If Seattle Public Schools didn’t have enough financial problems already, it now has a few of its own making.
The latest audit of the state’s largest school district says the district overpaid employees by at least $335,000 in the 2008-09 school year, made several mistakes in its financial statements, and continues to claim more Native American students than it can document.
District officials called the errors unacceptable and pledged to fix them, while at the same time saying that it brought most of them to the auditor’s attention and that they are a very small part of the district’s budget.
The overpayment of salaries, for example, represents a small fraction of 1 percent of the district’s $558 million budget, said Duggan Harmon, the district’s executive director of finance.
Harmon also said none of the problems will add to the $27 million in expenses that the district already is planning to cut from its budget for the 2010-11 school year.