Demonstrators fill the steps of City Hall calling for the city to restore jobs lost through the district budget.
Reminder Publishing photo by Trent Levakis
NORTHAMPTON — While heavy rain began to fall outside of City Hall, local labor groups and supporters stood tall underneath umbrellas outside before the City Council’s Nov. 21 meeting for a rally to call on the city to allocate the necessary funding to restore the approximately 20 positions cut in the Northampton Public Schools last budget season.
The advocacy group Support Our Schools organized the rally and according to member Al Simon, the group specifically is seeking the mayor to make a mid-year allocation to restore the approximately 20 school jobs lost this year. He added the city generates a large yearly surplus that is put aside for reserves instead of being put toward basic services.
“The city adds to its veritable ‘mountain of cash’ each year. Some of that could be used now to restore the jobs that have been cut,” said Simon.
Support our Schools member Cathy McNally added the group is asking the mayor and City Council to listen to the community.
“Officials do a good job of looking like they are listening,” said McNally. “They furrow their brows and nod encouragingly during public comment. But when public comment is over, they show no evidence of having taken anything in. What’s worse, parents, students and teachers have to hear local officials brag about being committed “champions of education’ all while they simultaneously cut over 30 school positions in the past two years.”
Another one of the event’s organizers Barbara Madeloni said the rally was important for residents to express their concerns while they still have an opportunity to restore some of the lost positions.
“Our annual budget-process has concluded, leaving the city with a multimillion-dollar surplus which can and should go to the schools,” Madeloni said. “Without pressure from the community, the money will almost certainly be moved into the capital projects and stabilization funds, which are already well funded, while the schools are struggling under the budget cuts imposed in the spring of 24.”
Northampton Fire Rescue Union Local 108 President Tim Putnam also joined the rally and said the city’s firefighters stand with the teachers as they have felt left out financially in the past as well.
“I’ve been with the department for 12 years now and every year it seems like a fight and there’s not enough money to pay our employees,” said Putnam.
Other demonstrators included members of the Northampton Association of School Employees union, and other local labor union leaders and groups including the Massachusetts Nurses Association ad the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 1459.
In July, the city passed a $40 million school budget for this fiscal year, a $3 million increase from the previous year but resulting in more than 20 jobs cut across the district. The budget came following a prolonged campaign by supporters of a level-service budget that would have avoided job cuts.
By May the city had $6 million in undesignated funds, with roughly half dedicated to the American Rescue Plan Act-eligible spending, according to city documents.
While the city has yet to certify the total amount of free cash available for the rest of this fiscal year, Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra said in a recent newsletter that the city’s policies for a non-recurring revenue source follows the Division of Local Services recommendation that the city’s Undesignated Fund Balance should be restricted to paying one-time expenditures, funding capital projects or replenishing other reserves. This is in line with the city’s prior claim that spending cash reserves on recurring salaries would quickly drain funds.
“Using it to support the operational budget is not recommended,” Sciarra wrote in the newsletter.
Educators and students also spoke during the rally, detailing the impact from the loss of staff.
Following the rally outside, participants went inside the City Council chambers and added more commentary regrading the issue during the council’s public comment period during its meeting.
