Pittsfield's $80M School Budget Proposal 'Not Ideal,' Cuts Over 100 Employees
PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The school administration delivered a somber budget presentation for fiscal 2025, including a proposed reduction of more than 100 staff members.
"Tonight is truly about much change and certainly challenges and then choices and as being committed to the Pittsfield public schools for now 30 years, we certainly have been here before over different periods of time and I've experienced it in really all the roles I have held," Superintendent Joseph Curtis told the School Committee on Wednesday.
"We will get through this. We will continue to serve our children, our families, and our community and we will continue to show compassion and understanding to the children and families we serve. We will get through this. It will be a struggle, but we certainly will in the good of who we serve."
Much of the impact is attributed to the September sunsetting of the federal Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief funds that were created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and not as much in state Chapter 70 education funding as previous years.
For FY25, the district is anticipating a 3.5 percent increase from this year's budget appropriation totaling $80,821,096, about $2.7 million more. With anticipated contractual increases and other spending obligations reaching more than $6.4 million, a local budget shortfall of almost $3.7 million is anticipated not including the discontinued ESSER funds.
That $3.7 million gap has brought a proposal for a level number of reductions including 27 teachers to save more than $1.3 million and 26 paraprofessionals to save another $686,000.
If any additional cuts need to be made, PPS will need to close an elementary school.
Curtis said this is "not an ideal proposal in any way" and reported that district leaders' "facial expressions of worry and concern were certainly real" when it was presented to them.
"We're talking between ESSER and local reductions over 100 staff members. We do not want those 100 staff members to find out on a slide or from the media," he said.
"We want them to have individual conversations with their school leader, their department leader. We also want to have opportunities to have optional staff meetings with our staff. There's a lot of communication that has to take place."
A special meeting is being held for a public hearing on Wednesday and the committee is expected to adopt the budget on April 25. Curtis pointed out that there are still adjustments being made.
"I would sense that there will be a lot for the public to react to after this evening," he said.
Due to a decrease in the percentage of low-income students, the district is being docked $2.3 million after missing the cutoff for a higher reimbursement group by 0.04 percent. Assistant Superintendent for Business and Finance Kristen Behnke explained that this is a difference of two students to get the district over the mark and that some possible technical errors have been identified.
"It seems strange to us that we would have become less poor in the last year," she said.
The district saw an increase in Chapter 70 funds of $6.6 million this year; the projected FY25 increase is $649,248.
There have been ongoing conversations with the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education on the matter but due to the budget process timeline, the lesser amount of funding is being reported.
"I want to be optimistic," Behnke said. "This seems to me very much like it should be a technical fix and not something that would have to make a case for but I really don't know."
Other proposed budget cuts include three deans of students resulting in a $255,000 savings, eight teachers of deportment resulting in a $400,000 savings, and cuts to line item expenses.
"There's certainly no way that this will be a moment that anyone appreciates," Curtis said, explaining that these reductions impact each of Pittsfield Public School's 14 facilities and all bargaining units except for bus drivers and monitors, cafeteria workers, and custodians.
He explained that if closing an elementary school became a necessary action, the district would have inflated class sizes. Currently, PPS has some very small class sizes that no other urban school district possesses, he said, emphasizing that Pittsfield is an urban school district even though some community members don't think so.
Reacting to the city's loss of Chapter 70 funding, committee member Sara Hathaway said somebody did not do the counting correctly at the state level and emphasized the impact of the monies.
"Real lives are affected, jobs are being lost, children's education is being affected," she said. "We need them to own up and at least give us that missing funding."
Member William Garrity said the district has a unique issue with Chapter 70 but that there are also issues happening statewide and he is pleased to see advocacy from multiple educational organizations on it.
"I think collaboration is the goal moving forward with this budget," he said, highlighting the importance of working with the City Council this budget season.
The district is currently undergoing a restructuring study for the physical and educational structure of PPS. This week, the School Building Needs Commission and the committee voted in favor of submitting a statement of interest to the Massachusetts School Building Needs Authority to rebuild Conte Community School and Crosby Elementary School on the Crosby site with shared facilities.
Tags: fiscal 2025, pittsfield_budget, school budget,
