The Springfield Budget and Finance Subcommittee conducted preliminary discussions about the School Department’s proposed budget during its March 5 meeting.
Photo credit: Focus Springfield
SPRINGFIELD — With budget season officially in full force, the Springfield School Committee’s Budget and Finance Subcommittee met on March 5 to conduct preliminary discussions on what the School Department’s budget may look like.
Springfield Public Schools Chief Financial and Operations Officer Patrick Roach said school allocations have been finalized, spending plans are in process and each school in the city is currently building their budget.
“The budget development is in process,” Roach said.
Although it will not be until April 8 when Superintendent Sonia Dinnall will present her recommended budget, Roach noted at the top of the March 5 meeting that the school department’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget is right around $671 million, or a 6.9% increase from FY25’s.
In his presentation to the subcommittee, Roach said that the department wants the budget to reflect Dinnall’s four key principles: early literacy development, middle school transformation, college and career readiness and post-secondary success.
“We’re going to make sure … our resources are put towards making sure these priorities happen,” Roach said.
The budget’s revenues, according to Roach, includes a foundation inflation of 1.93% and funds from the Student Opportunity Act, which is a state-run program through the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education that provides funds to support student needs.
“As some of the [School] Committee members know, we’ve had the Student Opportunity Act, and we’re kind of winding to the end of it,” Roach said. “This is year five out of six years, so we have one more year after this year.”
As for charter schools in Springfield, Roach said in his presentation that there is an estimated 10.6% decrease in charter school reimbursements, and he does not project an increase in students going to the city’s charter schools.
He noted that enrollment is not only down in charter schools, but across the entire school district. This trend, however, is not unique to Springfield; many cities across the state and country are dealing with a similar realization.
Based on regular enrollment studies done by SPS, a lack of housing and a decrease in births are two major reasons why they project a further decrease in enrollment across the city and state over time.
Springfield Budget and Finance Chair LaTonia Monroe-Naylor wondered how much the state’s implementation of the millionaire’s tax contributed to people leaving the state, thus causing the decrease in enrollment. She told the subcommittee that this is something they could look at as the budget discussions continue.
“Massachusetts was in the top 10 of states that have the highest rate of people leaving last year,” Monroe Naylor said. “I wonder how much those numbers take into account these different variables that were probably not tracked before but maybe need to track because now these things are happening and the situations are happening very quickly around the country.”
In the staffing department, Roach said salaries are expected to increase by $14.3 million, or 5.4%. That includes cost-of-living adjustments, collective bargaining agreements, and about 49.5 positions that were added during the staffing allocation process, according to Roach.
As for other budget minutiae, around $104 million from the budget is expected to go toward charter schools and around $5.9 million will likely go to school choice.
After Dinnall presents her recommended budget proposal on April 8, the public will be able to view the budget from April 16 to 30 on the SPS website, in public libraries or at central office. A public hearing on the budget will then occur on April 30 at Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy.
The full School Committee is projected to vote on the school budget May 8, Roach said.
