“I don’t understand why you’re always out of cash, to be honest with you,” Fine told the board.
Fine told the Chronicle that Santa Rosa is among eight districts in the state with what’s called a “negative certification,” meaning the district can’t meet its financial obligations without making painful decisions about what services to cut. He said the district had failed to respond to years of razor-thin margins and budget shortfalls.
The depth of Santa Rosa’s spiraling financial crisis was masked by a series of one-time funds to help schools get through wildfire disasters and the pandemic.
“They need to cut back immediately — they need to stop spending money,” Fine said.
The North Bay district serving about 13,000 students is battling to avoid the fate of the Oakland Unified School District, where a cash crisis put that district under state control for the last 22 years.