Boston school panel OKs budget

$1.5b spending plan includes staffing cuts

The Boston School Committee Wednesday night approved a $1.5 billion operating budget for the upcoming school year that would slash hundreds of positions, consolidate dozens of classrooms, and make other cuts as the district grapples with the loss of federal stimulus dollars and a longtime decline in student enrollment.

The committee passed the budget in a 5-2 vote. Members Stephen Alkins, Jr. and Brandon Cardet-Hernandez voted against the proposal, arguing the cuts were too much.

The budget cuts also have proven unpopular with many parents across the district, who have waged spirited campaigns to restore positions and programs to their schools. Superintendent Mary Skipper called the making of the budget “one of the most difficult in a decade” because of the end of the federal money aimed at helping students recover from learning losses following the closure of schools during the pandemic.

“This budget required us to look at the most critical needs and there are many,” Skipper told the committee before the vote.

Mayor Michelle Wu will incorporate the spending plan into the city budget that she will present to the City Council in the coming weeks. That will kick off another public vetting of how Boston Public Schools spends its money.

Wu, who appoints the seven voting members of the School Committee, has tried to buffer budget cuts for the next school year with a more than $80 million infusion from the city’s general fund, which helped the district retain 322 of the more than 670 positions funded this year with the federal stimulus dollars.

Skipper also was able to make new investments in some areas, such as integrating more English learners and students with disabilities into traditional classrooms.

But rising operating costs are also creating financial challenges during a period of high inflation, a problem that is afflicting districts around the state. Those rising costs include an additional $12 million on transportation

and $4 million more for food services — two areas of spending that BPS has repeatedly struggled to rein in through the years.

Some committee members cast favorable votes with reluctance because of the budget cuts.

“If I do not vote in favor I would be delaying the process,” said member Rafaela Polanco Garcia.

Cardet-Hernandez said he still had too many lingering questions about how the budget decisions were made.

“I want to vote yes and be a good ally and soldier but at the same time I’m left with a lot of uncertainty,” said Cardet-Hernandez.

Several BPS librarians raised concerns during the public comment portion of the meeting about the district apparently scaling back its funding commitment to expand library services. Morgan Keohane said she received a call in February while on maternity leave that her fulltime librarian job at P.A. Shaw Elementary School in Dorchester would be reduced to part-time in the fall, although the plan has changed since then.

“I am grateful that my position was somewhat restored after reminding the district that under the strategic plan, it would be inequitable to have a part-time librarian serving hundreds of students,” she said. “I am not the only librarian whose position has been impacted or whose school is no longer receiving an investment.”

Some parents also expressed frustrations with budget cuts.

Cheryl Buckman, the mother of a fifth-grader at Dever Elementary School in Dorchester, said her school has suffered too many devastating cuts over the years, including the loss of their dual language program.

“Now with these budget cuts, they can lose even more teachers, staffers, and programs,” she said. “Haven’t our children already suffered enough? ... Shouldn’t we be investing in our children’s future by adding more programs and more teachers?”

Later in the meeting, Skipper said she remains committed to school libraries, noting they are important resources for students.

Since the budget proposal was released in early February, the School Committee has presented many questions to Skipper and her team, but only recently got responses back.

The Boston Municipal Research Bureau in a report issued earlier this month found the school budget vetting process was “woefully inadequate” and requires substantial improvement in order to increase public transparency around how spending decisions are made.

Per-pupil spending is expected to exceed $30,000 next year.

The School Committee also heard a proposal to rename Boston Community Leadership Academy/McCormack in Dorchester after civil rights leader Ruth Batson, who was the first woman elected president of the NAACP’s New England Regional Conference and also served as chairwoman of the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination from 1963 to 1966.

In the 1960s, Batson, a graduate of Girls’ Latin School, challenged the Boston School Committee on its practices of segregating Black students, especially in assigning them to inadequate school facilities. She also helped to launch the Metco program, a voluntary school integration program between Boston and surrounding suburbs.

The committee will vote on the name change on April 10 and appeared to be supportive of the proposal.