The Oxford school board announced Friday it over-spent its budget by $453,000.
School officials are laying the blame on previous administrators who didn’t “use the correct number when calculating the school district’s budget,” Oxford Patch reported.
The Friday night disclosure triggered a sharp response Saturday morning from Oxford First Selectwoman Mary Ann Drayton-Rogers.
Here is the statement from Drayton-Rogers in its entirety:
I’m outraged!
The sloppy bookkeeping, reckless and careless spending of taxpayers’ money by the Board of Education is inexcusable.
The only way to make this whole is a spending freeze in the 2010/11 budget year resulting with a similar amount, of $453,000, being returned to the Town’s general fund to make up the difference.
While the municipal draft audit shows the town budget (not the BOE budget) with a surplus of over $200,000, the BOE has put the town in the red by close to a half million dollars. This is unacceptable and cannot be just pushed aside. The split budget process which was instituted in 2007, places the responsibility clearly where it belongs and that is with the Board of Education. My office, along with the town’s Finance Director, is ready to meet with any members of the board and the BOE central office to determine the next, best practice methods to resolve this financial crisis that has been placed on our town.
Another question needs to be answered, what is the Board of Finance and their chairman, Lila Ferrillo, actually doing to monitor the budgetary finances? They should spend less time harassing community leaders and more time doing the job they were elected to do — oversee the budget and the auditing process. A change to their policies and auditing methods is needed and is needed now.