.35 million, less than the $10.3 million Mills sent to the state as part of his financial recovery plan, which was required because the district had not met minimum reserves for three straight years.

“Our commitment is to balance our budget and meet the $10.3 million originally forecast to meet our fund balance,” Valley said.

School Board members who unexpectedly learned the news at an Oc. 28 workshop credited the new administration — led by Mills — for timely communication of the deficit.

“If you look at how many weeks Mr. Mills has been on the job and the time our new budget and finance directors have been here — all who are trying to put in place corrective action — you cannot possibly have a perfect year this year,” said Julie Aranibar, School Board vice chairwoman. “Would you prefer your leaders telling you everything is great when it’s not before you crash into a deficit? I now know that I have people who will tell me the truth.”

Mills was hired in February.

Budget director Heather Jenkins and finance director Tommy Crosby began their jobs recently.

From the start, the new administration played catch-up in trying to create a line-item budget from scratch — without accurate historical data on which to rely.

At the time of the budget-setting process, district leaders called it the first valid, balanced budget in years.

Just before it set its budget Aug. 29, the district revealed unanticipated changes in teacher allocations required by extra students who showed up in the first 10 days of school this year. The district allocated $4.3 million to hire 55 teachers required by the additional students and another 30 elementary school teachers to meet Florida class-size requirements. 

Karen Carpenter, School Board chairwoman, says so far this fiscal year, the district has spent $5 million less than it had at the same time last year.

District staff also is pushing the board to approve more than $5 million in property sales, including a 10-acre undeveloped parcel it owns at Braden River High School.

“Yes, the public has the right to be concerned right now,” Carpenter said. “The School Board is concerned. But a budget is a working document, and I’m confident Mr. Mills and his team will get this under control.”

Contact Josh Siegel at [email protected].