GLENDALE — Parents in the Glendale River Hills School District say they’re frustrated by a lack of transparency about why the district is facing a multi-million dollar budget deficit that’s two years in the making.
It wasn’t until TMJ4 started digging into this district’s accounting error that parents like Cherie Purdy heard from the district about the problem.
"Right now, it's just a guessing game and that's really frustrating,” said Cherie Purdy.
Purdy’s biggest fear is the $3.6 million mistake could end up costing teachers and staff their jobs.
“With that big of a deficit it would be I think naive for us to think that there aren't going to need to be cuts somewhere and that's the really concerning thing,” she said.
All week, TMJ4’s Ben Jordan has been trying to get answers for parents like Purdy. He started with email inquiries and phone calls to school board members and the superintendent. He received an email reply that didn’t answer our main questions: Why is there a sudden deficit — how was the money spent — and why it took so long to catch the problem?
In the days since, Jordan resorted to what other parents have had to do, go onto the district’s website to watch school board meeting videos. He quickly realized board members were alarmed months ago by the size and scope of the problem.
"I'm having a physical anxiety attack right now,” School Board Vice President Carla Pennington-Cross said on January 9. "I'm so shocked, I'm just, I'm not going to sleep tonight.”
In early January, Pennington-Cross said she was ‘anxious and scared’ for what this would ultimately mean for students after learning the accounting error started in 2022 and extended into this school year.
"This is just such a failure in our accounting of what's happening in our district,” she said.
A financial consultant named Todd Gray mentioned the district gave staff significant pay raises without factoring in the extra cost of benefits and it created a domino effect.
It remains unclear if that’s the only issue or just part of the problem.
In the meantime, the district’s business manager and superintendent submitted their resignations. Superintendent Alyson Weiss plans to continue to work until June 30.
The district also hired a financial firm to help weigh options to balance its budget. Some of the options discussed at meetings include taking out a $4 million loan or possibly going to a referendum in the fall.
Either way, the board suggested cuts next year could be inevitable.
"Things are going to have to change,” Gray said. “There's going to maybe be cuts to programming, staffing."
After several school administrators rejected Jordan’s interview requests, he showed up Thursday at the district office.
He waited several minutes only to be told the superintendent wasn’t there. Instead, another staff member came to the window.
“We want to know why there's this budget crisis. Could you tell us what's going on here?” Jordan asked.
“I don't have any comment,” the staff member replied. “I would have to direct you to our superintendent, but she's not here right now.”
About an hour after our crew left the district office, the school board sent families an email update on the budget deficit. It blames "significant errors in accounting and budgeting made by staff that are no longer with the district."
It didn’t say how those millions of dollars were spent.
The district reassured parents that schools will not be closed due to this crisis, but left the door open to staff reductions next school year with the goal of keeping those cuts away from classrooms.
The Glendale River Hills school board called an emergency ‘Special Closed School Board Meeting’ on the same day Jordan went to the district office for answers. That special meeting will be closed to the public.
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