St. Paul school district holding public meetings on budget shortfall

The St. Paul Public School district is holding a series of public forums this week to discuss the expected budget shortfall.

The district is predicting a budget shortfall of upwards of $20 million a year over the next few years. St. Paul public schools spokesman Howie Padilla officials are looking at options for how to deal with the shortfall.

"We are looking at budget shortfalls of into the 20s of millions of dollars each year," Padilla said. "Let's try and tackle this long term [and] not be short sighted about this. I think that is probably the more responsible approach and our administration feels the same way."

Padilla said the forums will be an opportunity for residents to get information about the predicted budget gap and ask questions.

"In these discussions we hope to educate the community and in some ways educate ourselves about what realistically can we do and what can we do efficiently and still do what our job is and that is to provide a good education for all of our students," he said.

There will also be discussions on the recent Academic Audit Report process.

Each meeting will run from 6 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. The first session will be March 3 at Harding Senior High School.