Mountain Empire Unified School District – The vast district of the County of San Diego which has trouble financially for years due to a range of problems shared with other rural districts – has been labeled at high risk of fiscal insolvency by the state agency which oversees the finances of the school district.
The district “high -risk” label comes from its presence from three consecutive qualified interim reports. In other words, the district, on budgetary reports throughout the year, said that it may not meet the budgetary needs for the current financial year or the following two.
The district has been in expenditure with deficit for three years, but has started a deficit expenditure scheme even before the Pandemic of Covid-19, State analysis said.
The report recognized some of Mountain Empire’s challenges, including limited funding and high travel costs, but said it needed higher control, better documentation and increased protection of fraud.
“The district is confronted with unique challenges as a small distant district on the American-mexic border, including limited funding for the maintenance of facilities, difficulties in attracting and retaining staff, and endowment constraints due to geographic isolation,” said the analysis. “Long travel time to and from sites increase the transport costs and further limit the amount of maintenance and repair work which can be completed every day with a small staff.”
The school district, which is geographically vast and includes the southeast corner of the county, suffers from problems with which many rural school districts are confronted: delayed maintenance of facilities, endowment struggles and long travel times for the student body.
Mountain Empire tried and failed to bring the voters to approve a deposit measure to help. LMonth AST, the district obtained $ 4.6 million by the state to help rebuild its high school, After a three -year fight. Funding will help hire entrepreneurs to draw conceptions for a new campus, as well as preliminary engineering reports for other campuses.
In its new report, the tax crisis and state management assistance team – trained by state legislative action in the early 1990s to help local education agencies with their financial practices – used 20 indicators, with subcategories, to indicate a potential risk or insolvency.
Its analysis based on these indicators gave Mountain Empire a score of 28.7%, putting the district at the lower end of a moderate risk on this budgetary score alone. Depending on this measure, a high risk score is at least 40.0%.
But other factors in addition to these 20 indicators can push a district in the “high risk” category. These factors may include what FCMAT calls a “material weakness”, such as having too little money in the reserve, or conditions such as the key that the mountain empire has encountered – having three consecutive qualified interim reports.
Robbie Montalbano, FCMAT chief analyst, said on Tuesday evening at the district council meeting that the districts that work to solve problems could turn around.
“It is very obvious when you hit this number of qualified intervals (reports), it will take some time for things to straighten,” she said. “You do all you should do and take these actions, you have these conversations.”
Superintendent Patrick Keeley said during a phone call Thursday afternoon that Mountain Empire was trying to solve the problems, but that it is important for the state to spend time in school districts to understand their specific contexts.
“It is sometimes important that the external eyes look at your policies, your procedures,” he said. “I think there is also a recognition of some of our unique circumstances here.”
He gave the example that transport represents around 7.5% of their budget. For most school districts, it is around 2% to 3%.
The loss of federal financing of the COVID-19 era, the decline in registrations, chronic absenteeism has created the “perfect storm for some for certain difficult financial situations”, he said.
The District had made moderate registration gains for years, but registrations have dropped during the 2024-25 school year, said FCMAT analysis. The district had also lost a certain frequentation when the school returned to teaching in person during the pandemic, but has since rebounded.
Keeley said they also had to make painful personnel cuts.
Last month, the Council approved dismissals for eight teaching jobs and nearly three full -time equivalent classified positionsas well as days off.
Keeley said the district also studied all its software in order to find cheaper alternatives. “We are in a constant state of research of various sources of funding and grant programs,” he said.
Mountain Empire is the only district of the County of San Diego among the 32 on the scale of the California agencies with qualified certifications.
Seven other California districts appear on the list of negative certifications, which means that agencies will not comply with financial obligations for financial year 2024-25 or 2025-2026 on the basis of current projections. No local district appears on this list.
Originally published:
California Daily Newspapers
