Chelsea Public Schools expects to start next year’s budget about $22.3 million short, the district’s finance chief told the School Committee on Wednesday night. Superintendent Almi Abeyta said a gap that size would undo, in a single year, the roughly 240 positions the district added over six years with money from the state’s 2019 Student Opportunity Act.
“We’ve never seen a dip like this before,” Abeyta said of enrollment. She called the year’s combination of falling enrollment and rising costs “the perfect storm.”
The special meeting, called early in the fall so the committee and the public could start working on the gap, lasted about 50 minutes. Vice Chair Katherine Cabral presided. Chair Ana Hernandez, who Cabral said is recovering and resting, was absent, as was Lucia Henriquez. Claryangeliz Covas Caraballo arrived partway through.
Where the $22.3 million comes from
Billie Jo Turner, the district’s chief of finance and operations, stressed that every figure is an early estimate. The state’s revenue numbers for the governor’s budget do not come until January, and the district is about to go out to bid for transportation, food service, utilities and copying, and to bargain new union contracts. The pieces, as Turner laid them out:
- $6.6 million in lost state aid from about 304 fewer students, at roughly $22,000 each.
- $6.7 million for salary steps and cost-of-living raises.
- $2.5 million for health insurance, pensions and similar costs.
- $1.5 million for special education tuition, covering only a 5 percent rate increase at out-of-district schools and collaboratives. Turner said that figure can jump whenever another student is placed out of district, which happened with a few students this month alone.
- $2.5 million for transportation.
- $2.5 million for utilities and insurance.
Abeyta said the district has lost about 650 students in the last two years. Enrollment was 5,446 on October 1, she told the committee last week.
Buses and out-of-district tuition
Turner said the big transportation companies have warned districts for two or three years to expect increases of 40 to 60 percent. With a transportation budget of $7 million to $8 million, the honest figure would be closer to $3 million, Turner said, but the projection uses $2.5 million to stay conservative. Contracts are bid about every three years, and few companies can handle a district’s routes. Turner said districts often get only one bid, citing Lowell, and that smaller companies that come in lower often cannot keep up. The state education department has a task force looking at the problem, Turner said.
Asked what it costs to educate a student outside the district, Turner said a placement at the Perkins School for the Blind can cost $300,000 for one student, while collaboratives charge more like $80,000 to $90,000. Transporting a single out-of-district student in a small van can cost $80,000.
Member Mayra Balderas noted that the state does not reimburse Chelsea for busing within the city, because its policy covers only students who live more than two miles from school. Abeyta said the four elementary schools were built on one side of the city in the 1990s, which is why the district buses young children in a city of less than two square miles. All of the district’s buildings date from that era, she said, “and they’re all going to need repairs at about the same time.”
“This really sucks”
Member Sarah Neville said the gap equals roughly 223 positions, “almost all of that money” the Student Opportunity Act was meant to provide. Neville pointed to the state formula’s inflation cap, under which Chapter 70 aid rises by no more than 4.5 percent even when inflation runs higher, and said it hurts districts like Chelsea that depend most on state aid. Neville said some people around the state argue that a coming state review of the funding formula should focus on rural districts because urban districts “already had their turn.”
Neville said a joint meeting of the City Council and School Committee is planned for November, though not yet scheduled, and that the committee hopes to ask City Manager Fidel Maltez, who attended Wednesday’s meeting, to explain how the city looks at free cash and what money can be moved. Neville said the city cannot close the gap on its own, and that a Proposition 2½ override would be a hard fight in a city where many voters do not have children in the schools, but that Chelsea needs to talk about it openly. “It’s the state that holds the purse strings,” Neville said.
Abeyta said she has told the city’s State House delegation. Senator Sal DiDomenico could not believe the number and said he would see how he could help, she said, and she plans to speak with Representative Judith García.
Member Jake Small said closing a budget gap “boils down to two things: finding more money or spending less money,” and called for “unprecedented” civic engagement. Member Jonathan Gomez-Pereira urged residents to press city councillors on long-term revenue from new development, citing the master plan, the proposal to drop parking minimums and the city’s recent open house for developers.
Pioneer Charter expansion
Neville said the state education department will hold meetings this fall on Pioneer Charter School’s attempt to add significantly more seats in Chelsea, including early childhood and pre-K seats, which Neville said would deepen the district’s enrollment losses. Neville is drafting a letter to the department opposing it. Abeyta said she has already sent hers.
Parents asked for line items
Four people spoke during public comment, and all thanked the committee for starting early. A Kelly School parent and another resident asked the district to publish its budget by line item. A resident with two children in the schools told members to ask questions at meetings rather than vote on what subcommittees have already decided, and to “go after the city” for more money. A Kelly School educator who is vice president of the teachers union said solutions will have to come from the city and from continued advocacy at the state level.
Abeyta said the district will present a staffing comparison with other gateway districts at the November meeting, begin community budget meetings in November, and take the budget to school site councils and local nonprofits earlier than last year. She said the meeting was not originally planned, but that the city manager urged her to “get this out early.”
Read the full transcript of the meeting. The video is on Chelsea Community Cable’s YouTube channel.