MELROSE — Sharing what many knew was coming, school leadership said this week the way the city’s educational system is currently funded is simply not “a sustainable method” as they face a significant budget gap just to keep services where they’re at now.
Without a serious infusion of money, school leaders will need to reduce spending by about $4.2 million heading into the fiscal year that starts July 1. User fees will increase for parents of athletes, team teaching at the Veterans Memorial Middle School will be eliminated as will the directors of Humanities and of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, one teaching position at the Franklin Early Childhood
Center, a first grade teacher at the Hoover Elementary School, a kindergarten teacher and a grade four teacher at the Lincoln School, three teachers at the Roosevelt, three teachers at the Winthrop, 16 teachers and one full-time principal at the middle school and eight teachers at Melrose High School.
Many educational services will need to be curtailed or axed as well.
In the annual overview of the proposed budget for the next academic year presented to the School Committee Tuesday night, Superintendent of Schools Adam Deleidi and Director of Finance and Administrative Affairs Kenneth Kelley outlined many of the issues facing the district.
“In the short time we have been part of the Melrose community, we quickly recognized both the dedication to the schools, the strength of the community, the pride in its education and the desire to be successful.
Fiscal Year 2025
“Through high levels of collaboration and decision making between City and District partners, the FY25 budget was approved in the amount of $47,207,468. In our current budget structure that includes both City appropriation and district collected revenue. This was significant in that for the first me in multiple budget cycles the Melrose Public Schools (MPS) budget does not include a planned one-me funding request. This was necessary for financial health, but involved incredibly challenging decisions requiring significant staffing and programmatic reductions. Nevertheless, the District was consistently prioritizing appropriate staffing levels at Melrose Veterans Memorial Middle School (MVMMS) and supporting special education programming. This resulted in expanding staff at the middle school, and starting a language based learning program at the elementary level, which are major success stories. The overall goal of delivering excellent teaching and learning while living within our means took a major step forward.
Fiscal Year 2026
“The challenge now moves us to FY26. The current financial challenges that exist at the City and State level are real, significant, and are impacting many communities across the Commonwealth. In MA, Cities and Towns budget increases are capped at 2½%, and yet many costs continue to rise and far outpace 2½%. For example, the Operational Services Division (OSD) has approved recent tuition increases of 14% and 5% for out of district placements, and leave of absence costs are twofold – they include both contractual paid time off as well as the associated required substitute coverage costs. As the MPS Teaching and Learning Budget is over 90% fixed costs, a level services budget creates roughly a $4.2M deficit. The City has generously and historically supported the District with one-time revenue. But, this is not a sustainable method to fund the school system. A proposed MA Proposition 2½% override was defeated by the City last June. To live within our means will require drastic reductions and cuts to staffing and programming. Combined with FY25 reductions, class sizes will increase K-12 next year. In order to fully balance the projected budget for FY26, the City is contributing just over $42 million dollars, including FY26 Ch. 70 funds, which represents significant increases over the past few cycles. The District continues to use offset accounts and raise revenue to help supplement the budget. Offset revenues are funds that we bring into the district to support the overall cost to operate the district. Examples of offset revenues are athletic fees, and tuition for the Franklin pre-K program, etc. Fiscal 26 offset revenues are projected to be over $5 million. At this me the total amount including offset accounts for Fiscal 2026 is $47,425,000. A budget is always a forecasted plan based on both known and estimated factors. Designing any budget requires balancing many needs and challenges. To foster transparency and build on best practices, MPS continues to share information and decisions on our website, linked here. Knowing that two years of reductions directly impact teaching and learning, our FY26 Budget priories are; compliance with state regulation and mandates, staffing special education, and placing the overall student experience at the center of our work. We understand the importance of a collaborative process, and we are very grateful for our City financial partners who continue to understand the importance of supporting education while building financial health. We further appreciate their commitment to ongoing collaboration as we work transparently to problem-solve and build solutions together.”
Many residents spoke about the harm the looming drastic cuts in educational services will have. After about an hour and 20 minutes of public input, Deleidi and Kelley presented the proposed spending plan for fiscal year 2026.
Much more work on the proposed spending package for next year will be done at upcoming meetings.