AMHERST — All current staff who work directly with students at Amherst’s three elementary schools, including teachers and paraeducators, would be preserved in a $28.59 million fiscal year 2026 budget being recommended by the School Committee.

In approving the budget in a 5-0 vote Wednesday, though, the School Committee is going more than $500,000 beyond the financial guidelines set by the Town Council, which Town Manager Paul Bockelman is expected to use in presenting the full municipal budget package that includes spending for town, library and school services.

The School Committee’s preferred plan has the budget rising by 6%, or $1.62 million, from this year’s $26.97 million budget. The proposal is $539,408 higher than the Town Council guidelines, which allow for up to a 4%, or $1.08 million increase, to $28.05 million.

“Whatever we vote on it won’t be the final word,” said member Bridget Hynes. “We’ll need people to go and advocate and support in terms of getting a change to those budget guidelines, so we can get what this School Committee judges as essential, which are the student-facing positions.”

Last week, following an extended discussion, Hynes and committee member Deb Leonard proposed a slightly smaller, 5.59% increase that ensures no teachers would be lost. That budget was considered as halfway between the Town Council guidelines and the 7.36% increase, to $29.48 million, to maintain level services.

“With a 4% budget, the cuts still cut a tremendous amount of student-facing folks,” Hynes said, adding that school leaders and the administration are saying they feel “short-staffed, not overstaffed.”

Committee Chairwoman Jennifer Shiao thanked her colleagues, including Irv Rhodes who suggested moving to the 6% increase a few days earlier.

“In this case, we know that 5.59 is higher than they (the Town Council) want, 6 is higher than they want, so we might as well go with the 6% and then see what happens, and let the process and the community take it from there,” Shiao said.

Rhodes said the small percentage boost means classrooms will be fully staffed. “I know it is really, really important; these kinds of positions are the positions that are most important for our students,” Rhodes said.

Among the positions preserved are a districtwide special education reading teacher, a Caminantees dual language paraeducators and an English language learners paraeducator, as well as ensuring all full-time specials teachers, including, art, music, library, gym and technology, don’t have their hours trimmed.

The budget as passed, though, would still have $887,054 in reductions, though away from the classrooms, with the largest of these being $250,000 saved by eliminating contracted out-of-district transportation services, $124,961 in cost savings by cutting 3.4 full-time equivalent positions from the central office and $57,000 by reducing instructional technology.

The budget plan also includes other adjustments to close the gaps, such as using $150,000 in school choice funding and $125,000 from an Amherst College donation for band and orchestra, and transferring $70,000 associated with a Crocker Farm School kindergarten teacher to instead add a fifth grade teacher at Wildwood School.

Committee member Sarah Marshall said the budget proposal, even if not recommended by the town manager, could be supported through a gift, much as happened last year with the Amherst-Pelham Regional Schools’ budget.

“Even if the town manager slashes this to 4%, the Town Council could vote an additional appropriation,” Marshall said.

Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.