PITTSFIELD, Mass. — Pittsfield Public School's budget for the upcoming fiscal year includes added communication supports and a special project manager.

The School Committee on Wednesday adopted a $86,450,361 budget for fiscal year 2026 that includes an $18 million city contribution and more than $68 million of anticipated Chapter 70 funding.

It is a $3,765,084 increase from this year. With $450,000 in school choice and Richmond tuition funds, it totals $86,900,361.

While the bottom line stayed the same, this iteration of the budget accommodates the School Committee's two requests, reallocating $20,000 for contracted communications services and $80,000 for a special project manager to guide the middle school restructuring and the Crosby Elementary School rebuild.

This was covered by reducing the technology renewal cycle line by $100,000.

"We we started the year with a $200,000 reduction in that line, and we were able to put those funds back based on hiring in the FY25 budget and so we are proposing reducing that by $100,000 at this point to add two additional things that were brought up for our consideration and for your consideration at our last meeting," Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Kristen Behnke said.

She explained that the district needs assistance with both ongoing and crisis communications, which tend to have different rates, and "depending on what's happening in the district, it might make sense to have contracts for both."

"We do some excellent, excellent work in this district. As a parent, I can tell you that. As someone who sits up here and has sat up here for a number of years, I can tell you that. We do not do a good job getting that story out," Behnke said.

"When we talked about the number of websites that we have in the district, that's a lot of how we get some of that stuff out. We could do it in a better, more cohesive manner, but we need help doing that, and it would cost a lot more money, I think, if we had somebody full-time on staff."

Superintendent Joseph Curtis will step down from his position at the end of the school year after 30 years with the district. The special project manager aims to provide support on the district's significant action items while the new superintendent is getting acclimated.

"I think there's enough in the day-to-day, managing the district, working with the principals, and doing what they need to do that to add these things on to an interim superintendent might be too much. It might also be inconsistent, at best, if we were to break that up and do it with our current staff," said Matthew Bishop, assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction, and educational engagement.

"… I think you're going to get a far better process than if we're trying to manage that on top of everything else because it's important, and we want the attention to be paid to it."

School Committee member Sara Hathaway sees this as a good investment, recognizing that the district expects to hire an interim superintendent for one year.

"We may have to look at whether we extend that based on how the search goes for the permanent replacement. It seems like one way to guarantee some continuity would be to say we are hiring somebody for the school building piece, separate from the interim superintendent. If the permanent superintendent has experience in that, feels they can take it on, great. If the first year of the permanent superintendent, they're going to have their hands full with other issues, perhaps we would look at extending the project manager for the school building project at that point," she said.

"I think we need to be open to that. I think we need to realize that Mr. Curtis' workload was probably excessive and will not be duplicated — should not be duplicated by whoever we hire to take that position, so this is a good solution to make sure that this project goes forward in service to our students."

Mayor Peter Marchetti again highlighted the importance of sustainability. In FY26, there were more than $5 million in contractual increases and additional obligations. The nearly $1.3 million budget gap was bridged through job movement, attrition, retirements, etc.

"If we turn to the city side, depending upon if we're using the governor's budget or the House budget, unrestricted government aid increased by $233,000 for the entire city budget on the governor's side and zero increase on the House side," he said.

"Our revenues are depleting, and so at some point in time, we continue to say this, we're not gonna be able to sustain the city as a whole. I'll support the budget, but we've got to start making— and I don't know what they are, right— different strategic decisions. We're going to be forced to at some point in time, and maybe as early as this year if we lose title funding, so we have to start thinking outside the box to be prepared for that if it does happen."

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