School Committee Feels Shortchanged By Scandal-Ridden Collaborative

The Tewksbury School District will receive an initial payment as part of the multi-million dollar settlement borne from the Merrimack Special Education Collaborative scandal of two years ago.

But members of the administration and the School Committee are not pleased with the amount of that payment.

MSEC received $7.2 million from the Merrimack Education Center to satisfy several years of overcharging for services during a time when former Executive Director John Barranco was running both the non-profit collaborative and the for-profit enterprise in a fiscally incestuous manner.

After paying its bills, MSEC was left with about $4 million. Earlier this year, the group's Board of Directors voted to distribute $1 million back to the nine member schools. Tewksbury is due to receive roughly $125,000.

Dr. Christine Scott, the new executive director of the MSEC and Donald Ciampa, chairman of the board, appeared before the School Committee Wednesday night. In a PowerPoint presentation, they attempted to explain the reasons why only one-fourth of the available settlement money was being distributed.

Scott explained that MSEC is in the process of severing all ties with MEC and that includes ending building leases totaling 112,000 square feet of space.. As a result, some of that settlement money will be used to either purchase or lease new office and classroom locations.

That explanation did not set well with School Committee members. Neither did the announcement that MSEC was planning a 3.5 tuition hike for Fiscal Year 2014, its first tuition increase in five years.

"You've got a large amount of money in your operating budget ($4.8 million) and now you're going to hold onto another large amount of money," said Tewksbury School Committee Chairwoman Krissy Polimeno. "As you can imagine, we're disappointed with the tuition increase. We feel 3.5 percent is a large increase. And then you're holding back money."

The Board of Directors for MSEC is made up of superintendents of nine school districts, including Dr. John O'Connor of Tewksbury. According to Scott, the vote to distribute only $1 million of the settlement money was a 6-3 vote by the board, with O'Connor voting against it.

"Thank you, Dr. O'Connor, for taking a stand for Tewksbury," said Polimeno.

Scott said the 3.5 percent will largely be evened out by certain add-on "a la carte" costs that will now be rolled into the tuition instead.

Scott and Ciampa also explained the new organizational protocols that have been put in place to ensure fiscal transparency and stability. They also said an additional payment will go out to the member towns in June, once the issue of "purchase vs. leasing" office space had been dealt with.

Scott said a third payment could go out in October, though nothing was guaranteed.