Meeting Recap: 5/6/24

Morning, Medford. Can’t say it’s a good one given the budget proposal we saw last night, but here’s a short recap of last night’s meetings.

We spent nearly four hours discussing and hearing public comment on this budget proposal presentation.

There were no votes taken (nor should there have been). Here’s the link to the video. 

The meeting starts with the presentation.

School committee’s questions and comments start at 0:43.

Public comment begins at 2:31.

Closing thoughts/comments begin at 3:35 and run for ~15 minutes.

There is so much more detail to be found in the presentation itself, but here are my top level takeaways:

- The total projected need is $79.4 million—a $8.2 million increase over FY24—including $1.1 million moving from ESSER funds to the general budget.

- Proposed reductions and reallocations plus anticipated contributions from the city and state brings that funding gap down to $2.7 million but include cuts to staffing [significant] and programming [unclear], and an increase in class sizes [mostly at the elementary level]. Without those cuts, the funding gap is closer to $5 million [I think I got the math right on this but I'm sure someone will correct me if not].

Commentary: Everyone in the room agrees that this is awful and untenable. However, with a budget that is more than 80% salaries it will be extremely difficult to find savings that do not involve cutting staff in some way. In short, this stinks and we (as a district and as a city) need more money.

Public comment came from nurses, counselors, teachers, and administrative assistants (which, along with administrators, are the units to which the staff reductions were proposed), as well as students (speaking on the arts, athletics, and mental health), and parents/voters.

The Mayor promised to go back to the table/her finance team and look for ways to close the gap on the city side. She also shared discussions from the financial task force on the topics of debt exclusions and tax overrides.

Closing comments came from our student council representatives, Member Ruseau (on the unknown consequences of a “no” vote on a school budget), and member Graham, who shared next steps, far more eloquently than I summarize below:

1. The administration will bring forward changes to the proposed budget based on feedback. 2. The school committee will vote on the amount we ask the municipal government to provide to the schools.

3. The Mayor will put out a budget and the City Council will hold budget hearings.

4. The municipal government will tell the school committee how much money they will receive for FY25.

5. The administration and school committee will decide and vote on how to spend that amount and that will be our budget.

The regular meeting lasted 20 minutes, and we approved everything on the agenda, with one amendment to resolution 2024-25 to invite members of the disability community to the subcommittee meeting about ADA non-compliance at the high school. I can’t imagine anyone wants to watch this video but you can do so here.

Next regular meeting is May 20 but there will be subcommittee and MSBA building committee meetings before then. Details can be found here.