NORTHAMPTON — The School Committee and City Council were able to compromise on the committee’s request for a $600,000 mid-year appropriation as the council approved a $294,883.02 request during its March 6 meeting instead to cover lost positions from last summer’s cuts through the remainder of the school year.
The compromised number was ultimately settled on after further discussion during the week at the March 5 Finance Committee meeting before ultimately at the council meeting.
The mid-year request for $600,000 came from the School Committee through Superintendent Portia Bonner. The request sought to appropriate the money from the city’s Fiscal Stability Stabilization Fund to the school budget so that the district could bring back some of the 20 plus jobs cut last summer.
Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra has been consistent in saying while this mid-year appropriation would assist in restoring some critical positions lost from cuts, spending additional money on recurring costs such as staff hirings would only further drain the city’s resources, leading to potentially more cuts in the future.
The move to add additional funding for the district has come after the state certified the city as having $11.6 million in free cash as of December, with $6.8 million of those new surplus funds from 2024 — through not all of the money could potentially be used for the district. The schools are currently operating on a fiscal 2025 budget that is nearly 9% higher than the year before, but the loss of COVID-19 relief funding meant the city still had to make cuts last budget season.
With the approved mid-year appropriation, the council also made a recommendation to Sciarra with this approval that she roll in $50,000 of that as a permanent increase. Since the district is three quarters of the way through the school year, this recommended roll in of $50,000 means that $200,000 would be added to the school budget next year, plus an increase to cover inflation and increased salaries.
“This means that $244,883.02 of what allocated is temporary, one-time funds for short-term student support. These amounts don’t include employee benefits which are estimated to be an additional 21.7%,” City Council President Alex Jarrett explained after the meeting.
Ultimately, the compromise was made to give some immediate support to the district even if this funding is not guaranteed to carry these positions over into the next school year.
“I will support this because I trust the process that Dr. Bonner used and I trust that these are the critical expenses, mainly personnel, that have been identified by the principles to directly address a number of the concerns we’ve heard over the past many months,” said Ward 1 Councilor Stanley Moulton. “While my preference would be that we not do a lot of short term hiring, I think I’ve heard enough evidence to convince me that the time and the resources that we spend on doing that hiring are going to pay off in a positive way for students for the rest of this year, so I will support this.”
During the Finance Committee meeting the night prior to the council meeting, councilors discussed more in depth the request for $600,000 with Bonner as they hoped to get more context on what specific line items the district would use this funding on.
Bonner offered a look at some line items potentially set to be supported with this funding but at the council meeting the following night, School Committee member Mike Stein explained that Bonner had overstepped her bounds offering that before first checking in with the School Committee.
Stein added context that while the council must approve the appropriation request for the committee to access the funds, the committee still has total control of the line items for this funding.
“What you have tonight in this recommendation from the superintendent isn’t necessarily expressing the intent of the School Committee or how that money will actually be spent. We have to vote on it. She can make the recommendation but it’s the body that will make the choice,” Stein explained.
At-Large City Councilor Marissa Elkins asked Stein if he was aware of any past examples of the council being asked to approve mid-year appropriations that lacked specific line items detailing what would be covered with the funding. Stein pushed back and said he doesn’t recall any other city department facing this much scrutiny when in need of mid-year assistance.
Moulton agreed with Elkins saying he felt the council was just going through due diligence requesting specific line-item information to help have more context behind the request amount.
“I don’t remember any other financial order coming to us with no specific details and that is why we requested from the Superintendent some specifics on how this money would be spent so that when we next deliberated on it at the Finance Committee meeting last night, we could actually be deliberating on positions that we knew were being recommended by the educators in this school district,” Moulton said. “No one could explain how that figure had been computed or what it was going to be spent on.”
Stein responded saying he has been clear since he made the motion for this request on why he came up with the $600,000 figure. He explained the request was based on the positions that had been cut last summer, as well some additional money to fund interventionist for the “literacy crisis” at JFK Middle School and in the elementary schools.
“We can easily send money to fund those things, and I was clear when I made the motion that that’s what it was for,” Stein added.
Ward 3 City Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg eventually expressed her disappointment in the compromise and that her fellow colleagues were using the current president’s administration as an excuse for uncertainly before still voting for the appropriation.
“The sense that I’m getting from this government is they think its acceptable to use children to absorb whatever they’re afraid is coming from [President Donald] Trump in their arguments tonight,” Rothenberg said. “I don’t actually think that’s how this government feels though, I think this government wasn’t funding children properly before Trump came along. The rhetoric is empty to me in that regard.”
Rothenberg, who has consistently advocated for the full funding request to be met, said she was still voting to approve the compromised request even if she felt the council was short in meeting the needs of the district.
“I will vote for this because I will give them any money we can get for them right now, but this is a wealthy city with a lot of money in the bank that is choosing not to fully fund its schools,” Rothenberg said.
With the final number approved, the council hopes some of this funding can roll over into the next school year in anticipation of other future cuts, but the reality of the situation is these issues most likely will not be going away in the near future as the city, like many other municipalities, looks to manage budgeting post pandemic related one time funding sources.
“I appreciate this funding, I appreciate the recurring funding that will be rolled in if all goes well, but we do have to realize that we do have to live within our means and I believe this is our means and is an accurate reflection,” said Jarrett. “These temporary positions will help but barring reducing other departments in the process, they won’t be there in the fall and the School Committee will have a difficult job, as they have had a difficult job so far to try and meet needs with limited resources. It’s terrible.”
