Superintendent Anna Nolin has presented a Fiscal Year 2026 budget that is less robust than she wanted. And Mayor Ruthanne Fuller is saying even that won’t work, given the grim realities of revenues and funding on the horizon.

Nolin is proposing a $292 million budget that keeps services level but doesn’t add more. That’s a nearly $15 million increase over FY2025. But Fuller says that much money isn’t possible , and her allocation to the schools was nearly $5 million less than what Nolin requested.

Discussions continue, but the gap between what Nolin wants and what Fuller is willing to allocate remains between $3 million and $4 million.

Now, after department leaders have given presentations on how much money they need and why, Nolin is facing the challenge that arises when barebones is seen as too much.

The School Committee held a public hearing Wednesday night, and spoiler alert: Nobody is happy.

‘Drip, drip, drip’

Ryan Normandin, math teacher at Newton South High School who serves as chair of the Newton Teachers Association’s Legislative Committee, railed against Fuller and the School Committee at the start of the hearing, noting how much the schools have lost over the past several years.

“And now we’re in the same spot again this year, and I’m forced to conclude that either Mayor Fuller has lied to her constituents over and over, or she is incompetent, unable to deliver to her constituents what she claims is her top priority, a thriving public school system,” Normandin said.

Normandin praised Nolin and School Committee Chair for voicing their concerns over tightening school budgets and called out the rest of the School Committee for not doing enough—or anything at all—to help get the district more funding from the mayor.

“Your job is to get kids what they need, and if you don’t think you can do that, you need to get out of those chairs, because we are really sick of trying to do for you,” Normandin said. “I am a Newton voter, and I am ashamed and embarrassed by our elected officials, except Chris [Brezski], who is the only one who hasn’t given up.”

Upper Falls resident Jim Murphy urged the committee to approve Nolin’s budget instead of calling for more cuts.

“It’s incredibly frustrating to watch the committee kick the can down the road, particularly on special needs students and particularly our younger special needs students,” Murphy said. “We all know that if we want to keep the cost of those things down, we need to make sure that we intervene early and that we do so effectively.”

Jane Franz of Waban lamented “the loss of trust in the school system that’s a direct result of underfunding the school budget for five years.”

“The constant drip, drip, drip of cuts known among staff as ‘death by a thousand cuts,’ has left the system at a tipping point,” Franz said. She went down an extensive list of things—increased class sizes, decreased support services, lack of funding for basic maintenance, to name a few—to show how things have changed with the district.

Franz suggested Fuller abandon her goal of having the city’s pension liability paid by 2032 so adjustments to the pension pay schedule can be made and money can be redirected to the schools and “move past austerity funding.”

“There’s nothing magical about the year 2032,” Franz said.

Donna Thayer of West Newton teaches second grade at Mason-Rice Elementary School and has taught in Newton for more than 20 years. On Wednesday night, she asked the committee to approve Nolin’s budget despite Fuller’s insistence that the money isn’t available.

“As a resident of Newton, I have heard that the mayor is fiscally conservative and, therefore, fiscally responsible,” Thayer said. “I would argue that it’s time to be humanely responsible. My students, other students, the students of Newton, are struggling with increased mental health and behavioral issues. Students as young as first grade talk about suicide. Students younger and older hurt themselves and hurt staff, often in front of the rest of their class.”

Enrique Rosaro of Newton Centre spoke bluntly, referring to the mayor’s administration as “regime of austerity, back to making cuts to our children’s future.”

Allison Zacharek of West Newton, who has two kids in elementary school, said the schools were the reason her family moved to Newton from Cambridge a couple of years ago.

“Last year, when the whole budget crisis opened up, I was shocked that the city that is known for incredible schools and how much we care about our students is having this struggle,” she said.

The hearing continued like that—a stew of frustration, panic and exhausted rage—for nearly three hours. You can watch the entire hearing online.

Choices to make

After the public spoke, the School Committee deliberated for a while about the budget and how to proceed. Brezski said they have a choice to either make cuts to match the amount the city is offering or pass a budget Fuller says she can’t fund. The district could try to find incremental revenues to plug some holes, but it’s unlikely there’s a revenue source flush enough to do that.

Brezski said there are discussions behind closed doors about possibly using one-time funds to avoid cuts—something the mayor has repeatedly said she does not like to do—for the past several weeks as budget predictions have become more dire.

Brezski had planned on the committee reaching a conclusion Wednesday night and voting next Monday, but with discussions ongoing and parts moving around he suggested pumping the brakes a little.

“I think we probably want to start thinking about pushing this entire timeframe back, so we have time to work through those discussions, primarily,” he said.

Vice Chair Emily Prenner said Nolin’s budget is “the least we can do in order to support and not have a detrimental impact on the students of the Newton Public Schools,” Prenner said.

Ward 4 committee member Tamika Olszewski said it’s been clear for years that the schools in Newton need more funding and, without a lot more money, the schools won’t achieve their goals.

“We’re going to be constrained constantly and be in these situations where we’re going to have to be contorting ourselves into uncomfortable positions,” she said. “We’ve been here before, and it’s a cycle I wish that we would just get out of. I don’t know what it’s going to take to change this course that we’re on, but it’s clear that there is a course correction needed.”