Spring has not been kind to Newton Public Schools.

Several days ago, after months of talks and negotiations, Mayor Ruthanne Fuller announced that the schools would get $292.6 million in the FY2026 budget, which was millions less than what Nolin requested for her level-services budget.

Then the NPS legal counsel told the School Committee that, while the potential legal ramifications of the School Committee voting to approve Nolin’s proposed budget is unknown, pursuing an unbalanced NPS budget could bring risk of litigation.

It’s unclear what the legal questions would be, since it’s part of a superintendent’s job to advocate for more money for the schools and since the School Committee vote is not legally binding and was largely—as one committee member put it—“performative,” when the mayor has the final say with the budget.

On Friday, in a message to the Newton Public Schools families, Superintendent Anna Nolin remarked about the beauty of spring, extended thanks to the community for the support shown to NPS during the current budget crisis, and then broke some bad news.

“Unfortunately, there has been no positive movement to address the proposed cuts before NPS,” Nolin wrote.

And that means—if Mayor Fuller’s $292.6 million allocation and the proposed Stabilization Fund allotment don’t change—the district will need $2.2 million in additional cuts.

What does that look like?

For starters, the district will lose an additional 35.68 full-time staff members, including 10.88 full-time support staff, five elementary school teachers, three digital media literacy teachers and more, and that’s all in addition to cuts Nolin already proposed to get to her level-services budget.

Nolin said the cuts would mean larger class sizes in the district’s elementary and middle schools, no expansion of the district’s Multi-Tiered Systems of Support initiative, less money for classroom supplies and curriculum updates, less mental health support for elementary schools and more.

“These cuts are close to becoming reality, and I am deeply troubled by them. I communicate them to you again, so there are no surprises to the community should they be enacted,” Nolin wrote.

Fuller has cited slow revenue growth and inflation for her lower-than-desired allocation to the city’s departments, including NPS. Everything costs more, everywhere.

Out-of-district tuition (money the district pays for kids who transfer out of the district) has gone up 14 percent, while health insurance has increased more than 11 percent, to name just a couple of examples.

The Finance Committee recently approved the transfer of $2 million from free cash to pay for some of the health insurance increases for city and NPS employees. With $1.3 million of that going to offset NPS health insurance increases, there is still a lot of daylight between Fuller’s allocation and Nolin’s level-services budget.