This is a lightly edited transcript of the special meeting of the Chelsea School Committee on Wednesday, October 7, 2026, made from the Chelsea Community Cable recording. Speech recognition software produced the text and separated the voices; we then labeled speakers from context, corrected names and misheard words, and removed filler and repeated words. Otherwise the words are as spoken. Roll-call answers are labeled with the name the clerk called. We left out the names of members of the public who spoke during public comment. Timestamps count from the start of the livestream; the meeting begins about 12 minutes in. For anything you plan to quote or rely on, check the video.
Our report on this meeting: Chelsea schools project a $22.3 million shortfall for next year.
Agenda: Call to order, Pledge of Allegiance and roll call · Public comment · Preliminary FY2028 budget projections: the superintendent · The numbers: chief of finance and operations · Committee questions and discussion · Next steps and how to weigh in · Adjournment
Call to order, Pledge of Allegiance and roll call
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:11:48] Good evening, everyone. I’m calling this meeting to order at 6:02. Can I ask everyone to rise for the Pledge of Allegiance?
All [0:11:58] I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, under God,
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:12:06] indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much, everyone, for your attendance this evening. Okay, with that, can I have Roll call, please?
Clerk [0:12:27] Mr. Small.
Jake Small [0:12:28] Present.
Clerk [0:12:29] Ms. Covas Caraballo. Ms. Henriquez is absent tonight. Mr. O’Regan?
Shawn O'Regan [0:12:36] Present.
Clerk [0:12:37] Ms. Balderas.
Mayra Balderas [0:12:38] Present.
Clerk [0:12:39] Dr. Neville?
Dr. Sarah Neville [0:12:40] Present.
Clerk [0:12:41] Ms. Cabral.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:12:42] Present.
Clerk [0:12:43] Ms. Hernandez is absent tonight. Mr. Gomez-Pereira.
Jonathan Gomez-Pereira [0:12:46] Present.
Clerk [0:12:49] That’s six members present and three absent.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:12:51] Thank you so much. And before we dig in, I just want to send Chair Hernandez regards. You would have been here, but currently resting and recovering. So please send her your well wishes and I’m excited to be able to host you all this evening. With that, I’ll turn it over to public comment and we’ll start with any folks that have registered in advance. And then we’ll also get. I think we’ll have some time for RSVPs too. Quick reminder, we’ll ask again for your name, your affiliation to Chelsea, and you’ll have three minutes.
Public comment
Clerk [0:13:25] Can we have [name omitted]?
Parent (public comment) [0:13:39] [Name omitted]. I am a parent to a child at the Kelly School. I did want to start off my public comment with gratitude. I am thankful for whomever is responsible for this meeting happening today. I think it is a great sign that our comments and our concerns are being heard and that the feedback is being taken and considered. I think the fact that this meeting is happening so early on is a great sign and I’m thankful and grateful that this is happening. I know that as a parent, I want to be part of the conversation and I know that it can be hard when a lot of the feedback is very emotional and passionate. So I do just want to extend my gratitude that you guys are willing to start the conversation early. That being said, I want to echo the same sentiment I had last year that as a parent, I feel hard, I feel limited in wanting to be part of the conversation in a useful way when I don’t know what the numbers are. I don’t know what the budget lines are. I don’t know how I can advocate more for the teachers and my students and all students if I don’t know what was spent, what wasn’t spent, what was projected, what wasn’t projected. So I continue to ask for transparency in regards to the numbers. I continue to ask that regardless if the numbers are bad, I think we appreciate just the honesty over trying to hinder us or trying to protect us from what’s to come. So if I were to just ask for whatever momentum you guys are feeling to continue it, because I got in a lot of feedback and a lot of people are thankful for the change. The engagement has been great. So I really am thankful and that’s all I have.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:15:29] Thank you. Thank you so much.
Clerk [0:15:34] [Name omitted].
Resident (public comment) [0:15:44] Good evening. My name is [name omitted], and it is really encouraging to see that the district and the school committee are planning as soon as possible given this financial situation. I spent many hours during the last budget cycle with all of you listening to CPS staff, families and students. And overwhelmingly, people were asking and are continuing to ask for information. So I’m asking, will the district and school committee commit to sharing a line on a budget to provide this transparency?
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:16:13] Thank you.
Clerk [0:16:18] [Name omitted].
Resident and parent (public comment) [0:16:29] Good evening. My name is [name omitted], resident of Chelsea. I have two children in the school system. I, too, tonight wanted to express my thanks to the committee for having this meeting so early. I would also like to say that, you know, we’ve been coming here, the people have been coming, have been saying, you know, we want transparency. And it hit me after the last meeting what one part of that is, and that’s engagement. In the past three meetings, we’ve had members come up to us and talk to us, introduce themselves, people at the, from the school department as well. That’s great. You know, that’s what we’re looking for. But the last meeting you were asking questions, what does this mean? What do these numbers mean? What’s that? That’s what we want. When we ask you guys for openness and keep through that engagement. We’re here for education and if we just come to these meetings, we say, congratulations, here’s your award, public comment where we say the same thing and then we just vote on things that have been decided in subcommittees. We’re not getting anything out of it. And then you’re going to be finding out as some members decided, you know, we’re going to find out about these complaints or what we’re hearing the night we get to that meeting. Because we’ve elected you to do this. We’ve asked you to do this, you wanted to do this. So, you know, ask those questions, be inquisitive. That’s why we’re here. We’re here to make sure that our children are going to learn and this budget season is going to suck. We know. So now we’ve got to buckle down and we need to start looking at Those numbers that we saw last week. So my question for you all is. Or to the chair, to, for the committee. What’s going to get us those numbers? When it comes down to it’s about making sure that our children are educated, they are strong community members and they will be prepared into the future. You know, we look at the numbers that are coming out of the high school. We’re looking at, you know, some samples of what are, you know, what’s working, what’s not. We gotta look earlier. I want to know the numbers from elc, from all the elementary schools. What’s working, where is it working? How can we make that work across the district. We can’t just look at these schools as silos anymore. Budget’s not going to allow for that. We need to make those decisions. You need to make those decisions with the school system to make sure that the dollars that we do get are used wisely and appropriately. And finally go after the city. I want more. Tell them we want more. The schools want more. The kids want more. Remember the meeting last year? The parents, the students, they came out, they gave you agency. You’re not hearing that stuff. They come here and start seeing those things. It’s not the first time you’ve heard it. They gave you that agency last year. Work for them and go after the city. You know, we’re, we’re doing gation around the city. Get more money. Get more money. Build that budget. You know, I’ll say it again, get more money from the city. They can afford it. This is where we need to put the money in the city.
Clerk [0:19:42] [Name omitted].
Kelly School educator, teachers union vice president (public comment) [0:19:47] Hi everyone. [Name omitted], resident, Kelly school educator and vice president of our teachers union. I’m here again to just echo some of the sentiments we heard tonight. I’m encouraged by tonight’s meeting. We know it was very last minute, but we appreciate you sharing this information as soon as possible. I’m looking forward to having more conversations and we’ve heard from family members of how we can continue to invite people, engage each other, engage our community. We are a small part of a large family community that is going to be impacted by the loss in enrollment and we know the loss of funding. And so we’re here to be able to hear some creative solutions. We know that some of that is going to have to come from the city. And I’m asking that as a resident, as an educator, as someone who’s been here for a long time, we need to rely on our city leaders as well. But also continuing the advocacy at the state level. We know that soa, you know, the inflation, you know, there are many ways that we’ve already agreed on that we can push our larger leaders in this world. But we know that we’re also going to have some tough conversations. And those conversations are to push our practice and push each other. Not push the person, but push the thinking. And so we are appreciative. And I know that this is going to just be the long journey. But we’re here and we’re ready to do the work together. Thank you all.
Clerk [0:21:13] It’s Vice Chair Cabral. That’s all I have signed up. Do we want to offer anyone else in the audience?
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:21:18] Yes. Last call for public comment this evening. Seeing none. I’ll go ahead and close public comment and I’ll turn it over to Dr. Abeyta and her team to discuss the preliminary FY 2028 budget projections.
Preliminary FY2028 budget projections: the superintendent
Superintendent Almi Abeyta [0:21:35] Thank you. This is the earliest I have ever had a budget meeting, but also with a real sense of urgency. And we did hear you and part of the we have to do this early because we have to get in front of this. We have to have a sense of urgency and this gives us enough time to advocate for to the people way above us at the Hill because there are so many areas that we are not being funded at in the right way and it’s so much larger than Chelsea Public Schools. I can give you so many examples. Special education isn’t being funded correctly. Chapter 70 is. There’s inflation cap and we’re not keeping up with inflation. There is are increasing expenses and you’ll hear more about transportation, utilities. Just look at your own household. So the reason why we have to do this now is because we as a community, not just everyone sitting here on this day, as everyone in the Chelsea community, we have to get in front of this. And so with an immense sense of urgency. This community worked really hard to advocate for the Student Opportunity Act. And that was that happened with my predecessor, Dr. Mary Bourque. And SOA passed in 2019. And we celebrated that we were able to add 200, almost 240 positions to the Chelsea Public schools as a result of that. And over six years and this budget season and you will see this in one year that will negate all of the six years that we’ve had the Student Opportunity act in one year. I am very concerned about that because we are heading in the right direction as a school system and what this budget does to us as Educators as building leaders, as teachers is. It creates this culture and climate that is fear. People are fearful. These are. People are generally going, am I, is my job going to be cut? And it creates a lot of tension for adults. There’s fear. And when adults. Well being is not taken care of, that impacts children. That’s just the bottom line. And we know that. So I just, I want to bring this up as we need to have this conversation as an entire community. This is nobody’s fault. It really, it is. I call it the perfect storm. And I’m very concerned. And if we don’t advocate, we will lose more teaching positions, more administrators, more everything, more programs. And we don’t want to go in that direction. So we need to figure this out. So, yes. Thank you. I want to thank our families that all spoke. Thank you for pushing us and saying, if you know, [name omitted], I hear you. If you know, get it out early. So we’re starting early. And I want to thank you because you make us better and you have made us better. To our union. I talked to [union president] yesterday. We had a nice conversation. I was like, we have, we’re working. We have to work together on this. And to our union, you make us better. So thank you. Here are the challenges laid out before you. We have, you can see here, another enrollment decline. And that number is actually incorrect. It’s at 300 now. It was October. It was 300. So we need to correct that. Student Opportunity act funding is now leveling their rising salary expenditures, increasing charters tuition obligations, increasing health insurance costs are through the roof right now. We’ve never seen health insurance costs this high. Transportation expenses. And when I say transportation, we’re a small district, but we have a lot of special education transportation. So that is part of the transportation as well. And then we have growing special education tuition costs and we don’t get funded properly for special education by the state. And this is just. This is statewide and then higher food services. So everything is coming together at the same time right now. Here are our enrollment projections. You can see the dip in the last two years. We’ve never seen a dip like this before. And it is 650 kids that we have lost in the last two years. That’s 22,000 per child. You can do 22,000 times 650. And that is alone just with enrollment, the amount of money that we’ve lost. And then I’m going to turn it over to our chief financial officer, Billy Joe Turner. And what you know, Billy Joe, I don’t feel Like I really ever properly introduced you to our community because you just kind of had to jump in. Billy Joe has 28 years of school finance experience and I have just. I am so grateful that you’re with us during this time to help us through this because I know you’ve lived through some ups and downs as well. But I will turn it over to you for the numbers.
The numbers: chief of finance and operations
Billie Jo Turner, chief of finance and operations [0:28:13] Thank you. Before I start, I want to let you know that when we do start early, I am going to give you a big disclaimer and let you know that we have to be brave to do that because when we release these numbers, it’s based on all estimates. We don’t even get governor revenue until January. We don’t know rate increases for anything this current year. When we built this projection, it is with this. I need to remind you before I even get into the weeds, we are going out to bid for transportation, food service, utilities, collective bargaining, every the Xerox copy and everything is up this year. Everything is skyrocketing with cost. So when I did this estimate, it’s based on historical trends and projections. I have the math behind all of that as an accountant, but I’m trying to simplify it so I can give you transparency and make it make sense again. Just remember these numbers will change as we get more information. So we are looking at our first run at this is we’re looking at over a $22 million shortfall going into next budget season. And that is with these assumptions again we found out that we have 304 more students that we’re expecting to go down. As the superintendent said, each of those students bring in 22 plus thousand dollars each, which is 6.6 million that we’re losing in revenue alone. So we have loss of revenue of 6.6 and then the rest is all cost increases that we have no control over. So assumptions, our steps plus cost of living adjustments step to when teachers go up a new each year, the steps and the cost adjustment on Kohler would be $6.7 million. The health care cost, pension and other increases are expected to go up 2.5 million. The special ed tuition increase, this 1.5 million does not include all the additional students that go out every month. So this month alone we had a few students go out and it changed our budget drastically. These are the uncontrollable costs. So even here I put only 1.5 and that is just the 5% rate increase for the out of district tuition schools, the collaboratives and the other programs that we send our out of district students to so that 1.5 could drastically change. It could go up much more. The transportation. We have been warned for 2, 3 years that NRT and the other big transportation companies more or less have a monopoly. They are the only ones bidding and we have to take their cost. So just the record we’ve been warned and DESE is working with as a task force to come up with a way to make sure they can’t do that to us. But still. And yet they’ve warned us to look at a 40 to 60% increase in transportation. If our transportation budget is 7 to 8 million dollars, I should be putting 3 million here. But I’m trying to be frugal, thinking I don’t want to make it too big. So I’m just taking averages again. Transportation, 2.5 million. Utilities, they skyrocketed this year with the war and all the other economic situations. We’re getting hit with insurance subs, utility costs that are also increasing. Those are looking to be about 2.5 million as well. So at this point we think we’re gonna have a 22.3 million dollar shortfall again. That is all before all the bids. And we will keep you posted as we go through.
Superintendent Almi Abeyta [0:31:48] Thank you, Billie Jo. And if you can, if you see on this, remember, these are our estimates based on what we know today. This will change and it’ll change multiple times because we’re starting so early. So I just want to make that very clear. But we wanted to get in front of this and say here’s what we’re looking at. But we don’t. We like to say these are strong estimates, but again, these will change as we get more information. It’s sobering and that’s part of the reason why we need to be in front right now.
Committee questions and discussion
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:32:37] Any questions from the committee, Mr. Gomez-Pereira?
Jonathan Gomez-Pereira [0:32:44] Thank you, miss. Thank you, Billie Jo Turner, for breaking this down. Could you sort of elaborate on what the. Like there maybe isn’t a super great like I’m trying to figure out how much it costs to educate or send a student outside of the district. I’m seeing the increase for 1.5 billion. About how many students would you say fit into that number? Is there like an average on tuition that we spend for students who need to leave the district to get educated?
Billie Jo Turner, chief of finance and operations [0:33:13] Yes. So one student is one school. For Perkins for the blind, it could be 300,000 for one student. Most tuitions, the collaboratives are more like 80, 90,000 students. But out of district, tuition is astronomical. And then the tuition, I mean not the tuition, the transportation, if they’re not residential, could be 80,000 per student because you have to have little vans, transport them individually. So it’s very expensive.
Jonathan Gomez-Pereira [0:33:40] Okay. Yeah, that was one of the questions that I had. Thank you so much.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:33:48] Any other questions also?
Billie Jo Turner, chief of finance and operations [0:33:50] Okay.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:33:51] Any on this side?
Dr. Sarah Neville [0:33:56] Yeah, I have a lot to say. Yeah, this really sucks. It really sucks. And, you know, I want to kind of take the chance to explain some of the background to this as I’ve had to learn it over the last. It’s only been, you know, two or three years that I’ve been on school committee, so I’ve had to learn this all recently, which makes it a little easier for me to explain to other people and also talk about what I see as some of the solutions. But the Student Opportunity act was passed in 2019. It was a bill that was supposed to close educational gaps, so close equity gaps, so that the quality of education that you received didn’t depend on your zip code. So it did that by making it so that if children were facing disadvantage, they got extra funding for those children. So districts got extra funding for ELL students and for students who were low income. And there were other changes to the formula so that it would help districts like ours, because what we were finding is that our districts were underfunded because the state wasn’t accurately accounting for how expensive it is or to equitably educate students who are facing those challenges. And like you said, we were able to add about 240 new positions due to that law that was signed in 2019. And in one year, you know, this would be.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:35:26] We.
Dr. Sarah Neville [0:35:26] We would have. I mean, 2 million. Sorry, $22 million. And $22,300,000 is a. Roughly like 223 positions, which is almost all of that money that we was supposed to help us fix education inequity. So this is. It’s just devastating. It really points to the fact that, you know, the Student Opportunity act is not enough to close equity gaps, and it was not enough to prevent, you know, this crisis. So one thing that’s happening that will be happening is something called a foundation budget review budget commission, where the state is putting together a bunch of stakeholders who will look at, you know, can we change the foundation budget again? Can we change the funding formula again? Something really annoying that I’ve been hearing is that people have been saying, oh, you know, I think that the formula commission, the foundation commission is going to focus on how we can help rural districts, because rural Districts are really hurting right now and the urban districts have already had their turn with soa. That’s really something that people around the state have been saying, and that’s just not okay. And like, I really want to, we have to advocate and fight hard at the state level to make sure that our voices are heard because the rural districts do need changes to the formula that will accurately account for their particular challenges. But we also have not, we have not fixed education inequity and we still need to properly account for the cost for educating our students as well. And the other thing, like you talked about the inflation problem, so something that affects all districts is that just the way that they calculate how much money it costs to educate students, period, just isn’t keeping up with transportation costs, with special education costs. This is hurting all districts the same. A lot of districts are in the same position as us. And then in addition, whenever inflation goes above 4.5% as the state calculates it, if it goes up to 7, they only give us 4.5% back because they need to be fiscally responsible and like, protect the state’s finances and like, just, you know, leave us out to dry. And like, we’ve been, we’ve been fighting at the state level to change the legislation so it doesn’t do that anymore. And everyone’s like, oh, it only happened twice during COVID it’ll never happen again. It’s probably going to happen again this year. Inflation is probably going to be above 5%. And we, and they didn’t pass the law when we advocated for it over the past couple of years to change that. And we have to keep fighting for it because that’s an additional thing. And that’s something that hurts gateway districts hardest because the more reliant you are on Chapter 70 state funding, the more that inflation cap hurts you. So if you’re in a wealthy district where most of your money comes from local taxes, that inflation cap isn’t as relevant to you because less of your money comes from the state. So this is another way that these inequities are baked into our system where urban districts and lower income cities are disadvantaged. And so we like, we have to be loud. Like this past year, I can’t remember where I was. Maybe it was like, I think it might have been the Massachusetts association of School Committees day on the Hill or something else. But yeah, it was like the rural districts are busing kids out there to advocate for rural aid and for those priorities. And that’s, it’s Important and like, I applaud them for it, but also like, we need to be equally as loud, especially at the state level, because, you know, this is a crisis. And you know, in terms of the city side, I think that advocating to the city is extremely important. And I think that, you know, I’ve been sitting here thinking, like, should I say that I’m going to go to every city council public comment. I will not commit to that at this time. I have two kids, you know, my husband’s on city council, so it’s hard for us to both be there. But I will consider doing it because we have to be loud to the city council as well and make it clear that, you know, this is a priority for our city. I know that our city cannot make up this gap completely. I know that, you know, we are also a low income city and our tax base isn’t what other wealthier cities is. And that we also fund many city services that are important to our vulnerable residents, that, you know, we have to keep funding as well. But at the same time, we do have to have a really concerted effort to advocate at the city level. We are going to be planning a joint city council and school committee meeting in November. I don’t think it’s been scheduled yet, but I do want to ask, hopefully we’ll be able to ask the city manager to do a good presentation on how does the city look at its finances, how does it look at free cash, how does it look at, you know, what’s. What money is available to be moved around. That’s something that Fidel explained to me last spring. But like, we should have it out there for the whole community to see. And. But one of the ways that our hands are tied on the city also is there’s something called Prop 2.5, which means that the city can’t get. I always can’t ever explain this right, but basically the city is limited in how much revenue it can raise. And the only way that it can raise new revenue is either by building more developments, whether it’s commercial or housing, or by the only way it can raise taxes above a certain level is if everyone votes for it in the city, which is called an override. And other districts in more suburban communities, they often go to the ballot box for an override. It’s often very difficult because people who don’t have kids in the schools don’t want the taxes to go up here. It’s very difficult. It’s like, I don’t know about, you know, Raising taxes on our residents who are already struggling. And so I’m also not sure about that either. Another difficult thing about an override is that our voters are very disproportionately not having kids in the schools because a lot of our families are immigrants or families with kids in the schools. So it would be a very difficult fight to get an override. But I think we at least need to have the conversation. We need to have the conversation about what are our values as a city, and in terms of how much do our voters and our residents value funding our public schools and what are we willing to sacrifice for our schools. We just have to have a conversation. We have to have it out in the open. We have to decide what our values are as a city. The solutions cannot be at the city level, but we still have to have that conversation, and we need to fight harder at the state. I feel like after the budget cycle last year, everyone was so exhausted by the time we finished the municipal cycle, that when it came time to kind of advocate at the state, it almost felt like we ran out of steam. I tried to do, you know, a little bit here and there to get that extra money for the enrollment drop, and it just felt like there wasn’t a lot of energy left in the community to fight for that. But that’s really where. That’s where we have to go. It’s the state that holds the purse strings. It’s the state that is at the root of these systemic problems. It feels much bigger and harder to fight at the state level than to just come and talk to, you know, people at the city level who are your neighbors and everything. But we have to take our fight to the state level. And so, you know, let’s, let’s talk about this. Let’s have, you know, more community meetings with parents. Let’s talk about what we’re going to do at the state and set a plan and get some community power up there. Yeah, that’s all.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:43:27] Thank you, Dr. Neville. Doctor, did you want to weigh in on that?
Superintendent Almi Abeyta [0:43:31] Oh, I will. I have informed our state delegation and I did talk to Senator DiDomenico the other night, and he shared that he would. He first saw, he couldn’t believe the number. And I explained everything to him, and then he said, I will see how I can help what I can do. And I have not talked to our state Rep. Judith Garcia, but I plan on doing so. And they really, in full transparency, really tried to help us last year and so when we got what we call our pothole money, Sal said we did our best and this is all we could help you with. But I know that they’re working on our behalf and we’ll continue to stay in communication with both of them.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:44:31] Thank you so much. Ms. Balderas, did you have a comment? Yep.
Mayra Balderas [0:44:35] Go for it. I mean, I just wanted to let you know too that I’m in transportation. The state doesn’t pay us transportation because we’re not two miles. And they have that policy. If you’re not two miles of the city, then that means that you don’t get no transportation money back. So the schools needs to provide that transportation and it comes from our budget. So that’s a large amount that we pay for transportation. So that’s a very big gap too.
Superintendent Almi Abeyta [0:45:07] I can give some historical context for that for people, for everyone. So when the elementary complex was built before all the buildings were built in the 90s, the buildings of course were falling apart and under receivership. Almost all of our buildings were built during the 90s, during that time. And so from what I have been told is that because they put all four of the elementary schools on the by Revere, like way over on one side, it would be required for us to have transportation to the elementary schools because students, little student, they couldn’t walk. And so, and actually that the local transportation costs are built into our budget from the city. Yep. And so we do not get reimbursed for that. What we do get reimbursed for is all of the added district transportation, but it’s not at full price. So we get some reimbursement for transportation with out of district students, but not all. So but still it’s. That was, that’s the reason why we have transportation in a city that’s less than two square miles. But that’s the history. And just for everyone to know, all of our buildings were built in the early 90s and they’re all going to need repairs at about the same time. So that I am worried for that day. We are doing a great job of keeping them up. But just to say they’re all going to start falling apart at the same time.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:46:59] Thank you so much, Dr. Abeyta. I see. Mr. Small.
Jake Small [0:47:03] Thank you, Vice Chair Cabral. Dr. Neville, I think the words that you use are exactly correct that this is devastating, that this is a crisis and that this absolutely sucks. But also I’m so grateful to the folks who are here, our neighbors, concerned educators and folks from Chelsea. Because solving this budget crisis, which is exactly what it is, will require unprecedented civic engagement. Hearing from all of you early and often on how we make what will be really tough decisions about solving this. And solving any budget crisis boils down to two things, finding more money or spending less money. And so as we make huge decisions around and close this gap, as we go out and advocate for funds in a variety of different ways, hopefully we’re doing it with all the same priorities that we lead all of these meetings and all of our classrooms with. Priorities that center students and their well being and their learning and a belief that every single kid in the city deserves access to the highest quality of education. That has to be what grounds all of our decisions. And I’m grateful that this is going to be a year of doing it together with what I hope will be historic amounts of civic engagement again for another year. We all, many of us, were part of last year’s outpour of community support and engagement. And that helped us to arrive at will be a very transparent process this year, one that starts early. And so I thank you, Dr. Abeyta and team, for your getting these numbers to us. I know that they’re estimates, but this helps us to begin to grapple with it and advocate and hopefully, you know, somebody with billions of dollars says, you know, just take this money and fix it all, probably won’t happen, but we can work together and make informed decisions. I do have one technical question, Dr. Abeyta. Can you remind us what’s the cadence for putting out the bids for transportation? Ms. Turner said that this is a big year for a lot of things. If you can remind us what is, how often are we doing that? And then also could you speak to, you mentioned that there are very few vendors that are applying for these bids. Do you offer a little bit of context about why it’s so challenging and why it almost feels monopolistic? Is there any advocacy that you’ve seen in your expertise that could get these numbers down? Because this feels like maybe the only thing on the list that we could control. Healthcare feels hard. Special tuition increases, that feels hard. But a little more on transportation would be helpful.
Billie Jo Turner, chief of finance and operations [0:49:41] So the bid process happens every three. Sometimes you can get a contract for three years, sometimes we get two year extension. So as I said earlier, we have to go out to bid for transportation. Utilities. Copy in all of that. What was your question specifically as far as how we go out to bid or how often?
Jake Small [0:50:00] I guess my question is really you mentioned almost feels monopolistic, so few vendors. What does the market look like for the vendors who have the qualifications to serve our needs? Is it really just a few folks who can do what we need?
Billie Jo Turner, chief of finance and operations [0:50:13] It is. There’s only a few. And even when we do end up getting a lower bidder that’s much smaller, they’re not able to keep up with the scope often. And that happens when smaller mom and pop vendors come in and help us even with the transportation for out of district. So what’s currently happening is the large districts have the larger transportation vendors like NRT and there you might be the only bidder. In Lowell we only had one bid. Other districts, they often say they’ll get one or and one extra which is a new company. We can’t rely on new companies if they can’t accommodate us. If they don’t have the number of buses in advance. We can’t wait for you to gather that. So yes, we are facing a shortage of vendors which means they can charge anything and with all the increase in fuel charges, we’re expecting much more now.
Jake Small [0:51:02] And just to repeat back. So we imagine that we’ll be entering a three year contract with whoever the vendor is for transportation this year again.
Billie Jo Turner, chief of finance and operations [0:51:09] Yes.
Jake Small [0:51:09] Gotcha.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:51:11] Thank you so much. I know you just walked in but wanted to see if you had any questions regarding the projections.
Next steps and how to weigh in
Claryangeliz Covas Caraballo [0:51:21] Not at the moment.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:51:22] Thank you so much. With that said, I just want to make a couple remarks and then I have one question at the end as well. Yeah, I mean looking at these numbers, our students are deserving more from the state school funding formula and I know my peers have already spoken to some of the inequities that are baked into the system. And I just want to share gratitude for those that are present with us in person and virtually that are continuing advocacy because this is going to be a tough budget season. And so I want to ground us in gratitude as we take these next couple of meetings and conversations regarding budgeting. With that said, I just wanted to remind the community to how to best engage outside of school committee with public comment. City council and state legislators. What are some avenues for families, teachers and students to weigh in on these conversations after today?
Superintendent Almi Abeyta [0:52:24] So there’s school site councils. We are planning to kind of take the this on the road once we get more developed and go to school site councils ourselves and present and ask questions. Our neck, I would say our next steps too. The next full committee meeting. We worked over the summer to really provide some details on staffing and so we’re going to have next. Our next presentation is going to be on staffing comparative to our other, like, gateway districts. And so that will be in our next meeting so we can see where Chelsea is with staffing as well. And so we can be more transparent about that because that was something that we did here. So we will have that presentation on, let’s say, at November’s meeting. And so I also, we’re going to have, we’re going to start the community process in November where we reach out to have what’s working, what’s not working, go over the budgets in November as well. And we will be going to some of our nonprofits to present and ask questions much earlier this year. So we’ll put out a timeline. And this meeting wasn’t, actually wasn’t planned. But then as we started working on the numbers, I remember and [name omitted], it’s your voice that I was hearing, if, you know, tell us early. And that just like resonated in my head. Our city manager is here. I was talking to him and he’s like, let’s get this out early. And so thank you. But we will get our timeline out as well. But we will. I think the change for us this year is going to be back to your question, visiting school site councils. So that way we can, as we have a little bit more information, just answer questions, go through it, and then we’ll have our community meetings earlier as well and at some of the nonprofits.
Dr. Sarah Neville [0:54:49] I’d also like to add that beyond that, there’s also, we’ll have to, I guess, work together to identify opportunities for state advocacy. It’s usually easier to do it in coalitions. Right. So we’ll be talking to other districts like the major Massachusetts Education justice alliance circles and Lowell and Lynn. And when I say we, I don’t, I mean it could be me, it could be you. Everyone in the community can come together and join these advocacy efforts. Doesn’t have to be through me or something. So talking to other gateway districts, we have to talk to La Collaborativa and other organizations that often do state advocacy and are able to mobilize people to the state. These are all conversations that we should be having. And not just us up here, but have these conversations with your city councilor, with people you know who are involved in local organizations, anyone you know. And the, it all, it comes from the ground up. It comes from the grassroots. Right. We all just have to keep talking to our neighbors and our friends about this. And that’s how we turn it into Action. Another thing that’s going to be important. So we talked about the city, the site councils, the school committee meetings and the city state. Another one is there’s going to be a DESE meeting or a few, I don’t know, this fall to talk about. Pioneer Charter Schools attempted expansion into offering significantly more seats in Chelsea. So that would potentially exacerbate our enrollment problem even more. They want to expand early childhood seats and pre K seats, which I think there’s honestly no need for because we have an amazing early learning center. And I don’t think that Pioneer Charter would add any value except to cause financial problems for us. So I will be, you know, drafting a letter to DESE about why that’s not right for our community. And I will be looking for other people to, you know, lift their voices and advocating against that as well.
Superintendent Almi Abeyta [0:56:59] I’ve already drafted my letter and sent it, and any school committee member is welcome to draft a letter, send it, or maybe one as a whole, but that will have, again, detrimental effects to us. So we want to make sure that we have an amazing early learning center. I don’t know what they would propose to add compared to what we have at the ELC. Our ELC is top notch.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [0:57:29] Yes. Ms. Covas Caraballo,
Claryangeliz Covas Caraballo [0:57:33] I just want to reiterate that this budget process is something that has been. The timeline is again, we’re just putting it out there as far as really naming it. A lot of this work has been mapped out just quietly because I cannot say this enough. The work that the school department does, that the admin, our lead teachers, our staff, our teachers, generally the members of the school department collaboratively and the members of this body together, and then independently, just work continuously, both independently at home, as parents and then as groups within the community, and then again, some. As far as advocating within the community, within the additional groups, we do that as well. We just don’t necessarily advocate and publicize. Everybody has different styles of leadership. It doesn’t mean that we’re not leading. It’s just how we go about it is a little bit differently because we try to respect who we are working with. So I welcome collaboration. And again, it’s just a matter of getting things done. We all have very different qualities and we bring different elements to the table. So I hope that during this budget season we are open to bringing the ideas and contributions so that we can really see who has what potential and so we can really come to those doors and all of the doors that we’re going to be walking through each time with an open mind and best possible outcome. Because yes, things are going to get tough, but as we’re going to see, it’s going to be tough for the state. So that way we’re not recycling concepts. We can see where we can maximize solutions and take it from there. So hopefully we listen, we work collectively and we keep our students and our families at the forefront. That’s all I have to say.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [1:00:26] Thank you so much. With that said, I just want to thank Ms. Turner and Dr. Abeyta for preparing this presentation as you all are opening the school year. So thank you so much. Again, any other remarks before we close out? Can I have a. Oh, yes. Mr. Gomez-Pereira.
Jonathan Gomez-Pereira [1:00:45] Yeah, I just wanted to zoom out a little bit and think about long term planning also. So there are a couple of conversations that are happening at the city level. I know that we just wrapped up the master planning process with Chelsea and that conversations are happening regarding the elimination of parking minimums. I think it’s worth thinking about the development of Chelsea in the future, potential tax revenue that could come from future developments. I know that the city was hosting kind of like an open house for developers within the last week and those are opportunities for new tax bases within, in the city. So when you’re engaging with, you know, your city councilor beyond this space, consider that. Right. Like that’s not going to provide a solution to the immediate need that we have on the screen here. But it does provide an opportunity to create better opportunities for students that come after the ones that are currently here. So yeah, just please engage with city councilors as well because those are decisions that are being, that are quite frankly out of the scope of school committee. They’re the ones that are voting on zoning and so on. So thank you.
Adjournment
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [1:02:02] Thank you so much. And I appreciate the city council representatives in the building today. I think I heard. Oh, is no comments there. All right. Well, with that said, we’re going to go ahead and motion to. Can I have a motion to adjourn?
Jake Small [1:02:16] Motion to adjourn.
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [1:02:17] Do I have a second?
Member [1:02:19] Second?
Vice Chair Katherine Cabral (presiding) [1:02:21] All right. 650.