The Windham School Board announced on Wednesday, July 20 that they may have a budget surplus of close to $1 million dollars as they close the books on the budget of 2004-2005. This has raised many questions from the Town Council and concerned residents.
“I’ve been watching the school board meeting the other night and apparently there’s a surplus from the year before of $980,000,” Tom Gleason of Cook Road said during council meeting on Tuesday, July 26. “I’d like to know where that money came from and why that wasn’t brought up before.”
During the same meeting, former Town Councilor Gordon Browne asked that the Town Council to investigate the mysterious surplus and give the money back to the Windham taxpayers.
“If there is an additional $1 million dollars, that belongs to the taxpayers, that belongs to your fellow citizens,” Browne said.
It is unclear what the exact figure for the surplus is or where the surplus came from. The surplus is not surprising to School Board Chairman Michael Duffy who said that every year the school budget has a carryover. He said that the extra money could be the result of additional state funding received for the Manchester School.
At the July 26 meeting, Councilor David Tobin said that he had notified the School Board of a potential surplus during the budget process of 2004-2005 and advised the board to restore all cuts that had been proposed earlier. At the time however, it was assumed that Tobin’s math was wrong.
“There needs to be an explanation if that money wasn’t needed because I’m hopping mad about it,” Councilor Elizabeth Wisecup said at the July 26 meeting.
At this Tuesday’s meeting, Town Manager Anthony Plante met with Superintendent Sandy Prince and Vice Superintendent Donn Davis to discuss the issue. They told him, Plante said, that the surplus may have come from state renovation funds, increased revenue and areas of the budget where there were “underexpenditures” such as health insurance costs.
Prince asserted that the surplus is a carryover from not one but two years, with much of it already designated for certain projects. He gave a rough figure of $400,000 that may be undesignated surplus.
Auditors will be going over the school budget next week, but it may be months before the numbers are finalized. Regardless of the final figure, the school administration and the School Board must now decide whether to designate the surplus for capital improvements and repairs to Windham schools or to leave it undesignated. If the surplus were left undesignated, state law requires that a portion of the surplus be return to the taxpayers.
“With an increase in fund balance, they are now have to look at how to treat it,” Plante said.
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