The results are out from the investigation surrounding the $3.4 million budget shortfall for the Manatee County School District for Fiscal Year 2011 and 2012.

Thursday night, the public and the Manatee County School Board had the chance to ask the forensic auditors questions about its findings into how the school district found itself in the red.

After the questions and comments, the school board made the decision to learn from this lesson and move on.

"I have gone through the whole 16,000 page documents,” said Linda Schaich, a concerned Manatee County resident.  “I've made a notebook on my notes and I did find some things I wanted to question."

The public was given the opportunity to ask the auditors about their findings about the flawed budget methodology and lack of follow-up and wanting to know its affect on this year’s budget.

"Did you actually come up with some idea of what this budget 2012 2013 might be over or under?" asked another resident.

Others had questions about the teacher to student ratio and its affect on the budget.

"When was the decision made to lower the class size?" asked another resident.

When all of the when all of the questions were over, the chair of the school board said she was satisfied with the findings and ready to move on

"It was spent on teachers,’ said Karen Carpenter, the chair of the Manatee County school board.  “It was spent on books. It was spent on things related to children and learning, so it just wasn't budgeted."

She also says she’s ready to move on with the auditor’s recommendations, including a real-time database to more accurately prepare the budget, additional staff to oversee the budget, financial reports made to the board on a more frequent basis, and develop written policies and procedures when creating the annual budget.

"We need to be more watchful and ask for more reports,” said Carpenter.  “Be realistic about funding the department that needs the right kinds of people there and have the right people on the bus with us."

It was on Wednesday night that the board voted to select a new superintendent.  Many are hoping he will bring the district back to financial stability.

The school board plans to meet again on Monday to discuss the new superintendent’s salary and contract.