Marblehead schools close $121G budget deficit

MARBLEHEAD – Marblehead school officials are closing out last year?s $28.4 million school budget, but they had to shift $121,000 from this year?s accounts to balance the books. Interim School Business Manager Kevin Meagher has been working on the numbers for Fiscal 2011 since July 19, his first day on the job.The $121,000 shortfall came from small deficits in unemployment and custodian overtime and a large one in utility costs, he said.?We?re trying to go out to bid and lock in lower utility rates in case there?s a spike in those areas later in the year,” Meagher said Monday.Meagher told the School Committee Thursday that $91,210 of the amount needed to close the deficit came from state circuit breaker aid for special education costs.The town expected 43 percent state reimbursement or $243,805, but instead is now supposed to receive $334,015, a $91,210 increase.The remaining $30,000 came from a federal Education Jobs grant and Meagher said he will have to replace that with money from another budget line.He will also be looking for the $44,000 needed to pay the schools? half of a security camera purchase funded in part by a Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) grant.In addition to the news on the budget, Director of Pupil Personnel Services Robert Bellucci announced that the Fiscal 2012 budget estimated the revenue from out-of-town special education tuition at $90,000, but the school district is actually supposed to now receive $260,000 in tuition, an increase of $170,000.Bellucci said the in-house special education programs, which Marblehead established so that special education students can be educated in their own community, showed a 66 percent student increase this year.?This is due to great work by all the special education teachers,” he said.