Report Raises New Questions About Burlington School Finances

BURLINGTON, MA -- Burlington Public Schools held budgets for substitute teachers and tutors level in Fiscal 2018, even though the district over spent those budgets by hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2016 and 2017, according to a new report from the town's Ways & Means Committee. The report concludes those budgeting misstep, combined with two settlements for fired employees, led to a $1.7 million budget deficit that was not publicly disclosed until after the fiscal year had closed.

Town meeting approved $700,000 in September to help the school district balance its budget. As previously reported, the school district paid $172,000 to former special education director Louise D'Amato and $127,000 to former high school teacher Peter Nassif after they were terminated.

"If the tutor and substitute accounts were budgeted based on previous years’ actual expenditures, the deficit could have been reduced by $596K," the report said. "The logic underlying several of the FY18 budget accounts (e.g. tutors, substitutes) is difficult to understand and led to substantially under-budgeted expenses. It appears that historically inaccurate numbers were repeated."

For example, the school department budgeted $407,290 for substitute teachers in 2016 but ended up spending $665,239. In 2017, the substitute budget was $415,436 and the district ended up spending $644,795. Yet in 2018, the district only budgeted $423,736 and ended up spending $670,322.

The problem was magnified with the retirement of former school finance director Craig Robinson and the appointment of new finance director Robert Cunha. Robinson retired on June 30, 2017; Cunha and current budget manager Nichole Coscia started the next day. The report recommends trying to make sure there is an overlap whenever possible when new finance directors are hired.

"Because of the lack of overlap, most of the institutional knowledge in the budget office was lost. In particular, historical knowledge allowed the past budget manager to predict likely expenses that might show up," the report said. "Across the board, the host of assumptions of how budget numbers were derived, and how things ‘typically go’ was lost. This lack of information led to faulty expense forecasting."

The report made several recommendations, including monthly reports from the school department to the school committee updating actual expenses against the forecasts in the budget. The report also recommends backup materials and three-year spending histories when presenting future budgets that utilize spending projections.

In August, Superintendent Eric Conti told the school committee the overspending would not happen again, thanks to new procedures put into place. Town Meeting took money from the town's stabilization fund to cover the overspending.

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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).