Chelsea Public Schools presents FY26 budget plan, details $3.4M shortfall and $2.1M city contribution

Chelsea Public Schools leaders presented a draft Fiscal Year 2026 budget on Feb. 20, telling the school committee that the district began the process with a projected $3.4 million shortfall and has worked with the city and school leaders to reduce the gap.

The superintendent (identified in the transcript as “Doctor Abeyta”) and Chief Financial Officer Billie Jo Turner walked the committee through enrollment, revenue and expense drivers. Turner said the district’s calculation showed it would need about $11.5 million just to maintain current programming because of salary steps, health insurance and other contract increases. She reported an initial $3.4 million shortfall before city and district actions.

The superintendent told the committee the city committed $2.1 million above the required minimum contribution to offset the deficit; after that contribution and internal adjustments the district reported a remaining gap of roughly $1.2 million that it expected to close through a mix of targeted cuts and adjustments.

Catherine Anderson, a middle school special-education teacher and president of the Chelsea Teachers Union, thanked district leadership for prioritizing student-facing services during the process. Anderson said, “I appreciate that there's clearly an effort to prioritize student facing services and to focus on keeping people in front of our kids,” and commended the district’s openness to staff feedback.

Turner outlined principal drivers of increased costs: higher special-education tuition (projected increases), transportation rate increases (about $255,000), utilities and insurance, and higher contractual obligations. She said the Student Opportunity Act (SOA) funding rates increased and that changes in counts by subgroup affected revenue — for example, Chelsea reported an increase of 95 bilingual students and a net decrease of roughly 47 students classified as low income compared with the prior reporting period.

The budget presentation listed district-level reductions intended to preserve school-level staffing where possible. They include reduced professional-development contract scope, ending duplicate monitoring visits with SchoolWorks (citing DESE’s change in monitoring vendor), reduced online tutoring with FEV, one HR position and two mediation specialists, unfunded special-education translator positions that were never filled, a braille translation position, and less frequent Chromebook refreshes.

At school level the district proposed minimal reductions and several targeted additions: at the Early Learning Center two tutor positions are vacant due to retirements; at Berkowitz one vacant multilingual educator (MLE) position will remain unfilled; Camino’s program relocation reduces one FTE; Chelsea High School would reduce one assistant-principal position; Clark Avenue and other schools would add MLE teachers, a special-education inclusion coach at Hooks, and conversions of some content teachers to MLE or specialty roles to better serve multilingual students. The district also proposed adding ESY therapy services, wellness-office stipends for navigators (staff who conduct family outreach and home visits), and higher consumables budgets for curriculum instruction.

School leaders and members of the public asked for clarity on how the district counts low-income and English-language-learner students. Turner explained that the state’s methods have changed over time, that DESE cross-references SNAP and other data but that the district also uses alternative mechanisms such as Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) in some contexts to provide free school meals districtwide. Turner said the net effect of a rate increase and subgroup count changes produced a $5.7 million figure related to the low-income student allocation in the district’s calculations.

The presentation concluded with a reminder of two additional budget meetings later in the month; the transcript records no final appropriation vote at this meeting.

Why it matters: the FY26 budget affects staffing, services for special education and multilingual learners, school schedules and learning supports. The district said it worked to shield direct classroom services from cuts and to target reductions at central-office and nonessential contract spending.

Next steps: the committee has two more budget hearings scheduled later this month before the school committee and city council consider final votes.