When Newton parent (and Watertown educator) Alli Franke spoke during the public comment portion of Monday night’s School Committee meeting, she offered “song and words of praise” if the gap between Superintendent Nolin’s proposed FY2026 budget and Mayor Ruthanne Fuller’s notably smaller allocation to the Newton Public Schools budget could close.

Franke made that promise tongue-in-cheek. But when Nolin gave her update on the budget, she suggested Franke may have to sing to the committee after all.

The School Committee voted Monday night to approve a new compromise plan worked out by Nolin, Fuller and School Committee Chair Chris Brezski that, after months of debate and panic, closes the NPS budget gap for FY2026.

“My father always used to say that everyone who leaves a well-thought battle that ends in compromise leaves a little happy and a little unhappy,” Nolin said. “I think we’re there.”

In addition to the $1.3 million in free cash she’s already requested go toward paying for the increase in health insurance costs for the schools and $1.7 million for department expense increases, Mayor Fuller has now agreed to substitute another $1.1 million in free cash to offset maintenance costs already budgeted in the NPS FY2026 budget.

This includes about $636,000 in summer projects, $300,000 for accessibility upgrades to Newton South High School and repairs to elevators and HVAC systems.

“These are not things we repair all the time, but they are repairs that were slated for FY2026,” Nolin said.

There’s $2.5 million worth of capital facility improvements set to be funded with free cash, and that allocation would be reduced by the $1.1 million that will be put toward the NPS operating budget, leaving $1.4 million for capital improvements while freeing up money for operating costs.

“So the $2.5 million that was originally promised from the get-go has been distributed differently and in a way that allows us to mend some of the gap that was in our operating budgets and allocation proposal and also make some facility improvements.” Nolin said.

The compromise means $243,000 in operational cuts, including MCAS tutoring stipends, field trip stipends, late buses and more. And the district will use $350,000 from about 100 different revolving accounts.

“Revolving accounts include things like instrumental music lesson accounts, foreign language tuition accounts, things like that,” Nolin explained. “So $350,000 from those accounts will be deployed for operational costs, which will then allow us, hopefully, to carry forward $350,000 to meet the budget gap.”

Certain programs will be delayed, too, adding to the district’s savings. Those savings bring the total FY2026 budget request down by $1.35 million from what it was when the School Committee voted to approve Nolin’s budget proposal on April 2.

“Compromise here has been on all sides, and it’s been a deliberate act of leadership and care for the community,” Nolin said. “And I want to say that, while I think we’re all exhausted, we all tried to live our principals in the best way possible and do what we thought was right by our respective sectors.”

And next year, Nolin noted, those costs will have to be factored into the base budget for FY2027, so conversations will have to be had about getting that funding.

Ward 6 committee member Paul Levy said that while most of the feedback from the public has been helpful, he didn’t appreciate some of the negative rhetoric about Fuller throughout the budget talks.

“I just have to say, having known her and worked with her for—I don’t know how many decades now—I have seldom met a public servant who is more devoted to good and truly believes in the importance of a vibrant school system to the fabric of this community,” Levy said.

Fuller noted the passion of NPS families and teachers with a smile.

“The tricky part for all of us who are lucky enough to live in Newton is that our revenues grow modestly here, and we’ve been through an extraordinary period of inflation and expanding student needs,” Fuller said. “What we need to do is harness the deep passion for education into positive action rather than destructive anxiety.”

Navigating public outrage throughout the budget process has been “a bit of a journey,” Fuller said. “I listened all along and I promise you, when sometimes people went low I tried my best to stay high and remember we’re all doing this for the kids.”

Ward 8 member Barry Greenstein said he felt the compromise and the process over the past couple of months have helped rebuild trust in the schools.

“And there’s still quite a bit to be done, but I hope that the public can see that we as your elected officials did exactly what we were supposed to do,” he said. “We debated in public, we listened to your comments, we took your comments in and we came back with a resolution that’s not perfect but does a lot of what we wanted to do.”

You can watch the entire School Committee meeting online.