The Northampton City Council voted unanimously to pass a $40 million school budget, even though some councilors said they were not in favor of this decision.
“I felt like this entire budget process was very rushed,” Ward 4 Councilor Jeremy Dubs said during the meeting. “I wish that we had had the time for discussion overall… I’m voting ‘yes’ because I think that we should have as much funding as possible for the schools.”
On June 6, Northampton Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra introduced to the City Council an additional $1,104,750 to the 2025 fiscal year school budget, which increased the total school budget to $40,778,585.
This sum is a combination of money from the Fiscal Stability Stabilization Fund in the amount of $737,556, $200,528 from the Special Education Stabilization Fund, and $166,666 that was gifted to the city by Smith College.
Discussion around the school budget has been ongoing as council members including Ward 7 Councilor Rachel Maiore have said that about 20 positions within the district could be lost, including positions that won’t be refilled when some staff members retire.
Organizations and members of the public have asked the mayor to provide the district with an additional $2 million to “fully fund” or “level fund” the Northampton Public Schools — though the approved budget represents a significant increase.
Sciarra said the school deficit has more than doubled, and already the city has bailed out the school budget from rainy day funds to the tune of $1.2 million during the current fiscal year, which was to help overcome a $2.3 million deficit at the time, Sciarra said. Now, the deficit has grown to $4.77 million.
Previously, city officials said using stabilization money to plug the school deficit would bleed dry Northampton’s savings funds — collected over 12 years — in a matter of two years.
Ward 3 Councilor Quavery Rothenberg asked the mayor during Tuesday’s meeting to modify the budget by adding another $466,000 to the district’s budget “to avoid the most devastating of the cuts that are ahead.”
Specifically, Rothenberg suggested adding an additional $150,000 from the Special Education Fund and roughly $115,000 from the stabilization fund to make up the difference.
Sciarra responded by saying that the Northampton School Committee had already passed this budget after looking at the city’s revenues and expenses and the extra funding that was amended into the budget.
“The school committee has already voted this… so that’s what we’re looking at,” she said.
All City Council members were able to vote on the district’s budget including Northampton City Council president Alex Jarrett, who recused himself during the council’s budget vote last month, due to a conflict of interest arising from his membership with the Pedal People Cooperative, which holds a contract affected by the city budget.
“The Pedal People Cooperative… has a pre-existing contract (started before I was elected) with Central Services Parking Maintenance. That prevented me from voting in the final budget vote,” Jarrett said.
Jarrett, who was in favor of the budget at the time, would have represented the deciding vote in favor in June.
Since Tuesday’s vote was purely on the school budget, Jarrett was able to vote on the $40 million funding, and he voted in favor.
“I very much wish there was a sustainable way to add even more funding for the Northampton Public Schools,” he said. “I look forward to thinking together in the future about how we can accomplish that.”
Rothenberg chimed in to share her disapproval.
“It’s clearly not enough for the schools,” she said. “It concerns me that the mayor seems to have rigidity here…. The mayor always has and still has always had the legal power and leadership ability to fully fund the schools.”
Rothenberg added that she approved the budget because “we want the schools to get every bit of money.” However, “this is still a huge disappointment.”
“We as a City Council really need to step it up and do more with our budgets,” she said. “We cannot leave our constituents hanging like this. This was a deep disservice to our community.”
Maiore said that Sciarra could still move money around and add funds “at any point” even after this budget season.
“I just wanted to point that out to the public,” Maiore said. “Although the budget conversations will come to an end soon, the larger conversations can still happen.”
Concern over public comment
During this discussion, Rothenberg told Jarrett that she was concerned over how public comments have been conducted during council meetings, citing moments during their June 20 meeting when some City Council members asked Jarrett to “control the way people shook their heads, move their bodies” and “whisper to their neighbors.”
“I’m very concerned about people’s right to participate in a public space and the kinds of messages we were sending through this budget season,” Rothenberg said. “The trends that we’re sort of slipping into are distressing to me and to the public and to my constituents.”
For Tuesday night’s meeting, Jarrett said he decided to not allow public discussion because the school budget has been brought up at multiple meetings.
“We’ve had quite a bit of time for public comments there,” he said.
Jarret added that public comments will be allowed during the Council’s next meeting which will be held virtually on July 11, at 6:30 p.m. He also encouraged the public to personally reach out to the councilors.
“I look forward to further conversations about our rules or about how we engage with the public and with each other,” he said.
