The Baltimore school system will revise its flawed $1.2 billion budget with help from top financial managers from the city government and the state education department, officials announced yesterday.In the meantime, there is a great deal of discussion going on as to whom to blame and what to do about the problem. There have been calls for the city to take over teh schools, the state to take over the schools and all sorts of steps in between.
But accounts differed over how much help will be provided by Edward J. Gallagher, the city's finance director, and Mary Clapsaddle, assistant state superintendent for business services.
William Reinhard, a spokesman for the Maryland State Department of Education, said the review is designed to help the school system better format its budget before a community meeting next week. He did not offer specifics about what the reformatting will entail.
"We will not be verifying numbers," Reinhard said. "We will not be doing any kind of audit to see if the numbers all add up. We simply do not have that kind of time between now and then."
Mayor Sheila Dixon, however, said that Gallagher "has committed to go through the entire document."
Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon and Governor (and former Baltimore Mayor) Martin O'Malley continue to stand by the budget document and the school board. Dixon's office approved the budget for next year and O'Malley as mayor approved the current operating budget, which also contains some signficiant errors.
Of course, no one has stepped up and admitted fault and so far there have been reports of staff being fired over the mistakes. A computer glitch has been blamed, a nice little strawman if you can find it, but in my experience many "computer glitches" turn out to be what computer support techs call "PBKC," a problem between keyboard and chair--that is the user.
Previous Entries:
Baltimore School Board to Hold Emergency Meeting
Baltimore School Budget Riddled with Errors
One Example in Baltimore School Budget Morass
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