RCSD gets additional fiscal oversight from state
State Education Commissioner Betty Rosa has assigned Jaime Alicea, the recently retired superintendent of the Syracuse City School District, as a fiscal consultant to the Rochester City School District.
Alicea will share in the workload of Shelley Jallow, the state-appointed fiscal and academic monitor. Going forward, Alicea is expected to focus on fiscal matters and Jallow on academics, though technically Alicea is a consultant and Jallow remains the sole monitor.
The state will pay his salary, RCSD Board President Cynthia Elliott said. NYSED did not say what his compensation would be, or whether he will have reporting requirements.
"Mr. Alicea will work closely with Dr. Shelley Jallow, ... district staff, and the Department to ensure the district can successfully implement its Academic Improvement and Financial plans and achieve long-term fiscal stability," the state Education Department said in a statement.
Alicea worked for 39 years in the Syracuse City School District, starting as a teaching assistant and ending as superintendent from 2016 to June 2022. NYSED declined to make him available for an interview.
Alicea is the third state-mandated consultant at the city school district in the last five years. He joins Jallow and also Jaime Aquino, who served as distinguished educator during the 2018-19 school year. Aquino is now superintendent of schools in San Antonio, Texas.
One of Alicea's main tasks will be guiding the district through reducing its workforce and physical footprint to match an ever-shrinking student enrollment. Despite Jallow's urging, RCSD has not closed a significant number of school buildings in the last two years, and Interim Superintendent Carmine Peluso said it likely would not do so in 2023-24, either.
Peluso said in a statement he welcomes Alicea to the district. Elliott said he could help the school board gain confidence in the inner-workings of the district's finance office, which has made repeated missteps over the last several years.
"There needs to be some transparency and the board needs to have effective oversight of our finances so we don’t have the debacle we had last year," Elliott said, referring to the initial district budget proposal that Jallow rejected.
"It doesn’t take away from what Dr. Jallow is doing," Elliott added. "The fact that we can have one person focusing on the finances and one person focusing on the academics makes us stronger moving forward."
It is not clear when Alicea will begin his work. According to the state, Rosa appointed Alicea Aug. 31. But Peluso said Wednesday he hadn't heard received any formal notification from NYSED about the new arrangement, and Alicea has not yet been seen at district headquarters. NYSED did not respond to clarify.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: RCSD gets additional fiscal oversight from state
