Wellesley schools stop lunch debt collection efforts

Sept. 4—The school committee for Wellesley (Mass.) Public Schools voted unanimously at a recent meeting to reclassify about $24,000 in lunch debt as a “unverifiable and aged,” a result of prior imprecise record keeping.

Former Wellesley Public Schools Superintendent Bella Wong and former business manager Ruth Quinn Berdell revealed in the spring of 2011, to the school committee and the public, that the schools were owed nearly $170,000 in unpaid lunch fees.

Since the initial outstanding debt was reported, the schools were able to, through telephone calls by administrators and principals, get the figure down to about $37,000, said interim business manager, Judy Belliveau, at a School Committee meeting on Tuesday.