Special Education school budget reduced by $23,000
By Ken Powers Community Reporter

Westborough - The Department of Education (DOE) reduced the Westborough School District's 2007 reimbursement claims for extraordinary Special Education costs by $23,146, Superintendent Anne Towle announced at the School Committee's Dec. 5 meeting.

The DOE's finding came during a routine audit of the department's circuit breaker account, Towle said.

"The audits are a matter of course," Towle said. "In fact, we were an active part of the audit. That's one of the options that state allows. You can have an active part in the audit and sit with them and go through the records, line by line, or you can just turn everything over to them, have them do it and get back to you. We chose to have an active part in the audit because we feel it keeps any possible confusion about why we did what we did at a minimum."

Towle said the findings were not surprising.

"It was really two very minor issues," Towle said. "Basically we put in for reimbursement for a summer program for a student that ended up not being taken, and for some transportation reimbursement for a student that ended up not needing the transportation that was going to be provided."

The school district has the right to appeal the audit findings, but Towle informed the School Committee that the School Department has no plans to do so.

Towle said the circuit breaker reimbursement program is set up to help reimburse communities for the often prohibitive costs of Special Education that, by need, has to occur out of district.

"The cost of out-of-district education for a student, depending on their needs, can be anywhere from $26,000 to $235,000 a year," Towle said. "As a district, we're responsible for the first $32,000 per child per year. After that, the state off ers reimbursement."

Towle said the school district's circuit breaker claims last year totaled more than $800,000, meaning the reduction was roughly 2 percent of the total claims submitted.

When the circuit breaker was created, Towle said, reimbursement was scheduled to be at 100 percent. Because of the number of claims statewide, the DOE reimburses circuit breaker claims at about 73 percent.

Other business

Other news at the Dec. 3 meeting included a letter from Westborough Town Coordinator Henry Danis requesting that, in light of the expected bleak economic forecast, the fiscal year 2009 budget be funded for the same level of services as now provided.

While Towle said the School Department and school district will do their best to comply with Danis's request, she noted that having the budget numbers come in at the current levels isn't an option.

"There are at least three factors that will prevent that from happening," Towle said. "We're still negotiating the teacher contract, so we don't know what increase there will be in that area, and we're scheduled to go out to bid on both the transportation and energy cost contracts.

"Those are some big-ticket items and, really, unknown costs," Towle said. "That's a bad combination."

Towle said the school district has been locked in to costs on both the transportation and energy cost contracts for about four years. While the rates the district is paying for both at this time are favorable to the district, she believes the new contracts that have to be entered into for both by the end of April 2008 will include a market correction.