RPS Board moves forward with plan to address $23M budget shortfall
The Rochester School Board signed off on a plan Tuesday that aims to address a projected $23 million deficit for the 2022-23 school year.
The plan calls for using $9.3 million in federal Covid-19 funding and $4.3 million from the district’s reserve fund to cover much of the shortfall. The remaining $7 million gap will come from budget cuts.
The cuts will focus mostly on unfilled positions, with an emphasis on limiting impacts to direct support staff (i.e. teachers).
Some notable reductions in the plan include:
Reduction of up to five building administrators based on enrollment.
Elimination of the INCubatoredu program due to “low demand, difficulty staffing, and leased facility cost.”
Reduction of unfilled paraprofessional positions “after examining the position and understanding why it has been vacant.”
Interim Superintendent Kent Pekel said any specific reductions mentioned in the plan will not be finalized until a budget is presented in June.
The adoption of the district’s latest budget strategy followed a public input process that generated more than 400 responses.
“The specific difficult reductions that we got a lot of feedback on last week are not before you in their particulars,” Pekel told the board. “They are illustrative of the kinds of challenging reductions that I believe we will need to make to get to structural balance over a three-year plan.”
RPS officials noted the projections could change depending on what positions remain unfilled by the time the budget is brought forward. The district, in alignment with community feedback, also wrote the plan in a way that allows flexibility in the event new revenue sources emerge.
That could include increasing student enrollment, which is down from pre-pandemic levels — and a contributing factor to the budget shortfall.
“There was strong encouragement [from the community] for the district not to only think about reducing, but all think about raising revenue, and being creative through new ways, such as Medicaid billing, increasing enrollment, drawing more students to RPS online,” said Pekel.
Among the items that generated the most discussion on Tuesday among the board was the proposed reductions in special education staffing.
Pekel noted the district, like others across the country, has struggled to fill paraprofessional positions. Still, RPS officials emphasized the intention is to reduce unfilled positions, not ones currently supporting students.
“We were trying as much as we could to not impact current staff members in [special education],” said John Carlson, the district’s finance director.
Amid a challenging workforce shortage, however, RPS officials noted that some positions may go unfilled regardless of reductions to the budget.
“An individual education plan might declare this is required, and that is required, but the reality is we still have to find people that are willing to do that,” said Carlson, echoing comments from board members. “In the absence of that, we have to become creative, too, in figuring out how we are going to provide services — and it might have to look different.”
Sean Baker is a Rochester journalist and the founder of Med City Beat.
