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Braintree school budget plan: Cut 33 jobs. Will there be a tax override vote?

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Braintree school budget plan: Cut 33 jobs. Will there be a tax override vote?

The Braintree School Committee has almost unanimously supported a budget plan that calls for cutting 33 jobs and larger class sizes.

In the previous plan, 41.5 positions would have been cut. Of the 33 jobs to be cut in the new plan, about 10 are accounted for through retirement, vacancies or attrition.

The town council will have a final say when Mayor Erin Joyce presents the town budget and an override proposal at the next meeting on April 30.

The proposed budget is a 7% increase in next year’s public school budget. The mayor had asked the school committee to come up with a 1 percent increase budget. Even the proposed $79.9 million school budget proposal isn’t quite the $83.5 million the school system needs to maintain programming and personnel for the 2024-25 school year.

Joyce was the sole dissenter on the school committee’s Monday night votes on 10 budget categories, but she explained that her vote wasn’t representative of her desire for a fully funded school system.

Previous coverage: Braintree facing cuts, possibly layoffs and even a tax override

“My vote tonight is going to be reflective of what the town is able to afford, which is unfortunately not what I want to be voting on but it is the reality of the town’s resources,” she said. About a dozen people attended the meeting in person, with hundreds more watching online.

The mayor added that town staff had prepared a town budget where the school’s portion would be $75.5 million, but that she hoped to meet their needs through a permanent recurring tax, or an override.

A tax override, formally called a Proposition 2½ debt exclusion, would give Braintree permission to temporarily raise property taxes to pay for the money it says it needs to balance the fiscal 2024 budget. Proposition 2 ½ is a Massachusetts law enacted in 1980 that strictly limits the amount of property tax revenue a municipality can raise through real and personal property taxes to 2.5% annually. It can only be higher with an override, which requires voter approval. 

“I spent 10 years sitting on the planning board and watching projects come and fail, and seeing other communities bring in new growth in business areas all throughout their town,” Joyce said. “Those are the resources that we need and we need to stay in this discussion moving forward, regardless of an override success or failure.”

This proposal is about $800,000 more than what was presented during the April 8 school committee meeting. A financial subcommittee made some tweaks after listening to three hours of public comment from residents and students, who shared their concerns about school accreditation, about mental health and finding their calling because of extracurriculars offered by the school system.

That led to officials adding programming back into the budget — keeping media in elementary schools, keeping major subject areas in high school at a class size at 25 or below, maintain electives at high school, keep grade 5 math lab and grade 8 writing — meaning fewer job cuts.

The plan also calls for closing Monatiquot School Kindergarten Center and placing students in elementary schools, as well as postponing the opening of the old South Middle School. The old South Middle School was to house the early education center and most of the system’s kindergarten and pre-kindergarten classes. The building was undergoing renovations for its new use.

If the school system were to maintain the status quo, it would need $6.5 million for contractual pay raises and $1.2 million for higher special education costs.

“If the town does not vote positively on an override, this will be devastating,” said Rachel Horak, school committee vice chairman.

Hannah Morse covers growth and development for The Patriot Ledger. Contact her at hmorse@patriotledger.com.

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