School Committee Spills A Bit More Red Ink

On a night when the School Committee was honoring community service and saying farewell to colleagues, a sudden dark cloud arrived to rain red ink onto the night's festivities.

The School Committee will ask the Warrant Committee today, June 2, to encumber $67,000 into a reserve account to allow the school committee to close a growing expenditure gap by the end of the 2010 fiscal year, according to Dr. Gerry Missal, Belmont School's director of finance, administration and capital planning.

"It's embarrassing to me that after 10 years I'm going out needing to go to the Warrant Committee," said Missal, who is retiring this month after a decade serving in the Belmont school administration.

The request to set aside additional funds by the Warrant Committee for the schools comes two months after the committee provided $300,000 to the department to prevent layoffs and cutting of programs.

According to Missal's analysis, while salary projections have remained steady in the last stages of the third quarter, the Special Education budget saw big increases in transporting students, an account that is now  $117,000 over budget. Additionally, out-of-district tuitions are $60,000 greater than projected expenses for fiscal 2010.

Another fiscal hit came from regular transportation that was above 2010 projections by $63,000, due in large part to the needs of the Wellington School that was closed and its students sent to the High School.

And while there were savings such as those made from utility costs through April of $104,000, the total deficit currently sits at $67,000. 

One reason for the deficit can be attributed to a message the school committee received last year, said Anne Rittenburg, chairman of the school committee. When the fiscal 2010 budget was being created, the Warrant Committee instructed the school department "to be as tight as possible" with the anticipated expenses.

By keeping to strict budgetary controls, the budget "did not have any wiggle room," said Rittenburg, to anticipate the swings in costs especially in Special Education where expenses can rapidly increase with the introduction of a single child into the district.

Yet Missal told the committee that by asking for $67,000 is set-aside does not mean the school department will use the entire amount of the funds.

As the fiscal budget comes to an end on June 31, "we will begin to whittle down" the gap by seeking savings and transferring money from other areas to bridge the divide, said Missal.

Tuesday's meeting was also the time when educators and administrators were honored on the eve of their retirements.

Along with Missal, also retiring this school year is Debbie Alexander, the long-time principal of the Chenery Middle School who opened the new school in the 1990s. Christine St. George will be taking over that position August 1.

While saying good-bye earlier, the school department said hello to Tony DiCologero, who is taking over Missal's job beginning July 1 as director of business, finance and operations.

The Administrator of School Finance at the Stoneham Public Schools for the past three-and-a-half-years, DiCologero told Belmont Patch serving in Stoneham, which has experienced greater degree of cuts, has prepared him for handling financial and budget challenges in Belmont.

DiCologero, who has 17 years of budgeting and auditing experience under his belt, said the financial problems facing nearly all districts in this part of the state are quite similar, ones "that I have already worked through."