NORTHAMPTON — The City Council agreed Tuesday to amend the annual school budget as suggested by the mayor, putting an end to a long debate over the city’s schools — for now, anyway.

The school department will operate under a roughly $40.7 million budget for fiscal 2025, which began on Monday. That’s $3 million more than in fiscal 2024.

The department had been in line for a 5% increase, but the amendment approved unanimously increased that amount to 8% by transferring $737,556 from the city’s Fiscal Stability Stabilization Fund, along with an additional $200,528 from a newly created Special Education Stabilization Fund and $166,666 from Smith College.

Though substantially increasing the school’s budget by the largest amount in recent memory, the amended budget still means that several staff positions will need to be cut across the school district. The percentage increase is nearly double what Mayor Gina-Louise Sciarra had originally said was needed to have a fiscally responsible budget.

The final vote on the budget comes after a prolonged campaign by supporters of the Northampton Association of School Employees union’s proposed 14% level-services budget that would have avoided any job cuts. The public pressure on the city to prevent cuts included several demonstrations outside City Hall, packed rooms of supporters at official meetings, and NASE filing a vote of no confidence in Superintendent Portia Bonner, which the School Committee later repudiated.

The School Committee had originally voted in favor of recommending a level-services budget.

Three of the city’s nine councilors — Ward 3’s Quaverly Rothenberg, Ward 4’s Jeremy Dubs and Ward 7’s Rachel Maiore — were also supportive of a higher budget, with Rothenberg raising multiple charter objections that delayed votes on the city’s budget by the council.

At Tuesday’s special council meeting, held remotely and without a public comment session, Dubs said that while he would vote yes for the mayor’s amended budget, wanting to give the school

s as much as possible, he regretted how this budget process had played out.

“I felt like the this entire budget process has felt very rushed, and I wish that we had had more time for discussion overall,” Dubs said. “I hope that we could do better next time for the next budget process. I feel like we should maybe start earlier in the discussion, given that it’s been basically a month and a half since we were presented the mayor’s budget.”

Maiore also agreed to vote for the amended budget, but called for reflection on how to better engage with the public on such issues. Discussions on the budget had often been fraught with tense moments between supporters of NASE and city officials, sometimes leading to outbursts at public meetings by both sides.

“I think the council really needs to talk about some of the process issues,” she said. If I had had the time, I probably would have written something for new business [on the agenda] about having a discussion about how we engage the public in person, how we comport ourselves as councilors.”

Bonner spelled out the 20.5 full-time staff positions that will be lost at the School Committee’s Budget & Property subcommittee meeting held on June 10. Those cuts include:

■Bridge Street School: One first grade paraprofessional, one math interventionist and reduction in clerical staff hours.

■Jackson Street School: One teacher, one first grade paraprofessional and reduction in clerical staff hours.

■Leeds School: One teacher, one first grade paraprofessional, one special education teacher, one math interventionist and reducing a library paraprofessional to part time.

■Ryan Road School: One special education teacher, one first grade paraprofessional, as well as reducing a library paraprofessional to part time, and reducing hours of clerical staff.

■JFK Middle School: One physical education/technology teacher, one Spanish teacher, one academic coach, one math interventionist, and one tech integration staff (loss due to retirement).

■Northampton High School: One teacher, one adjustment counselor (loss due to retirement) and reduction in clerical staff hours.

Andrea Egitto, the president of NASE and a teacher at Ryan Road, said she would meet with Bonner and Sciarra to discuss the possibility of preventing the removal of any direct student-facing jobs, such as teachers, as part of the job cuts.

“We were disappointed that they mayor couldn’t add any additional funds,” Egitto said of the final budget. “Hopefully, more money can be added to the schools somewhere further down the line.”

Still, Egitto said that she was grateful that more money was given to the schools than was originally proposed by the mayor, and for the large amount of community support the union received during its fight to prevent job cuts.

“This is definitely an accomplishment,” Egitto said. “People are paying more attention to budget discussions, and that’s a win.”

Following the adoption of the amended budget, the mayor will also look to get voters to approve a $3 million Prop. 2½ general budget override during the November elections, which she says is necessary to maintain the school budget going forward in coming years. Egitto and NASE have maintained that such an override is not necessary, and that the mayor could instead continue to fund the schools using undesignated free cash it receives each year. 

Across the city, signs continue to be placed around various homes and businesses that support more funding for the school district. “Fund our schools, our kids, our future,” they read.

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