WINTHROP — The recently discovered school budget shortfall probably won’t mean higher taxes for residents, interim Superintendent Becky Foley said this week.

Becky Foley File photo

Foley froze spending after two weeks on the job when she found a budget deficit, the result of school officials overestimating the amount of money the school district had left over from last year’s budget and underfunding staff salary and benefits.

In the past few weeks Foley has worked on the budgeting problems with Nick Poole, Winthrop’s finance director. She told the Winthrop School Board Wednesday night that they found $275,000 in unassigned money to put toward the shortfall, but an estimated budget deficit of $290,144 remains due to underfunding the salary and benefits.

With the unexpected money and frozen budget, Foley and Poole do not think the School Board will have to ask the town to allocate additional money.

“I’m hoping the budget freeze will solve this, but it depends on how the year progresses in unexpected costs, sublines, et cetera,” Foley said. “If we feel like it’s too close to call and we need additional funds, the next path forward is to move the unexpended $350,000 in the capital reserve back to the general fund to cover the shortfall.”

Foley said two weeks ago at a School Board meeting that the remaining money from last year’s budget to carry over as revenue for the current budget is $155,164. When added to the $275,000 Foley and Poole discovered was unassigned, it’s a revenue source of $430,164.

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Foley said what’s left is a deficit of $290,144 due to underfunding salaries and benefits, which they hope to make up by freezing any extra spending in the budget.

Foley said she will provide regular budget check-ins for the board, and Poole plans to give a forecast to the School Board in November on how he believes the budget will fare for the remainder of the year based on financials up to that point.

“The next steps are that the budget will remain frozen at this point and we will continue to review areas for potential savings,” Foley said. “Nick (Poole) and I will meet with each administrator to look for overages in their budgets. He feels confident we will get a fine-tuned prediction in November and the auditors arrive Monday to conduct the audit. And in January, we will decide how to move forward.”

The budget shortfall came as a surprise to former Superintendent Jim Hodgkin when Foley shared the news two weeks ago.

He said the budget was double-checked multiple times because it failed in front of the Winthrop Town Council.

If the School Board ultimately needs money to cover the budget shortfall, the issue would have to go before the Town Council and residents to approve moving money from the school’s capital reserve account to cover the deficit, Foley said. The money is already in the account and belongs to the school department, so it would not require the school district to ask taxpayers for additional money, she said.

A frozen budget affects teachers and students. Teachers can’t participate in paid professional development or paid workshop days, and spending for school supplies, books and field trips is on hold in an effort to close the budget shortfall entirely.

School Board member Catherine Emery said she recognizes the struggle it will bring to administrators and teachers and said it’s the board’s responsibility to handle.

“I want to acknowledge the situation we have with this budget,” Emery said. “It impacts teachers and staff and I want to offer my appreciation on the extra burden they carry and the impact that it has on the community, but also for the response and heart in which administration and staff are addressing these issues. I would like to say as a board member, that we are mindful of this.”

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