Chicopee School’s Director of Budget and Finance John Miarecki presents a FY25 budget update to the School Committee.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet
CHICOPEE — With the new year arriving, Chicopee School’s Director of Budget and Finance John Miarecki met with the School Committee for a fiscal year 2025 budget update.
To make it easier for the committee and public to understand, Miarecki decided to color code the budget green, yellow or red to signify the status of each line item.
Green represented a positive status, on track or under budget. Yellow represented that spending is potentially underfunded, a potential risk of overspending or a transfer or funds may be needed.
Miarecki talked more about yellow status and said, “Yellow is not necessarily a bad thing to be yellow, but spending is potentially underfunded. Transfer of funds may be needed. I used the word may because in some cases you’re spending a little bit more towards the beginning of the year than you are at the end of the year, so we’ll be in good shape when we continue to follow these yellow line items.”
Red represented that the spending is trending to be over budget, there is a potential risk of overspending if not monitored closely or immediate action will be need through a transfer.
When talking about red status, Miarecki explained, “I still don’t feel [red] is a bad thing but we’re watching very closely.”
Most line items were green which Miarecki talked more about.
He said, “There’s many green that we do have and we’re roughly about 43%, 44% of the way through from the date I pulled on Dec. 11. When I was looking at what falls in the green I was looking at the percent used and having somewhere around there, but not necessarily over 50%.”
There were eight line items considered yellow including legal services, instructional equipment, general classroom supplies, heating of buildings, utility services, maintenance of grounds, maintenance of buildings and technology.
The first column has what the School Committee and city approved for the budget and the next column is much of it has been expended and encumbered.
He explained, “We do have some encumbrances from the previous year that are over because we are waiting for product to come in and we do not pay out until that product has come in. We verify that its come in, we receive an invoice and then we pay it. That combination increase what we call revised budget.”
Miarecki said these are highlighted yellow because the percentage used is higher than 50% with some over 80% — and one-line item over 100%.
There were only three line items highlighted red that included other instructional services, transportation services and tuition to public schools.
Miarecki said he is not “terribly concerned” about these numbers but they need to be constantly watched.
Other instructional services lines include special education contracts and the school using outside companies to provide services for its students and positions.
Miarecki also explained that the transportation services also look worse than it is because bills that may be coming from May and June that are being posted in this year causing it to be in the red.
After looking at all the line items, Miarecki said that he is happy with how the budget looks so far and expects some numbers to change by his next update.
He stated, “I feel overall as a budget and our bottom line number we’re in really good shape at the 44% and we’re at 31% for our grants as we continue on in our year for the next 55% of the year. I think we’re in really good shape and we’ll keep that open book and look forward to present to you coming forward with new numbers and even a better idea where we’re going to finish at the end of the year.”
School Committee member Dianna Rousseau said she appreciates the transparency of deeming line items red and yellow and that “the green is important for us to kind of acknowledge as we think about our budget next year and items that we may need to readjust and we have additional we have additional moneys from to cover for the red.”
