NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton City Council has introduced a motion opposing the planned expansion of the Pioneer Valley Chinese Immersion Charter School in Hadley, saying it would further burden a Northampton Public School system that is already facing a precipitous budget situation.

The motion was sponsored by Council President Alex Jarrett along with Councilor-at-large Marissa Elkins and Ward 2’s Deb Pastrich-Klemer. It marks the third time that the city has put forward a motion opposing expansion of the charter school, the first two times coming in 2016 and 2019. The last time PVCICS received approval from the state education department for expansion was in 2013.

PVCICS, which recently acquired an 80,000-square-foot building on Venture Way in Hadley for a second campus, is seeking an expansion of 100 additional students for its enrollment, which currently is capped at 584 students. In September, the school’s board of trustees voted unanimously for the school’s Executive Director Richard Alcorn to go to the state’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to obtain approval.

The resolution introduced during Thursday’s council meeting noted that 44 Northampton students currently attend PVCICS, putting the district on the hook for $733,832 that otherwise would have gone to the city’s own schools. Should PVCICS receive approval for expansion, more students from Northampton would likely attend, the resolution states.

“The impact of funds diverted to charter schools on the budgets of the Northampton Public Schools and the City of Northampton’s general budget is substantial, representing 7.2% of the Northampton Public Schools’ operating budget and 2.4% of the city’s entire operating budget,” the resolution states. “Funds diverted to charter schools from Northampton Public Schools have played a significant role in an ongoing budget crisis in Northampton.”

Speaking during the meeting, Elkins cited the impact of charter schools for the budgetary woes that afflicted the district last year, when more than 20 jobs were cut across Northampton Public Schools. Numerous protests were held as tensions flared between the city and supporters of a level-services budget, including the teachers union, that would have staved off cuts.

“This has just been a real struggle seeing these dollars leave our school system every year, and it’s a bigger number every single year,” Elkins said. “So we keep saying it, we keep saying to our legislators and we keep saying to Boston, please fix this.”

Jarrett concurred, saying the current system of diverting public school funds to charter schools was “not workable.”

“We can’t afford any expansions until major changes are made to this funding system,” Jarrett said. “There are other frameworks, frameworks that allow innovation and education that we could look at that would not be a drain.”

The issue of the school budget earlier in the year had divided the council, with three councilors — Rachel Maiore, Quaverly Rothenberg and Jeremy Dubs — strongly opposing the job cuts. On Thursday, Maiore said she still took issue with the resolution’s implication that the city was forced to cut the jobs due to budget issues, though she voiced support for the resolution overall.

“I understand that there were tough decisions to be made,” Maiore said. “You could think it’s the right decision or you can think it’s the wrong decision. But to say that we’re forced to eliminate a very specific amount of positions, I’m not really OK with that.”

In a statement to the Gazette, Rothenberg said she also disagreed with the notion that the charter school was to blame for the job cuts.

“Charter schools present a financial problem, to be sure, but finances don’t seem to be the reason the mayor eliminated public school teaching positions,” Rothenberg said. “Does she [the mayor] just not value public schools?”

Northampton is not the only voice opposing expanded enrollment of PVCICS. Several parents of students who attend the charter school have raised concerns over the school’s ability to expand, saying that the school is not adequately educating special needs students amid shortages of staff and transportation and their elimination of programming.

At the PVCICS board of trustees hearing in September, Alcorn defended the school seeking greater enrollment, saying that there were many charter schools that had an enrollment of more than 1,000 students.

“Students are getting all kinds support,” Alcorn said. “We will be staffing up in some of the areas parents have expressed concern about.”

Northampton’s City Council resolution will be voted on after a second reading at a future council meeting.

Alexander MacDougall can be reached at amacdougall@gazettenet.com.