SAUGUS — With a nearly $1 million gulf between the School Committee’s approved budget request and the budget submitted to the Board of Selectmen by Town Manager Scott Crabtree, the town is set up for a hotly contested budget process.
On Feb. 16, the School Committee unanimously voted to approve a $31.6 million budget, a document that was dramatically altered from the first budget submitted to the committee by Superintendent Erin McMahon. Committee members voted down McMahon’s $32.8 million budget by a 4-1 margin at a Feb. 2 meeting, sending it to the School Finance Sub Committee for review.
At the time, committee members said McMahon’s budget represented an unrealistic request and asked for more money than the town could supply.
“Currently we don’t have the money in the bank to fund this budget,” School Committee Chairman Vincent Serino said then.
He added that he liked the budget McMahon submitted, but believed the committee needed to explore other avenues to support requests she made, like funding an additional bus and boosting curriculum.
The pared-down budget approved two weeks later, Serino said, was “needs-based.” Executive Director of Finance and Administration Pola Andrews said it represents essentially only the funds needed to “come back in September and turn the lights on.”
Serino said committee members would be active in lobbying the Finance Committee and Town Meeting for additional funding on top of the $31.6 million request.
“This is what we have, it’s not what we want,” he said. “I’d like to go in and say, ‘Hey, this lets us survive, we can’t just survive.’”
While committee members have met with Town Manager Scott Crabtree on more than one occasion to discuss the budget, the district, one of the lowest rated in the state, is set to receive just $30.7 million under Crabtree’s proposed budget. The Board of Selectmen unanimously approved Crabtree’s budget earlier this week.
In explaining the reasoning behind the lower allocation for the schools, Crabtree pointed to a fear of setting an operating budget that is higher than is sustainable, which could create a structural deficit moving forward. Without delving into specifics, Crabtree said superintendents of schools have in the past hired positions with grant money and then come to the town asking for the positions to be included in their operating budget.
He also said the district has unexpended grant funds, and pointed to the $3 million set aside in a Student Support Reserve Fund specifically for the schools as a way to potentially close the gap. Crabtree said he would continue meeting with School Committee members on the budget in an effort to “meet some of their needs.”
“We’re still trying to work those numbers,” Crabtree said.
With a Finance Committee meeting to discuss the school department’s proposed budget set for March 15, Serino said he was confident that the gulf between the two documents could be bridged, but emphasized that the committee intended to advocate for the full amount requested.
“They do their budget based on what’s coming in, we do our budget based on needs,” Serino said. “Their budget and our budget are really starting points.”
“Both the town and the schools are being prudent in what they do in terms of the monies that are available,” he added.
Serino also noted the still-pending amount of state aid the town is set to receive from Gov. Maura Healey’s budget. Healey submitted the budget to the legislature this week, but it will likely not be finalized until the summer.
“From now until June there’s monies that are going to come available,” he said. “We don’t know what’s coming from the state, we don’t know what’s coming from [the] federal [government].”
Healey’s proposal would send nearly $12 million in state money to Saugus in the form of Chapter 70 aid, though Crabtree indicated some of those funds would be set aside in the Student Support Reserve Fund he crafted last year. That fund currently contains $3.1 million in fiscal year 2023 Chapter 70 funds.
Serino and other committee members have repeatedly indicated that they see Chapter 70 money as a way to help the district pay for additional needs beyond what is included in the budget.
