PITTSFIELD, Mass. — School officials dug into the $3.6 million in reductions proposed for fiscal year 2025 to bridge the funding gap.

Superintendent Joseph Curtis reiterated that the $80 million spending plan is not ideal but assured that the district will continue to serve its community with pride, purpose, compassion, and understanding.

"All the people here this evening went through an extensive process with no less than three meetings to really discuss and analyze and put forth proposals in a sense of reimagining their schools in the best interest of students and our district and school leaders brought forth many ideas using the resources that we have now with greater refinement and purpose and we went through that process with every bit of hope that we would have an intention or an opportunity to carry out some of those discussions and ideas that our leaders brought forth," he said to the School Committee on Wednesday.

"We learned when a budget was released that none of that — or a good deal of that, I'll use that — would be possible and so the budget I'm going to present to you today in great detail is in no way a budget that presents opportunity like we were discussing originally."

He explained that from every struggle the district experiences, opportunity can "certainly" be created and there have been many times in his 30 tenure with the district that it has been.

"And so we want to assure the committee as you will hear from our district and school leaders today that no matter what our circumstance, we will continue to serve children, families, and the community with every bit of pride and purpose that we have now," Curtis added.

"That we will continue to do that with compassion and understanding and that somehow we will get through this. And we know we'll get through this with your support."

Following the budget conversation with the committee, there was a workshop during which different groups spoke in detail about aspects of the proposal.

The district is anticipating a 3.5 percent increase from the FY24 city appropriation of $78,088,016, totaling $80,821,096. With more than $6.3 million in anticipated contractual increases and additional obligations, this creates a local budget shortfall of nearly $3.6 million.

Contractual obligations make up for $4.4 million of the budget drivers and special education out-of-district tuition costs more than $1 million due to additional students being educated out of the district, PPS being responsible for the full cost share, and a lower rate of inflation increase.

The shortfall is largely due to the sunsetting of federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds and a lesser allocation of state Chapter 70 funds. The FY25 proposal includes a significant reduction in staff members, some of whom were funded by ESSER.

"Terminology is important," Curtis said. "These positions that were funded by ESSER, they are not reductions, they are not eliminations. The funding source no longer exists at the end of this fiscal year and those positions are not being funded."

Reductions include 27 teachers and 26 paraprofessionals as well as administrators, teachers of deportment, and other specialized positions.

There was a question raised about the proposed $200,000 reduction for safety and security.

Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Kristen Behnke explained that over the past few years the district has installed several systems and the reduction will hamper the district's ability to install new ones.

All schools currently have cameras at their front doors.

"We have had camera requests from schools to install additional cameras," she reported. "It will be very difficult to do that. What we will be able to do is to do maintenance on some of the existing cameras."

Though the ESSER-funded emergency and safety coordinator will be no longer, Curtis explained that the district would propose that it is a shared position and that there is every intention to continue drills and safety practices that have been implemented.

Chair William Cameron is concerned about the cuts causing legal jeopardy for not complying with individualized education plans, adding "I realize that is something you're at least as concerned about as I am."

"I think it's important and I agree completely," Curtis said, noting the academic interventionists that are also impacted by the cuts and have been a part of students' grids.

He emphasized that the district has to ensure that the required legal services are "adhered to at all costs."

During the presentation, Behnke pointed to two federal requirements: Maintenance of Effort and Title One Comparability.

The memorandum of agreement requires that at least the same amount of local and state funds for the education of students on IEPs on a year-to-year basis and that the district spends at least the same amount of local and state funds for the education of students on IEPs on a year-to-year basis.

The penalty for not meeting the MOA is the payback of any federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act monies used in the amounts that the district fell short of meeting.

Title One Comparability is an annual comparability requirement of the ratio of pupils to total instructional staff at each school within a grade span. It is based on Oct. 1 numbers.

"Districts that are found not to meet comparability requirements are required to make adjustments to avoid the Title One financial sanctions," Behnke reported.

Due to a decrease in the percentage of low-income students, the district is being docked $2.3 million after missing the cutoff for a higher reimbursement group by 0.04 percent.

On Tuesday, the City Council supported a resolution calling for legislative change to fully reflect recent inflation in the Chapter 70 definition of the Foundation inflation index for fiscal year 2025 and to eliminate the cap in future years to restore the purchasing power of district Foundation budgets to reflect the intended resource allocations of the Student Opportunity Act.

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