THE ISSUE

“School District of Lancaster officials proposed millions of dollars in budget cuts and hired an independent auditor Tuesday following the discovery of a $9.6 million deficit left over from the 2024-25 fiscal year,” LNP | LancasterOnline reported Feb. 25. The budget cuts and auditor were necessary because, as this newspaper reported in early February, the district “unknowingly spent nearly $10 million it did not have during the 2024-25 school year, and administrators say they suspect an accounting error in calculating salaries and benefits was a major cause of the overspend.”

Nearly everyone has overspent at one point or another.

Maybe on holiday gifts. Or on vacation splurges. Or while still learning how to balance a checkbook.

But how does a school district unknowingly spend nearly $10 million it doesn’t have? How is that even possible?

As LNP | LancasterOnline reported, the School District of Lancaster board approved “paying up to $7,500 to a consulting service of the Pennsylvania Association of School Business Officials to audit the district and provide recommendations for how to better manage its finances.” Auditors are to present a report is about a month.

“It’s become clear that we must strengthen accuracy and reliability of our financial processes,” Superintendent Keith Miles said.

The year is young but that might be a contender for the understatement of 2026.

It’s become clear all right.

But not much else has.

The district has a chief financial and operations officer, as well as a director of finance. Its superintendent led a public school district previously — albeit a somewhat smaller one — and also served as an assistant superintendent, so he’s surely familiar with school budgets. Its chief human resources officer presumably knows how many employees the district has.

Nevertheless, 83 full-time employees were left out of the 2024-25 budget, to the tune of $8.1 million in salary and benefits.

Eighty-three full-timers.

The people overseeing the school district’s finances are educators and administrators. Their mantra should be — and not just to students, but to themselves — “check your work.”

This monumental screwup came to public light at a Feb. 3 school board meeting when, as LNP | LancasterOnline reported, board member Dave Parry pointed to a shortfall identified in the district’s 2025 fiscal year audit by the accountancy firm CliftonLarsonAllen.

Thank goodness for audits.

District officials said the oversight might have been due to faulty software. And sure, it might have been. But 1) technology is always a convenient scapegoat; 2) software is only as good as the data humans put into it; and 3) that’s why it’s essential to check your work.

There’s also this: As LNP | LancasterOnline reported, “The district also did not sufficiently budget for expenses in three key areas: cyber charter tuition, transportation, and building repairs and maintenance, the combined expenses of which came in nearly $5 million over budget, according to (a district) report.

“In total, the district concluded the 2025 fiscal year with an operational deficit of $15.3 million. The district drew down the reserves in its fund balance to reduce that deficit to $9.6 million.”

We’ve argued for years for increased funding for the historically underfunded School District of Lancaster. We’re now deeply frustrated that the students whose cause we’ve championed will suffer because of this egregious error.

To remedy the mistake, the district proposes refinancing $5 million of its $18 million in debt, which, as this newspaper noted, “would cost the district an extra $1.7 million over the next decade but would free up funds in the near term.”

The district also proposes to take $1 million of expenses from its capital reserve fund.

Other proposed measures, amounting to $2.2 million: pruning department budgets, delaying some community events, suspending elementary summer school enrichment programs this year and deferring minor building repairs. The district’s annual Winter Fest community gathering — usually a bright spot on the dreary winter calendar for kids and their families — would be suspended.

Beyond our concerns about the costs of debt refinancing, we’re dismayed by the proposed suspension of elementary summer school enrichment programs. According to the district’s website, 88.4% of its 10,000-plus students are economically disadvantaged. Low-income households don’t have money for museum trips, pricey vacations or theater or art or music or science camps. School district summer enrichment programs help to fill the gap.

And the cuts that have been proposed don’t suffice to remedy the district’s shortfall. As LNP | LancasterOnline reported, they only account for $8.2 million of the $9.6 million the district needs to make up. Administrators will present recommendations for the remaining $1.4 million sometime in March.

February was a tough month for the School District of Lancaster. A nonverbal 11-year-old boy with autism wandered away from Fulton Elementary School and was found walking several blocks away by, thankfully, a gentleman who went on Facebook Live in hopes of identifying the child’s parents. Two district employees were placed on administrative leave and educators who teach autistic students received staff training.

The boy’s mother told this newspaper that her son won’t return to Fulton, but she doesn’t want anyone to lose their job or to face legal issues. For the sake of all of the district’s students with disabilities, she said, she wants “accountability” — and “better trainings, better resources, more staffing.”

Unfortunately, providing more resources won’t be easy, given the budgeting mistake.

She said she wasn’t notified by the school about her son’s walkabout, which, if not for the kindness of a stranger, could have ended tragically. She said the district must improve communication. “Their communication is ridiculous,” she said.

Improving communication and accountability seems necessary with regard to the district’s finances, too. Whether the overspending snafu was caused by computer software, someone inside the district should have caught it.

It’s not just students who suffer when school districts are poorly managed. District taxpayers do, too.

Taxpayers in the School District of Lancaster already were saddled with a 4.25% tax increase between the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years. They might be paying higher taxes for the foreseeable future.

At the very least, they deserve a full and transparent accounting of the math that went terribly awry here.

Success! An email has been sent to with a link to confirm list signup.

Error! There was an error processing your request.