Shoreline Makes a Giant Mistake

In the "Oh, crap!" department, Shoreline may need to lay off as many as 45 teachers to make up for a royal mistake in their budget. From the Seattle Times:

The Shoreline School District may lay off as many as 45 teachers next year to fill a budget gap left by major accounting mistakes that have put Superintendent James Welsh's job in question.

The five-member School Board, which met Monday, is combing through the budget, looking for any way to save money — from charging students more to play on sport teams to cutting nurses, librarians and security officers.

After the problem was first revealed in November, the district's top two financial officers left. Then, two weeks ago, the School Board put Welsh on paid leave.

The district is more than $5 million short this year.

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The consultants hired after district comptroller Paul Flemming and director of budget and accounting John Scudder left late last year say they know what happened.

The district was in poor financial shape going into this school year, with only $240,000 in a savings account that should have had millions of dollars, according to the consultants. The district couldn't afford any mistakes, then it made two big ones.

First, Fleming estimated the district had 3,500 vocational students. Actually, it has about 700.

Since the state funds districts based on how many students they have, that error meant the school-year budget included about $2 million more than it would receive.

After the board approved the current year's budget in August, Flemming changed some numbers before he sent it to the state. The final budget gave a more accurate picture and revealed the district would be in the red for this school year.

The board never saw that revised version, said President Mike Jacobs.

"My job was to inform the superintendent, and I did that," said Fleming, who retired in November.

Fleming blames the problem on the superintendent, who he said knew of the problem. "We made the superintendent aware that the revenue was going to be short, but there was never a decision made to reduce that spending plan."

Welsh could not be reached for comment.

And the bad news keeps coming: Monday night, the board learned the district had been paying some ongoing costs from its capital budget, creating an additional $400,000 shortfall that will have to be reconciled.

"The district is not going to end this year in the black," said Bob Boesche, a consultant. "They will be in the red."

My district had to make some painful cuts three years ago because of state funding issues and declining enrollment. I can't imagine trying to fill-in a $5 million dollar hole.