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Finance director reports FY25 close: district to return $454,000 to town after reclassification
Summary
Business manager Mike reported the district will return roughly $454,000 to the town after reclassifications and adjustments; major FY25 variances were due to salary vacancies, higher contracted services, and special-education tuition and transportation costs.
Marblehead’s business manager, identified as Mike in the meeting, told the School Committee on Sept. 18 that the preliminary close of fiscal year 2025 shows the district will return about $454,000 to the town. The figure reflects $240,819 reported earlier by the district plus $213,122 in reclassifications the town applied to certain expenditures.
Mike said salary lines were underspent by roughly $2.5 million because of vacancies and unfilled special-education positions late in the year; those positions were often filled with contract service providers, shifting costs from salary to contracted services. Contracted services ran about $1.0 million over budget (budgeted $2.3M; expended ~$3.3M). Major contracted-service overruns included facility maintenance projects (~$388,000) and special-education contract providers (~$296,000). Special-education out-of-district transportation was about $139,000 over budget and tuition lines were roughly $1.24 million over budget net (noting some prepayment timing adjustments).
Other variances: legal expenses were $328,000 over budget (contracted legal services), natural gas exceeded budget by about $54,000, while electricity came in about $240,000 under budget. The business manager said some FY25 numbers were adjusted by the town using ARPA funds and other reclassifications processed the day of the meeting and that final line items may change slightly as reclassification work continues.
The committee discussed reporting cadence and asked for monthly or quarterly budget reports. The business manager cautioned that conversion to Munis (the town financial system) means some reconciled reporting may not be available in identical form until early next year; he said some journal crosswalks and transfers are pending the town’s close of FY25 processing.
No policy action was taken Sept. 18. The committee asked the business manager to provide an updated FY25 reconciliation and a predictable monthly reporting schedule to the committee as Munis implementation stabilizes.
