Sarah Buttenwieser, Amy Martyn, and Kristen Elde: Care and communication as community values

Downtown Northampton over Main Street. STAFF FILE PHOTO

Published: 06-30-2024 10:41 AM

If we believe budgets are moral documents, then we must ensure our values are reflected in how we spend our money. We must ensure Northampton’s budget reflects our city’s greatest needs.

We consider caring for one another to be at the top of the list and we know we’re far from alone in prioritizing this value. Further, we see our public schools as the most important structure for care on a community-wide level, and we know we’re not alone in this thinking either. Our teachers and staff are central partners with parents and caregivers in raising up well-educated, well-cared-for students — our future leaders, neighbors, and the people who will be caring for us as we age.

Care requires investment though, including, in the case of our schools, the additional $2 million still needed to ensure level services that we, and many in our community, have been advocating for. We believe that asking questions, some of which might feel challenging, about the structure of our city’s finances and funding priorities, as well as digging into issues around how our state funds public education, is the way forward. And to be clear, this is about more than $2 million for this coming fiscal year; it’s about how we proceed in aligning our values and needs and fiscal parameters in the best way we can.

These topics are of course complex, and we’re all served by more good minds working, creatively and in good faith, in support of public schools that reflect a high standard of caring education. In the year ahead, we would love to see and be a part of a dedicated series of inclusive community meetings that explore participatory budgeting. Buoyed by the current level of engagement and passion, we know that members of our community can work together to craft a budget that moves us closer to our shared values.

Let’s start by level-service funding Northampton Public Schools for 2024-25 and keep our sleeves rolled up as we plan in earnest for successive years of fully funded schools.

Sarah Buttenwieser

Northampton

Amy Martyn

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