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New Superintendent of Schools Michele Lawrence has scheduled a special budget meeting for Monday to review persistent problems with the district’s budget for the school year beginning Aug. 29. 

Lawrence said Thursday that she hopes to give the school board, union representatives, advisory board chairs and the general public an outline of some short-term and longterm solutions to the problems, although the meeting is purely informational and the school board will not be called upon to take any action. 

“We hope to give the community and our employees an overview of the (district’s) financial status and administrative systems,” Lawrence said. 

Staff at the Alameda County Office of Education have been reviewing the budget submitted by the district earlier this summer - as they do with the budget of each of the county’s 18 school districts.  

They discovered a number of inconsistencies and omissions in the district’s budget calculations that, taken together, might have resulted in the district’s total revenues being overstated by as much as $2.5 million.  

The county officials sent one part of the budget back to the district for a complete revision after they discovered some $17 million in federal revenues and categorical programs completely unaccounted for. 

Lawrence said the budget miscalculations could have an impact on school programs this year, although the precise impact is something to be determined in future school board meetings. 

Lawrence said the district has a pressing need to get everyone on the same page as far as the district’s finances are concerned, and to improve communications going forward.  

Only once the district’s administrative systems are running smoothly will staff be able to avoid future problems with the budget, she said. 

Board of Education Director John Selawsky said in an interview that he was not surprised by any of the problems identified by the county office.  

He voted against certifying the budget earlier this summer because of serious concerns about the quality of budget information in the district. 

One major contributor to the district’s budget problems is an ongoing effort to transfer from an outdated and dysfunctional data processing system to a new system.  

Another factor, school district sources say, could be a high rate of employee turnover in the district’s business office. 

Selawsky said he is encouraged by Lawrence’s apparent resolve to get the budgeting situation under control as soon as possible.  

Having confusion about the budget tends to paralyze the board, Selawsky said, because budget numbers drive so many of the decisions about school programs. 

“We need to put this behind us so that we can deal with the real issues,” he said. 

The budget study session is scheduled for 6 p.m., Monday on the second floor of the district’s administrative offices, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The meeting is open to the public.