Thursday, March 21, 2013

Reporting out on Finance and Operations

Foley jokes that he's cut the slides down to sixty-five to make it a little bit shorter...

Summary of meeting: budget, foundation budget, transportation issues, facilities.
purpose is "to be sure that there is a lot of transparency" between and among the two bodies
"where we stand right now relative to foundation budget about $833,000"
students who are choosing to go to communities outside of Worcester are going to communities that fund at significantly over foundation
request for clarity on busing private and parochial school students from the Council
presentation on transportation referred to the auditor
Finance...you've seen the notes on this already...
Moving money for the second quarter (much of it using the set-aside funds in instructional support to cover added transportation, personal services, and workers comp)
and into the MSBA recommendations...

Question from Novick, requesting that the city CFO present on the OPEB liability at a joint meeting, and asking if the administration has any suggestions regarding the schools' OPEB liability:
Mr. Allen up:
OPEB: "significant long-term planning issue for retiree costs"
significant bond rating advantage
$3 million assessed to us is reduced from the $12 million assessed to us
"is there any true benefit to putting $3 million aside" if we owe $12 million?
We're hearing a lot about "present value of the future benefits...what's the present value of 43 teachers?" which is what $3 million is
OPEB does not qualify for Net School Spending..seeking an official legal opinion from the state
"our contribution, our share...are there ways of money that we collect for the city, like Medicaid?...perhaps the city can earmark the money the city collects for Medicaid for our OPEB funding"
Monfredo endorses the proposal of using the Medicaid funds as a payment for OPEB

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