Committee wrangles over end-of-year spending

Marlborough - Following an animated finance subcommittee meeting, the School Committee approved several transfers and agreed to spend some of its fiscal year 2009 (FY 2009) budget on expenses that built up during the tight-fisted months leading up to June 30.

   The debate arose from a disagreement over whether the money to be spent was for material and supplies to be used in the budget year that began July 1 or to resupply materials that were not purchased during a “soft” freeze on spending during the 2008-2009 school year, which allowed spending only on essentials.

    Mayor and Committee Chair Nancy Stevens asked City Auditor Diane Smith to answer questions about the spending.

    “These are [FY 2009] funds and [if] these are purchases you didn’t make because of the freeze, you can purchase them,” Smith said. “It’s got to be something that is purchased by [June 30] as well.”

    Kathleen Robey, finance subcommittee chair, had voted in committee against a $60,000 transfer to make media and technology purchases.

    “My understanding is we are not replenishing, we are stocking up,” Robey said. “If we’ve already budgeted for [FY10], why do we need to expend leftover [FY09] money?”

    Replenishing supplies that were not purchased because of the freeze were acceptable, Stevens said.

    “It’s not replenishment because the students are gone,” Robey said. “What we need is to be sure we have sufficient supplies when the students walk in the door.”

    Stevens said that end-of-year expenditures were often made because of scheduling.

    “We do a lot of things at the end of the year because when the school is closed down for the summer is when we do the [software] updates,” Stevens said. “Those are perfectly acceptable expenditures.”

    In the preceding finance subcommittee meeting, committee members Mary Ann Dwyer and Katherine Hennessey expressed concern that the schools were making more severe cuts than other city departments.

    “The School Department has done its fair share in meeting the demands facing the city at this time in these tough times,” Dwyer said. “I support the district exercising its authority to access these materials.”

    The School Department has eliminated 14 teaching positions and 12 para-educator jobs for FY 2010, at a savings of $821,000, said Assistant Superintendent James Jolicoeur said after the meeting. The $48 million budget FY 2010 budget is 2.2 percent lower than the FY 2009 budget, he said.

    “The School Department took some pretty dramatic decreases or reductions in staff,” Jolicoeur said. “We have 26 [full-time equivalents] that we are reducing our staff by, whereas there wasn’t as dramatic a reduction in other city rosters.”

    During the city’s fiscal difficulties, the School Department did reduce spending, he said.

    “What it boils down to is that based upon the fiscal challenges that we’ve had all year as a city, we were put on what mayor termed a soft freeze for about the last six months or so,” Jolicoeur said. “We were only spending on the essential things that we needed. By no means were we not providing the schools and teachers what they needed, but we slowed down our spending.”

    As a result, at the end of the year, the department has money to complete some spending requirements and some to return to the city, as requested.

    “We usually don’t have this problem because we have the ability to expend money during the course of the year,” Jolicoeur said. “It’s only because of the freeze that we have this situation at all.”

    In January, Jolicoeur, at the request of the city, submitted projections on what money might be available at the end of the school year to go back into city coffers.

    “We said that we could potentially return up to $284,448,” he said. “I made sure that the finance team understood that there could be potential for extraordinary expense before the year end.”

    Jolicoeur said he could not give exact numbers on how much money was still to be spent and how much would go back to the city until all the bills came in and were paid.