Interim Superintendent and Mayor make emotional pitch for Override at School Committee meeting

The January 23 School Committee meeting contained a busy agenda, beginning with several Asian-American constituents, including NPS parents and students making public comments to voice their support for making Lunar New Year a public school holiday. An additional commenter supported the same for Diwali.

The main topic discussed was the proposed operating override, which if approved would allocate $4.5 million to NPS on a non-binding basis. Interim Superintendent Kathleen Smith gave an impassioned presentation advocating for the City’s voters to approve the override. Citing her prior experiences in the Brockton school district, where budget cuts had severe effects on education, Dr. Smith gave her full support to the proposed overrides.

The NPS administration presented a “goal” budget of $280 – $282 million for the 2023-2024 academic year, which is designed to maintain services equivalent to this year and represents a 6.8% to 7.6% increase from the current year’s $262 million budget. Dr. Smith cited anonymous quotes from educators to illustrate “Growing Student Needs,” many of which appeared to stem from school closures and remote learning during the Covid-19 pandemic. Other expense drivers included out-of-district student placements, health insurance, transportation, and utility costs. See slides 15-19 of the presentation.

The proposed $4.5 million operating override is contemplated in addition to a planned 3.5% increase of $8.2 million in funding from the City’s regular budget allocation to NPS. The total increased funding, plus an assumed $2 million carryforward from this year’s budget, would still leave a shortfall of $2 – $4 million below the $280 – $282 million needed for the “goal” budget for the next school year. Dr. Smith suggested that closing that gap may require increased student fees, reduced maintenance, and targeted education cuts. She emphasized that in making such cuts, NPS would give priority to maintaining classroom activities in their current form.

Without passage of the override, that gap of $2 – $4 million would increase to $6 – $8 million. The administration said that the larger gap would be filled by cuts as described in slides 25-30 of the presentation.

The School Committee members varied in their reactions to the presentation. Tamika Olszewski (Ward 4, Chair) and Emily Prenner (Ward 5) were supportive of the overrides. Chris Brezski (Ward 2), however, questioned why Dr. Smith portrayed passing the operating override as being sufficient to maintain NPS’ existing level of service when a structural budget deficit would remain, even upon passage of the override. Mayor Fuller gave a speech about the challenging work of NPS and its educators. Ms. Olszewski closed the discussion by proposing that the School Committee would vote at the next meeting on whether the Committee would endorse the overrides.

Following the override discussion, enrollment analysis report and presentation was shared by Liam Hurley, Assistant Superintendent, and Katy Hogue, Director of Data Analysis and Enrollment Planning. The report was generally consistent with the Preliminary Report shared with the School Committee on October 27, 2022, which forecast continued decline in NPS enrollment over the next 5 years.

The meeting replay is available here on NewTV.