Dysfunction Junction

Highland Park district, state on rocky terms

Finance chief cites trouble in effort to reduce deficit

By Melanie D. Scott Free Press Staff Writer

   LANSING — The financial director of Highland Park schools said many of the district’s money problems could have been resolved if state officials had a better working relationship with the district.

   “Truth and fairness has not been presented from Lansing,” Highland Park Schools Financial Director Randy Lane said during a hearing Friday in Lansing. “The district has taken action to turn around the deficit.”

   Lane added that the district already has a deficit-elimination plan in place that calls for fixing its finances over the next four years, if the state allows it the chance.

   “We’ve reduced operating costs significantly over the past year,” Lane told the members of the hearing, which included state Department of Education Deputy Superintendent Carol Wolenberg and the chair of the hearing, Deputy State Treasurer Roger Fraser. “About half of the budget has been cut.”

   Highland Park Superintendent Edith Hightower, along with school board President John Holloway and board members Alma Greer, Robert Davis and Soyini Williams, sat in the first row of a small conference room at the Richard H. Austin State Office building.

   The hearing was called at the district’s request in hopes of pointing out errors or possible omissions in a report that prompted Gov. Rick Snyder to determine the district has a financial emergency.

   Snyder appointed a 10-member review team under Public Act 4, the Local Government and School District Fiscal Responsibility Act, in November to review the district’s finances. The team recommended the appointment of an emergency manager.

   The team found that a financial emergency exists based on factors including ending the school year on June 30 with an $11.3-million deficit, a 51% increase from the previous year.

   The district had an operating deficit in excess of revenues for five of the six years evaluated and an average operating deficit of $2.3 million over seven years, Wolenberg said in her presentation on behalf of the review team.

   The district saw a decrease in enrollment from1,858 students in 2010 to1,331in 2011. There are currently 969 students enrolled, and about 40% of them live in Detroit, Wolenberg said.

   “That’s one effect that could further the (financial) decline,” Wolenberg said. “And the lesser restrictions in charter schools could raise the trend.”

   Wolenberg said the team also questioned the school board’s ability to work together, called the seven-member body dysfunctional and said she doubted members would follow a consent agreement that would be required to fix the deficit should an emergency manager not be appointed.

   But the district’s attorney George Butler argued that under a consent agreement, Hightower, and not the local school board, would be solely responsible for following the agreement.

   School Board Secretary Robert Davis said state officials were being disingenuous and that the board has worked to fix district problems and isn’t dysfunctional.