MBUSD underestimates $2.9 million in budget

By Kathryn Cross

News Editor

and Tommy Kelleher

Staff Writer

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Dawnalyn Murakawa-Leopard revealed at the Sept. 2 Manhattan Beach Unified School District Board of Trustees meeting that MBUSD totaled $2.9 million in overbudgeting and expenditure overprojection in the 2014-15 budget.

The $2.9 million is composed of an underprojected $1.6 million that the district originally believed it would receive in revenue and an overbudgeted $1.3 million that the district estimated it would spend in expenditures. According to Murakawa-Leopard, the central cause of the majority of the unaccounted revenue was the fluctuating funds for special education due to unpredicatable needs that change yearly.

“We are constantly working with students to make sure that we are meeting their needs,” Murakawa-Leopard said. “So, those numbers are always in flux throughout the year, and we aren’t always able to predict them.”

A portion of the underprojected $1.6 million in revenue came from the Local Control Funding Formula, which is the California state-wide funding system. The remainder of the underprojected revenue came from federal, state, local and other sources.

“The calculations for the revenue are fairly complex,” Murakawa-Leopard said.  “As enrollment changes, our revenue numbers will change.”

The expense categories of the $1.3 million in overbudgeted expenditures include certificated salary, benefits, books, supplies, indirect costs and services. However, Murakawa-Leopard stated that nearly $600,000 of the $1.3 million came from special education. 

“This special education money can’t be spent on something else,” Murakawa-Leopard said. “Even though we got more money than we anticipated and spent less than we anticipated, we still spent more than we got, so you can’t call it leftover money because we operated at a deficit.”

According to Manhattan Beach Unified Teachers’ Union President Shawn Chen, these kinds of underprojection and overbudgeting errors have been habitual amongst the MBUSD Board of Trustees over the past five years. Chen stated that she believes that continual inaccuracies hinder MBUTA-MBUSD relations.

“Inaccurate expenses and revenue undermines our ability to represent our members and have a clear picture of what kinds of funds are available,” Chen said.  “MBUTA would prefer to be a more coherent team. Inaccuracy causes our members and teachers to feel like they don’t know who to trust. We want to give our teachers the kinds of salaries and benefits that they deserve for doing the hard work that they do.”

According to Murakawa-Leopard, in order to prevent underprojected revenue or overbudgeted expenditures in the future, MBUSD is looking for ways to increase communication within the district’s departments to estimate the money needed with more precision.

“When projecting revenue or budgeting expenditures, we want to be as accurate as possible,” MBUSD Superintendent Dr. Michael Matthews said.