Michael Piffling, assistant superintendent of operations and finance for Marblehead Public Schools, told the joint Budget Subcommittee and FinCom Schools Budget Liaison Committee that the district will return $466,000 to the town from its FY25 accounts.

Piffling said the transfers that produced the return included recoding some December 2024 purchases to ARPA funding, which reduced the FY25 general-fund spend. "As of right now, we are returning $466,000 to the town," he said.

The return was the lead item in a broader status update on school finances. Piffling also reported the district currently shows an uncommitted balance of roughly $2,800,000 in the FY26 budget, but cautioned that figure is affected by accounting choices and by a large prepayment of special-education tuition. "We did prepay a million in special-education tuitions," he said, and that prepayment reduces the year-to-date uncommitted amount compared with a scenario in which the district had not prepaid tuition.

Why it matters: district officials said special-education tuition and transportation have become major and volatile cost drivers for the district. The committee heard multiple explanations for that volatility: tuition rate increases at receiving programs, students placed out of district whose needs change during the year, and the state reimbursement program commonly called the "circuit breaker," which reimburses only a portion of eligible costs and whose annual funding level is set by the state.

Committee members and staff walked through how revolving accounts, grants and accounting software conversions affect reported balances. Piffling described ongoing work to reconcile revolving funds and to crosswalk legacy software accounts into Munis, the town's financial system, saying the conversion has made some year-to-year comparisons messy until account coding is aligned.

Members pressed for clear data showing year-to-year actuals by category. In response, Piffling and other staff agreed to provide budget-to-actual reports, salary-category breakouts and a one-year and multi-year summary of out-of-district tuition and transportation costs, including what was prepaid and what would be covered by state reimbursement programs. "I would love if you could just for one year put it together, like a three-year actual — every expense paid for that and then why the general fund budget this year makes sense," a committee member said.

The meeting also covered how the district uses circuit-breaker and IDEA funds against the local tuition and transportation budgets. Staff described circuit-breaker reimbursements as a partial offset that depends on statewide claims each year. "We file a claim in July," Piffling said; if claims across the state exceed projections the reimbursement percentage can fall below prior years, meaning the district's net cost could rise.

Committee members emphasized the need to document prepayments and financing assumptions in the FY27 budget narrative so voters and town finance officials can see the district's reasoning. No formal votes were taken during the session.

Ending: Staff committed to share the FY25 closeout report and to produce the requested budget-to-actual and out-of-district tuition summaries ahead of the next budget-workshop meetings so the committee and FinCom can review staffing and program-level allocations for FY27 planning.