At the town’s budget summit last month, Superintendent Jill Geiser presented a revised school budget that falls in line with the approximately $70 million allocation from the town, a 5.6% increase from fiscal year 2025. The revised budget also includes some added positions and re-allocations.
Geiser reflected on the challenge of mapping out the FY 2026 budget in a short time to accommodate Town Meeting’s budget vote moving to May this year.
“I think we all had this sort of wide-eyed, deer in the headlights [feeling of] ‘how are we going to get this done by March?’” she said. “But we did it, which is really phenomenal.”
According to Geiser, three main budget drivers have increased expenses for the schools over the past year: salary increases from changes in educator contracts, special education costs, and the costs associated with programming for English language learners.
At the budget summit, Anthony DiCologero, the district’s director of finance, business, and operations, said the district is working to support all students, especially those who are most vulnerable.
“One of the ways in which we’re doing that is we’re allocating resources that are available to where the needs are,” he said.
Additions and Re-allocations
According to Geiser’s budget presentation at a Feb. 25 School Committee meeting, estimated savings from known retirements and rescinding an increase for substitutes included in an earlier budget draft allowed the district to add an elementary assistant principal, district-wide nurses, and a district-wide psychologist.
The substitute teacher line item was reduced to align with the actual expenses to date from fiscal year 2025. The total savings from known retirements and rescinding the increase for substitutes is $214,999.
The district also reconfigured the counselor and inclusion specialist positions for Burbank and Butler elementary schools, moving from splitting the counselor position between the two schools and having an inclusion specialist in each school to splitting the inclusion specialist position and having a counselor in each school.
These changes follow public comments advocating for a counselor in each school to support the social and emotional learning needs of students at the Butler Elementary School.
Supporting Students
Geiser noted at a Feb, 25 School Committee meeting that the two counselors will provide therapeutic interventions. In contrast, the inclusion specialist will focus more on creating student behavior plans.
Geiser said the inclusion specialist will also have the flexibility to allocate their time at the schools based on need.
“We need to pull in some more proactive behavior planning,” Geiser said.
At a school budget hearing on Feb. 25, several Butler parents requested the budget retain a full-time inclusion specialist position, and School Committee members discussed possible ways to respond to the social-emotional learning needs of Butler students.
Registered behavior technicians (RBTs) are contracted for specific students as needed, according to Geiser.
The district is also looking into bringing in social work interns from outside organizations to support Belmont students, as well as hiring a social worker to work specifically with students from the Metropolitan Council For Educational Opportunity (METCO) program, due to additional funding coming into the district to support METCO students.
The final budget will come before the annual Town Meeting beginning on May 5.
More information about the current school budget can be found at https://www.belmont.k12.ma.us/o/bps/page/sc-public-documents.
