Swampscott School Committee Gears Up For Budget Battle

SWAMPSCOTT, MA — A battle may be brewing between the Swampscott School Committee and the town over next year's budget.

The School Committee will hold a public hearing on the budget Thursday night after the town set a budget target that it said will necessitate $675,000 in reductions and the use of $735,000 in circuit-breaker funds that Committee members said were essential to have in reserve.

Superintendent Pamela Angelakis and her office presented a budget at last week's meeting that she said reached the town's target of 2.59 percent growth, but included the use of circuit-breaker funds and would necessitate the $675,000 in still-undetermined cuts.

She indicated during Thursday's meeting that much of those cuts would likely come from the middle school after restructuring at the high school and middle school to meet budget demands in recent years.

"We're really going to have to start having deep discussions about the middle school and the schedule," she said. "The team model at the middle school has been the way we've always done things. But we don't have the luxury of doing things the way we've always done them. So we're tossing around ideas of how we keep our middle school services as they are but look at a different model.

"Look at efficiencies, look at programs, look at staffing."

School Committee members pushed back on setting a budget to hit a desired number, as opposed to creating a needs-based budget and then requesting that number from the town.

"It's not right," School Committee member Suzanne Wright said. "I'm trying to focus on what the solution can be for now instead of this being told to us what has to happen. I think it's up to us to own what has to happen. We have to be very proactive right now."

That includes sharing what a budget of "addition by subtraction" would mean with residents and attempting to build public support through the public hearing — as well as possibly taking their case directly to the floor of the annual town meeting.

"What we're hearing at every meeting is what great financial position the town is in," School Committee member Amy O'Connor said. "But it's coming on the backs of the schools."

School Committee Chair Glenn Paster called the $1.4 million gap "unacceptable" and requested that Angelakis bring forth a budget designed to "educate every student in the district and what that would look like."

One issue, Angelakis said, was that while she allowed that enrollment has dropped in Swampscott Public Schools in the three years since the onset of the COVID-19 health crisis, the needs of students have only grown.

"You cannot equate enrollment with the needs of students," she said. "What these students have faced in the last several years in terms of socialization and mental health — it's not just talk, that's the reality of it.

"These needs and the positions are different."

The public budget hearing is set for Thursday at 6 p.m. at Swampscott High School with a virtual option to attend here.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)