As currently structured, Gloucester’s school budgeting process — and, ultimately, the budget itself — often ends in conflict and disappointment, as it has for each of the last two years.
To the average resident or parent, the process can seem more combative than collaborative: a confusing morass of bureaucratic positioning, infighting, and political maneuvering.
Here is how it works — or doesn’t.
Each year, the superintendent, who is appointed by the School Committee, prepares a draft budget for the next fiscal year and presents it to the committee.
The School Committee reviews the superintendent’s proposal and develops the budget it believes will best serve the seaport’s students before submitting it to the mayor for inclusion in the city’s overall spending plan.
The school budget accounts for roughly one-quarter of Gloucester’s total municipal spending.
Meanwhile, the mayor estimates total revenue — primarily from property taxes — to determine how much the city can afford to spend on schools and all other municipal departments.
The mayor then reviews the School Committee’s proposal and determines how much funding can realistically be allocated to the schools.
By law, the mayor must submit a balanced budget that cannot exceed projected revenues. The School Committee bears no comparable legal responsibility when it submits its budget request.
In effect, the committee can simply say to the mayor, “Figure it out.”
Complicating matters further, the mayor also serves on the School Committee and, as was the case this year, does not always agree with fellow committee members on fiscal priorities.
As an independently elected body, the School Committee holds public hearings on its proposed budget regardless of what the mayor determines the city can afford, as it did this year.
The City Council, also an independently elected body, then conducts its own public hearings on the mayor’s proposed city budget. Although the City Charter gives the council final approval authority, it cannot increase or decrease the mayor’s overall spending plan. Its powers are limited to transferring funds from one department to another. This year, the council approved the mayor’s budget with some changes.
Throughout the budget process, the teachers’ union — the Gloucester Teachers Association — vigorously advocates for its priorities on salaries, benefits, and staffing. If dissatisfied with the outcome, it can resort to job actions, including illegal strikes, such as the 2024 strike that shut down Gloucester’s public schools for two weeks shortly after the start of the academic year.
One of the fundamental problems with school budgeting is that labor contracts, if they become too costly, can drive spending increases that outpace revenue growth. When that happens, future budgets require painful reductions to bring spending back into line with available resources. That is the situation Gloucester faces today.
Like many Bay State communities confronting similar financial pressures, Gloucester has limited options: reduce spending, raise taxes, seek an override of tax-limiting Proposition 2½ — which the city has never pursued — or adopt some combination of the three.
What is the solution?
Eliminating the School Committee? While some may find the idea appealing, it did not solve Boston’s budget challenges after the city adopted mayoral control of its schools in 1990.
Today, Boston is preparing to lay off approximately 570 school employees to help balance its budget. In Gloucester, more than 15 school positions must be eliminated to make this year’s numbers work.
Three major factors appear to be driving Gloucester’s recurring school budget challenges: mandated out-of-district special education costs, health insurance increases that are largely beyond local control, and contractually obligated salaries and benefits for teachers and paraprofessionals.
But the governance structure itself also contributes to the annual conflict. An independent review of the city’s budgeting process may be worthwhile, along with earlier, more transparent, and more collaborative planning among the mayor, the School Committee, and the City Council.
Ultimately, Gloucester’s challenge is not simply who controls the budget, but how the budget is developed. Until both the budgeting process and its underlying cost drivers are addressed, annual conflict and disappointment are likely to persist — regardless of who is in charge.
Gloucester resident Jack Clarke is a former Planning Board chairman and served as Mayor Paul Lundberg’s chief administrative officer during January as he took office.