A week after school officials declared the school budget approved by the town inadequate, the Plymouth School Committee on Thursday passed the same spending plan.
But the school committee, which met in a special afternoon session, said it will come back for more money after it negotiates new contracts with unionized school employees, including teachers.
The committee, by a 5-1 vote, approved a level-funded budget of $118,734,700 for fiscal year 2025. Only member Vedna Heywood opposed the package. She did not say why and didn’t return a phone call seeking comment.
The amount of the approved budget, plus additional town funds allocated to schools for other items – including 75 percent of school employees’ health insurance costs – accounts for about 61 percent of all town spending.
The budget maintains current services, with no layoffs or cuts. There is an additional $1.2 million in a separate town reserve account earmarked for the school’s union negotiations.
School Committee Chair Michelle Badger said the committee will keep fighting to fix “the inequities in the way we pay our teachers and our staff.”
“This isn’t the end and I really just want people to hear that,” she said. “I know it’s probably not the route many people were hoping we would go but is it the route I think the committee feels is the strongest place we have to stand and the fairest way to move forward.”
Superintendent Christopher Campbell said the budget had been “carefully formulated to ensure the continuation of the essential services, the staff support, and the operations we currently need for the effective functioning of our schools.”
The budget, Campbell told the school board, “reflects a comprehensive assessment of our financial requirements to sustain our standards and the education that our community values and needs at this time.”
Select Board member Kevin Canty, who presided over a meeting between the school committee and the select board earlier this month, said the approved budget “doesn’t solve all of Plymouth’s problems, but will go a long way towards addressing the needs of our town, its residents, and its employees.”
Earlier this month, after the select board approved its own version of the school budget, school officials slammed the town’s plan and demanded more money.
“It’s not sufficient,” said school committee vice chair Luis Pizano. “It’s not what the school committee has recommended or asked for.”
Town Manager Derek Brindisi suggested the town couldn’t afford more without seeking a Proposition 2-1/2 override — a public vote to seek approval for exceeding a total property tax increase greater that the 2.5 percent allowed by state law.
“This community has never seen an override,” Brindisi said.
Pizano said he wouldn’t necessarily oppose such a vote, even though the chances of an override passing are considered slim.
“If we can’t figure out away within the existing tax revenue, I think it needs to be on the table,” he said of an override.
Town officials said they had reached an agreement with school officials on a fiscal year 2025 budget in September and weren’t even aware school leaders thought the budget was too low until a Jan. 16 joint meeting of the school committee and select board.
At that meeting, Campbell was asked repeatedly — by select board members and a member of the town’s Advisory and Finance Committee — how much he wanted to increase the budget, but he wouldn’t say.
At a school committee meeting Monday night, Pizano made clear that even though he would vote for the level-funded budget, he still believes it’s too low.
“I don’t think any of us are changing our minds in terms of believing the teachers and staff across the board need significant support when it comes to pay,” he said, adding that he “recognizes it’s now too late to ask the upcoming town meeting for more money…This kind of follows a more traditional track of let’s fund the schools as it is, negotiate in good faith, and then go back and ask for exactly what it is we’ve negotiated.”
Andrea Estes can be reached at andrea@plymouthindependent.org.