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This past year, the Rochester School Board misreported the FY 2007 school budget. The first two proposed budgets for FY 2007 were rejected by the voters because they were too high and carried a sizable Act 68 penalty for excess spending. In the third proposed budget, instead of showing reduced expenses, the budget was even larger, but included a request to borrow $190,000 to eliminate a deficit of that amount from the previous year. The commercial loan would reduce the reported budget so as to avoid triggering the Act 68 penalty. Subsequently the Board did not borrow the money. The deficit was not eliminated except for the paper reporting to the state! By false reporting, the penalty was avoided. The budget presented to the voters at the school board’s misinformation sessions was a phony. The budget passed by the voters was a phony. The budget submitted by the school officials to the state was a phony. There never was a zero negative balance. The school officials reported to the State Department of Education numbers that showed a zero negative balance. Locally they used the same numbers with a zero negative balance and used them to calculate the Act 68 formula that is shown on page 43 of the latest school report. These numbers aren’t close to being correct. The School Board explained disingenuously that they did not know how much the negative budget was so they reported it as zero. They certainly had to know it was in excess of $100,000 more than zero! The negative balance of $190,000 was widely used during the three budget information meetings. This number was much later downgraded to $138,000, not by paying part of the original, but by doing some bookkeeping. Unfortunately, the School Board’s bookkeeping is even worse than their reporting. The auditor’s report shows the negative balance as nearly $140,000. About $125,000 or close to 90% is due to overspending by the Superintendent’s office. The auditor’s report also shows that there was an additional negative balance of about $16,000 left over from July of 2005. The total negative balance for 2007 was a whopping $155,843! Amazingly, this monster deficit disappeared during FY 2007, but resurfaced, as monsters and bad numbers tend to do, as the first item on the FY 2008 budget. I’m not making this up. The numbers come from the several school reports that have been available to the public, including the auditor’s report that can be seen at the Rochester town office. The school officials "played games" with the negative balance to avoid paying a penalty. Does the end justify the means? Or does this all seem a little too Enron-ish? Mickey Lary Rochester ____________ |
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