EASTHAMPTON — A backlog of financial work is delaying city officials from producing figures for the current fiscal year, numbers School Committee members hope to receive soon to help inform upcoming union negotiations.
In what officials described as a first-of-its-kind meeting, the finance subcommittees of the School Committee and City Council met Sept. 29 after the School Committee asked the mayor’s office for an update on the city’s financial picture for the current fiscal year. Members also proposed establishing regular financial reports to keep elected officials informed.
School Committee Chair Laura Scott said the committee is trying to gather as much information as possible now, with union negotiations ahead.
“I think the overriding concern and the reason we’re here is that we haven’t had this,” Scott said about elected officials receiving consistent financial updates.
Mayor Salem Derby and other city officials at the meeting said, however, that reporting current-year numbers will take time. Derby said a backlog of auditing work has built up over the past four or five years because of changes and turnover in several departments.
Derby has often cited an eight-month vacancy in the treasurer’s position, which was filled in August 2025, as a contributor to the backlog. Other factors include a heavy workload in the tax collector’s office and a change in the structure of the mayor’s office.
“I think we all know that created a backlog,” Derby said at the meeting. “The goal is to erase the backlog and get to a month-to-month reconciliation pattern where we can have up-to-date reports.”
Other members of what Derby calls the city’s “finance team” attended, including City Auditor Hetal Patel, Treasurer Brooke Johnson and mayoral assistant Evan LeBeau. Derby said the collector’s office is also part of the financial process.
Patel described the auditing process, explaining that each year she must report all of Easthampton’s transactions to the state. She said collaboration among the city’s financial offices — mayor, auditor, treasurer and collector — has improved, but breakdowns used to occur.
“One or the other was not working,” Patel said.
Patel and Johnson have been working through the backlog, making sure every transaction from recent fiscal years, including tax reconciliations, was reported accurately. Patel said the $6.9 million Proposition 2½ override proposed earlier this year added to that workload.
Derby said the override did not “flip a switch that automatically fixed everything” in the city’s financial process, but was essential to maintaining current services.
City Council President Koni Denham noted that the city is working to help officials, including the collector’s office and the auditor, clear up the backlog.
The council approved $5,000 from free cash in May to fund a new part-time tax collector to help with reconciliations. A request now before the council would transfer $9,540 to pay Patel to work 12 additional Saturdays.
“We are committed to this (monthly reporting), while also recognizing we’re still behind and want to be able to give those tools so that we can get the information,” Denham said.
Derby said it will likely take about three months before the city can provide current numbers to the City Council and School Committee. While he acknowledged the urgency of the school department’s negotiations, he said he does not want to overload his staff.
“One of the things that, for me, is very important, is to not add additional work to my finance team’s load right now when we’re in this particular phase of trying to catch up,” Derby said.
Scott said the information provided was enough to give both the City Council and School Committee an idea of where things stand, and she hopes monthly reports will be available in the future.
Officials at the meeting agreed that monthly reports would also help provide more transparency to the public. The two subcommittees will meet again Thursday, Oct. 15, at 6 p.m.
“This is to give all of us, who are elected to have oversight over this, a better idea and also a learning tool for the future,” Scott said.
