Pittsfield School Officials Making Budget Recommendations Wednesday By Brittany Polito, iBerkshires Staff
05:36AM / Wednesday, April 09, 2025 | |
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The School Committee will make recommendations for the district's fiscal year 2026 budget on Wednesday.
This follows a workshop on April 2, where principals and district leaders presented their facility's breakdown with a 2.15 percent reduction to meet costs and a public hearing on Monday, which garnered no participation.
The $87 million budget proposal includes an $18 million city contribution and more than $68 million of anticipated Chapter 70 funding. It is a $3,765,084 increase from FY25.
Superintendent Joseph Curtis reported on several outreach efforts to maintain transparency during this budget season, including "much more communication" with Pittsfield Public Schools staff, a survey, and a video overview to the Pittsfield Public School Council.
"At our next meeting, which is just two days away, the School Committee will be able to offer any suggestions for the budget, as it stands right now, so we'll certainly look forward to that if anybody has any suggestions," he said on Monday.
"And then we would make any modifications, if necessary, and bring that back to the committee on Wednesday, April 30, for hopefully final adoption."
The proposed $86,450,361 spending plan has $1,238,000 in payroll reductions, but district officials anticipate cuts will be made through job movement, attrition, retirements, etc.
Contractual increases and additional obligations are anticipated to exceed $5 million, and $1,294,916 must be reduced to meet the FY26 city appropriation. Contractual obligations account for more than $3 million alone.
Other budget drivers include $820,000 of special education out-of-district tuition, $120,000 in utility cost increases, and $770,000 in transportation costs. Utility projections are based on the 15 percent rate increase in January.
The budget exercise on April 2 examined every school, academy, and central office, with a 2.15 percent reduction.
"It's important to point out that this year, we felt strongly that the principals be the sole decision maker in their reduction so we have done it in a myriad of different ways in the past, but this year, they really worked closely with the staff and school councils," Curtis explained, adding that a previous budget exercise factored a 6.65 percent reduction so school leaders were tremendously relieved when asked to work with a lesser reduction.
The presentations included information about the school's local staffing budget, reductions, demographics, staff members, and key focus areas on the school improvement plans.
Silvio O. Conte Community School has the highest budget at the elementary level, $4,292,934, and a 2.15 percent reduction would cut $92,406. This would cut the full-time equivalent of one classroom teacher, interventionist, and paraprofessional but adds a family engagement & attendance coordinator who monitors attendance, provides community resources for at-risk families, and assists with social-emotional learning interventions with students.
The school has nearly 350 enrolled students, 88.5 percent of whom are economically disadvantaged, 21 percent receive special education services, and 29 percent are multilingual.
The city's two middle schools, Herberg and Reid, have about $5.3 million local staffing budgets and around $114,000 in reductions. Herberg would see the reduction of one full-time equivalent teacher and paraprofessional, and Reid would see the reduction of two FTE teachers and one paraprofessional while adding three FTE teachers and three FTE paraprofessionals to accommodate special education inclusion.
Pittsfield High School has a local staffing budget of $8,261,211 and $177,740 in reductions, including about two FTE teachers, one FTE dean of students, and adds a FTE teacher of deportment. Taconic's $9,103,009 local staffing budget has $195,852 in reductions, including three FTE teachers.
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