Atlanta schools face budget shortfall for coming year

By Jaime Sarrio

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta school board is holding an emergency meeting this morning to discuss how to deal with an unexpected budget shortfall for the upcoming school year.

According to the district’s Twitter feed, the district will look at a range of options, which could include furlough days.

In addition, Superintendent Erroll Davis said the district is going to have to find money in the budget to pay 120 people who are on administrative leave as a result of the state cheating investigation. Those individuals did not resign or retire, and face termination by the school district.

Davis said that employees who were given criminal immunity by the state will likely be the first to go through termination hearings.

In addition, the district is hiring 109 people to fill positions. Not all of those are teachers.

The budget shortfall appears to be related to curriculum and instruction. The cost of that department is running about $20 million more than budgeted, according to the Twitter report.

“I do apologize that this comes as a surprise or shock to many of you. It should have been made more clear to this board,” Davis said.