Mayor’s FY26 Budget Forecast Continues Service Cuts for Northampton Schools 

Sciarra provides no plan to address the underfunding impact on city’s public school children.  

NORTHAMPTON, Mass., February 3, 2025 — Northampton’s mayor, Gina-Louise Sciarra, delivered her annual financial presentation on Thursday, January 30, at a joint meeting of the Northampton City Council, Northampton School Committee, trustees of the Smith Vocational and Agricultural High School, and the superintendents of both school districts.

In the mayor’s FY26 forecast for the school budget, the limited increase over the FY25 budget would not only keep current cuts in place but would likely require additional cuts, explained Johanna Radding, parent of middle and high school students. After the presentation, Radding noted: “The mayor’s budget outlook gives no indication that she plans to address the very real crisis staff cuts have created for our schools, and for the students and educators who have borne the brunt of her decision. We need to level up services so that children’s social, emotional, and educational needs can be met after decades of underfunding.”

“The mayor’s budget outlook gives no indication that she plans to address the very real crisis staff cuts have created for our schools, and for the students and educators who have borne the brunt of her decision. We need to level up services so that children’s social, emotional, and educational needs can be met after decades of underfunding.”

Also commenting after the presentation, Northampton elementary school parent Amber Clooney said that the mayor’s proposed budget increase won’t be enough to restore the over 30 positions cut in the past two years, including paraprofessional support, English language instruction, reading interventionists, librarians, and teaching staff in every school. 

“Not only do Northampton schools continue to cut services and programs that competitive area school choice or charter communities have, like elementary musical instrument instruction, daily middle school foreign language, and electives at Northampton High School, but staff cuts have profoundly impacted class size across the district,” said Clooney. “Professional staff losses over the last two years have created a crisis in meeting student legally mandated Individual Education Plans (IEPs). The city of Northampton is not fulfilling its responsibility to provide a quality education for all students. Who are we as a city when we balance the budget on the backs of our children?” 

“Not only do Northampton schools continue to cut services and programs that competitive area school choice or charter communities have, like elementary musical instrument instruction, daily middle school foreign language, and electives at Northampton High School, but staff cuts have profoundly impacted class size across the district.”

School committee members Michael Stein (Ward 4) and Anat Weisenfreund (Ward 2), along with city councilor Rachel Maiore (Ward 7), urged the mayor to more directly include the needs of the city’s children in her budget process and language. 

Said Stein, “I would love to hear … schools … talked about like the other departments, how the needs of our children are similar to the needs of public safety and how we’re going to make a plan and work to get there, and that they’re really taking [children’s needs] into consideration.”

Weisenfreund, appointed as an interim school committee member on January 13th, thanked the mayor for her presentation saying, “I also really appreciate Mike’s [school committee member Mike Stein] comment about how we talk about things. Things are different for our kids since the pandemic, and I see it in the early childhood world right now, where 40% of our infants and toddlers have IEPs. I think it is important for us to inject some of that language and context when we talk about the numbers. I think that we need to talk about … what is really going on with our kids and with our staff right now. The kids are not all right.”

City councilor Rachel Maiore said that she was grateful to Weisenfreund for sharing her perspective as a new school committee member and urged the mayor to consider all the costs of the personnel cuts. “We need to be looking at it [the school budget] and what it will cost to intervene later [in students’ lives, and the cost of] student population loss to other [schools].”

Speaking about the upcoming budget process, Member Stein said, “I’m hoping we can do it differently this year. I would love to hear more of the trade-offs [with other city departments] because there is not limitless money, but we need to be honest about what the trade-offs are.” 

Mayor Sciarra, who is chair and a voting member of the Northampton School Committee responded, “…I would welcome having the School Committee do this, they did not have a very sort of nuanced conversation about the needs, and looking at what different scenarios meant, so I would agree that the school committee should have a more deliberative process around this as I have with city departments and I would be very welcome to be part of that.”  

Brian Wilby, parent of NHS students, suggested that the city take a less conservative and more accurate approach to revenue estimation. “If the city accurately forecasted recurring revenues, we would be able to improve funding for city services,” said Wilby. “Since the city intentionally underestimates city revenues, less money is available up front for operating budgets, and large surpluses occur at year-end. We already have healthy stabilization funds to protect any budget gaps.”

“If the city accurately forecasted recurring revenues, we would be able to improve funding for city services. Since the city intentionally underestimates city revenues, less money is available up front for operating budgets, and large surpluses occur at year-end. We already have healthy stabilization funds to protect any budget gaps.”

Wilby added that further identification of recurring revenue would allow the city to sensibly budget to meet the needs of educating our public school children.

Northampton School Committee Budget and Property met virtually Monday February 3rd where they welcomed Member Weisenfreund and elected a new chair.

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Support Our Schools (SOS) is a Northampton grassroots community group advocating for critical Northampton Public School funding since April 2024. SOS hosts a city calendar with links to dates and agendas and login information for Northampton city meetings.