The Bedford School Committee will request the Finance Committee to approve a $590,000 transfer from the reserve fund to cover a fiscal 2024 budget shortfall.
The Finance Committee is scheduled to meet on July 11 and consider this request as well as reserve fund transfer requests from other town departments. The reserve fund totals a little more than $1 million, including $500,000 transferred from free cash by the June 11 Special Town Meeting in anticipation of the significant education deficit.
Superintendent of Schools Cliff Chuang told the School Committee at a 30-minute virtual meeting on June 27 that the request includes about $100,000 in spending on transporting children who lived in an emergency shelter to their school “district of origin” as required under federal law. Between 88 and 100 percent of that amount will be reimbursed by the state, Chuang said, but not until next fiscal year. School Finance Director Julie Kirrane said, “we didn’t capture this earlier because we thought we were going to get reimbursed this year.”
The remaining $480,000 stems from overruns in out-of-district special-education tuition and transportation costs for students with special learning needs. Chuang said he added $10,000 more as a buffer.
An additional $1 million dollar deficit attributed to special-education related costs was covered by a state circuit-breaker reimbursement earlier this year.
Also at the meeting, the School Committee ratified a new three-year contract with education support professionals. That agreement was approved by the Bedford Education Association on June 17.
Still not settled is a contract between the School Committee and the teachers; the most recent agreement expired on June 30. The district plans to invite a mediator from the state Labor Relations Department. The union, which has said it will suspend negotiations for the summer, prefers to continue without mediation.
Chuang told the committee that he has reached an agreement with school food-service workers, and is awaiting their ratification. He added that talks have started with school nurses, but the primary provisions of their contract are tied to the terms of the teacher contract.
The School Committee also approved a cost of living adjustment for fiscal 2025 for employees who are not aligned with a collective bargaining unit. That amount is $95,000, representing a 3 percent increase for almost all employees, he said.
Chuang said that as the fiscal year drew to a close, staff “identified some additional corrections,” but they were offset by other increases, so there was no net impact on the request. He noted that the original fiscal 2024 budget had included a $150,000 reserve fund transfer.
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