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School committee agrees on FY27 adjustments, opts for midyear facilities hire to reach $205,000 target
Summary
Faced with a $205,000 FY27 reduction, the School Committee accepted a proposal combining realized midyear savings and targeted line-item reductions; members approved a plan that delays hiring an assistant facilities director until midyear (prorated) and trims transportation and electricity estimates to meet the required reduction.
Superintendent Dr. Matt Crowley and Finance Director Alex Dizzio presented the committee with targeted options to reach a $205,000 reduction for FY27, including realized savings (a settled Malcolm White principal contract, a teacher resignation backfilled at a lower salary step, and a para retirement), personnel- and line-item adjustments, and optional use of revolving accounts for some monitoring lines.
Dizzio outlined a 'menu' of options and a leading package that included three realized savings totaling roughly $63,000, removing the requested assistant facilities director FTE from the fall budget and instead hiring the position midyear at a prorated $65,000, and modest reductions to homeless transportation and electricity. The package would also avoid cutting existing custodial capacity.
Mrs. Chisholm moved a plan to get to the $205,000 target that incorporated those midyear hiring assumptions and offsets; she said it would allow the facilities director time to complete summer projects and permit a January hire to be budgeted as a half-year salary. "That way it would be in our budget. It would be something that we had budgeted for," she said.
Committee members debated the trade-offs of moving lines to revolving accounts, the difficulty of predicting utility rates, and the operational risk of delaying hires versus immediate cuts. Mr. Mulrenan and others supported the midyear approach to protect facilities capacity during heavy summer work. The motion passed by voice vote.
The committee instructed administration to implement the selected package and present final encumbrance numbers after June 30; no roll-call tally was recorded in the public minutes.
