Schools Impose Purchase Freeze To Offset $200k SPED Deficit: Report

WOBURN, MA—Woburn Public School Officials have frozen new purchases district-wide to offset a $200,000 deficit.

According to a report by The Daily Times Chronicle, school officials imposed a district-wide freeze of new purchases to partially offset a deficit in special education accounts at the most recent School Committee Meeting.

Patrick Blais, who broke the story on The Daily Times Chronicle’s website reports.

During the most recent School Committee meeting in the Joyce Middle School, Finance Subcommittee Chairman Dr. John Wells attributed the shortfall to the loss of so-called circuit breaker funding, or state aid allocated to communities to partially cover the cost of transporting students with disabilities to outside institutions and educational programs.

Last spring, the School Committee accepted a proposal to balance the FY’16 budget by relying upon some somewhat risky assumptions about SPED spending, including holding out hope for an extra $100,000 influx of circuit breaker aid.

Presently, central office administrators are trying to determine whether the revenue gap can be made up through savings in other budget line-items. There is also the possibility that some pupils receiving extraordinary SPED services could end up moving to another community — which is somewhat common — so school officials are not quite ready to approach Mayor Scott Galvin for a supplemental appropriation.

Any such funding would require City Council approval.

“It’s not time for worrying about going to the council just yet. Students could come in or leave tomorrow, so there is some flexibility,” said Wells.

“Even if we don’t anticipate going to them, I think an informational update would be appropriate,” responded School Committee member Rick Metters, who asked Superintendent Mark Donovan to notify officials in City Hall about the issue.

According to financial data from the Mass. Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE), the school system will receive roughly $1.58 million million in circuit breaker money, but last spring, the School Committee plugged into its operating budget a much-more optimistic projection of $1.82 million.

To view Blais’ full report, click here.