On April 17, the City Council Programs and Services Committee held a joint budget meeting with the Finance Committee to discuss the Newton Public Schools (NPS) budget for the 2025-2026 school year. Superintendent Anna Nolin and School Committee Chair Chris Brezski presented their rationale behind Nolin’s proposed budget, which has been approved by the School Committee but exceeds the funds allocated by the Mayor.
The meeting was attended by all members of both committees, plus several other Councilors. The gallery of the Council Chamber was full of spectators, who gave both Nolin and Breszki standing ovations.
Nolin: The Challenge to Thrive
“We titled our budget presentation today ‘the challenge to thrive’ because we have much spoken about our desire to enact a budget for the Newton Public Schools that allows our students to do that, to thrive,” Dr. Nolin said.
She presented an overview of the budgeting process, explaining that she was working to rebuild “trust and transparency” in the school system. A lack of trust and transparency, Dr. Nolin said, results in parents seeking alternative forms of education.
“Instability creates worry for parents, staff, and administrators,” she said.
Dr. Nolin emphasized that the district was hoping to continue expanding on its Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) intervention program, through which students take diagnostic tests and receive individualized assistance to support their learning.
Dr. Nolin compiled a list of requested improvements based on feedback from the community and school administrators. Together, these improvements would require an additional $18 million in funding. This, she said, was the budget that the district needed to “thrive.”
Dr. Nolin did not recommend the “thrive” budget. She recommended what she called a “Level Service+” budget, which sought to “stabilize” the system and “include minimal restorations.” This “Level Service+” budget was the one that the School Committee approved.
She said that an increase in costs, along with decades of flat and under-funding and the ending of one-time funding sources (such as COVID relief funding), had resulted in a budget gap between Dr. Nolin’s requested budget and the allocation provided in Mayor Fuller’s municipal budget.
Dr. Nolin said that Mayor Fuller has indicated a willingness to allocate approximately $5 million in additional Free Cash toward the 2025-26 NPS budget. Of that sum, $2.5 million would go to the reduction of the budget deficit, while the remaining $2.5 million would go to facility improvements and have no effect on the budget deficit.
After this additional allocation by the Mayor and additional cuts to the original Level Service+ budget by Dr. Nolin, the remaining budget deficit is now $2.2 million.
Breszki: Funding the gap in FY2026
Breszki outlined several options the City could pursue to close the deficit for FY2026 and address the district’s long-term financial struggle.
With regard to the district’s options to manage through FY2026, he said that the City has two potential sources of funding:
- The Education Stabilization Fund, which holds approximately $21 million. However, some of that funding must be conserved for future use.
- Free Cash, or the excess of City revenues over expenses in the previous year. The City’s current Free Cash balance is $13 million. By June 30, the City is projected to have $7-8 million in “excess” Free Cash.
Breszki also noted that if the $2.5 million designated for facility improvements in Mayor Fuller’s $5 million additional Free Cash allocation were used to address the deficit, the budget gap for FY2026 would be closed.
“[The Mayor] wants to allocate [funds] in a way that suits her priorities and not the School Committee’s,” he said. “All we need to solve this problem is for the Mayor to simply say, ‘School Committee, you should exercise your statutory authority in determining where the funding to NPS gets allocated. That is your job; that is why you’re elected.’”
Two ways to fund a path forward
Breszki shifted the focus of the presentation to the future of the district. “I want to assure you that we are not building a bridge to nowhere,” he said, emphasizing that he believed that levers are available to achieve long-term financial sustainability for NPS.
Breszki said that the NPS administrative team will work to promote efficiency in providing NPS services. In addition to their efforts, Brezski said that the City has two potential options to achieve long-term sustainability:
- An increased annual allocation in funding to NPS, within the City’s capacity, and/or
- A modified approach to addressing retiree liabilities.
Increasing the City’s allocation to NPS
“There is a continuous pattern of under-budgeting revenue in the City,” Breszki said.
Based on numbers taken directly from City budgets, he said that City revenue has averaged 3.3% over budgeted amounts over the last ten years. (Breszki said that for the current fiscal year, which will end in June, City revenues are expected to exceed budgeted amounts by 3.5%.)
Breszki also noted that City revenue, on average, has grown by 4.7% annually over the last ten years, while NPS funding has not matched that rate of growth.
“We are constantly told to live in a world of 3.5% growth, but that is simply not the case,” he said. “If our budget over the last ten years had grown at the rate of growth of City revenues, our budget would be $20 million higher today.”
Dr. Nolin reiterated that this additional $20 million would more than cover the $18 million in requests for additional services that NPS principals had made throughout the budgeting process, incorporated in the “thrive” budget.
Funding Retiree Liabilities
On October 7, 2024, Mayor Fuller presented the City’s Long-Range Financial Plan for FY2026-30, which aims to complete the full funding of past pension liabilities by FY2033. (The Commonwealth requires that municipalities fully fund government pension plans by 2040.)
In addition to fully funding Newton’s pension system, the City is further responsible for funding other post-employment benefits (OPEB) for government retirees.
Breszki recommended that the City consider “easing off the gas” in the rate of growth of pension funding. He also suggested considering whether or not the City’s OPEB trust needs to be fully funded, since the OPEB liability is “very different” than that of the pension.
“Our pension is a statutory obligation, and it has to be funded by the year 2040,” he said. “Our other post-employment retiree benefits [are] not a statutory obligation; [they’re] a contractual obligation.”
He presented an alternative plan for pension and OPEB funding, noting that the City is not required to allocate any specific amount of money for OPEB funding.
He suggested that the City continue to fund the pension at a rate of $50 million annually; then, once the pension is fully funded, continue to fund OPEB at the same rate.
Should the City take this approach, the pension would be funded fully by the end of 2034; NPS would receive a 4% allocation, putting the district on track to be “fully funded;” and the City would be left with $34 million in excess cash for other operations.
Breszki asked the City Council to support the vision for the future of the district that he and Dr. Nolin proposed.
“I’m asking the City Council to play the one card you have …seek out that leverage to just say, ‘Mayor, just let the School Committee do their job. Let them allocate that two and a half million dollars, and we will go seek out these solutions,” he said. “You can do that by seeking to look at other line items in her budget; you can do that by seeking to deny her uses of Free Cash.”
“But if we do nothing, then we will be right back in this cycle for years to come.”
Councilors Comment
Following the presentation, City Councilors shared their opinions regarding the budget proposal and asked questions of Brezski, Dr. Nolin, and City of Newton Chief Financial Officer Maureen Lemieux.
City Councilor Martha Bixby (Ward 6) said that she believes that it is vital for Nolin’s budget to be funded for the 2025-2026 school year.
“Like so many of the parents in the room, I’m living this every day,” she said. “It is challenging every morning to wake up to see what the schools need …and knowing that there is this amount of money that we can try and find to get us there.”
City Council President (and mayoral candidate) Marc Laredo said that he was completely supportive of Dr. Nolin’s vision for the future of the district.
He said that he believed that using Free Cash to support Dr. Nolin’s initiatives would be appropriate, especially considering the Mayor’s aforementioned allocations of Free Cash to cover operating expenses in the NPS budget. He also reminded his colleagues of their collective responsibility in the budgeting process.
“I think it’s critically important at this juncture that collectively, we as a City show support for our public schools,” he said. “I want to remind us that we operate within constraints – we have to obey those constraints, that’s the law – but we certainly have a role during the course of our budget deliberations to proffer our opinions to the mayor, as I think many of have done and are doing again.”
The meeting ended without a straw vote being taken. Programs and Services Committee Chair Josh Krintzman (Ward 4) suggested that both Committees hold another joint meeting on May 8th for the purpose of holding a straw vote.
The City Council is scheduled to meet on May 15 and May 19 to deliberate on the FY2026 budget and Capital Improvement Plan – and consider resolutions to the Mayor.
