Rochester School Superintendent Terry Dade says his investigation so far indicates the City School District overspent its budget by $30 million last school year.
Dade...who came on the job in June...says the district's staff believes the budget was balanced in May. Then, some things went wrong. The district overspent on items including employee benefits, substitute teachers, retirement benefits and charter school tuition. Previous reports indicated a discrepancy of as much as $50 million. Dade says his staff is now comparing budget items versus actual expenditures line-by-line...and starting October 4th, they'll be joined by staff from the State Comptroller's Office to determine the exact deficit and where the district made mistakes.
Dade says until last week, his staff believed the district was on track financially. Preliminary audit results for the 2018-2019 school year showed differently.
As for fixing the problem, Dade says he's starting by looking for problems with the current year's budget. But he says it's not time yet to discuss what cuts he may be forced to make. Dade says when it's time, he'll work with staff, unions and parents to decide where cuts will be made and how to keep them as far from the classrooms as possible.