PARADISE VALLEY, Ariz. — A Valley school is figuring out how to resolve a multi-million dollar shortfall after a budgeting mistake.
The Paradise Valley Unified School District says it needs to make up a $14 million shortfall to its budget for the coming year. When planning for the 2021-22 school year, the district said it did not account for a grant that expired.
That nearly $14 million came from the Enrollment Stabilization Grant from the state, however, it expired.
“This means that we had continuing expenses that were no longer being covered by the grant, but also not planned as an expense out of our Maintenance and Operations budget,” the district said.
In addition to this, the district has seen a decrease in enrollment, meaning fewer state dollars are going to the school. Over the last three years, the district said it lost nearly 3,000 students.
“As a result, this caused over expenditures that needed to be addressed, something that is commonly referred to as a “budget shortfall.” Had students returned toward the end and after the pandemic, as anticipated, revenues would have covered the unplanned expenses (budget shortfall)” the district said in a statement.
The enrollment decline, as well as the accounting error found in mid-May, made it a challenge and delayed the conversations the board is now having.
“Had the expiration of the ESG been accounted for while planning the 2021-22 school year, we would have had to make significant cuts to the budget at that time because of a loss in enrollment,” the district said.
“Where’s your systems of checks and balances? How does this possibly happen? This was no small mistake,” Courtney Somar, an instructional coach with the district, said in a board meeting in mid-November.
While the Paradise Valley Education Association understands cuts are necessary, it’s still disappointing. Josh Atkins, with the union, wished the district involved the education association in the process more.
“We think that we're already understaffed and struggling to keep up with our students and so any sort of reduction would be unwelcomed, but we also have to face the reality that we can't maintain a school district with a $14 million deficit,” Atkins said.
The budget shortfall equates to approximately 4% of the district’s budget.
Since finding out about the deficit over the summer, the budget task force went through 70 different ideas. However, in the last board meeting, the task force presented seven options. The district’s cabinet proposed two more.
While the district did find some ways to help address the shortfall, it still needs to do much more. It created a budget task force that came up with solutions such as cutting hours and some staff. The cabinet came back with more recommendations for reducing staff positions such as social-emotional learning specialists and coaching positions.
“None of it is a good solution. There’s literally nothing that is a good solution in my opinion. Everything we do is for the benefits of students, staff and our families and our community,” board member Anne Greenberg said in the November 17 meeting.
The board will meet again on Thursday, December 1 at 7 p.m. A district spokesperson said it’s possible a decision could be made or it could also push it to another meeting later in December.
