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School official: bimonthly reports, warrant approvals return as district moves to local control
Summary
A school department official told Holyoke’s Ordinance Committee June 5 that the district has reestablished several financial controls in preparation for formal return to local control on July 1, including bimonthly budget reports, school committee approval of the budget and warrants, and tighter procedures for donations and travel approvals.
Sean Mangano of the Holyoke School Department told the Ordinance Committee on June 5 that the district is putting financial procedures back in place ahead of a July 1 return to local control.
Mangano described a capacity-building plan the school committee has followed since the receivership transition began. He said the district now produces bimonthly budget reports for the school committee’s finance and operations subcommittee, refers budget transfers to that subcommittee for recommendation and brings transfers to the full committee for approval, and plans to present donations and gifts to the committee for formal acceptance beginning July 1.
“Starting July 1, we’ll be bringing those to the school committee for actual approval before they’re accepted,” Mangano said. He also said the school committee this year moved from voting to accept the budget to voting to adopt it, a step he described as taking financial control back to the committee.
Mangano said the school committee is again involved in approving warrants before they go to the city auditor and mayor, consistent with a committee policy that allows one member of the finance committee to sign off on warrants. He described internal staff changes and a finance office structure that includes three manager positions (accounting, grants and budget), two accounts-payable positions and two analyst positions that primarily support individual schools. He told the committee that those central-office positions are reflected in net school spending and are within net school spending except for transportation functions.
He also said the district and city are working toward one accounting system to reduce redundant work; Mangano called that a high priority and said implementing a single system is likely to take 12 to 18 months. Mangano estimated the district’s Munis license cost “about $100,000 a year.”
What happened next. Committee members asked follow-up questions about whether centralizing finance functions under a single city office made sense and whether legal or ordinance language should treat school financial activities in the same phase as other city finance items. The committee agreed to ask the law department and treasurer to reconcile school-related language in the draft ordinance.
Mangano’s presentation provided context for the ordinance debate and prompted committee members to request clearer draft language on how the schools and the proposed CAFO would cooperate.
Ending: The committee directed the law department to produce legal form of the ordinance with clarified school-department language for review next week.
