Approved 4/15/2021 by Town Meeting - 126 - 1 - 1
Want to know what Town Meeting is and why it matter's to the budgets? Check out this video.
Quick Overview of the current budget process...
- School Administration presents a budget to the School Committee at a series of meetings
- School Committee considers the budget, ask questions and then votes on the budget
- Town Administrator (hired position) also creates a budget for all of the departments in the town, including the schools.
- All of the budgets go through the Finance Committee - (15 person appointed board) - to be vetted and then voted on in sub committees and the full committee. Finance Committee Website - Great resource if you'd like to see all of the budgets.
- School Committee and TA can make adjustments throughout the spring based on conversations at the Finance Committee. This year for example, the School Committee voted on the budget 3 separate times to land on this final number for the next school year.
Things to note for this budget -
- This vote allows for around $1M to come out of capital stabilization (a savings account) to provide the money needed now with the intention replacing the savings in the fall with Free Cash that becomes available.
- The Schools and Town were able to find a mutually agreeable number - see this slide to understand how "the gap" was reached.
Where does the money come from?
- In addition to this appropriation, NPS has received and will continue to received grants to get through the affects of COVID in the coming years.
- ESSER (Elementary and Secondary Schools Education Recovery) estimates can be found here. (another post coming specifically about essers.)
- Administration shared that the grant tracker will be on the transparency page of NPS.
Thank you to all of our Town Meeting Members who are staying up late into the night to vote this all of the town budgets.