ContributorAs a member of the Belmont School Committee and chair of its Finance Subcommittee, I have spent the last six months engaged in difficult budget conversations. The proposed “No-Override” budget paints a bleak but painfully accurate reality for our community.
Without a successful override, we will need to cut $2.7M from an already stripped school budget in FY25. Over the next two years these cuts translate into failure to invest in an updated curriculum, wholesale elimination of our athletics and theater arts programs, a dramatic increase in class sizes across the district, and a reduction in advanced placement and elective courses. In FY26, these cuts are especially profound and will require further reductions, which include the closing of Burbank Elementary School. Belmont Schools will be unrecognizable in their altered form.
If you have not followed the budget conversations or scoured the 200 pages of budget documents, this is a shocking revelation. Surely, there can be some pencil-sharpening and belt-tightening to eliminate the waste that must live within our existing budget?
Unfortunately, the answer to this question is no. Of the nearly $64 million in the proposed FY25 Budget, 38% is spent by the district on legally required services the district must provide to
our most vulnerable students. The district has no discretion in providing these services. As a result, in FY25 alone, $2,726,780 in cuts must be exacted upon the remaining 62% of the BPS general fund operating budget. As I can attest, this budget is already lean and does not include funding for many services that our peer districts provide. There is just nowhere left to cut.
To maintain excellence in our schools, we need to increase available funding.
Please support the override on April 2. Belmont kids need you to do the right thing.
Amy A. Zuccarello, Elizabeth Road
