I am writing to echo Deb Henson’s excellent Feb. 15 guest column in the Gazette [”Northampton mayor, council fail to heed our priority — schools”]. We are a progressive community that places a premium on education and believes a community’s quality can best be measured by how it treats its most vulnerable. I support Deb and Support Our Schools (SOS) because they are both advocating for some of Northampton’s most vulnerable members — its public school children.

Northampton has had an annual multimillion-dollar revenue surplus for over a decade, and yet the mayor’s budget underfunded our public schools by $2 million. This caused 20 school teachers and paraprofessionals to be laid off. Like Deb, I think the city should use some of that surplus to rehire them.

Our children suffered through COVID and other stresses. Their needs have never been greater. Northampton has a poverty rate of 11% and is 85% white, but our public schools are more diverse (32% people of color), 31% live in poverty and 40% have special needs. Meeting these needs should be a priority.

The mayor’s budgetary plans include $103 million in capital expenditures over five years. We suffered a $2 million school budget shortfall last year because the annual surplus, noted above, was plugged into funding that plan before those funds were applied to the school budget. We need some of that annual surplus in our school budget. The remaining surplus may be smaller, but adequately funding our children’s education is worth it.

Let’s fully fund our schools and transform our city government into one whose priorities are in tune with our values.

Robert Meeropol

Northampton