Finance and Operations in sum

It was a brief (three item) meeting tonight, so no liveblog (egregious errors now fixed...mea culpa!). In summary:

• we made the fourth quarter budgetary moves recommended by the administration. Interesting things to note: we are, per the hope/plan, going to be able to forward $2.4 million of education jobs money from this year to FY12 (that's an additional $500,000 over what was projected; small cheer!). This is figured into next year's budget.Also, we're saving $100,000 in tipping fees in trash removal (we're going to figure out why; somehow we're generating less trash, which is good news). We're pre-purchasing WRTA bus passes, as we did last year. Also, due to the large number of snow days, summer school this year is happening entirely after July 1, and thus entirely in the next fiscal year (and yes, that is figured into next year's budget, where there will be a plan to pay for this and a bit of next year's summer school).
• the transportation list (see page 16 and following) is fascinating reading. If you know the neighborhoods, you can largely picture why it is that the kids are not particularly safe walking from the places listed. Also, keep in mind that all of the buses that cover these kids are buses that we would need anyway; they are added ROUTES, not added buses. 
• school nutrition will be seeing a five cent increase in school lunch next year (provided it passes the full committee on Thursday), per the requirements of the federal law. We talked a bit about other requirements and potential impacts.

There was a post-meeting discussion around an F&O FY12 budget hearing; I'll post it as soon as I have a date for it.