Wauwatosa residents call for transparency, accountability following school budget miscalculations (2024)

WAUWATOSA — School board members heard calls for transparency and accountability for the first time in public at Monday night’s meeting.

It comes following a budgeting mistake that came to light last week.

“It’s a big budget, and some of these oversights should’ve been caught,” said one speaker during public comment.

The district is staring down an over $4 million budgeting error for the 2024–25 school year. The district also overspent roughly $8 million more than reported last year.

The budgeting error came to light as the new chief financial officer, Scot Ecker, said his predecessor built a bad budget and did not take into account different budget variants for staffing salaries and compensation.

PREVIOUS COVERAGE: Residents react to Wauwatosa School District multimillion-dollar budget errors (tmj4.com)

However, he and board members were reassured that none of the funding spent went toward anything fraudulent or nefarious.

“I want to express my deep regret for this,” said the superintendent.

Watch: Drama unfolds in Wauwatosa after $4 million school budget shortfall:

$4M budget shortfall debate at Wauwatosa board meeting

On Monday night, different school board members apologized and promised to do better.

“I think the school board needs to be more attentive and receptive to complaints, more attentive and receptive to watching the checkbook in the full school board meeting, and to understand more of what's happening,” said Michael Meier.

They also approved raising health insurance premiums for employees in order to chip away at the $4 million mistake, but that would only cover $1.3 million, according to Ecker.

Short-term borrowing from the state and leaving some positions open were also discussed as ways to close the rest of the gap.

Some parents, like Kate Bertram, called for a forensic audit of the district’s financial issues.

“We heard it was bad math, and it was something that fell through the cracks, and it's not acceptable,” said Bertram.

She now questioned the numbers in the operational and capital referendum that voters will decide on this November.

“We need to be able to have an operating budget, but we have to trust the numbers again if we don't trust that at that point,” said Bertram. “It starts there.”

Others at the meeting spoke in support of approving the two referendum questions which some said highlighted the need for funding.

“We are all concerned about the miscalculation and the budget error, but we still believe it is necessary to pass the referenda to have safe and quality schools for our kids,” said Heidi Bach, a parent. “It was necessary before this error was discovered, and it still is necessary.”

Ecker said the school district is looking at bringing in an outside firm to monitor spending throughout the year and plans to update software to better track that spending.

This year’s budget will not be finalized until at least October.

Also discussed at Monday’s meeting, a legal opinion that apparently looked at Wauwatosa Public Schools absorbing some of Milwaukee Public Schools due to shrinking enrollment and birth rates for both cities. School board member Meier brought it up during a tense discussion among members after it was made aware to them last week.

The idea was discussed back in February during a brainstorming session. Meier was not present at that session. He requested to make the findings public. Other members agreed.

A special board meeting is set to take place on Tuesday, where the public could learn about the legal opinion that was sought.

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