More Than 300 Vendors Owed Money By Burlington Public Schools

BURLINGTON, MA -- Roche Brothers, which closed its Burlington store in December, is still waiting for $336. The Boston Marriott is owed $2,416. Domenic Landscaping is owed $3,852, while Jake & Joe's, a restaurant in Woburn, is owed $297.

Those are just a handful of the more than 300 vendors still owed money by Burlington Public Schools on a list distributed at Tuesday night's school committee meeting. While much of the discussion on the $700,000 budget shortfall for the fiscal year ended June 30 has focused on salaries, severance payments and special education spending, the list of unpaid invoices is sizable.

The school committee discussed its warrant article for the September 22 town meeting this week, in which it will ask for $699,926.24 to cover the budget deficit. At Tuesday's meeting, members and Superintendent Eric Conti stressed that the overspending was a rare, one-time event and that the school department had taken precautions to make sure similar deficits did not occur in the future.

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 under-spends its budget. "This idea that we are constantly asking for money is not factual," he said.

"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."

But the list of vendors has the potential to raise more questions for a school system that has been questioned repeatedly about its financial oversight over the past twelve months. Earlier this year, a review of a music department account that went from a $40,000 surplus to a $5,000 deficit over the course of three years uncovered lavish spending at area restaurants. The report also found that there was no accounting for cash collected from students for field trips, money collected from students for parties, tee shirts other small items; and for some of the advertisements in programs that had been paid for in cash.

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).