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Superintendent: City of Petersburg owes school system nearly $3 million

Posted at 10:55 PM, May 17, 2017
and last updated 2017-05-18 08:39:24-04

PETERSBURG, Va. – School leaders confirmed Wednesday night the City of Petersburg owes the Petersburg City School System nearly $3 million.

“Our best efforts are stifled by our financial inability in the City of Petersburg, it’s very frustrating,” School Board Member Atiba Muse said.

Superintendent, Dr. Marcus Newsome said the City currently owes $2.7 million for the balance of this year.

Newsome said the city is scheduled to transfer a little over $700,000 over the next couple of months, which will leave a remaining balance of $1.9 million.

“I can’t speak to the past, and when I arrived here the city was about $2 million behind, but this isn’t anything new, this has been happening since 2013,” said Newsome.

Superintendent Dr. Marcus Newsome

At Wednesday night’s board meeting, Newsome said there had been a question about the discrepancy in the amount of transfers owed to the school system at a joint meeting several weeks ago.

A recent audit was done of the school system and city records.

“The lead auditor met with me and informed that he was very impressed with our accounting,” said Newsome.

Newsome said school leaders then met with city leaders to go through the numbers and the audit findings, which were consistent with the school record keeping.

“It showed that funds that had been allocated for 17 this past summer were actually used to pay 16 bills,” he said.

CBS 6 reached out to the City of Petersburg for comment. A spokesperson said he planned to send a statement Thursday morning.

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