WESTFIELD – Following a Finance Committee recommendation, the School Committee voted a $203,000 cut to the Westfield Public Schools budget for FY17-18. Vice chair Cynthia Sullivan said the cut would not increase class sizes or directly impact students, and much of it would be made up by the additional funds from the state voted in the House of Representatives budget. The current number for state aid for Westfield is $664,000 in Chapter 70 funds, an increase of $132,000 from the Governor’s budget.
In addition, Westfield Public Schools has received a Youth Opioid Prevention (YOP) grant of $41,250 from Attorney General Maura Healey’s office to purchase the Botvin Life Skills Curriculum, a new health curriculum for the schools. The grant’s mission is to help reduce the risk for addiction among young people. The $55,000 cost of the curriculum for grades 3-10 was previously built into the budget.
Another $30,000 was transferred from the unemployment line item for FY18 due to additional staff attrition.
The FY18 budget approved by the School Committee on Monday is $60,275,015, an increase of $1,375,015, or 2.3 % from FY17 budget of $58,900,000, but less than half of the original projected increase of $2.9 million to maintain level services in the schools next year.
“These budget changes amounts to a request of $ 710,261 of additional funding from the City. This is decrease of $202,990 to the City’s contribution from the initial budget proposal,” according to WPS business manager Ron Rix.
“The School Committee is very impressed (with what) the administration has done to keep a student focused budget while also addressing some needed maintenance issues,” said Cynthia Sullivan after the meeting.
During the meeting, Finance Committee chair Kevin Sullivan said that the budget does include some minor repair work and some technology improvements, although “not nearly enough.” He said the budget process was difficult, and there are people who will not be working in the district next year.
“We did look at many different areas for cuts,” added Mayor Brian P. Sullivan. He said the city successfully renegotiated the school lease in Russell, which was reduced from $250,000 to $100,000 next year. He also said that there are repairs included in the budget that due to state regulations can’t be pushed down the road.
“Congratulations to the Finance Committee. You all go to every budget meeting. I appreciate the hard work. Now we will put it forward to the City Council, and it will be in their hands with us sitting behind it,” Mayor Sullivan said.
