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Two months after BUSD Board Director Joaquin Rivera said “it’s been a long time since we’ve heard anything positive” about the district’s budget, district board members have learned that they are going to wait a little bit longer—the district has revised the “positive” certification of last year’s budget back down to “qualified.” 

A positive designation means that a district projects that it will meet its financial obligations over the next two years, a qualified designation means that it may not without “significant expenditure reductions and revenue enhancements.” 

Last December, district finance managers announced that its 2004-05 first interim budget report was $743,000 in the black and had been approved by the Alameda County Office of Education (ACOE). But because “we had to revise these numbers because some of our assumptions were unrealized,” according to Deputy Superintendent Glenston Thompson, the district is now projecting a $1.58 million deficit in its general fund. 

If the projections were to hold true, without any added revenue or budget cutting by the district, the general fund deficit would drop to $780,000 in the 2006-07 budget year. The drop in the expected deficit comes in part because, while district expenditures are expected to rise $1.3 million in the next two years, total revenues are projected to rise $2.2 million. 

“I’m sure the county will have some questions about this,” Thompson told district directors at the board’s Feb. 16 meeting. “We’re prepared to go down and answer them.” 

The first interim report uses budget figures only through last October 31, and is designed to ensure that the district is able to meet its ongoing financial responsibilities. 

The district also had to lower its projected 300-student average daily attendance increase, although that will not add to BUSD’s budget problems this year. District officials said they made their original projections based on an increase in enrollment in the district, but because that increase was centered in the high school—where the daily attendance rate is slightly lower than in the district as a whole—the actual attendance was lower than they thought. But because the state allows a district to use last year’s ADA figures in a period of declining enrollment, Berkeley will be able to put off the revenue loss for a year.