The School Committee meeting scheduled for March 20 will focus on the budget for Newton Public Schools (NPS) for Fiscal Year (FY) 2025, which corresponds to the academic year from fall 2024 through spring 2025. The proposed budget totals $286.3 million, which is a 5.17% increase over to the current year’s budget, inclusive of various special funding line items. The increase represents the largest year-over-year growth in the NPS budget in several years.
The meeting documents uploaded in advance to the School Committee website include:
- A presentation giving an overview of the budgeting philosophy used as well as sources and uses of funding,
- A presentation specific to highlights in the FY25 elementary and secondary budgets, and
- The 202-page detailed budget document.
The meeting materials include a detailed description of the $4.1 million contributed from the newly created Educational Stabilization Fund, which is the final iteration of a series of supplemental funding proposals by the Mayor to utilize part of the City’s surplus cash balance for NPS. The overview presentation also presents a scale of five possible budgetary goals from “less than level service” to “thrive,” and it notes that this FY 2025 draft budget falls in the middle of the scale as “Level Service +” (slide 23).
Also noteworthy is the lack of any budget-driven cuts in staff or programs, which were highly contentious topics during last year’s budget deliberations.
The hybrid (in-person and virtual) meeting will begin at 6:30PM on Wednesday, March 20 at the Education Center (Room 210) and on Zoom. After a series of additional School Committee meetings later this month as well as a public hearing on Monday, April 1, a final vote on the budget is anticipated for Tuesday, April 9. Once approved by the School Committee, the NPS budget will then be incorporated into the overall City budget submitted to the City Council for further debate and approval.
The City Council may only reduce, not increase, certain line-items and cannot reject the entire budget. In May, 2022, Mayor Fuller put into effect for FY 2023 a budget that the City Council had voted against by a 13-11 margin.