PEABODY — The School Committee voted unanimously to approve the fiscal year 2025 school budget of $94,577,540 at a budget hearing.
To get to the target number of around $94 million, school officials in prior meetings had to find other funding sources from different revolving accounts, take a calculated risk in health insurance of around $500,000, eliminate teacher fellows, and eliminate five positions that were unfilled to begin with to bring the operating budget down from a starting point of around $98 million. As a result, there were no layoffs during the process.
In comparison, the total budget for FY24 was $93,099,671. The FY25 budget will consist of $37,072,720 in Chapter 70 funds and $57,504,820 in municipal contributions. Salary items make up $63,641,943 of the budget, and non-salary items make up $30,935,597.
Immediately before the vote to approve the FY25 budget, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Josh Vadala said that there will be an increase in municipal contributions of $50,000, supported by Mayor Ted Bettencourt, and that a revolving account will be used to reinstate a line item in the central office.
“It would allow us to keep intact, to provide the same level of service and support to our students and our teachers moving forward,” Dr. Vadala said.
The budget approval process had many challenges. In the meetings before the budget’s approval, Bettencourt reiterated multiple times that the district was struggling with it because of a significant cut in yearly state-aid increases, a historic rise of $1.6 million in health-insurance costs, and an increase of around $700,000 in costs for Essex North Shore Agricultural and Technical School, which he said is the largest increase in the last few years.
“Not a position that any of us want to be at,” Bettencourt said. “We got hit with some difficult numbers over the last few months, some were expected, some were not.”
School officials will present the approved budget to the City Council sometime this month.
