The Portland Public Schools Board of Education on 2025-11-04 approved a contract extension with consultant Barry Dunn to continue reviewing historical Maine Public Employees Retirement System records for district employees, with the district asking for about $370,000 to fund the work through the remainder of the fiscal year.

The contract follows an initial engagement last year valued at about $500,000 that funded setup and analysis of reporting errors identified during payroll reconciliations for the 2022–23 school year. Superintendent said the new contract includes a requirement that Barry Dunn review 100 employee accounts per week — roughly 5,200 accounts per year — to accelerate corrections that affect service credit and reported earnings.

"The ask in this contract is for about $370,000," the Superintendent said, explaining that the additional funds are budgeted and intended to fund review and correction work from 1996 through 2023. The superintendent emphasized that the issue is one of attribution and reporting; the funds for retirement benefits were not missing from MainePERS accounts, but some records needed correction so employees receive accurate credits when they retire.

Board members questioned the pace of work, previous spending and whether the district had options to add contractual penalties or use different vendors. Board member Bridal asked, "Did we pay Barry Dunn $500,000 to get through 400?" The Superintendent replied that the earlier funding paid for initial analysis, tooling and an approach that makes subsequent reviews more scalable, and that the principal bottleneck is MainePERS' capacity and antiquated software rather than the consultant's work.

Staff said about 10,000 people worked for the district between April 1996 and December 2023, that roughly 400 employees have completed a full review and corrections process, and another 250 had been reviewed by Barry Dunn but were still awaiting processing by MainePERS. The board was told MainePERS has prioritized retirees and people close to retirement but has committed to processing monthly going forward; the historical backlog remains the primary workload.

By roll call, the board voted to approve the contract for the remainder of the fiscal year. Chair Lentz announced the motion passed.

Votes at a glance: the board approved the October 28, 2025 meeting minutes earlier in the meeting; it approved the Barry Dunn contract by unanimous roll-call vote; and later voted unanimously to move into executive session to discuss pending labor negotiations.

The board and district staff said they would return with a request in June to align any further contract work with the next fiscal year.