What? No mention of the over $8 million the city has taken away from the schools by failing to meet its net school spending obligation for years and then begging the state for a bailout? If I am not mistaken, I do believe the city owed the schools over $17 million, but according to some, has cut a deal with the state to only have to pay about half that.
I know that the state accepted the terms of reimbursement for not only Lynn but other communities like Haverhill and Northhampton as well and the reason why it was reduced from $17M to $9.5M is because it begins the repayment in the Fiscal year '14, not '12 due to the fact the city was not properly notified of the error until that time. That is the genesis of the reduction from $17M to $9.5M.
ReplyDeleteThank you again BRIAN for being the only one attempting to provide answers.
DeleteDon't you just love the ENGLISH language. See someone from the STATE may have accepted the terms of reimbursement but it looks like that someone wasn't from the DESE.
DeleteIt sounds like the hope is the DESE will only hold the city accountable for incorrectly including retired teacher health costs toward NSS from FY14 (which I believe is when the audit took place that discovered the city's error) and beyond. As we know, the city was incorrectly including these costs for many years and is lucky the DESE is not going to hold them accountable (most likely due to the fact that the department failed to check and/or catch the error until the audit which was a huge mistake on their part). I understand the importance of the city not being held financially accountable for their mistake. The city could never afford to pay all that money and the fallout would be devastating. However, that does not change the fact that the schools were entitled to and should have received MILLIONS more money over the years from the city and did not because of the city's failure to follow the state requirements regarding NSS. This is a huge loss to the schools and students who attend them. Imagine how much the schools and students could have benefited from all that money! Perhaps the schools, classrooms and overall student performance would not be in the state they currently are had the schools received the MILLIONS they were owed.
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