SAUGUS — The Saugus School Department needs to work on the wording of an article it sponsored regarding turning surplus money over to next year’s budget, but chairman Vincent Serino is optimistic it’ll get the measure approved.
The article was one of three taken up by the Finance Committee Wednesday night in a meeting at Town Hall, and it was the only one that was not approved, in its presented form, by the board. The other two, pertaining to money for the PEG Enterprise Fund; and a multi-faceted budget item, were given their approval by the FinComm. However, Article 28, which essentially asks that any money that the school department has left over at the end of the fiscal year, be carried over to the next year, pending approval by the Board of Selectmen.
However, as FinComm Chair Kenneth DePatto noted, the only body in Saugus authorized to approve that kind of an arrangement is the Town Meeting.
“We need the money,” said Serino. “There are special education expenses that we just don’t see. Kids move into the district (during the year) and it costs a lot of money. And rightfully so.”
“So what we wanted to do was set up a fund, if there’s any money left over, so that we can carry it over. Right now, we don’t have any funds,” Serino said.
However, he conceded that DePatto is correct.
“It can’t be voted on by the selectmen,” he said. “When you look at it, we’d still like to do it. We can change the wording a little bit to make it so it fits into everyone’s agenda. We’ll go back and revisit it.”
Consequently, the FinComm unanimously rejected the article as it was presented.
“They were right to do that,” Serino said. “It’s Town Meeting that holds the purse strings. If we want to use the money, we need to go to them. The way I see it, they voted no. We can fix it. We appreciated them listening to us.”
At the same time, said Serino, It was upsetting to get this far and then have to go back and start over.
“We were more upset because we are trying to get what we need with the schools to get them where we need them to be,” he said.
Serino stressed that the department was not asking for additional tax money to help defray costs, but that any money left over — and that’s not a lot, said School Department chair Erin McMahon — be put to next year’s budget.
Coincidentally, the PEG article asked the opposite — that any money left over at the end of the year be able to be spent within that fiscal year rather than be carried over.