Rochester board holds final budget deliberations; state budget delay, staffing cuts and grants drive uncertainty

The Rochester City School District Board of Education held its third and final round of budget deliberations on May 1 as the district prepared to vote on a proposed 2025–26 budget on May 6.

Superintendent Strickland told commissioners that the administration has submitted three versions of the draft budget to the state monitor and that the most recent draft "eliminates the need for the fund balance entirely." He said the second version had included a $16 million use of fund balance but the third version removed that need through reductions.

Strickland outlined the scale of reductions: "We had approximately 8,300,000 in staffing, which is about roughly 130 positions cut, 7,200,000.0 in contractual expenses ... and 116 [thousand] in travel," he said. The administration also said it expects to make at least one more revision once New York's state budget is finalized; the governor has extended the state's deadline to May 7, administration staff said during the meeting.

The superintendent emphasized that certain staffing additions — notably paraprofessionals — respond to legal obligations tied to students' individualized education plans. "The increase in paraprofessionals are are legal duty to provide the individuals that they, need to be in their room to service their individualized education plan," he said.

Board members pressed for details about grants that appear as projected revenue in the book. Commissioner Griffin expressed concern that projected grant amounts might not be guaranteed and asked which grants were already approved for 2025–26. Deputy Turner (Ruth Turner) replied that some grants have already been confirmed — for example, the My Brother's Keeper Fellows grant and an extended-school-day/school-violence-prevention grant had notifications extending funding into 2025–26, and those approved items are shown in the budget book (commissioners were pointed to pages 165–179 for grant detail).

The board also discussed an inequity flagged at Andrew Langston Middle School related to staffing for a planned co-location with Northwest Middle School; Strickland said he directed staff to revisit the budget to align staffing and resources across both schools and to share a follow-up plan with the board and community.

President Simmons reiterated scheduling: the district must adopt a budget by the board vote on May 6, and the city council's vote on the district's request is expected June 17. Several commissioners asked for additional documentation in the public question log that supports administration answers; the clerk confirmed rounds 1 and 2 of the question log are posted to the district budget webpage while round 3 responses were being finalized.

No final vote on the budget was taken during this meeting; the board adjourned its deliberations to permit final adjustments and to await the state's budget action.