Corrected and updated March 20, 2024
At its March 12 meeting, the Finance Committee voted to allow $80,000 of the town’s emergency Reserve Fund to be used by the school district as partial payment for a legal settlement that had not been foreseen when this fiscal year’s budget was approved.
Last fall, the district agreed to settle a claim related to back tuition for a student’s out-of-state placement for $162,500. Superintendent Linda Dwight told the committee the schools will apply for circuit breaker relief from the state for the remainder of the settlement. The state’s Commonwealth Special Education Reimbursement Program, also called the Circuit Breaker Program, reimburses towns for unexpected costs related to special education tuition and transportation. The town’s Reserve Fund is intended to cover extraordinary or unforeseen expenses during each fiscal year. The Finance Committee must approve department requests for money from the fund.
Dwight said the placement wasn’t budgeted because of the way it took place. Those details are confidential, she said. At a previous meeting on Dec. 13, Director of Pupil Services Michelle DellaValle told the Finance Committee the student’s family had requested a hearing with the state’s Bureau of Special Education Appeals to resolve a disagreement about the school district’s responsibility to pay the back tuition. A lawyer for the schools recommended settling with the family and negotiated the amount down from the full tuition requested by the family.
The town has insurance to cover legal settlements, but Dwight spoke with a representative of the town's insurer and was told that insurance would not cover this type of settlement.
The payment had to be made within 45 days of the settlement, which took place in early October. Dwight told the committee the district had already paid it, and this transfer would be used to replenish the accounts used for the payment. She said she won’t know if the schools will get the remaining $82,500 from the state until May. If that money doesn’t come through, she said, it will be taken from accounts with uncommitted funds, such as maintenance or professional development. The Finance Committee had questioned Dwight about other possible funding sources at its December meeting, and it agreed that using a combination of the Reserve Fund and circuit breaker money was the best option. It voted unanimously to approve the Reserve Fund transfer.
Editor's note: This article has been corrected and updated. The original article implied that the school district missed an opportunity for town insurance to cover all or part of a legal settlement. In fact, at the time of the March 12 FinCom meeting that the article had reported on, Superintendent Linda Dwight had contacted the town’s liability insurer and it confirmed that “the payment would not have been covered by our policy even if they had been contacted before the settlement was agreed upon."
