By Adam Swift
The school committee held a public hearing on the district’s proposed FY2026 budget of approximately $151 million last week.
Between additional funding from the city, and over $1 million in cuts that Superintendent of Schools Dr. Almi Abeyta said will have a minimal impact on students in the classrooms; the district was able to close an initial $3.4 million budget shortfall.
“That is hard to close when you have $3.4 million,” said school district finance director Billie Jo Turner. “The superintendent worked closely with the city to get them to commit to $2.1 million above the minimum (required to be provided to the budget by the city) to offset this deficit, which brought us down to $1.2 million.”
Turner outlined those cuts to the budget and the district level.
Both Turner and Abeyta said the goal was to make cuts that did not impact classroom learning and teaching positions. A number of cuts were made to trim some professional development contracts, and some others were positions that were either currently empty or had gone unfilled.
“The factors that are influencing this budget for Fiscal Year 2026 are that ESSER (Covid relief) funds have ended and the Student Opportunity Act dollars, which we are extremely grateful for, there is not a significant increase from this year to the coming year,” said Abeyta.
In addition, the district saw a decrease in enrollment by 60 students over the past year, which affects the amount of state aid the district receives. Abeyta said the district also has the annual battle of addressing inflation and increased salaries, benefits, healthcare costs, and special education costs.
Chapter 70 state aid covers about 80 percent of the total cost of the school budget, with the remainder funded mainly through the city, as well as grants.
Just to address those costs and maintain the services in the current budget, the district was faced with an $11.5 million increase for the coming year, Turner said.
During the budget process, Abeyta said the administration has held public outreach sessions and met with staff, the school committee, and the Chelsea Teachers’ Union to discuss and address budget needs.
“I want to thank Dr. Abeyta and the entire school committee team for the budget process,” said Chelsea Teachers’ Union President and Browne Middle School special education teacher Kathryn Anderson. “This has been really an unprecedented year; there has been a lot of difficulty both within our district and nationally.”
Anderson thanked Turner and Abeya for having conversations about how the potential budget cuts would have the lowest impact on students and staff.
“There was clearly an effort to prioritize student-facing services and a focus on keeping people in front of our kids,” she said.
The school committee will be meeting on the budget again this Thursday, March 20 and is expected to vote on the final figure at its March 27 meeting, where it will then go before the city council as part of the overall city budget.