Special education reserve

The first three columns do not add up to anything: the budget is net, voted after the circuit breaker and grants it expected. * FY2021: DESE’s file prints a transportation reimbursement for the first time, for every district, in FY2022, paying FY2021 costs. A dash is a year a source does not reach: DESE’s allocation pages begin at FY2017, and the annual reports’ special revenue schedules read here at FY2011. Budget and general fund cover in district, out-of-district tuition and transportation; actual is payments plus what was still owed (before FY2023, the Finance Committee workbook’s actual, which does not say). IDEA is DESE’s allocation (0240 school age plus 0262 preschool); ‡ for FY2017 and FY2018 the file holds 0240 only; FY2022’s one-time ARP IDEA, $96,559, is not in it. † includes extra relief or supplemental payments (FY2012, FY2019, FY2025); it is by year paid. § Every fund before FY2023 adds the annual reports’ disbursements from the circuit breaker account and the special education grants: payments only. In FY2023 the two ways differ by $1,109 on grants and not at all on the circuit breaker. Needed beyond the vote adds each line’s overrun without offsetting another line’s underspend, so it can exceed the net difference beside it; the reserve statistics on this page use it.

From FY2023 the three lines are rounded once from cents so they add to the year’s total. Read from: the Town’s MUNIS year-end report, or the Finance Committee’s history workbook. Voted is the budget voted before the year; spent is expended plus what was still owed at the close. In-district is every other special education account. The Finance Committee’s workbook is used before FY2023 because its rows match the MUNIS reports in the years both hold.

Each line: spent at the close less the vote; negative is under. Needed adds only the lines that ran over; net adds all three. Ledger figures; the subtraction is ours.

The school journal, as /special-education/sped-all-funds reads it. In-district is contracted services, staff pay and supplies. Only the general fund has a vote. Each column is rounded once from cents, so its parts add to its total, and every table on this page prints the same dollars. FY2026 is the last year in the run.

Average and standard deviation of the 17 yearly needs: the sample standard deviation, dividing by one fewer than the number of years. Two years running: each pair of consecutive years, for a reserve not refilled between them. Our arithmetic on the ledger.

Receipts and an award, not spending on any line, so never subtracted from the need. The state’s payment is by year paid, and reimburses the year before; the town books it when received. DESE lists extra relief or supplemental payments separately in FY2012, FY2019, FY2025; they are not in the first column. IDEA is the entitlement grant (code 0240), spent over more than one year. The district’s deck to the Finance Committee of 22 October 2026 states the same FY2027 allocation, and that the reserve is separate from the circuit breaker.