Burlington Schools Will Ask Town Meeting For $700,000

BURLINGTON, MA -- Burlington Public Schools Superintendent Eric Conti reiterated earlier claims at Tuesday night's school committee meeting that school system overspending in the fiscal year ended June 30 was unlikely to happen again, thanks to new financial protocols put into place. The committee considered a warrant article for this month's town meeting, in which the school system will ask for $699,926.24 to cover the budget deficit.

In presenting the warrant article to the committee, Conti noted that the district has not asked for money beyond its allocation in at least five years and, in some years, has returned "significant dollars' to the town when it underspends its budget. "This idea that we are constantly asking for money is not factual," he said.

Conti was unable to give a complete overview of staffing costs for the current year, as the school district is still hiring. He expected to have an update at the committee's October meeting but said the new budgetary procedures should help keep salaries in check this year. Payroll, including increased substitute teacher costs and severance payouts to employees that resigned contributed to the overspending.

School Committee member Martha Simon recommended that all of the backing information showing how the school system overspent Conti presented Tuesday be posted publicly on the school department's Website. That is likely to happen before an informational meeting on Thursday. "Hopefully town meeting will understand this is an unusual situation....that none of us on this committee ever want to see happen again," said School Committee member Stephen A. Nelson. "I'm very optimistic Town Meeting will support this request once they see the backup documentation."

Last month, Conti told the school committee the overspending would not happen again, thanks to new procedures put into place. Part of the overspending was attributed to severance agreements with faculty members that were asked to resign.

Town Meeting will be asked to take money from the town's stabilization fund to cover the overspending. An August 8 memo from Burlington Town Accountant Paul Sagarino to the Burlington Town Meeting members and the ways and means committee laid out options for covering a deficit the Burlington Public School System disclosed last month.

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Dave Copeland can be reached at dave.copeland@patch.com or by calling 617-433-7851. Follow him on Twitter (@CopeWrites) and Facebook (/copewrites).