PORTLAND (WGME) — Portland Public Schools will spend $500,000 this week to contract with an outside accounting firm to help resolve ongoing issues with payments to the state retirement system. announced.
At Monday’s Finance, Operations and Human Resources Committee meeting, district leaders said the $500,000 would come from a number of budget savings. This includes $150,000 from the final fully subsidized budget program and $350,000 from the vacant position.
Salary issues within PPS first came to light in 2022, when teachers and staff were not paid on time or accurately. And in January 2023, the I-Team first reported on retirement planning discrepancies within the district.
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Although many of the pay issues have been resolved, the district said at the time it was still working to correct errors in pay reporting by the Maine Public Employees Retirement System (MainePERS).
Late last year, Portland Public Schools hired accounting firm BerryDan to support its finance team amid ongoing payroll issues. The company is also tasked with helping to correct problems with retirement plans.
The district now hopes to sign BerryDunn to an additional year’s contract in hopes of resolving remaining issues with MainePERS.
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Some of the funding from the deal will come from salary savings from currently vacant positions, but PPS leadership said Monday that it does not believe it will impact student learning.
“Any vacancy, we want to fill it,” Superintendent Dr. Ryan Scallon. “So we’re going to sit down with our assistant superintendents and principals and discuss the possibility of leveraging some of the savings and still serve our students within our budget.”
The Portland Public Schools Board is scheduled to take a final vote on the contract with Berrydun at its next meeting on Nov. 5.
