EASTHAMPTON — Parents and teachers are urging the City Council to approve the school district’s proposed $18.45 million budget for fiscal year 2023 – an increase of 7.91% from the previous fiscal year.
“As educators, we are always asked to do more, but every year it is with less, and less, and less,” said Rachel Nicholas, a teacher at White Brook Middle School, at a council meeting earlier this month. “In the past, we’ve been able to pull through and make it work, but years of cuts and downsizing have brought us to the tipping point.
Nicholas said the pandemic “has exacerbated the trauma and the emotional issues that have always existed in our schools – to a breaking point.”
After a more than three-hour long meeting that included a presentation by Superintendent Allison LeClair, the School Committee unanimously approved the proposed budget on Tuesday, March 22. Mayor Nicole LaChapelle abstained, saying that the School Committee should pass a budget that it felt was right.
LeClair said that while she understood that the increase of $1.35 million increase to the fiscal year 2023 budget was significant, she was hopeful that the City Council would understand the reasoning. She described it as a “needs-based” budget.
“We’re coming forward with a 7.91% increase on the budget, which we know is excessive. We know that’s a lot to ask, but to break it down, there are some fixed costs that are occurring this year that have really challenged us,” she said. “We try to be good teammates with all of the other departments in the city … we’re not the only department that’s probably looking for more money.”
LeClair noted that transportation costs have increased 2.88% and tuition costs, which includes tuition for both students with special needs that are already placed in programs outside of the city’s local public schools and students that are opting for vocational education, have increased by 2.93%. The district is also experiencing a 2.1% increase in staff salary increases and supplies services.
The fiscal year 2021 budget was level-funded without any increases from the previous fiscal year. The fiscal year 2022 budget included a 2.5% decrease from the previous fiscal year. In each of those years, the inflation rate on goods and services continued to increase and salaries increased by an average of 2%.
During the March 22 School Committee meeting, member Megan Harvey said there were a number of community members that had reached out by email with concerns about the budget and the future of the school district in general.
Among the letters was one from Kira Henninger, a parent of twin third graders at Maple Street School. Henninger wrote in an email to the Gazette she has reached out multiple times to the School Committee, LaChapelle and councilors outlining her concerns and advocating for an increased budget.
“Now is the time to increase the school budget so that we can hire additional teachers, paraprofessionals, and counselors to begin bridging that gap due to missed instruction and provide the necessary social-emotional support to mitigate the impact the pandemic has had on our youngest learners,” she wrote in a letter to school officials.
LeClair said there would be a cost savings due to the consolidation of the four schools into the brand-new pre-k through eighth grade Mountain View School, including lower utility costs, grounds maintenance, food service savings, custodial supplies and reduced expenses for plowing and trash removal.
Under the proposed budget, there will be a number of reductions to staff, including one less school administrator, two administrative assistants, three elementary classroom teachers, one elementary music teacher, two lunchroom monitors, nine paraprofessionals and one licensed practical nurse.
The reduction of paraprofessionals has raised concerns from parents.
“I am quite convinced of the wisdom of hiring more special education teachers and am glad the district is lowering the ratio of special education teachers to supported students. However, the support paraprofessionals give is still needed, especially with larger lunch and recess cohorts, and I just wish the School Committee had been able to keep these positions in the budget,” Evin Ziemer, a parent of a Maple Elementary School student, wrote in an email to the Gazette. “The district is doing an excellent job with an incredibly complex transition. I just hope people understand this budget might be barely enough, but it’s not as much as our children — and school staff — deserve.”
The budget proposal also includes the creation of new positions. Through shifted funding previously designated for paraeducators, the budget proposal includes adding a middle school librarian, a pre-k full-day teacher, a special education teacher and a speech language pathologist, which will be created through shifting contract service funding.
Positions that will be added during the next school year that are funded through grants include an elementary school librarian, a STEM teacher, a social emotional coordinator, a high school adjustment counselor, a Title I paraeducator and an instruction technology technician.
Further budget discussions are expected to take place at the City Council’s next meeting on Wednesday, April 20 at 6 p.m.
Emily Thurlow can be reached at ethurlow@gazettenet.com.
