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Date: 3/8/2022
NORTHAMPTON – During a meeting on Feb. 28, the Northampton School Committee conducted initial discussions about the fiscal year 2023 (FY23) school budget, and where the city sits as far as spending.
With COVID-19 being the premier focus in many facets the past two years, the Northampton school district is looking to transition from “recovery” to “fiscal stability” for the upcoming year, as the state and federal government pulls back COVID-19 funding.
According to Superintendent John Provost, budget growth has exclusively come from local revenue as state and federal funding has leveled out over the past several years, as well as Chapter 70 funding.
“Federal funds have been stagnant for several years, and that’s because wealth is growing in Northampton, so the federal government is seeing less of a need to support Northampton with federal dollars,” said Provost, adding that a lack of aid from the state and federal government will pose ongoing challenges for the district. “All of the staffing increases, wage increases, and educational materials and services that we’ve been able to bring to the district have been due solely to the support from the local government and taxpayers.”
According to Provost, the minimum amount of aid the state can be expected to contribute under the Chapter 70 formula to a district is 17.5 percent. The state is trying to get Northampton to that minimum by level funding the city as the required net school spending amount increases. State funding will not increase until Northampton reaches that minimum.
Another notable trend presented during the initial discussions surrounding the budget is the fact that excess costs charged to school choice are exceeding school choice revenue. The school choice reserve is typically utilized by the district when there are extra costs that were not anticipated in the original school budget. In FY19 and FY21, the district had to draw more from the reserve than collected, and in FY22, the district had to dip into the choice reserve to accommodate for school closures due to COVID-19. If the district continues to tap into the reserves like they have been, then the district could experience a shortfall of more than $1 million in FY24, according to Provost.
“We need to make adjustments in the current year by charging whatever costs we can to emergency COVID relief and in the next year by reducing spending from the reserves, and to reduce the projected budget shortfall to FY24 by beginning to make adjustments and reductions at this time,” added Provost.
Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra committed to a 4 percent budget increase to the FY23 school budget, which is $1.3 million, but due to the decrease in federal funding, Provost said that he is anticipating a smaller increase that would instead hover around $1.3 million.
Because of the lack of federal and state aid, Provost said that the district will be looking for ways to save money and utilize other cost containment measures. A strategy that Provost recommended was reducing line items that were over-budgeted like tutors, homeless/foster care transportation, bus drivers and special education transportation. Provost emphasized, however, that these services would not be affected in any way.
“We could trim almost $60,000 by reducing those lines, but again it doesn’t impact our services one bit,” said Provost. “It just appears that those lines are over-budgeted right now.”
Provost also added that items like special education contracted services and higher education course reimbursement can be charged to the remaining COVID-19 funds. This would be a short-term solution.
Another cost maintenance measure could include a reduction in school programs as a long-term solution, but Provost made it clear that no layoffs would be implemented. Instead, the district would look into using attrition by moving staff to other positions or schools. With this method, the district could save a total of $602,412.
“I always worry when we talk about taking teachers out of the classroom,” said School Committee member Meg Robbins, when addressing Provost’s suggestion. “I get very worried about the idea of retaining teachers in our district.”
Member Dina Levi, meanwhile, was concerned that there was not a lot of restorative practices recommended during the initial discussions of the budget. “I have a hope that you might be able to come back next time around with even a small amount of funding for a district-wide initiative that would really allow us as a district to consider what district-wide work and restorative practices would look like,” said Levi. “I think it could be really helpful to have a unified approach as a district.”
A more detailed budget book with all the line items will be presented during the March 10 School Committee meeting. Reminder Publishing will have more on that in the following edition.