Swampscott Town Meeting Members decided to approve budget reallocations to provide the school district with an additional $130,000.

“I’m incredibly happy,” said School Committee Chair Glenn Paster. “It’s great for the students. It’s great for the teachers and faculty, and it allows us to do what we need to do.”

Swampscott’s operating budget includes line items ranging from community programs to office supplies and salaries for town officials. The line items were discussed individually but voted on as a whole. After an initial hand-raising vote, Paster requested a standing vote recount.

The reallocation amendment passed 134 to 98, which Paster called a “landslide for a Town Meeting.”

Prior to the meeting, the Finance Committee, Select Board and School Board appeared to be aligned. Within the past week, however, additional information came out about health insurance data. The exact numbers were not shared at the Town Meeting – though Hartmann said costs are “increasing nearly 22%” – but the news sparked a renewed push from the Select Board and the School Board to rearrange numbers again.

Finance Committee Chair Eric Hartmann introduced the article, adding six line amendments in the process:

• Line 5 reserve fund – decrease by $15,000 from $125,000 to $110,000
• Line 23 community development personnel – increase by $30,000 from $261,376 to $291,376
• Line 26 building personnel – increase by $10,000 from $219,446 to $229,446
• Line 39 snow and ice – decrease by $30,000 from $240,000 to $210,000
• Line 57 employee benefits – increase by $175,000 from $15,474,213 to $15,649,213
• Line 54 Swampscott Public Schools – decrease from $130,000 from $33,931,013 to $33,801,013

At Monday night’s meeting, Select Board Chair Katie Phelan motioned to amend the Finance Committee’s proposed budget even more so. 

The budget cuts were not discussed with town department heads until after the Select Board voted on them, according to interim Town Administrator Gino Cresta. He also added that most of them seemed to approve the changes.

Phelan’s motion, which was distributed to Town Meeting Members on green paper, included several recommended changes:

• Line 14 information technology – decrease by $3,000 from $647,962 to $644,962
• Line 16 legal/insurance – decrease by $18,000 from $1,248,926 to $1,230,926
• Line 18 human resources expense – decrease by $1,000 from $14,875 to $13,875
• Line 27 building expense – decrease by $500 from $15,420 to $14,920
• Line 29 health expense – decrease by $1,000 from $18,680 to $17,680
• Line 36 cemetery expense – decrease by $500 from $21,250 to $20,750
• Line 38 DPW expense – decrease by $11,500 from $594,250 to $582,750
• Line 46 fire expenses – decrease by $3,700 from $455,638 to $451,938
• Line 52 library expenses – decrease by $2,000 from $113,000 to $111,000
• Line 54 Swampscott Public Schools – increase by $130,000 from $33,801,013 to $33,931,013.

“The biggest challenge any district has is that education is expensive,” Paster told the Swampscott Tides on Tuesday. “It’s much more expensive than it used to be.”

During Monday night’s Town Meeting, Paster called the $130,000 in a $40 million budget “pennies.”

“We’ve taken our pennies…We’ve taken big ticket items that we wanted, but we’ve also looked at every line item ad nauseum, and where we could take out $50, $100, $200, we have,” Paster said. “The challenge with $130,000 is that we don’t have it. What that means to us is reduction to core staff. We don’t know who that core staff is going to be…but that’s what’s going to happen.”

One school district parent spoke up at the meeting, suggesting that her high schooler feel the funding cuts. Liz Smith, the chair of the Water and Sewer Infrastructure Advisory Committee, also implored that Town Meeting Members “do not penalize the schools for the work that they’ve done.”

“They’re telling you this is what we need,” Smith said. “Do not penalize them for the work that hasn’t been done in the rest of the town.”

Paster added on Tuesday that “part of the discussion is that no one wants to pay taxes.” With Phelan’s motion, $83,776,514 will be raised and appropriated from taxes, and local receipts estimates and state aid will be at $75,620,029, not including state assessments and offsets of $1,817,685 that do not require appropriation.

The original article had a total of $83,647,714 in appropriations.

Superintendent Pamela Angelakis also spoke up during the meeting, noting that “there’s nothing left to cut.” 

“If you fully fund our budget, we’re about $300,000 in the red already, because after that budget was voted on, in January, we found out that we were receiving $105,000 less in Title I funding, so those grants you’re talking about that we’re banking on, there’s a $105,000 that we’re already in the red. On top of that, there’s been special education changes. That’s another $200,000,” Angelakis said. “If you give us back that $130,000, we’re already $305,000 in the red that we have to make up. There is nothing left to cut.”

Angelakis said the school district has made cuts throughout its budget for the 11 years she has been superintendent. She said the Select Board’s similar move to decrease certain lines in the town budget was the “first time in my tenure.”

School Committee Member Amy O’Connor also raised that with the insurance costs, if there are leftover funds at the end of the year “that stays with the town side, that does not come back to the schools.” She said for the last two years, $200,000 has returned to the free cash.

Hartmann told the Town Meeting that planning for the budget started at the beginning of the year when town staff met with department heads to review a consolidated budget that was at the time recommended by the town administrator. 

Around the same time, the Capital Improvement Committee and the School Committee were developing and reviewing budgets. 

In February, public meetings were held to review and debate the proposed budgets. The joint meetings between the Finance Committee and School Committee had not happened in previous years.

“The level of discussion and collaboration was robust, with discussions continuing literally right up to today to further refine and finalize a recommended budget,” Hartmann said. “Multiple scenarios of the town budget were considered, and all of them can contain some combination of staffing cuts.”

Phelan told the Swampscott Tides the budget process “reflected lessons we learned from last year.”

“There was a stronger spirit of collaboration between the Select Board, Finance Committee and School Committee, and I believe that helped produce a more thoughtful and balanced outcome for Article No. 4,” Phelan said. “I’m proud of the work we’ve done to support essential services while planning responsibly for the town’s future.”

Paster also called it a win for Swampscott.

“Everybody worked hard,” he said. “Everybody worked collegiately. I’m happy. I’m happy for the community.”

Hartmann, however, was not upset with the Town Meeting Members’ decision.

“While the Finance Committee was not supportive of last night’s budget amendment that restored school funding and cut into town services, ultimately that decision rests with our Town Meeting Members, and we respect their decision,” Hartmann said.