A report from the State Comptroller's Office says it was a lack of multi-year financial planning that caused the Rochester City School District to massively overspend its budget.
The report says that failure was compounded by the failure of district officials and the Rochester School Board to keep track of what the district was doing.
The report alleges that district and board officials didn't use accurate estimates to develop their 2018-2019 budget, leaving it with a structural imbalance and violating the district's own fund balance policy. It finds appropriations in that budget for health and dental benefits were over $15 million more than the district could actually afford, while costs for substitute teachers were off by nearly $8 million. Other numbers for charter school tuition, transportation and retirement costs were similarly off, causing a general fund deficit of nearly $27.5 million.
The report says some district officials reported getting resistance from department heads on its initial attempts to close the budget gap.