Brookline releases CLA deficit review as town and schools plan next steps

Brookline on Tuesday released an eight-week deficit review by CliftonLarsonAllen (CLA) that mapped operational findings to the school department’s overspending and recommended both short-term operational fixes and longer-term structural work.

The report, commissioned by the Select Board after concerns surfaced about the school department’s fiscal position, examined how the schools’ FY26 funding request came to be roughly $8.2 million above projected revenues and why FY25 spending appeared out of alignment with allocations.

Town Administrator (speaker identified in the meeting as Town Administrator) told the Select Board that CLA made 11 findings and that the school department and town staff gave CLA full access to records and participated in interviews. “Policies and procedures are only worthwhile if they're being followed and enforced,” the Town Administrator said, summarizing a central CLA finding that stronger enforcement and clearer consequences are needed when procedures aren’t followed.

Nut graf: The report found a mix of operational gaps — such as coordination problems across departments, instances of near-misses on grant compliance, and weaknesses in internal controls — and a larger structural gap between school expenditure growth and the town’s revenue outlook. CLA recommended fixes that include clarifying roles, an HR review, and tighter budget controls alongside broader community discussion about revenues and spending priorities.

Most important findings and immediate steps The Town Administrator said some of CLA’s recommendations are already being implemented. Staff are working to strengthen policies and enforcement, address special-education cost management, and perform the human resources review the report recommends. CLA also documented examples where staff limited communications to familiar colleagues and where the finance director was not consistently included in budget preparation meetings, both of which the report flagged as risks to sound oversight.

Public comments and readouts Residents who spoke in public comment urged a “blameless” approach to the review so the town can fix systems rather than blame individuals. Michael McGraw Herdag, who described his professional experience reviewing postmortems, urged the Select Board and town staff to use the report to fix structural process problems rather than focus on personnel.

Longer-term work The Town Administrator and board members said the underlying fiscal gap is not solely procedural: school expenditure pressure continues to outpace projected revenues. The Select Board said the issue will move to the Town–School Partnership and to the Expenditures and Revenues Study Committee for months-long work on cost points, revenue options and potential memoranda of agreement. The Select Board also noted that Moody’s recently reaffirmed Brookline’s municipal rating with a stable outlook; the Town Administrator said the board’s quick commissioning of the CLA review likely factored positively into that rating confirmation.

What the board voted No formal budget action was taken at this meeting on the school budget itself; the Select Board and town staff framed the CLA report as the basis for further discussion and recommended next steps to the Town–School Partnership and other bodies.

Ending Town leaders said they will present CLA’s full report at the upcoming Town–School Partnership meeting and will circulate implementation schedules for the immediate operational recommendations. The board emphasized that, beyond fixes to policies and procedures, the community must weigh revenue options and spending priorities to address the structural gap identified in the review.