Reading from a prepared statement at last night’s meeting to discuss the $3.36 million deficit, Board of Education member Robert Hallowell said “school district administration and the Board of Education failed in our duty to monitor and anticipate fiscal conditions - there is no way around that.”

Hallowell appeared to become emotional several times as he read from the statement. Here is the full text:

“The shortage uncovered by the school district is clearly a serious concern for the entire city and in terms of ideas, oversight and patience it will require the cooperation of the entire city in order to address that shortfall and help guide us out of this crisis. But, let me be clear, the funding of the FY09 shortfall and any budget restrictions in FY10 should be borne, to the largest extent possible, by school district funds. We cannot expect, nor should we ask, for any other city department to be hurt because of overspending that occurred completely within the school district.

In looking at solutions to fill the deficit in FY09, we must ask for the help of our staff, unions, the Mayor, the Board of Aldermen and the public and be open to constructive criticism and innovative ideas to address not only the fiscal crisis but the very way we do business. In addition, we should pursue the use of stimulus funds for special education as those mandated costs continue to rise well above expectations, we must resolve the issue of catastrophic aid funding which is clearly responsible for $1.3 million of the deficit totals, and we must look to other school district related funds that might be tapped. Moving forward in FY10, we must investigate ways to efficiently control and monitor costs within the district. And that fiscal oversight should include a component from the city financial services division in addition to more frequent and clear updates to the BOE, BOA and the public on current budget status. The Enterprise Resource Planning program proposed by the mayor will be a critical tool in making the fiscal oversight possible; the school district should be aggressive in providing input into what the system needs to be able to handle and lead in the effort to adopt the technology when it becomes available.

Finally, the school district administration and the Board of Education failed in our duty to both monitor and anticipate fiscal conditions - there is no way around that. Now that these inadequacies have come to light, I know that we have the capacity to learn from them, correct them, and find ways to restore confidence in the district’s fiscal abilities. I will do everything that I can to see that we successfully meet that challenge.”