Peabody — The School Committee met Monday night to discuss the Fiscal Year 2026 budget.
Superintendent Dr. Josh Vadala began the discussion by stating that it was a difficult budget season. He continued that they had gone through items one through five at their last meeting and were now on six.
“Where we left off, there’s a big bold number in the middle: $100,770,327. Right underneath the number six is the current deficit that we have which is $2,169,775,” Vadala said. He continued that the committee made difficult decisions to try to reduce the budget.
Some adjustments were able to be made as the original numbers were placeholders.
The first adjustment mentioned was due to a retirement, allowing the school to save $27,176, as the current salary that will not be replaced is higher than the number originally voted. The next budget reduction, $25,480, was due to the Center School hiring one paraprofessional.
“We reduced a lot of teaching positions in our budget,” Valdala said. “We haven’t really taken a look at our paraprofessionals. As important as they are, this is very challenging. We seem to be cutting across the board.
“At the Higgins, we looked at the special ed needs of our students, and we have approximately 5.0 FTEs (Full-Time Equivalent) that could be reduced as we’re reducing a cluster and these are inclusion paras that would not be on IEPs currently. So, we’d be able to see that reduction of 5.0, a total of $131,708.”
He said that it would require staff reductions, and they would work on staff on seniority and transfers.
After listing a few more line items, he paused so that there could be a discussion on the possible reductions.
School Committee member Brandi Carpenter showed some hesitancy on the line items, saying, “I do recognize the difficulty in the budget, and I think we’re all having a tough time with it right now. What I’m looking at for these para lines as you indicated that we’re reducing class size, but I do see that we’ll still have the same amount of students so I’m struggling with this.”
She offered that they keep the paras currently listed that would require a reduction in staff and get the funding from the lowest building sizes and have those buildings go back to a working assistant principal to fund it.
Committee member Joseph Amico said that the positions they would be cutting are positions they fought for and that they also fought so that the assistant principals didn’t need to have dual roles, asking what it would entail to return to the dual role.
“When the assistant principals were in the classroom, they were limited in the scope of what they could do and how they could support people, support our teachers,” Vadala said. He continued that teachers were hired to step into those roles so that assistant principals could focus elsewhere and that bringing them back into the classroom, they would have to reduce one of those teachers.
Amico then said that there was nothing there to cut and that they needed major relief. He brought up the letter that they formatted to send to Gov. Maura Healey to reallocate the money that was used for MCAS to use in other parts of the school, like mental health and school resources.
“Our funding this year is not there and it probably won’t be the next year. It has to come from the highest level, and we need more funding to save jobs and to save our programs,” Amico said.
Committee member Jarrod Hochman then pointed out a line of $50,000 that was not budgeted.
It was explained by Business Manager Samuel Rippin that in Fiscal Year 24, in that line $52,135 was expended and that the placeholder is to protect the budget and that he recommends they keep that money where it is. However, Hochman made a motion to not fund the line, and it was a unanimous yes from the committee.
There was also a discussion about cutting the greeters or building access attendants in the schools. However, there was a clear split. All of the members understood the positions were important, especially for safety. Mayor Ted Bettencourt stated that if there was a tie, he would not vote in favor.
The motion was made by Hochman to reduce the line, and the motion passed 5-1.
The meeting continued in a similar manner with multiple motions made to follow the recommendations of Vadala. The hearing was then closed as the group had managed to reach the number they wanted to get to that day.
The public hearing with a regular meeting to follow is set for May 27.
“We will have a cleaned-up up accurate budget book ready for public distribution by Friday. It will be posted with the agenda on Friday for the total budget of $98,600,552,” Vadala said.
