Skepticism and doubt remain after the Rochester city school board passed — by a margin of one vote — a $1.16 billion budget that many community members, staff and parents opposed.
The budget is larger than last year’s by about $44 million, though the district is also anticipating a fiscal cliff in the coming years.
One area of scrutiny has been cuts that directly affect students, including cuts to positions like guidance counselors, food workers, social workers and home/hospital instruction.
The district has increased budget lines elsewhere, including adding more than 100 full-time positions in special education.
Eamonn Scanlon, director of community Impact at The Children's Agenda, said the district has not provided adequate information on how leaders plan to enact the budget given the changes.
“There's a lot of uncertainty,” Scanlon said on Thursday. “As a community, we need more answers, and we need serious conversations about how we're going to meet students’ needs in the midst of all these changes and cuts.”
Cuts to student support services like mental health and individualized instruction have the potential to be out of compliance with special education laws, Scanlon said, which could have legal implications.
“On its face, we can't say that this puts them out of compliance” he said, “but it does risk that.”
Superintendent Eric Rosser has said the reason behind the cuts was to be fiscally responsible. In a statement, The Children’s Agenda said the budget does not address long-term fiscal challenges.
“RCSD does have stark fiscal choices to make due to its declining enrollment and lack of authority to raise local taxes,” the organization said in a statement. “However, those challenges are best remedied through right-sizing the district gradually, not by concentrating cuts among support staff who make up a small percentage of overall staffing.”
The budget process has lacked transparency, said Adam Urbanski, president of the teachers union. And the outcome — coupled with an ongoing dispute over payroll issues — is hurting staff morale.
“I predict a lot of pain in the near future,” Urbanski said. “I think that this snail pace, indecisive leadership doesn't bode well for how the district will do in the coming months and years.”
Urbanski said he thinks district leadership is being “disingenuous” in how they are representing the budget, adding that the union has reached out to New York State United Teachers for a fiscal analysis.
WXXI News reached out to district administration Thursday evening but did not immediately hear back.
