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Committee questions warrants, requests Boys and Girls Club legal purchase orders and flags Munis and postage costs
Summary
During a detailed warrants review the committee asked for purchase orders and invoices for school legal work tied to the Boys and Girls Club, flagged postage spikes and Amazon procurement for schools, and reviewed high Munis/cloud implementation costs.
The Accounts Committee scrutinized warrants and purchase orders on May 7 and voted to request documentation on legal fees related to the Boys and Girls Club while flagging several operational spending issues.
A committee member said taxpayers were repeatedly billed for outside legal work related to a long-running Boys and Girls Club easement matter and moved that the auditor and CFO provide all FY26 purchase orders and invoices for legal counsel retained by the schools on that issue. The motion was seconded and the committee approved the request.
During the warrants review the auditor explained several apparent duplicates as legitimate splits between funds (for example, Core & Main LP charges split between sewer and water). Committee members raised concerns about year-to-date postage spending (about $221,390) and the prospect of higher U.S. Postal Service rates that could require larger postage requests in the FY27 budget. One councilor noted certified-mail charges and the rising first-class rate as contributors to the spike.
The committee also questioned the number and centralization of Amazon accounts used by the schools for purchases (infant CPR kits, nursing substitutes and other school supplies) and asked staff to centralize procurement to limit fragmented spending. Chartwells and Capital Waste Services were identified as school vendors for food service and school-trash collection, respectively, and the auditor was asked to confirm bid history and vendor selection.
Separately, the committee reviewed Munis-related line items tied to the city's migration to the cloud and implementation of new modules; year-to-date costs and training were flagged (Munis-related spend was discussed in the context of a roughly $1.289M year-to-date figure). The committee pressed staff to demonstrate how Munis' new modules will be used to improve grant, contract and utility billing management.
The committee also noted a purchase order for a new metal detector for Brockton High School and asked the police chief to confirm its deployment and usage policies.
Next steps: auditor and CFO to produce the requested legal purchase orders and invoices related to the Boys and Girls Club; staff to report back on Amazon procurement centralization, postage projections for FY27 and Munis implementation plans.
