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Committee approves $860,526.35 FY26 warrant; members press for invoice details and equipment-cost review
Summary
The Taunton School Committee approved FY25 and FY26 warrants (FY26: $860,526.35) and questioned line items including Chromebook charging lockers, a $5,845 boom-lift rental, Milhench Supply cleaning-machine purchases, Yondr lock-boxes, evacuation chairs, and software/textbook costs; the superintendent agreed to explore purchase-versus-rent and documentation requests for invoices such as Coaching4Change.
The Taunton School Committee approved the FY25 warrant of $20,084.18 and the FY26 warrant of $860,526.35 during its Oct. 1 meeting.
Committee members asked detailed questions about several vendor charges during discussion. Mrs. Chaves inquired about a Custom Computer Specialists invoice for Chromebook charging lockers installed in middle-school classrooms. Dr. DeMelo asked about an RS Rental invoice of $5,845 for a boom-lift rental at Taunton High School and suggested the district explore whether purchasing a lift would be more cost-effective or consider shared ownership with city departments. Mrs. Moynihan identified charges to Milhench Supply ($45,000) for districtwide cleaning machines, OneGoal ($30,000) for a high-school college- and career-prep curriculum, Imagine Learning LLC ($37,860.01) for math textbooks and software licenses, and Ethos Evacuation Strategies ($2,585) for evacuation chairs to assist from upper floors during emergencies. The Yondr Inc. invoice for $717.50 was discussed and Dr. DeMelo asked to be recorded as voting present on that line item.
In the Finance & Law subcommittee, Mrs. Moynihan reported the FY26 Special Education legal budget remains at $50,000 with $6,100 spent to date; committee members asked whether the current pace matches last year and were told a follow-up would be provided. The committee requested supporting documentation for a September Coaching4Change invoice and discussed adopting a standardized form for such vendor backup documentation.
The committee accepted the Finance & Law subcommittee recommendation and voted to approve the warrants; related follow-ups include staff research on purchase-versus-rent for equipment and returning additional invoice documentation to the committee.
