By THOMAS GRILLO
LYNN — Five months after the state threatened to withhold millions in school funds, the city is on the hook again as they face a spending shortfall, The Item has learned.
On Thursday, the Department of Education is expected to tell Mayor Judith Flanagan Kennedy that following a review of the city’s finances, school spending is off by about $826,000. As a result, the state may withhold that amount from Lynn’s $11 million monthly allocation of Chapter 70 school payments in June.
Peter Caron, Lynn’s chief financial officer, said the city is again working to get school spending back on track.
“It’s challenging,” he said. “We are trying to guess how much money we will spend on schools, but the state doesn’t do the accounting until six months after the fiscal year is over. It all goes back to the health insurance; we don’t know in May how much we will spend on it. It’s a crap shoot.”
Kennedy said she expects the school spending issue to be resolved, but she’s not sure how.
“Overall, net school spending has been a thorn in our side for a number of years,” she said. “When you increase the number of students in the schools by nearly 20 percent over the last six years, it causes problems on how to pay for it.”
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Lynn is the fifth largest district in the Bay State with more than 16,000 students.
“Until we can slow the increase in school population or look to possible federal assistance, we will not be able to meet the threshold spending for the foreseeable future,” she said.
The city’s finances came into focus last year when the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education told the mayor that the city’s contribution to school funding was short by $7.5 million and the state threatened to withhold its $11 million November payment in school funds until City Hall came up with more cash.
Since then, the school deficit has been reduced to less than $1 million and the state money was released to the city.
John J. Sullivan, DOE’s associate commissioner, declined to comment until the letter is issued to the mayor.
Thomas Grillo can be reached at [email protected].
