'An embarrassing night:' 4 key takeaways from this week's Brockton school deficit meetings

BROCKTON — Monday night, the Brockton School Committee faced the City Council for the first time since the announcement of the $14.4 million deficit in the Fiscal Year 2023 budget. Through the long, tense meeting, many city councilors grilled committee members about how the finances were handled.

"I have respect for all of you personally, but I think you dropped the ball," said Councilor-at-large Win Farwell.

The following evening, the School Committee gathered at Brockton High School for their regular meeting, with the frustration from the previous night at City Hall still brewing.

"It was an embarrassing night," said School Committee Member Tony Rodrigues. "You need to reassess how you address this body, that includes everybody on that City Council."

Here are four key takeaways from the two meetings:

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Ehlers: School Committee was assured budget would balance out

School Committee Vice-Chair Kathleen Ehlers told the City Council Monday that throughout the year, former Brockton Public Schools Chief Financial Officer Aldo Petronio's financial reports did show that the committee had overspent in various areas. However, Petronio assured the committee that by the end of the year, the budget would balance out as spending in those areas wouldn't continue increasing.

"That's the continuous commentary that was happening with each iteration of the budget book with every new date until we got the call that it was not budgeted," Ehlers said. "Until we got that call, we were all under the same impression that fiscal year '23 would be balanced."

Ehlers said that, historically, when the district's accounts review subcommittee held meetings, they would normally review invoices that had already been paid as opposed to upcoming invoices.

"It was always reviewing past invoices, nothing that was coming up," she said.

Budget reports were 'very hard to read'

Prior to Brockton Chief Financial Officer Troy Clarkson's overhauling the school district's financial operations, information on budget spending was hard to understand given how the information was laid out, Ehlers said.

"The way we received the information from Munis (the accounting software program) was not easily absorbed," Ehlers said. "It was very hard to read."

Multiple committee members said that over the course of that fiscal year, they weren't able to see in real time what percent of the budget had been spent at various points throughout the year.

"In the past six weeks we have done nothing but change the way we do business," Ehlers said.

Prior to the announcement of the deficit, multiple School Committee members and subcommittees requested information on how much of the budget was spent at the current date, but committee members said that report was never given to them.

"We've been asking for years," said committee member Joyce Asack.

Now, using the same software the district has used for a number of years, Clarkson's reports on fiscal year 2024 spending show in detail how much has been spent on line items from janitorial supplies to transportation costs. Information can be seen in real time on a daily or weekly basis and can be sorted by individual schools.

"We were told it couldn't be done," he said.

Those reports will be posted online by the school district every two weeks and will be available for the committee and members of the public to review regularly as this year progresses.

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Accounts review team has no meeting records

The accounts review subcommittee for the district met six times in the 2023 calendar year, according to subcommittee head Cynthia Rivas Mendes.

The subcommittee did not meet over the summer because the clerk for the subcommittee was laid off, and therefore could not schedule meetings.

Monday night, Farwell said he tried to look back at accounts review meeting minutes, but minutes and agendas weren't posted online and the committee confirmed those meetings were not recorded or televised.

State laws require public bodies, including school subcommittees, to post agendas and minutes publicly, and an agreement made by former, late Mayor Bill Carpenter states that these documents, along with all Brockton public bodies, should be posted in one central place on the city's official website.

"We haven't had an accounts review meeting but all of our regular school committee meetings since this news broke have been about finance and pretty much nothing else," Ehlers said Monday.

At Tuesday night's School Committee meeting, an accounts review subcommittee meeting was scheduled for Oct. 24.

A 'significant' number of people could spend budget cash

Last year, a "significant" number of school district personnel had access to the district's spending software, and were able, with the click of a button, to override the budget and overspend it for individual line items, Clarkson said.

If the district wishes to transfer money across the four main budget categories — including teacher salaries and ordinary maintenance — the committee would need to take a vote to approve the transfer. But, within those four categories, anyone with access to override capabilities could move money without a vote.

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"The accounting software that we use, Munis, I have come to learn that the city and the schools used it very differently," Clarkson said Monday. "The authority over at the schools was very dispersed, meaning who had permission to literally spend money. It was much more tightly controlled over at the city."

Clarkson said the number of employees who had override access "was extraordinary" and was unlike any other districts he had worked in.

Now, only Brockton's city auditor can override the school's budget items.

"Those types of tight controls are now in place on the school side so it's much more difficult to spend money than it was before," Clarkson said.

"Not even I have access to it because I don't need it," he said.

This article originally appeared on The Enterprise: Brockton schools budget deficit: No meeting records, loose controls