Tuesday’s School Committee meeting did not have a public comment period, and began with a typical update from Interim Superintendent Kathy Smith. After Dr. Smith spoke, Committee member Cove Davis (Ward 8) requested that the Superintendent address concerns in the community about low Advanced Placement Math test pass rates for the 2021-2022 school year, which were posted to the DESE website. Dr. Smith responded by saying the issue would be addressed at the April 24th School Committee meeting.
The majority of the meeting was devoted to the Fiscal Year 2024 (“FY24”) NPS budget, which covers the upcoming September 2023 – June 2024 school year. Following the defeat of the operating override in the March 14 election, as well as $3.4 million of subsequent one-time funding pledged by Mayor Fuller to NPS for FY24, the FY24 budget shortfall stands at $4.9 million, consistent with the budget presented in last week’s March 29 meeting.
A group of elementary school administrators presented specific cuts for those grade levels, including the loss of 25.3 full-time employees (FTEs). The loss FTEs will include classroom teachers, Kindergarten aides, assistant principal administration, English Language Learner (ELL) aides, and the string orchestra staff. NPS will attempt to preserve small class sizes for grades K-2, but this focus may lead to larger class sizes in grades 3-5. Countryside Elementary principal Beth Herlihy emphasized the particular importance of Kindergarten aides performing “hard to measure” functions during the school day.
After this, a group of middle school and high school administrators gave a corresponding presentation for those grades. The budget cuts resulted in changes including larger team sizes in middle school, elimination of low-enrollment high school electives, and a 10% reduction in certain extra-curricular high school activities. A total of 19.7 FTEs will be eliminated at the middle school level, but staffing reductions at the high school level are mitigated by increasing enrollment resulting in reduction of 2.4 FTEs. Further detail regarding cuts by specific schools is contained in the linked presentation.
Following the educator presentations, Committee member Chris Brezski (Ward 2) introduced three cost-saving measures that he stated would free budgetary funds to minimize the planned reductions. He cited the impact on students’ academic and social-emotional learning that the educators had just discussed as the reason to increase NPS’s available budget funds. The measures he introduced are:
- Reduce NPS’s contributions for Other Post-Employment Benefits (“OPEB”) — currently 3.75% of payroll — into the City’s trust, which invests those funds for future retiree benefits ($3.1875 million). OPEB is primarily retiree healthcare benefits. NPS teacher pensions are not paid by the City, but rather the state pension trust.
- Adjust the $925 per year reimbursement to current retirees of Medicare Part B premium ($1.36 million).
- Eliminate NPS reimbursement of renewable energy credits to the City ($60,000).
Mr. Brezski emphasized that none of the items above were “contractual obligations of NPS,” and that he would delegate to the NPS administration discretion to determine how much of the above budget line-items to reduce, which would not necessarily be reduced to $0. He acknowledged that even with these changes, cuts would still be made, but NPS could avoid “the worst outcomes.” He further stated that because of Open Meeting Law, he could not share his ideas with School Committee members prior to this meeting.
Several School Committee members expressed interest in further researching Mr. Brezski’s proposals, however Mayor Fuller had a strong negative reaction. The Mayor emphasized that the NPS’s budget was unsustainable and cited the failed override as evidence of continued unsustainability. She framed the City funding retiree benefits as a “sacred duty” and stated that the Newton Retirement Board, which has independent authority to set the City’s pension contribution rates, was already reviewing possible reductions to FY24 contributions to relieve budgetary constraints. She implied that Mr. Brezski’s proposal may jeopardize the Retirement Board’s willingness to engage in cooperating with the City’s budgeting. Mayor Fuller concluded her comment by stating that if the School Committee were to adopt Mr. Brezski’s budget changes, she would consider negating those effects by reducing the City’s proposed NPS budget contribution by a similar amount.
Mr. Brezski responded with a strong rebuttal to Mayor Fuller’s comments. He cited the NPS administrators’ stern warnings about the effect of budget cuts, and stated he brought a “good faith effort” to mitigate those effects. He stated that he does not “appreciate the inferences that he doesn’t care about retirees,” questioned the Mayor’s “moral outrage” when he felt he was speaking on behalf of schoolchildren, and stated reducing OPEB contributions would not affect current retirees. Mr. Brezski said he made the same point to the Newton Retirement Board. He also opined that the Mayor was challenging the School Committee’s line-item budgetary authority by stating she could reduce the City’s NPS funding by any amount by which the School Committee reduced OPEB contributions.
The Mayor responded to Mr. Brezski’s rebuttal by stating she would “take him at his word” that his proposals were made in good faith. However, she challenged Mr. Brezski not to “kid yourself” that reduced OPEB contributions would not affect current retirees, and cited the example of a recently retired employee depending on many future years of benefits for both them and their spouse. She forcefully disagreed with Mr. Brezski’s assertion that she may not have the statutory ability to reduce the City’s budget allocation to NPS in response to the School Committee considering Mr. Brezski’s proposals, stating “if you want to change the game at the last minute, I’ll also change the game at the last minute.”
The conflict between Mr. Brezski and Mayor Fuller regarding the large OPEB contribution budget line-item centered on nuances of pension math, specifically what may be considered the prudent rate of contribution to the pension trust, assumed rate of return on the trust’s investments, and forecasted retiree healthcare liabilities. Mr. Brezski analogized delaying OPEB contributions to a family deferring 401k contributions during a year when there is not enough money to purchase food. Mayor Fuller emphasized the primacy of setting the NPS budget on a sustainable multiyear course and her effort to correct many years of chronic under-funding of the City’s pensions by prior mayors.
Matt Hills — a former member of the Newton School Committee (2010-2018; Chair 2014-2017) and current member of the board of the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education — told Fig City News that “A severe budget crisis in any organization often brings out the most creative ideas and the most intense emotions. We went through some very intense conversations on the School Committee during the financial and budget crisis the last decade, but I’ve never seen things play out as publicly and acrimoniously as at the April 3 meeting.”
The meeting concluded with the understanding that the School Committee would consider Mr. Brezski’s proposal at upcoming scheduled meetings prior to final approval of the NPS budget. The meeting video is available on NewTV. The elementary presentation begins at the 25:00 minute mark. The secondary schools presentation begins at the 1:43:00 mark. Mr. Brezski’s alternate budget proposal begins at approximately 2:39:30.
