School Committee Okays Operating Budget

By Michael Coughlin Jr.

The Revere School Committee held a hearing during its regular meeting on Tuesday, June 20, to vote on the proposed Fiscal Year 2023-2024 School Operating Budget — a total of $121,711,646 — which was subsequently approved.

In a letter concerning the budget, which was attached to the meeting agenda packet Doctor Dianne Kelly, Superintendent of Schools, indicated that Revere Public Schools (RPS) “is in a position of relative financial stability.”

In this letter, Kelly also explained that the spending is centered around District Strategic Objectives, which are to build an antiracist community, promote social and emotional health, and meet the needs of all students.

More specifically, the budget “aims to enable the actualization of our improvement Goals,” per the letter.

These outlined goals include increasing the diversity of staff, doing training for things like antiracism and restorative practices, using equitable practices, creating parent engagement opportunities to get involved with input in regard to decision-making, increasing student voices in regard to their academic programs, and making sure teaching practices focus on effective, student-centered, deeper learning experiences.

Committee Member Michael Ferrante also went over some highlights of the budget. One highlight that he described as one of the biggest is the fact that there was a $14,000,000 increase in Chapter 70 money from last year to this year.

Moreover, in terms of other highlights, Ferrante said, “We’re going to hire 57 classroom teachers, 13 instructional coordinates, 19 paraprofessionals, seven parent informations, and three psychologists.”

“Hopefully, we can fill all the positions,” added Ferrante.

Before the budget went to a series of votes, Committee Member Jacqueline Monterroso indicated that she wanted to learn more about an aspect of the budget that indicated a 60-percent increase in school committee salaries. 

Ferrante indicated that this would raise each member’s salary from $6,000 to $10,000. Stacey Bronsdon-Rizzo, the Vice-Chair of the committee, also chimed in on the subject.

“This school committee has never received any kind of raise — probably in 18 years — and it’s basically comparable to some of the urban cities,” said Bronsdon-Rizzo.

Shortly thereafter, the budget went to a vote and was voted on first by each series individually, which included Administration, Instructional Services, Other Student Services, Operation of Plant/Maint, Employee Benefits and Insurance, Civic and Community Services, Building Improvements, and Programs with Other Schools.

Following the vote of each series — all approved unanimously — the committee then voted on the budget in its entirety, which was also unanimously approved. It should be noted that to remove any conflicts of interest, committee members who had family members in a particular department were not allowed to vote on specific series.

After the entire budget was approved, Ferrante said, “Alright, that’s the budget. It’s all been voted for — approved by the school committee — it’s up to you, mister CFO, to take care of the rest.” “I want to thank everybody for helping this budget,” he added.