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Dear Decaturish,
The City Schools of Decatur (CSD) administration and board are using the budget in a way that obscures the district’s true financial position and its ability to continue funding lower elementary schools.
I am a business leader with 15 years of managerial accounting experience and a master’s in international management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University. According to CSD, the budget book “serves as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide, [and] a communications device.” The audited financial statements, then, are the district’s report card.
The quality of the budget is measured by how closely it matches actual financial results. So, how does CSD stack up?
I have reviewed CSD’s audited financial statements for fiscal years 2022–2025, focusing on budget performance and fund balance. Over those four years, CSD consistently budgeted for losses but ended up generating surpluses. In total, the budget understated the actual net change in fund balance by $24.4 million, averaging $6.1 million per year. The fund balance is similar to shareholders’ equity, though some of this money is earmarked for specific purposes. While CSD budgeted cumulative losses of about $10 million, the district actually produced a $14.4 million surplus, growing the fund balance by roughly 50 percent to nearly $31 million.
These errors are growing each year. The variance between budgeted and actual results increased from $4.3 million in 2022 to $8 million in 2025, showing that the problem is worsening, not improving. As a financial plan, the budget book seems to be missing the mark.
Two key questions follow:
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Where are the biggest budget variances, and how do they affect students?
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How does this budgeting approach distort the community’s understanding of CSD’s ability to fund early childhood education and maintain its K–12 commitments?
On the first point, CSD systematically understates revenue and overstates expenses. According to CSD auditors, the district underestimates revenues by about $3.6 million per year, primarily due to inaccurate projections of state funding. This may explain why the district cannot clearly explain how much quality basic education (QBE) funding is lost due to walkable neighborhood schools. It cannot reliably predict state revenue under its own enrollment model.
CSD also overbudgeted instructional spending by about $3.2 million from 2022–2025, despite well-known staffing shortages and retention challenges. Similarly, while leadership frequently cites lost capital outlay funding, the district underspent its own maintenance and facilities budget by $1.5 million over three years, roughly offsetting the alleged losses.
These findings suggest that the budget book is also failing as a policy document and operational guide if we are not spending the money we allot to Instruction and building maintenance.
This leads to the second question: the community is repeatedly presented with glossy budget documents forecasting large deficits, which naturally raises fears about school closures or millage rate increases. Board members have publicly framed the choices as deficit spending, tax increases, or cost reductions. But these projected losses are not real—they result from administrative and accounting decisions that mask actual financial strength. As a communication device, the budget book instills fear and scarcity.
The result is a misleading narrative that undermines trust, distorts public engagement, and frames major decisions—such as the Early Childhood Learning Center and lower elementary closures—on faulty premises. Soliciting community feedback based on a budget the district does not adhere to is irresponsible.
If the budget book is going to be used as a policy document, it should be evaluated based on the accuracy of its budget compared to actual financial performance, not simply whether actual spending comes in below projections. While this level of error would not be tolerated in the private sector, the larger issue is public trust. CSD is not a profit-seeking entity—it is a community institution charged with educating children and stewarding public resources honestly.
Among all recent documents, the CSD budget book stands out as the most misleading, fostering unnecessary fear, division, and confusion rather than clarity and accountability. I’d give it a failing grade on all fronts, as a policy document, a financial plan, an operations guide, and a communications device.
— Morgan Fraga
Editor’s note: Decaturish asked City Schools of Decatur for comment about this letter and its conclusions. Chief Financial Officer Lonita Broome responded. She said the revenue numbers referenced in the letter include activity acocunts in the othe revenue category. Broome said in March, she plans to present a five-year review of the general fund and fund balances. She will discuss budget variances in the general fund.
Fraga asked Broome if there is a detailed schedule of school actitiy accounts in the audited financials and whether those numbers are included in the budget.
“No, there is not a detailed schedule of school activity accounts in the audited financials,” Broome said. “No, those numbers are not included in the budget. We do not budget for donations, sport activities or field trips. We do not budget for funds that parents pay or donate for various activities. The numbers are not incorrect. They are just inclusive of various accounts.”