Mount Greylock Finds Athletic Account In The Red
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According to Jennifer Coscia, finance director of schools, the account has a deficit of $11,688 caused by years of misreading the account. When budgeting and spending allocated money, officials have been looking at a cash balance instead of a fund balance. Those cash balances were supposed to replace the fund balance but were spent instead.
"The money was never there. This issue went back several years," Coscia said at a finance subcommittee meeting on Tuesday. "We have to cover that negative."
It was first discovered by an audit two years ago and new procedures were put in place to correct it, but the account again turned up negative in last year's audit. Auditor Gregory Winters, from Scanlon & Associates, could not explain the gap. Coscia investigated on her own and found the problem.
Coscia can not approve any expenses without funding, so the finance subcommittee will recommend allocating about $35,000 from other budget lines. The $35,000 will cover the deficit and fund sports for the rest of the year.
The committee discussed separating allocations for spring and winter athletics so it could gain more detail on the rest of the year's expenses and try to find places to trim. Athletic Director Lindsey von Holtz created an estimated budget for the remainder of the year and expects $11,000 in revenue with $23,000 in expenses, said Coscia. The revenue will be used to replace what the School Committee allocates to fill the deficit.
"We need to have greater clarity of these numbers," said School Committee member David Langston, who is not part of the subcommittee but who attended Tuesday's meeting. "I fully support take all the fees and ticket revenue and putting it in an escrow account but I don't want to fund $23,000 without finding ways to reduce it."
Funding sports for the rest of the year will come from other budget lines that have become overages, such as the audit being $1,600 cheaper than budgeted, Coscia said. She reported that multiple lines have shown overages this year.
"It'll be a one-time hit of about $35,000 to cover the rest of the year," Coscia said.
The subcommittee also began keeping an eye on the financial needs to either renovate or build a new school. Though a building committee is formed that will handle the details, Heather Williams, subcommittee member, said the group wanted to get a head start on comparing the cost difference of renovation versus rebuilding.
The aging school is in needs of multiple upgrades including ventilation and sprinkler systems. The School Committee had previously begun working on the needed renovations when it was interrupted last year with emergency projects of the roof and boiler systems.
The school will update its statement of interest submitted to the state School Building Authority and use that as its basis for continuing analysis on the needed repairs. That statement prioritizes the upgrades and the committee discussed creating a five-year plan and using a stabilization fund for the repairs.
According to School Committee Chairman Robert Ericson, the last estimates showed only a 10 percent difference in the cost of a new building and completing all the needed upgrades.
"Now is not the time to ask the towns to contribute but we should start now and figure out what the towns would need to contribute when it comes time," Williams said.
The subcommittee is one of many recently formed by the School Committee in an attempt to keep lengthy discussions out of the monthly meeting.
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