Schools Freeze Discretionary Spending
The schools have now put a freeze on all nonessential spending, in an effort to keep from going into the red for this current year’s budget, School Superintendent Tom Jefferson told the school board Monday night.
“We have concerns over the utilities,” which will likely run over-budget, Jefferson warned. He is still unsure how much extra money will be required to pay for heat and electricity, but decided it would be prudent to curtail discretionary spending for the time being. This is not an unusual action for the schools; in fact, Jefferson told the board that every year he’s been in Harvard, he has had to put such a freeze into effect.
“This is the latest we’ve made it into the year” before instituting a slow-down in spending, he said.
The school department will try to find line items that are running a surplus, and shift money over to the lines that have insufficient funds. Board member Virginia Justicz asked Jefferson if the spending freeze would affect the maintenance of the schools. He acknowledged that it would, as well as crimping the schools’ ability to reorder supplies of all sorts.
P.T.O. Gifts for Schools
The School Committee gratefully accepted $11,205 from the Harvard P.T.O. to purchase software and to provide funds to be spent at the school principals’ discretion.
The elementary school plans to use $7,305 to buy seven SuccessMaker software licenses. The SuccessMaker software is used to provide individualized tutoring for students, and comes with 3,300 hours of supplemental instruction in English, lang-uage arts, math, science, and social studies.
In addition, the P.T.O. gave $1,800 for the elementary school principal’s account, and $2,100 for the Bromfield school principal’s account. These funds can be spent as the principals see fit.
Board member Stu Sklar thanked the P.T.O. for its support and put in a plug for the organization, saying that the P.T.O. could use more volunteers to help in its efforts to raise money for the schools.
