04/25/1991 FINANCE COMMITTEE Minutes

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The second column presents information provided on February 1, 1991, which lists the cuts which the School Committee reported as necessary if the School Budget was $5,150,000. You will note that it indicates that no new teachers would be hired and the series of personnel and programs to be eliminated or reduced has increased. The third column presents information provided on March 12, 1991, which lists the cuts which the School Committee reported as necessary if the School Budget was $5,050,000. You will note that it indicates that no new teachers would be hired and the series of personnel and programs which would be eliminated or reduced has increased even more. The fourth column presents the results of the budget accepted by the School Committee on March 22, 1991. This is based on a budget of $5,050,000, the same amount included in column three. You will note that it indicates that two new teachers will be hired and the list of personnel and programs to be eliminated or reduced is significantly less than previously reported. The Finance Committee fully expects that departments will make their best effort to maintain a maximum amount of financial support for their programs and in doing so will sometimes embellish their impact state- ments. But, in general , most make a good faith effort to provide a fair assessment of the impact on the operation of their departments. The Finance Committee, the Board of Selectmen and the Town Meeting need to be able to depend on our leaders to provide candid and forthright infor- mation. At this time, we must state that we are unsure about the credi- bility of information provided by the School Committee. There is information which suggests that the surplus is actually considerably more than that which has been reported. According to the information provided to the School Committee on March 22nd. . .through March 21st or approximately three-quarters of the fiscal year, the school department had expended $3,013,362 or 56% of the FY91 budget, for an average expenditure of 19% per quarter. Assuming that a higher percent of 26% (which is slightly higher than the expected norm) would be expended in the final quarter of the fiscal year, the total expenses would be $4,404,362. This leaves just under $1 million dollars un- expended. This unexpended balance tends to be verified by examining fourth quarter expenditures another way. The typical payroll for a three month period in FY91 is $865,108. When that amount is combined with the amount spent for supplies, materials and other expenses during the last three months of FY90 ($487,318) the total expenditures for the year should be $4,365,926. This leaves an un-expended balance of $984,212. Even allowing for additional payroll expenses for any person- nel who work beyond the 182 day schedule or have opted to receive their pay over a 52 rather than 40 week period, the unexpended balance will be 5