LADY BUDGETDOWN'S SOCIETY PAPERS
The Rochester Receipts
Dearest Readers,
Lady Budgetdown has spent quite some time buried in Rochester Community Schools' budgets and audited financial statements.
And when the receipts demand a correction, we make one.
Rochester has NOT been running consecutive General Fund deficits.
The final results show:
💰 2022-23: +$4.76 million
💰 2023-24: +$4.41 million
💰 2024-25: +$298,070
Those are actual results, not projections.
But, dear readers, that isn't where the story ends.
Rochester's own financial projections now show the direction changing:
📉 2025-26 projected deficit: -$2.16 million
📉 2026-27 projected deficit: -$5.63 million
That's approximately $7.8 MILLION in projected General Fund shortfalls over two years.
And these aren't Lady Budgetdown's projections. Rochester says it uses a comprehensive eight-year financial model incorporating enrollment, state funding, staffing, contractual obligations, pensions, health insurance and operating costs.
Meanwhile, the General Fund balance is projected to fall from approximately $48.3 million after 2024-25 to $40.5 million by the end of 2026-27.
Still healthy? Yes.
A financial crisis? No.
A trend taxpayers should be watching? Absolutely.
🔎 And then there is one more receipt worth examining.
Rochester implemented GASB 96 in 2022-23—the accounting standard governing certain Subscription-Based Information Technology Arrangements (SBITAs). Think multi-year cloud software and other qualifying subscription technology contracts.
At the time, Rochester reported that implementation had "no material impact" on its financial statements.
Fast-forward to the latest auditor communication.
The auditors reported uncorrected misstatements and separately noted that Rochester had excluded disclosures normally required under GASB 96 for SBITAs. Management considered the amounts immaterial, and the auditors did not modify their clean audit opinion.
But the auditors also cautioned that the matters underlying the uncorrected misstatements could potentially cause future-period financial statements to be materially misstated if not appropriately addressed.
And there are breadcrumbs in Rochester's own budgets:
🧾 2023-24 SBITA budget line: $86,640
🧾 2024-25 SBITA budget line: $400,000
To be clear: this was not deemed a material audit finding, and the available auditor communication does not establish that the uncorrected dollar adjustments were caused by SBITAs.
Lady Budgetdown does not turn accounting footnotes into scandals.
She simply makes sure taxpayers know the footnotes exist.
So perhaps the question isn't whether Rochester used to run deficits.
The receipts say it didn't.
The better question is:
💰 Why does a district that accumulated a $48 MILLION General Fund balance now project spending approximately $7.8 MILLION more than it takes in over the next two years?
And as the district enters that period of projected deficit spending, taxpayers might reasonably expect those accounting issues and technology-subscription disclosures to be cleaned up as well.
After all...
🕯� Budgets speak. Lady Budgetdown merely reads them.
#LadyBudgetdown #TheRochesterReceipts #RochesterCommunitySchools #FollowTheMoney #TaxpayerTransparency #SchoolFinance #TheReceipts