March 30, 2025: An overview of all three FY26 budget options and the impact on schools.
Budget 1: The City’s Targeted Budget – 20+ Cuts!
SOS calls this the “Austerity Budget.”
This austerity budget is the one the Mayor has committed to and said she supported in the March 27, 2025 School Committee meeting. It is not enough to cover the increasing expenses because of rising costs in transportation, special education, and many other factors.
The City’s targeted budget will result in the loss of roughly 25+ positions next year. In her presentation of the budget, Dr. Bonner said that 20+ positions would be cut, but later added that NPS would need to add 5.8 paras next year to meet IEP obligations. The only way to add those 5.8 paras is to cut other positions.
And even worse, the Superintendent emphatically refuses to reveal the specific positions that could be cut! She says that she wants to spare the community the upheaval, but we think she wants to avoid facing the upheaval from a very angry public. Please tell the school committee to get the specific positions on the chopping block from Dr. Bonner.
Can you imagine the state of our schools if 25 more positions are cut in FY26?
- Schools will not be able to operate safely
- Class sizes will increase even more than they already have
- District goals for improvements in ELA and Math outcomes will not be met
- High school students will continue to be unable to get into all the classes they need to be competitive applicants for post-secondary education
You’ll hear anti-worker, union-busting arguments used as scare tactics.
One of those is the “increase in contracted salaries.” However, this argument falls flat when you consider that cost of living (COLA) increases are currently only 3%, well within the 4% budget dictated by the mayor.
Bottom Line: The City’s austerity “targeted budget” is unacceptable and will only exacerbate the crisis currently underway. It will decimate our schools beyond repair.
Budget 2: The Level Services budget continues current year’s (and previous year’s) cuts, adds no positions.
SOS calls this the “Status Quo Budget.”
This budget carries the previous years’ cuts—that even the mayor has acknowledged have caused a “crisis” in the schools—into FY26. This budget neither adds or cuts any positions. With the Level Services budget…
- We will be significantly hindered in reaching district improvement goals for ELA, Math, and SEL outcomes
- Student and staff safety may continue to be adversely affected without any additional staff
This budget also depends on an unacceptable anti-worker, anti-teacher narrative that pits teachers against students. It assumes no changes to the contracted salaries and COLA increases. In fact, in her presentation the superintendent said a COLA increase of less than 3% would “save money” for the budget. Our teachers and staff deserve a fair wage, and we will not be fooled into a false narrative of either fair pay or job cuts. Both are possible in a city as wealthy as ours.
Bottom Line: The Level Services Budget merely prolongs and extends the extremely challenging conditions of the current school year. It does not address the crises currently happening and instead normalizes them.
Budget 3: The Strong Budget adds back necessary positions, restores recent cuts and adds new positions based on current needs of our schools and students.
SOS calls this one the “Level Up! Budget.”
SOS strongly supports this budget because it begins to fix the crisis situation that the cuts of the past years have caused. Specifically, the Strong Budget…
- Addresses essential safety and student behavioral management needs
- Reduces class sizes across the district
- Allows for more student choices in middle and high school by restoring and adding specialized content teachers
- Expands STEM and digital literacy at the elementary schools
- Improves the support services staff-to-student ratio
- Adds an additional school psychologist at the high school—a truly critical need as student mental health needs have increased since the pandemic
- Allows NPS to reach its district improvement goals
- Better meets the needs of our special education and English language learner students by reducing special education caseloads and implementing specialized programing for students with severe disabilities and who are medically fragile
Bottom Line: Only the Strong Budget adequately meets the needs of our district and begins to remedy the current crisis. The other two options are unacceptable: One just continues our current crisis situation, the other will harm our schools and students further.