NORTHAMPTON — After more than 20 jobs were cut from city schools before the beginning of this school year, a measure has been put forward that may bring some of those positions back.

During its Feb. 13 meeting, the Northampton School Committee approved a motion to direct Superintendent Portia Bonner to request an appropriation of $600,000 to hire or restore staff to the district. The move comes after the state certified the city has having a cash surplus of $11.6 million in December.

The City Council will hold a first reading on the proposed order during its Thursday meeting, with a vote on the measure likely at a later date.

In a memo sent to Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra dated Feb. 14, Bonner broke down how the proposed $600,000 would be allocated among schools in the district, with $209,656, around a third of the total appropriation, going to Northampton High School, $139,127 going to JFK Middle School and the remaining split rather evenly between the four elementary schools in the district.

“If appropriated, each building principal and school council will determine the priority of how to spend this additional appropriation,” Bonner wrote in the memo. “Please consider this request as we advocate for meeting the needs of our students.”

The motion for the appropriation was introduced by members Emily Serafy-Cox and Michael Stein, both of whom previously spoke out against the staffing cuts that resulted from the most recent city budget, instead advocating for a level-services budget that would have prevented cuts but raised the school budget by an additional $2 million.

“The budget surplus in the city has been certified, and it seems like an apropos moment to have a discussion about requesting a midyear appropriation,” Serafy-Cox said at the Feb. 13 meeting.

Asked during the meeting where the $600,000 figure came from, Stein acknowledged that it was an “imperfect number,” but said the committee needed to act quickly to try to restore some of the previously cut jobs.

“Time is of the essence,” Stein said. “If we wait around for a proposal of exactly what we want, we’re going to lose weeks and months in the possible allocation process.”

Bonner cautioned that even if the appropriation is ultimately approved, there would likely only be 2½ months left in the school year by the time the positions were filled. She also said employees hired during the school year are automatically pink-slipped at the end of the year, leaving their future for next school year in question.

“I hear the hearts of the people, and I hear the voices and I know that there’s an urgency,” Bonner said. “But I wish that we can press this for the next fiscal year budget, when it’s the full year that we can start fresh.”

The motion for the appropriation was met with approval from many committee members, including Ward 2’s Anat Wiesenfreund, who joined the committee last month to fill in for the resigning Karen Foster.

“I’m in the business of believing what I hear from students and parents and staff, because there’s no reason they would tell us something that isn’t true,” Wiesenfreund said. “If nothing else, it’s a gesture. If we can’t hire all the staff or if we can’t manage to do it … we need to let the community know that we hear them, and that we care about them and that we acknowledge their pain.”

The approval was not unanimous, however, with at-large committee member Aline Davis saying that students needed more than just “warm bodies” to meet their needs.

“I don’t think it makes sense to just pretend that we’re putting a Band-Aid on it by just hiring people off the street who will say, yeah, I’ll work for four months,” Davis said. “Every single person in a school, from pre-K to 12, has a serious job to do and it can’t just be anybody.”

Sciarra, who chairs the School Committee, also reiterated her stance that spending more on recurring staff payments would compound into future budgets and create a deficit.

“Unless there’s like complete understanding that you’re talking about just doing a three-month, one-time fund and those positions get eliminated, you have to understand that unless it’s built into the base [budget], it’s going to turn into a deficit,” Sciarra said. “I know I’ve been mocked for saying this, but this is precisely why we’re in this situation.”

The final vote on the motion was 8-2, with Davis and Sciarra dissenting votes. Following Bonner’s memo, Sciarra submitted the order to the council at the request of the School Committee, but without her recommendation.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.