SAUGUS — The School Committee voted 4-1 to approve Saugus Public Schools’ $34,268,535 fiscal year 2025 budget.
While most of the board members voted in favor of the budget, Committee Vice Chair Tom Whittredge, the sole member to vote against it, took issue with the allocation of some of the funds in it.
“I’ve said from day one that I’m not going to support a budget that has excessive raises in it,” Whittredge said. “This budget here, I feel, has a couple spots where they’re non-educational spots and there’s no evidence or no proof or anything that shows me why these spots need to jump up $14, 15,000. I think it’s irresponsible of us to vote for a budget that has that in there — I really do.”
Whittredge’s issue with the budget had to do, in part, with the cutting of services. He said that funding could have been used elsewhere.
“We need to change the way we do business,” Whittredge said.
Committee Chairman Vincent Serino asked Superintendent Michael Hashem what services had been cut. Hashem said that the only cuts that had been made were related to the complex alternative education director, whose salary would have been $115,000. Instead, the position was not funded.
Whittredge said that that money could be used to help fund the cleaning service that the school contracts.
“During the school year, we nickel and dime the cleaning,” Whittredge said. “The cleaning is not even close to where it should be… Like I said, we invested $180,000,000 into schools, and we need to make the investment, (to) take care of it.”
Committee member Stephanie Mastrocola said that if the committee was going to “go down that road” of questioning the allocation of funding for positions, then it should “really be analyzing a lot of positions that are going on in the school, not just one.”
“You can’t penalize just because it doesn’t have to directly do with education,” Mastrocola said. “We also haven’t taken money away from people who haven’t done their job the way they should have been doing their job all along. So, where do we draw the line?”
Serino said he felt that everyone who received a raise in the budget got one because of their work.
“Everyone that got something, I think they earned it. I don’t think it’s been given,” Serino said.
