Sound Off: Readers Respond To Burlington School Overspending

BURLINGTON, MA -- With Burlington Town Meeting facing a decision on either raising taxes or cutting the school system budget after the school year has started to cover overspending that created a school department deficit, Patch readers made it clear that someone needs to be held accountable. Estimates for the deficits, which has not been finalized, ranged from $880,000 to $1.7 million, and comes after a year when the school department's financial oversight was called into question.

Here's what Patch readers had to say after we first reported this story last week. The following comments were left on the Burlington Patch Facebook page:

• "WHY does Eric Conti still have a job? And is it true that Ways and Means didn't allow public commentary on this at their meeting last night??? The entire School Committee is a disgrace and should be voted out en masse." - Ann Steeves
• "Boy, if I ran my household like this I wouldn’t have a house, I expect." -- Kim Lawson
• "They should be forced to walk us through the deficit line by line, and no way should taxes be raised for this. There's plenty of new commercial property in town as well as additions and new homes going up which should be able to cover it via tax revenue." -- Frank Ursino
• "Here's an idea: hold people responsible, cut spending." -- Thomas Murray

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Patch file photo of Burlington School Superintendent Eric Conti.

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