District administrators present plan for additional SOA funding to School Committee on March 2. (AMY PORTER/THE WESTFIELD NEWS)
WESTFIELD – The School Committee discussed the fiscal year 2021 budget, which contains a 2% increase to the city, at a remote meeting on May 4. Before beginning the review, Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski asked them not to take any action at this time.
“There are a lot of unknowns in terms of numbers. We don’t have numbers from the state,” Czaporowski said, encouraging them to wait until there is some idea of the funding coming to the district. He added that district administrators will be meeting on May 7 via conference call with Mayor Donald F Humason Jr., who was also on the line at the School Committee meeting.
Chief Financial Officer Ronald R. Rix reviewed the budget section by section with the School Committee, although the public could not see the spreadsheet visuals on the remote broadcast.
“We presented the budget [on April 6] and nothing has changed other than the whole world and the whole financial situation. We were as responsible as we could have been before the pandemic hit,” Rix said.
At the end of the review, School Committee Vice Chair Tim O’Connor said the district is going to be challenged this year by any type of state budget, and asked the superintendent whether he had thought about how the challenges with funding may affect his priorities.
Czaporowski said the continuing integration of technology in the district is happening now with the crisis. He said he is concerned about the replacement of equipment that may return damaged. He said he is also worried about the newly created career pathways in Westfield High School. “The Health Care designation comes with funding. Criminal Justice and Hospitality has a lot of support. I would love to maintain them, and class sizes,” he said.
“This will not look the same in a month from now at all. We’ll have to review it again,” said Committee member Rmaon Diaz, Jr., who chairs the finance sub-committee. “We may have to recalculate based on realistic numbers that will come from the state. These aren’t the final numbers, but gives an idea of where we were at before this crisis. We will have to have frank conversations about where our priorities will be,” he added.
“This budget has already figured out what we could do without, without knowing what the state aid will be. We have to hold tight. It doesn’t make sense to make a cut before we know what the numbers are going to be,” said Committee member Cindy Sullivan
“We will be ready for the scenario coming our way; we have no choice,” Czaporowski said.
“This is not just a Westfield problem, but a country problem. Westfield is just one of the cities that’s going to be dealing with this. Not different than any cities and towns in the country or state that will be struggling with the same thing,” Diaz added.
Asked what the next steps will be in terms of the budget, Humason commented on the status of the state budget process. He said by April, the House would have voted on their budget and it would be in the Senate in May. “We’re nowhere near that. They’re more likely just to come out and say, we’re going to do a 10% (cut),” he said.
Humason said the situation is similar to after Sept. 11, and similar to the recession in 2008. “We are anticipating the worst because we have to. It’s tragic – we were going into what was going to be a decent year,” he added. He said the U.S. Congress is looking to send money back to the cities and states. “They couldn’t tell us how much, how soon, and what we can spend it on,” he said.
Rix said the next meeting of the School Committee is May 18, and they may have a new proposal at that time, or if not, by the following meeting in June.
“I think it would be irresponsible now to give it a number. I think we need to wait as long as possible. I haven’t seen any School Committee vote on a budget yet,” Sullivan said.
“The other hope is the quicker we come out of coronavirus, the faster we can recoup our economy, and hope to have some recovery by the end of the year. We hope it’s steep and climbs out rapidly, too,” Humason said.
Earlier in the meeting, Sullivan read four emails received from the public in lieu of public participation at the meeting.
One email from former School Committee member Jeffrey Gosselin asked the committee to look at areas of consolidation, besides the maintenance consolidation plan between the schools and city that had been proposed, which he considered to have too many unanswered questions.
After the budget discussion, a vote was passed to rescind the maintenance consolidation plan, which Superintendent Stefan Czaporowski said could be revised and resubmitted next year. The City Council had tabled the motion to consolidate at its meeting on April 18.
Other emails came from parents Laura Marx, Catherine York and Melissa Rutkowski, which all talked about the transition to online learning, and urged the School Committee to support the teachers and the students and pass the budget as is.
“Crises can bring out the best or the worst. In the past week, my daughter’s teachers have brought out the best,” Rutkowski said.
