EASTHAMPTON — In her proposed $39.33 million budget for the coming fiscal year, Mayor Karen L. Cadieux provides funding to hire new school, police, fire and public works personnel — the first time in years the city would replace staff lost to cuts.
The City Council’s Finance Committee will review the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1 during meetings this month in the Municipal Building’s first-floor conference room.
“This budget addresses all the issues I stood from — education, public safety, public works and no cuts to Council on Aging,” Cadieux said in an email.
The proposed budget represents an overall increase of 3.11 percent compared to this year’s budgeted $38.14 million.
The Finance Committee will discuss schools, human services, debt and interest on Tuesday; public works, enterprise funds, culture and recreation May 24; and public safety, general government and employee benefits May 25. The meetings start at 5 p.m. and are open to the public.
After the committee votes on the budget, it will be sent to the full council for a vote after a public hearing.
The council is allowed only to make cuts, and cannot add money to the budget.
The largest portion of the budget would be education at $16.52 million, a 2.01 percent increase over this year’s budgeted amount of $16.19 million.
The figure is the same as requested by the School Committee. If approved by the City Council, the spending would allow the district to create six new positions: a second-grade teacher and speech and language pathologist’s assistant to work at the Center/Pepin School; a world language teacher and a part-time reading specialist for White Brook Middle School; a design technology teacher at Easthampton High School; and a behavior analyst who would work throughout the district.
Employee benefits are the second-largest spending category in the proposed budget, at $7.95 million.
That amount is 6.43 percent more than this year’s budgeted amount of $7.47 million.
The greatest percentage jump in year-over-year spending would be the 9.78 percent increase in the human services budget, or $623,396 compared to the $567,879 that was initially budgeted for this year. The largest dollar increase would be for public works and facilities, with $79,957 more than this year’s appropriated $1.61 million.
This is also the first year that the complete proposed budget is available on the city’s website. It is also available at the Municipal Building and the Emily Williston Memorial Library.
Chris Lindahl can be reached at clindahl@gazettenet.com.