Boston City Council Challenges BPS Over Auditing Gaps in $1.8 Billion Budget

BOSTON — April 30, 2024 — Boston City Council presses BPS over audit failures and bus tracking gaps in $1.8 billion FY25 budget hearing. The Committee on Ways and Means, chaired by Councilor Brian Worrell, spent hours Tuesday grilling Boston Public Schools officials over recurring federal audit findings — including a material weakness in Title I payroll controls affecting 15 percent of tested transactions and three financial reports filed more than a year late to the state — as well as the district's inability to count how many of its 22,000 routed students actually ride the bus on any given day. CFO David Bloom acknowledged the district lacks a chief audit executive and committed to providing the council an Ernst & Young report on student tracking and a full breakdown of ESSER spending, which a Georgetown University analysis shows at roughly $431 million total with approximately $155 million still undrawn. Councilor Julia M. Mejia declared she would vote against the budget, saying it "just really not meeting the moment for BPS educators, for BPS parents, for students." On a positive note, the district announced a $20 million EPA grant for electric school buses, a new student-choice lunch menu day launching in the fall, and a $3.8 million FY25 increase for transportation serving homeless and newly arrived students.