NORTHAMPTON — Despite a persistent strong division of opinion on how to support education in the city, everyone who attended Thursday’s City Council meeting agreed on one thing: The situation at Northampton Public Schools has reached a crisis.

At issue Thursday was a midyear request from the School Committee, through Superintendent Portia Bonner, that the council appropriate $600,000 from the city’s Fiscal Stability Stabilization Fund to the school budget so that the district could bring back some of the more than 20 jobs cut last summer. Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra introduced the order to the council, albeit without her recommendation.

Though acknowledging the disruption the cuts have caused in the school district, particularly for students with special needs, Sciarra remained steadfast in her view that spending additional money on recurring costs such as staff hirings would only further drain the city’s resources, leading to potentially more cuts in future fiscal years.

“It is a crisis, and we must act with urgency to do all that we can, but we shouldn’t fixate on what we can’t do at the expense of exploring all we can do,” Sciarra said.

“I think I speak on behalf of every individual in city government when I say that we do hear and we care and acknowledge the pain that has followed the loss of Northampton Public Schools positions this year. It is exactly the sort of disruption that we should never risk repeating again.”

Sciarra also noted the current political landscape is rife with economic and personal uncertainty under the current federal government. She called for more dialogue among city officials, school administrators, teachers and parents on how to more effectively use existing resources.

“It breaks me to be put in a position where I can’t advocate for additional appropriation for the schools. Does that mean there’s nothing else we can do for the schools? No,” Sciarra said. “We need more than gestures and we can’t repeat past budgetary mistakes. We need less confrontation and more collaboration.”

Bonner, participating in the meeting remotely, fielded questions from council members regarding the financial order, including from Ward 6’s Marianne LaBarge, who remarked that she’d “never seen it this bad” in her more than two decades on the council.

Responding to LaBarge’s questions, Bonner said that if the order was approved and the positions were filled, they would likely only work for 11 weeks until the end of the current school year.

“When we do our interviewing process, we post for two weeks but we can interview during that posting time ... then it’s settling on a salary and getting the background check,” Bonner said. “We would post it in terms of a temporary position with the potential or possibility of becoming full time.”

During the discussion, Ward 3 Councilor Quaverly Rothenberg, a strong supporter of the $600,000 request who has sparred with the mayor over the budget in recent months, made a motion to suspend the rules to allow the council to vote on the measure that night. Her motion was seconded by Ward 4’s Jeremy Dubs, but the council ultimately voted against suspending the rules by a 5-3 vote. The order will now head to the Finance Committee for further discussion before coming back to the council.

“We just want you to put your votes on the record. We don’t want to wait another two weeks, or however many weeks, to hear you say no again,” Rothenberg told the council.

“I know you really say that it’s not about how you feel about the kids, and you feel very maligned when anyone says anything that insinuates you feel a certain way, but you feel a certain way about financial orders related to kids, and we just want to move it along.”

Also speaking in favor of the appropriation was Ward 7 Councilor Rachel Maiore, who noted that if the $600,000 could not be used to fill the positions by the end of the school year, it would simply be returned to the city.

“I’m not really hearing what the downside of doing that is, except that you possibly won’t be able to fill them, and then we will begrudgingly take that money back if we need to,” Maiore said. “I’d love to give our children and schools that opportunity.”

The move to add additional funding for the school district comes after the state certified the city as having free cash of $11.6 million in December, with $6.8 million of that new surplus funds from 2024 — though not all of the money could potentially be used for the school district. The schools are currently operating on a fiscal 2025 budget that is nearly 9% higher than the year before, the mayor said, but the loss of COVID relief funding meant the city still had to make cuts last budget season.

Other councilors, such as Ward 2’s Deb Klemer, appeared less enthused about the proposed funding transfer.

“We just need to face reality,” Klemer said. “You [Sciarra] have given more money each year, and people refuse to hear it, and people are snickering behind your back when you’re talking about it.”

Public weighs in

The council meeting began with lengthy public comment period, with many of those speaking members or affiliates of Support Our Schools, a group of residents who seek to have more funding allocated to the schools. A political action committee has also been established under the name Support Our Schools and Services.

“Harm from the mayor’s cuts to public education were loudly predicted by many who spoke to you,” said Al Simon, chair of the Support Our Schools PAC. “Time is of the essence. The power is in your hands tonight to finally act.”

Lisa Modenos, a Florence resident and supporter of the $600,000 appropriation, noted that Jessica Terry, who worked with autistic children at JFK Middle School, resigned at the Feb. 13 School Committee meeting. She said that shows how dire the situation had gotten for special needs students in the schools.

“The crisis in our schools particularly as related to special education has reached emergency status,” said Modenos. “Anyone on the council even remotely denying it at this point is not fit to hold an elected position.”

Nathan Chung, a Ward 4 resident, took an opposing view.

“There’s a lot of murkiness that led to this order,” Chung said. “I ask you to carefully consider the order because it came out of bullying and dysfunction. Even if the amount and underlying concept might be fine, there are no details.”

The order was ultimately referred to the council’s Finance Committee, which will review the order before the council meets again on March 6.