East Orange mayor addresses school district budget deficit, says it comes down to "oversight"
EAST ORANGE, N.J. -- The East Orange school district had another half day Friday, as it deals with a $25 million deficit and massive layoffs set to start in two months.
The Board of Education voted to cut 93 positions, including Spanish and substitute teachers, literacy and math coaches and social workers. Of those 93 roles, officials say 71 of them are teachers.
"I really felt really upset about this. It's unfortunate 'cause all the teachers in the district, a lot of kids are losing out on education opportunities," student Aiden Moncrieffe said.
CBS News New York reached out to the teacher's union but did not hear back.
East Orange mayor, Gov. Phil Murphy address budget shortfall
East Orange Mayor Ted Green addressed the situation Friday, saying the new superintendent discovered the deficit, and now everyone is chipping in to help out.
"Is it mismanagement by a previous school administration, or is it just lack of funding?" CBS News New York's Christine Sloan asked.
"Well, I think it's oversight. When sometimes you have folks in office and there's oversights, and then you have someone come in and they start dotting the 'I's and crossing the 'T's and looking into the fine print, it's an oversight. I believe that we've got to get better with that," he told CBS News New York.
Gov. Phil Murphy told CBS News New York the state's school commissioner will meet with East Orange officials.
"Not happy about East Orange at all. The solution should never be taking kids to a half day now two days in a row," he said. "Their state funding was up modestly a couple of hundred thousand dollars. We're trying to get to the bottom of this. We've been all over it."
"We did our part in making sure that we gave the district some money, but we had to raise taxes a little bit, so what we are trying not to do is on one side raise taxes," Green said.
East Orange superintendent discovers major deficit
The East Orange School District Superintendent Dr. Chris Irving, who has only been on the job for three months, says the district has been spending over budget for the school year.
Irving says the district was short $6 to $8 million coming into the year, but the deficit has now reached $25 million. He says if cuts aren't made, they won't be able to make payroll in May or June.
"We did not do our due diligence in, quite frankly, understanding what the financial reality was as soon as we started the school year," said Irving.
Some educators say they've never seen anything like this in more than 20 years in the industry. One teacher said she was hired before the school year, but will now be out of a job.
East Orange community blindsided by budget cuts
It was the second day of inconvenience for parents whose kids got out early.
"Make this make sense. Where's the money?" mother Maria Irvin said outside the school Friday. "The mayor needs to answer a lot of questions, lots. You see new parks being built, you see these high-rises going up, and you see this school system that's already terrible going down even more."
"They're knocking off teachers, and the kids need these teachers. The kids look up to these teachers, and they have a lot of things that they're going through throughout their homes, and the teachers are sometimes a psychiatrist," said Ilyas Williams, who brought his nephew to school. "To take away a mentor, as such, it would just be detrimental to the kids."
"If you're a parent that has to be at work making money to take care of your child, you can't just keep leaving every day," parent Lisa Elam said.
Grandmother Julie Johnson wants to know why the school district waited until Wednesday to announce the budget shortfall.
"We need to have an outside auditor come and look at these books and find out where this money went to," she said.
East Orange's mayor says the early dismissals were caused by teacher sick-outs. The mayor also said after-school was extended to 4:30 p.m. Friday and that he reached out to the governor, who says he will support the district but promised no extra funding.