Cotati-Rohnert Park school district reveals $1.9 million budget deficit for school year

Declining enrollment and increased special education costs led to a newly discovered $1.9 million deficit in the Cotati-?Rohnert Park Unified School District’s budget this school year.

“It was a huge surprise,” school board President Leffler Brown said in an interview. “We should have known the enrollment in August.”

California public school districts draft annual budgets based on enrollment, but receive funding connected to average daily attendance. The Cotati-Rohnert Park district budgeted for an increase of 83 students in the 2018-19 school year. However, recent enrollment numbers show a decrease of 57 students from the previous school year, resulting in 140 fewer students than projected. The district has 5,775 students and a budget of about $67 million.

“They (district administrators) were optimistic in planning for more students than what we got,” Brown said. “My concern was don’t ever budget more students until they show up.”

The budget shortfall coincides with significant leadership shake-ups in the district during the last few months. Robert Haley, superintendent for seven years, left in October for a job in San Diego. In an exit interview, Haley said the district was “in great shape.”

On Nov. 1, Tony Roehrick left his Rincon Valley superintendent position to start an eight-month stint as Cotati-Rohnert Park’s interim superintendent.

Additionally, the district hired a new chief business manager, Robert Marical, last summer.

Brown, who was selected school board president in December after being reelected the month before, said he requested enrollment numbers from Haley at the beginning of the school year.

Brown said Haley told him figures weren’t yet available and he didn’t get the enrollment figures until November.

“It’s very, very difficult to reduce costs in a district midyear,” Roehrick, the interim superintendent, said. “Ultimately, it’s one pie but we do have discretion how we slice up that pie. We have to do that in a thoughtful way.”

A school district budget committee comprised of community members, including Brown and school board newcomer Chrissa Gillies, will meet over the next couple of months to determine the course of action to deal with the budget gap.

“Nothing’s off the table at this point, I would say,” Roehrick said, acknowledging $1.9 million is a lot of money “but I think it’s a manageable number.”

Despite the budgeting miscue, the school district will receive a “qualified” rating for its budget from the Sonoma County Office of Education and have a chance to fix the error.

The district soon will launch recruitment efforts to get students and families interested in enrolling at Cotati-Rohnert Park. An inter-district student transfer period opens in February.

You can reach Staff Writer Susan Minichiello at 707-521-5216 or susan.minichiello@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @susanmini.