Española School Board members have accused Cariños Charter School administrators of
sabotaging the School District’s budget process.
Board members bashed Cariños Principal Vernon Jaramillo for his absence from the Board’s Feb. 25 budget work session. Jaramillo was supposed to present the charter school’s preliminary budget for Fiscal Year 2016 at the meeting.
District Superintendent Danny Trujillo said after numerous attempts to get Jaramillo to show up, Jaramillo declined to present his budget. He said, in an email to Trujillo, he would wait for the state Public Education Department’s spring budget workshop in early April, to present a more accurate budget.
“This is standard operation in preparation for the budget,” Trujillo said. “He sent an email to us saying that he was not going to be there to discuss the budget. I’ve sent him several emails.”
Because Cariños is chartered with the District, District officials serve as the school’s financial authority and have to oversee its budget.
Board Vice-President Lucas Fresquez said he is disappointed with the charter school’s non-cooperative actions regarding the budget.
“I think it’s important that the record state that we did try to initiate conversations about the budget for the next fiscal year,” Fresquez said. “What’s frustrating from my standpoint is that they want to pick and choose when we’re their Board. When it’s convenient, we’re the Board for them and when it’s not convenient, they don’t listen to us.”
Former Board member Andrew Chavez said although he understands Jaramillo wants more formalized numbers before presenting the budget to the Board, requesting preliminary projections from him is not strenuous.
“A multitude of invitations was indeed sent out to Cariños,” Chavez said. “It’s highly important that they should be present to answer all of the questions the Board of Education has. All we’re asking is preliminary numbers.”
Jaramillo did not return call requests for comment.
This is not the first time District officials criticized Cariños administrators for insufficient collaboration and communication. The two institutions have experienced multiple conflicts since September 2014, when District officials locked out Cariños students and staff from their facility because of safety hazards identified by the state Construction and Industries Division.
In December, Trujillo revealed District officials were running behind on their audits because Cariños administrators have not completed their audit, which the District oversees. But Cariños Business Manager Mike Vigil said their tardiness resulted from financial documents being locked in their old facility.
In early January, Jaramillo complained to the Department that the District had not provided hot lunches to the charter school, but after some correspondence between the District and the Department, officials concluded the complaint was misinformed.
At the meeting, former Board vice president Ralph Medina asked if District officials can formulate their own budget projections for the charter school.
“We don’t want them to sabotage our budget process,” Medina said. “Are we able to work with them on our own? If they’re not willing to come, so that we don’t get sabotaged, we can just do the best that we can.”
Medina asked officials to do a study to determine the financial cost of Cariños’s non-cooperation.
Board President Pablo Lujan inquired whether Cariños administrators submitted their 120-day enrollment report to the District, which can help project the school’s budget, but Trujillo said no.
Lujan said District officials should employ legal means to get Cariños to cooperate.
“Can we get with our attorneys and formalize a letter of request?” he said. “We’re not getting it. Honestly, they don’t care and we’re their authorizer.”
Fresquez concurred with Lujan.
“There’s going to be a major shortfall if you lose half of your enrollment,” Fresquez said. “We just want to make sure that we’re aware and we’re prepared and we took every step to have a balanced budget. This could be a litigation.”