Marion Finance Committee asks for more budget information

Feb 27, 2020

MARION — Tensions were high between Marion Finance Committee members and School Committee members, as Old Rochester Regional School District Superintendent Doug White presented the Sippican School budget on Feb. 26, and took questions from the committee, who wanted more data for a different type of analysis.

Town Administrator Jay McGrail said his work with the school over the last year has been good, as the school listened to a town request to keep growth at 2% and came pretty close to that, with a 1.5% budget increase.

In July, the Finance Committee announced its intention to look more closely at school expenditures and Chair Peter Winters seemed disappointed that the school did not provide numbers to allow that. 

He thought that the net budget that was presented, which excludes costs that are covered by state grants, “doesn’t give an accurate reflection of what the costs are,” for the school, adding that he "didn’t want the net numbers, I wanted all of the numbers.”

Fellow committee member Charles Larkin helped explain more of the committee's reasoning. 

“We’re way behind you guys and trying to catch up,” Larkin said, adding that the committee hopes to “do some line-item analysis to see what went up with the expenses.” 

However, a net budget is important to one other person: Finance Director Judy Mooney.

“I get what you want to do, but I need to know the bottom line — what we’re putting on taxpayers,” she said.

Lincoln Lynch, who is serving as Interim Finance Director for the district on a part-time basis, said it “would be inaccurate if the town asked taxpayers for more than what was needed.”

Selectmen also attended the meeting, and their member Norm Hills asked while discussing the special education budget how many of the students were beyond high school age, since the district’s program runs through age 22. 

School administrators said it is difficult to say to protect the privacy of those involved, but that there are 15 to 20 students of that age for the Tri-Town. They pointed out that taking on the special education costs themselves rather than sending students out of district was much cheaper. 

Selectman John Waterman asked if state officials had any influence on the budget process or whether it was all done by formula. He wanted to know if a call to a representative would be useful. But school officials said costs were mostly done by formula. 

Sippican School Principal Marla Sirois made a case for hiring a slightly less than 20 hour social worker, saying they were quite different from a behavioralist. They fulfill roles that would be inappropriate for a principal, including visits with the Department of Child and Family Services, and counseling.