New SRC, same budget woes

THE NEW School Reform Commission begins its service with the possibility that it won't be anything like its predecessor.

Media-friendly Pedro Ramos awaits state Senate confirmation as commission chairman.

But no amount of gubernatorial or mayoral appointments could change one cold, hard fact: The school district's finances are in shambles.

Three of the board's five members - Gov. Corbett's nominee Feather Houstoun also awaits Senate confirmation - got a huge dose of reality at yesterday's SRC meeting. An additional $22 million in cuts would balance this year's budget, Chief Financial Officer Michael Masch told members during his budget presentation.

Earlier in the day, the gap was wider at $39 million, but the district announced $17 million in cuts - although Masch called the cuts tentative.

Acting CEO and Superintendent Leroy Nunery has asked Masch and Associate Superintendent Penny Nixon to produce a program-impact analysis so the SRC can review the proposed cuts.

"These are technically feasible cuts, but the superintendent and the board and the public will want to know what it's going to mean in the real world," Masch told reporters after the meeting. "And until we answer that question, we're not proceeding."

Nunery acknowledged that the announced cuts to professional-development programs and lunches for parent roundtables were "cutting into bone to some degree."

But there was the proverbial silver lining in Masch's presentation - an $18 million surplus for the last fiscal year (2010-11). Costs were $24 million lower, and the district received additional state funding at the end of the year.

The school district's dire financial crisis has been overshadowed by the never-ending controversies it has endured this year, Ramos said in an interview this week.

Ramos referred to previous commissioner David Girard-diCarlo's warning of a "potential financial tsunami of almost biblical proportion" when it came to the district's financial picture. "I believe that the challenges of fiscal year '12-13 are so great that the district has to start dealing with them now," Ramos said.

"It starts with the district articulating the challenges ahead in a much more clear way," he added.

And it must be done while the still-rebuilding SRC attempts to win back public trust after a year that included a massive budget deficit, allegations of conflicts of interest by its former chairman, Robert Archie, and its approval of former Superintendent Arlene Ackerman's $905,000 buyout.

Commissioner Joseph Dworetzky last night pushed for the district staff to "wring every dollar they can" out of district contracts, and the audience loudly applauded.

Dworetzky later voted against a contract-extension resolution and received thunderous applause.

The commission met with a quorum of three members: Dworetzky, a Rendell appointment from the previous board who's beginning his third school year; Interim Chairman Wendell Pritchett, chancellor of Rutgers University-Camden campus; and author Lorene Cary, participating in her first meeting.