Large budget challenge looms for 2005-06 school year

Large budget challenge looms for 2005-06 school year
12/1/2004 8:50 AM

On Tuesday, Nov. 30, Superintendent Patricia Harvey told the Saint Paul Board of Education that the school district is facing a budget challenge unlike anything she's ever seen for the 2005-06 school year.

According to information recently compiled by the district's Office of Business and Financial Affairs, Saint Paul Public Schools will face a $24.3 million budget deficit if current levels of state education funding remain the same.

The projected deficit is about 6 percent of the district's budget and would follow deficits totaling about $50 million over the last five years.

"We've made impressive progress over the last five years," Harvey told board members. "Our ability to increase test scores, develop a huge amount of community support and in many ways become educational leaders in the state is especially impressive when you consider that we've done it under the shadows of what some would say is the flawed No Child Left Behind law and five years of budget deficits.

"But now we face a problem like none I've ever experienced."

Harvey expects to meet with the board in the coming weeks to further discuss the issue and begin laying out a plan to balance the budget.