LAKEVILLE — A budget deficit of over $800,000 in the Freetown Lakeville School district’s 2025  has been accounted for, according to Director of Finance Operations Jack Higgins. 

Higgins confirmed at the Freetown Lakeville Regional Finance Subcommittee’s Wednesday, Aug. 28 meeting that the $881,299,000 deficit was resolved in large part by identifying areas of over-budgeting. 

The two principal areas where overbudgeting occurred were in health insurance costs and spending allocated for high school athletic coaches, Higgins reported.

During the subcommittee’s Aug. 28 meeting, Higgins shared that the line item in the budget for high school coaches was “significantly higher than the year before,” adding that he suspects this was a way to “support athletics, but without a decision being made by the School Committee.” 

During the meeting he also confirmed that the School Committee had approved budget transfers to account for the deficit and that those transfers have been completed. 

Higgins initially shared that the deficit had been reconciled at the School Committee’s July 31 meeting. In early June, he pointed towards overestimated health insurance rates as a significant contributor to the budget shortfall. 

As he shared at the July 31 meeting, other measures that were taken to address the budget deficit included a reduction of $35,000 that had been proposed for hiring another central office secretary, as well as a $10,000 decrease in the superintendent’s salary. 

Higgins shared that duplicates in line items in the High school’s technology budget also contributed to the deficit. 

Funds freed up as a result of certain projects coming in with lower costs than expected, as well as the use of remaining money in ESSER III funds, which have provided support to schools after the pandemic, helped to recover the shortfall, he said.