BROCKTON — Under intense pressure, city councilors cut a $9.9 million check late Wednesday to stop the state from taking over school finances. The dramatic step, taken in an emergency meeting just days before Christmas, comes amid revelations that the schools overspent millions more than $14.4M. The actual figure may be closer to $20M.
“I want to be very blunt,” Mayor Robert F. Sullivan, the chair of the school committee, said. “This is the city bailing out a deficit on the school side.”
All 11 city councilors backed the move despite acknowledging that it doesn’t fix a fundamentally broken system.
New deficit figures
When it was first announced in August following a four-hour marathon closed-door school committee meeting, Sullivan said the deficit for fiscal year 2023 was $14 million.
Soon after, the district revealed it to be a $14.4M deficit.
On Wednesday, the total overspending was revealed to be $18,253,853.95, but city officials said there is potentially an additional $2 million to bring the total to about $20 million.
More: State could take over Brockton’s finances if ballooning deficit not plugged, CFO warns
Deficit doesn’t include $3.3M from CARES Act mistakes
Even the $20M deficit figure fails to capture the scale of the schools’ financial hole. On Wednesday, Sullivan announced that the schools also spent $3.3M on items that won’t be reimbursed by the CARES Act, a federal program that supported schools during the pandemic.
City Councilor and State Rep. Rita Mendes called the situation “shocking and disturbing” and disrespectful of Brockton taxpayers, residents and students.
“At times I ask myself if it would be better if the state just came in and took over,” Mendes said, “Because how are we doing better than the state would do it? We have to do better.”
An urgent scramble at the last minute
City Council President Susan Nicastro was serving as acting mayor on Friday, Dec. 15, while Sullivan was in Washington, D.C., for a family vacation. That’s when she got a text from the mayor, who had just been told by Chief Financial Officer Troy Clarkson that the state Department of Revenue was demanding that the city balance its budget by Dec. 31 or face a state takeover.
“Our resident property owners work hard for funds to pay their property taxes,” Nicastro said at the end of Wednesday’s four-hour emergency session. “And there is no more important line item in our budget than what we pay to educate and socialize our children.”
City Councilor Shirley Asack, who represents Ward 7, was among several councilors who pressed the Sullivan administration for better communication.
“Mr. Clarkson said he just found out on Friday,” she said. “I’m not going to insinuate anything, but there’s no way the DOR just left us a few days before Christmas to make this major decision before the end of the month.”
Sullivan, who handily won re-election for a third term in November, pledged to do a better job communicating with city councilors.
Echoes of 1990s state takeover of Brockton finances
Brockton has been here before. An eerily similar municipal debt crisis in 1990 resulted in a financial control board being put in charge of Brockton’s finances. The city went $14 million in the hole amid mass layoffs of police, firefighters and teachers.
In total, the city scraped together $18.25M to solve the immediate crisis of a potential state takeover. In Massachusetts, it is illegal for cities to run deficits for anything other than snow and ice removal. To do so, the city will empty a $7.95M rainy-day fund that Brockton is required to maintain stemming from the last such crisis. The rest of the $18.25M will come from so called “free cash” and a $9M increase in the estimated revenues the city will bring in during the current fiscal year.
City Councilor At-Large Win Farwell was mayor during that turbulent time 30 years ago. “I don’t want this to be a Band-Aid approach,” said Farwell, who has served in Brockton government for 22 years. “This can never happen again. This is a textbook case in terrible school governance and school financial management. It’s embarrassing.”
Send your news tips to reporter Chris Helms by email at CHelms@enterprisenews.com or connect on X at @HelmsNews.
