The Newton School Committee held its meeting Monday night in front of a packed room at the Education  Center, with people holding a sign that read “Fully Fund.”

It was the latest in a series of meetings focused on a gap between what Superintendent Anna Nolin is requesting for Fiscal Year 2026 and what the mayor says is the most she can allocate for the schools.

“Think about the history of where we’ve all been and where this could be headed,” Adam Bernstein, whose son, Nicholas, had just read the Pledge of Allegiance for the meeting, said.

Now in fifth grade, Nicholas is having his first uninterrupted school year in a long time, and his dad wants the mayor and the school committee to consider that as they proceed with budget talks.

“Don’t forget parents sit on both sides of that equation,” Bernstein said.

The gap

Bernstein was one of many parents who spoke before Monday’s meeting, asking the mayor and the School Committee to find a way forward into FY2026 without hurting the students.

Newton enjoyed a couple years of free cash abundance, after interest revenue and local meals and excise tazes brought in more money than expected. But those were windfalls.

Superintendent Anna Nolin wants more than $296 million for Fiscal Year 2026 just to keep school services level, but Mayor Ruthanne Fuller says there won’t be enough money to give that much to the schools.

Fuller’s allocation falls a few million dollars short of Nolin’s request.

Last week, more than a dozen parents and teachers spoke at a public hearing, criticizing the mayor for not allocating more for the schools. In response, Fuller said the city just doesn’t collect enough revenues to enable large growth in spending.

On Monday, Fuller reiterated that point in an email update to the community.

“Our aspirations must conform to the realities of our finances,” Fuller wrote. “There is never enough money to do all of the things we want to do. We must make choices. We must, by law, balance the City’s budget.”

State law only allows cities to raise the total tax levy (combination of all taxes community-wide) 2 and ½ percent, not counting new growth. And Newton typically has “modest” revenue growth, and without an Proposition 2 ½ override, that means modest growth in spending.

“New growth” refers to new homes, new residential and commercial developments and new renovations. And Newton gets the 85 percent of its tax revenues from residential properties.

“Newton has had modest new development,” Fuller continued. “We consistently have about 100 home demolitions annually with offsetting new home construction (almost always of higher value). Altogether, the ‘New Growth’ amounts to another 1% to 2% in additional tax revenue. Therefore, Newton can count on an annual increase in tax revenue of 3.5% with occasional years reaching the 4% to 4.5% range.”

Tough choices

Fuller’s FY2026 allocation raises the school budget by 3.65 percent over FY2025. And that means cuts.

Complicating things further, a court hearing was supposed to be held this week regarding kindergarten aides included in a prior contract but not the current one. That hearing has been pushed back to July, after the new fiscal year starts, and Nolin said she has to be ready for whatever ruling comes from it.

Nolin suggested Monday night that the city create a legal contingency using the Stabilization Fund created during last year’s teacher strike.

If the district has to pay those kindergarten aides and there is no legal contingency fund, the gap between Nolin’s request and Fuller’s allocation is at about $3.7 million.

And the cuts would be made across the district.

Nolin said her own budget proposal cut 16.6 staff positions and 10 elementary school teacher positions.

The budget allocated from the city would result in 28.8 job cuts, including 15 elementary school teachers. Overnight field trips and late buses for athletes would also be gone. The district’s Multi-Tiered Systems of Support initiative would not be expanded (that also means additional math stipends, which are part of MTSS, will not be available).

Two high school teachers would have to be cut, too, at the principal’s discretion.

“They’re looking at their schedules, students are choosing their classes, and we will try to find the least painful place to do that cut,” Nolin said. “But I have to tell you, the high schools have taken the brunt of the cuts for the last few years.”

Several support staff (eight to 10 full-time employees) would be cut whose job duties are not mandated by students’ special education plans, such as staff members wh0 substitute for others when needed.

The tough choice that had everyone in school administration in what Nolin called a “throw-down” involves having to cut 10 social and emotional learning interventionists.

During last year’s teacher strike, a major sticking point that kept the strike going for two weeks was a shortage of social workers and other social and emotional support staff.

“We’re deeply troubled to make this cut, but they are not required by IEPs, and they are not required for classroom services,” Nolin said. “But this is an example, much like interventionists for English language arts and mathematics, where we are coming out of a very volatile time for young people.”

A district on edge

Ward 4 School Committee member Tamika Olszewski said no one on the committee, including the mayor, want to cut services, but not having a balanced budget is not an option. In fact, a balanced budget is a legal requirement. And the committee doesn’t get to decide on whether to pass the superintendent’s budget proposal or the mayor’s allocation.

“We are ruled, governed, by an ecosystem of realities,” Olszewski said. “None of us can pay our mortgage with a check that is insufficient in funds. None of us. The School Committee has to certify a budget that is balanced. Whether that is a week from today, on April 22, or on July 1. Prior to the fiscal year starting, we as a district have to pass a budget that is aligned with our allocation. We have no control over that.”

Having identified $2.6 million in cuts already, Nolin said the school administration team will have to find more than $1 million more in cuts to get to the mayor’s allocation amount.

“I’m going to stop here because I need further guidance and direction,” Nolin said, “because now we’re going to get to things like music programs and athletics—things that are not required and mandated but vastly affect a student’s experience and their developments as humans.”

Fuller agreed that talks are far from over.

“More work needs to be done, and more conversations and more brainstorming,” Fuller said.

School Committee Chair Chris Brezski said discussions between the city and NPS saw progress early on but have stalled in recent days as choices regarding what to keep and what to cut become tougher.

“It’s therefore not unexpected, perhaps, that it’s getting harder to find items that we believe will be accepted by the city,” Brezski said.

Fuller said her team is ready to look at ways forward, but using one-time funds for school budget items creates a new problem with the district’s finances and backlash from the community when those things are cut.

“I am so ready to help and do everything I can, to be flexible and creative,” Fuller said.

And none of this includes potential cuts to federal funding from the Trump administration, which Nolin said is keeping her team on edge.

“Some of our conversations so far with the city’s CFO are like, ‘Well, take on more risk, assume you’ll be level-funded with these things,’” Nolin said. “And I’m not comfortable with that, because when the chips are down, I have to solve that also.”

You can watch Monday’s School Committee meeting in its entirety online.