PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The School Committee on Wednesday approved a $78 million budget, which is a 7.86 percent increase over this year.

About $220,000 was cut from the initial draft budget after a conversation with Mayor Linda Tyer, bringing the ask from $78,310,016 to $78,088,016. With school choice and Richmond tuition funds, the total is $78,558,016.

Reductions include the $100,000 line item to replace Chromebook computers, $22,000 from the Career Technical Education supplies, $5,000 from the curriculum and instruction account, and the relocation of a $95,000 social emotional learning coordinator to Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) III funds.

"I'm really grateful that [Superintendent Joseph Curtis] and [Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Kristen Behnke] were willing to take a second look at the school budget to sharpen what they thought they could propose that would still be responsive to student needs, family needs, staff needs, but help us find a way to have balanced proposal," Mayor Linda Tyer said.

Curtis said the district will continue with a one-to-one deployment of the Chromebooks in middle and high school classrooms for at least next year and reassess as the year progresses.  

"So we did reduce the $100,000 in this version of the budget, with every anticipation that we use remaining funds and the instructional category of the budget this year to purchase as many Chromebooks as possible in anticipation for next year," he said.

In the 2021-2022 school year, 2,088 of the laptops were replaced, a loss rate that has cost more than $1,000,000 with most of the financial support through federal and state grants that have now ended.

In order to move the SEL coordinator to ESSER funds for one final year, the district family engagement and attendance coordinator and the student support paraprofessional were removed from ESSER.

Curtis said this position is essential.

"They're not only coordinating the curriculum, the new screening, and assessments we're putting in, that position provides supervision and evaluation requirements for all of the school adjustment counselors that we have. It's a number of school adjustment counselors for one person to evaluate," he said.

"So that's not our primary reason, but it's certainly a reason and if we do continue to fund in some way all of the school adjustment counselors locally, that coordinator position must be considered part of that package to ensure that the school adjustment counselors get the support and guidance, the coaching that they need in their roles, as many of them are new to their roles."

This budget is a $5,689,754 increase from last year's appropriation of $72,398,262 with more than 85 percent of the increase allocated for special education instruction and support, Career Technical Education/career pathways, and contractual obligations.

Chapter 70 state education aid is up $6,592,719 and school officials noted that the budget increase is $902,965 less than the state funding being received.

"Last year, after the budget presentation or during it, the councilors did at the time give us a directive to make some adjustments with the salaries and that came from a number of them," Vice Chair Daniel Elias said. "And we did that and the price tag is $3 million."

The figure was passed unanimously with not much pushback from committee members.

"This is an investment for the community as a whole," Sara Hathaway said.

"And I hope the City Council will support the figures that we adopt tonight but I also want to send out the message that we need the social and emotional supports, we need the school adjustment counselors, we need mental health supports for our schools and I don't want to see those lost next year."

Alison McGee said she was nervous when the saw the email about the changes but thinks that it was explained in a very clear way.

"I really appreciate how creative everyone was in coming to a solution with that," she said.

With a concern for the impact of social-emotional learning, McGee made a request that moving forward, as early and often as feasible, the district looks at ESSER positions and how they can be creatively addressed.

Parent Kareem Wright said he has noticed a disconnect between parents and teachers and suggested a reconnection.

Chair William Cameron spoke to Wright's advocacy of closer working relationships between teachers and parents.

"It's crucial," he said. "And I also think that dovetails with what we've been discussing here about the need for taking cognizance of what both students and teachers and school personnel generally have faced in the aftermath of the school closures and then reopening under COVID."

He seconded a colleague's claim that the pandemic opened up challenges that every school district in the nation faces.

"I think that it's very difficult to run an effective instructional program in a disorderly environment and I know that there's a balance to be made here between levels of instructional personnel, those providing direct instructional services to students whether it's in special programming and special ed or general education on the one hand and people who have a responsibility for ensuring that the schools do in fact provide an appropriate learning environment," he said.

"And I believe that the superintendent and the administrators and the building principals, the program directors have done their very best to strike that balance between not reducing teachers in order to provide additional supports of whatever sort but reallocating some resources so that we can expand programming and others and also ensuring that there are people in the schools who are in a position to enable teachers to teach and students that are experiencing difficulty are dealt with in a constructive way."

Enc. No. 3, FY24 PPS Budget... by Brittany Polito

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