Mass Bay rent went to general fund.. and not to the schools
I find it interesting that rent payments Mass Bay was paying the Town for the use of the Farley building but instead went to the general fund and not directly to the school department. That 8.5 million helped the Town side but not the schools. Why no one noticed this error years ago is troubling. A round of applause for the Chair of the School Committee for discovering this error.
From the MWDN:
A new revolving bank account "separate and apart" from other city funds has been set up for the money MassBay Community College is paying to rent one of the city's school buildings.
MassBay has been a tenant in Framingham Public Schools' Farley Building on Flagg Drive since 1990, according to college spokesperson Elizabeth Cooper, and has a lease for this year and next at an annual rate of $400,000. The rent money was mistakenly sent to the city's general fund when Massachusetts law calls for it to be "kept separate and apart from other city or town funds in the city or town treasury and may be expended by the School Committee without further appropriation."
School Committee Chairman Adam Freudberg said he researched the rules and advocated for compliance around the city's receipt of rent payments from MassBay.
Since fiscal 2011, MassBay paid $8,548,333 in rent, according to Freudberg.
At a recent meeting, the School Committee voted unanimously to create the account and immediately deposit all fiscal 2022 rent payments into it. The move brings the city into full compliance with the law.
City Council Chairman George King said the then-town used to deposit MassBay's rent into the city general fund back in the early 2000s, when he was the Town Manager.
"I remember being surprised back then that it went into the general fund but at that time at least to my understanding and interpretation of law, when the building was being rented and there was no school use that money goes back to the general fund," said King.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 10:43 AM
5 Comments
5 Comments:
jim pillsbury you said that money helped the town side and not the school side. can you prove that was the case? how do you know that the money wasn't part of local receipts the town side gave the school side?
I can speculate... know for sure, nope..... If all that money was being paid to the school, nobody would have ever looked into this. Adam must have had his reasons why now he found this glaring accounting error. There's not that much in local receipts to share with the school as far as I know. If the Town was hording millions over the years, why didn't the past school SC ever question it?
local receipts is maybe the wrong term. what i meant was that the schools get that chapter 70 money plus what the city puts in. its that city money that i meant. isnt that millions of dollars? so why couldnt that money have included the rent money? just because there wasn't a special place to park the money still doesnt mean the schools didnt get the money, or at least there doesnt seem to be any proof that the city side stole it.
Oh no... No one did anything wrong I don't think. But every nickle of revenue is kept track of, from the money for the Concerts on the Common to cable revenue. All revenue gained is put into a designated account to be used solely to pay for itself. And it has to be appropriated by the BOS and now the City Council or it goes to the general fund. Someone who deposits the checks must have known where the money went into.
Chapter 70 is millions, but that's money from the State as well.
A George King put it, he knew about way back when, but no body seemed to be concerned where the rent payment went to.
but jim in your post you said that the 8.5 million helped the Town side but not the schools. that makes it seem like the town grabbed all the money for the town side. but now you are saying you dont think anybody did anything wrong. im not understanding the point you tried to make with this post.
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