By Kathryn Cross and
Diego Marcucci
Staff Writers
At the Wednesday Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting, the board approved the 2013-14 Unaudited Actuals Financial Report, which uncovered an overestimation of $4 million in last year’s budget.
This report is required every year for California schools by the California Department of Education and details the expenditures the district makes throughout the year as well as the remaining funds in the previous year’s budget. According to MBUSD Superintendent Dr. Michael Matthews, this is the highest amount of money the district has ever over-budgeted.
“Four years ago we had close to this amount,” Matthews said. “It was smaller two years ago and even smaller last year, but this year the amount went back up. We overestimated the local taxes we would have to give back to the state and underestimated revenues.”
Former Deputy Superintendent Dr. Rick Bagley was in charge of budgeting all funds for the 2013-14 budget. After Bagley left MBUSD this past year, the district hired temporary Assistant Superintendent Pearl Iizuka to fill the position until the new Assistant Superintendent, Dr. Dawnalyn Murakawa-Leopard, permanently takes Bagley’s place on Oct. 1. Iizuka, along with outside auditors, compiled this financial report and uncovered the extreme over-budgeting.
“We did the best we could in forecasting this budget,” Iizuka said. “It did not materialize as much as we had hoped.”
The budget fund classified as “Special Education” had the largest overestimation with a sum of $1.2 million over what was originally expected.
“If we had more communication there would be a difference in special education funding, and this overestimation would not have been so extreme,” Iizuka said.
In last year’s budget, $378,000 was left over for certificated salaries, defined as funds that are allocated to district members who require teaching certification. According to Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers’ Association President Shawn Chen, teachers were unaware of the extra $4 million throughout last year’s teachers’ negotiations. Economics teacher Adam Gezci believes the budget was prepared so it would reflect a lack of funding, while increasing their reserves. He stated the district’s motive was to request additional money from the community and appear to have less money available for teacher salary increases.
“That is absolutely untrue,” Matthews said. “There was a 5% raise given to teachers last year.”
According to Chen, now that the conflict has been resolved, MBUTA is optimistic about this year’s negotiations.
“Now that we have a new assistant superintendent, I am excited about a fresh, new start,” Chen said.
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