Taunton Finance Subcommittee Tables $98,000 in Procurement Card Charges

TAUNTON — January 21, 2026 — Taunton School Committee tables $98,000 in procurement card charges and hears dramatic early literacy gains at January 21 meeting. The Finance and Law Subcommittee voted 3-0 to table approval of four months of P-card spending — $98,126 year to date, with roughly $47,000 charged to the school budget — after Dr. Joseph DeMello said he could not in good conscience approve the charges without itemized documentation for travel expenses including hotel folios, flight receipts, and meal attendee lists, calling out the consolidation of September through December charges into a single memo as unacceptable: "It's very hard to approve almost $77,000 in this warrant where I don't even know what I'm approving." At the full committee meeting, Director of Humanities Danielle Kurt reported that 207 of 266 struggling first graders enrolled in the Ignite virtual tutoring program are now working at grade-level reading skills, up from just 50 in October. Superintendent Carlos Cabral separately warned the committee that an 88-student enrollment decline could reduce anticipated Chapter 70 state aid by approximately $1.1 million in FY27.