Corbett schools $3M in red; staff, budget cuts confirmed

CORBETT, Ore. (KOIN) -- The Corbett School District will have to cut their overall budget by 20% to get out of the red, citing a budget that's been unbalanced for years -- and blaming the bad accounting on an outside contractor.

Superintendent Derek Fialkewicz said he had concerns about the contractor, which is why he hired in-house budgeting this past spring. But he said district officials weren't aware of the scope of the problem until August.

"Basically, for the past few years we've been spending money that we thought we had that we really didn't have," Fialkewicz said. "I feel horribly that we are in this position. But in order to come out the other side, my job is to fix it. My job is to right the ship, and the only way to do that right now is to cut payroll, unfortunately."

He mentioned the possibility of legal action but declined further comment on that issue. He also declined to comment on the claim made by the teachers union that the district reportedly applied for a zero interest loan with the Multnomah Educational Service District.

Regardless of potential external funding, the district said it will expect all staff to take on additional furlough days. The district plans to cut three administrators, three teachers and four classified staff members to help balance the $3 million deficit.

Both parents and teachers said that even if this wasn't the district's fault, it was their responsibility. They want more accountability and transparency moving forward.

"We love this school, we love the community, and for it to be put in this precarious situation has a lot of us on edge," said teacher Devon Groh. "This all felt fairly sudden. We didn't get a whole lot of a heads up about this, even though, from what we've been told, this issue has been existent for the past few years."

Parents like Mindy LaFramboise said board meetings show concerns over the budget date back farther.

"The fact that they waited so long to address a problem they sort of wondered they might have, but didn't bother taking care of, caused larger cuts," LaFramboise said

But Fialkewicz said at the time it was something they thought they could handle.

LaFramboise claims both the superintendent and the School Board should have had inklings that something was not right.

“School budgets are very simple. Every single school knows if I have more students, I can hire a certain number of more teachers and still keep classes the same size, and if I drop students down, I'm going to lose money coming in," she said.

LaFramboise has a student in the district and claims the number of kids enrolled has gone down over the last few years.

“He should have known, as a superintendent responsible for the budget, that he needed to be cutting staff,” She said. “The School Board, who is responsible for him as a supervisor and who is responsible to manage and look at the financial situation with him should have been asking, ‘Where are the line items? Show us how this works?’ But nobody did that.”

"We're all thinking about how to plan for this financially," Groh said, "because it will have an impact for sure."

School Board Chair Todd Mickalson said the board has "full confidence" in Fialkewicz to navigate the situation.

But the Corbett Education Association noted the staff is frustrated by "inconsistent information, shifting financial projections, and a lack of clarity in the decision-making process."

The CEA wants families, staff and community members to attend the School Board meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday.

KOIN 6 News will continue to follow this story.