The Brookline Select Board on Tuesday night moved forward with an audit of the school district’s “budget and management processes” at a yet-to-be-determined cost. The School Committee, which requested the audit, is expected to issue its own vote of approval when it meets Thursday.
Internal records obtained by the Globe appear to support the special education department’s allegations — namely, that the district redirected federal dollars meant to pay for services for disabled students to compensate for a budget shortfall instead.
“It’s infuriating … and there is no excuse,” said Craig Haller, a local special education advocate who has filed a discrimination complaint over the matter with the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
Superintendent Linus Guillory did not respond to a list of detailed questions from the Globe.
“The School Committee and Town School Partnership has committed to conducting an audit that will address the questions that you have raised,” he said Tuesday in an emailed statement. “I look forward to the group doing the work so that greater clarity will be afforded for all.”
Committee member Steven Ehrenberg said he received multiple complaints from families about missing services during the first semester of this school year, including adapted physical services, which enable students with disabilities to meaningfully participate in physical education, and services for the visually impaired.
Ehrenberg, in his fourth year on the committee, recently announced he would not run for reelection, in part because of the budgetary issues, he told the Globe.
“It’s one thing to disagree or be in tension with administration — it’s probably healthy — but it’s another thing to simply feel like you’re kept in the dark,“ he said. ”Then it’s hard to govern constructively.”
At odds internally, the documents show, are the district’s Administration and Finance Office, responsible for the district’s roughly $137 million budget, and the Office of Student Services, which manages legally obligated services for Brookline’s 1,300 special education students.
The alleged mismanagement occurred during the district’s fiscal 2025 budgeting process, according to the documents, which include internal emails, memos, grant applications, and line-item budgets.
A memo last month from Deputy Superintendent of Student Services Liza O’Connell to Superintendent Linus Guillory appears to show the Administration and Finance Office improperly allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal special education funds in its fiscal 2025 budget, tapping into the pot of money to pay for more than a half million dollars in salary expenses that were supposed to come out of the district’s general fund. Federal law prohibits districts from using Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, funding to supplant, or replace, local funds for special education.
The memo also states the administration and finance office, led by Deputy Superintendent Susan Givens, zeroed out a more than $450,000 line item for contracted services, leaving the student services office unable this school year to pay clinicians who service students with cognitive, physical, and behavioral disabilities.
Danna Perry’s 16-year-old son is one of those students. A junior at Brookline High, the boy, who has autism and ADHD, struggles with school aversion, missing two days per week, on average, Perry said. The family was supposed to in early December receive the aid of an occupational therapist with experience helping students with similar profiles. But weeks went by with no help.
Perry said she soon learned from the therapist that he had stopped servicing the district because he hadn’t been paid in months. She filed a complaint with the state. Finally, on Jan. 22, the therapist visited their home. For once, she felt hope, but she wished it had come sooner.
“When you finally have someone who gets your kid, you feel such a sense of extra relief that someone is listening, that someone will finally provide your kid what they need and stop the suffering,” Perry said.
The January memo was not O’Connell’s first time bringing her concerns to Guillory, documents how.
In another memo, dated Nov. 6, O’Connell questioned the district’s intent to spend the bulk of its federal special education funds on staff salaries.
“It would seem that I am being asked to change the grant in order for our A&F office to spend the money on things that violate the terms of the agreement,” she wrote to Guillory.
“Even if I thought this suggestion was ethical, I could not do it,” she said, explaining her access to an online grant management system was limited.
O’Connell expressed concern again in a Jan. 8 email to Guillory regarding a complaint made by a Brookline parent to the state education department’s Problem Resolution Office about outstanding invoices for their disabled child’s home-based tutoring services. Though the student services office annually budgets $35,000 for such services, the administration and finance department ultimately allocated zero dollars for the line item, O’Connell said.
“This summary is just one example of dozens of budget, accounting and financial ‘irregularities’ that have been a constant distraction during the FY24 and FY25 school years,” she wrote.
The month prior, O’Connell had notified members of the Brookline School Committee of her resignation, effective March 15.
“It has become increasingly difficult over FY24 and FY25 to deliver the student services that the students and parents of Brookline expect and deserve, while being constantly distracted by an endless stream of budget, accounting, and financial challenges,” O’Connell said in a Dec. 6 letter.
O’Connell’s resignation was first reported by Brookline News.
Haller, the special education advocate, filed his federal civil rights complaint Jan. 16. In the complaint Haller notes that, when questioned by the Brookline School Committee in early January about the contract issues, Givens said the only department affected was student services, evidence, Haller said, of discrimination against special education students.
“This legally protected group is the only one affected by the mismanagement, which deprives them of an education according to the law,” Haller said.
The audit could cost Brookline more than $45,000, according to a Jan. 27 draft proposal.
“Assuming the funding is released, the community can expect a report in the next couple of months that the School Committee can use to guide its next steps,” Mariah Nobrega, finance chair for the committee said in a statement. “My understanding is that the vast majority of previously delayed contracts are completed and services are being delivered. Parents and community members should reach out with any questions or concerns.”
Leaders of Brookline’s Special Education Parent Advisory Council, or SEPAC, said in a statement they hope the audit “will bring clarity and reveal a path forward.”
“It appears that Special Education students, at best, seem to be overlooked in the current budget crisis, and, at worst, are being unfairly impacted to close fiscal gaps in PSB’s budget,” the SEPAC leaders said.
It is unclear if the district’s ballooning budget deficit is related to the mismanagement of the fiscal 2025 budget. Guillory did not respond to a question about whether initial calculations for fiscal 2026 were based off the improper use of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funds the previous year.
Perry, the parent, feels disheartened. She wishes district leaders would own up to what happened.
“It’s OK to make a mistake. I understand that mistakes happen,” she said. “…What most hurt was the lack of communication and the behavior after the mistake.”
Mandy McLaren can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her @mandy_mclaren.
