The Peabody City Council met on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, to review and vote on the Fiscal Year 2027 school budget as presented by Superintendent Dr. Fadala. The meeting also later considered the city's operating budget, enterprise funds, and several transfers. After extensive public comment and council debate, the school budget was approved 9–2, and the city budget was approved 9–2.
Good evening. We are going to come out of recess. And the only item on our agenda this evening is to review the education budget for FY27. We have all counselors except Councillor Welton, who should be here momentarily present. So thank you for being here. Good evening, Council members. I'll put up a presentation here. So first, let me just thank you all for having me here tonight so that we can share the school budget for this evening. This is the FY27 budget. I'd just like to begin by thanking the City Council for what they do and for the very thoughtful process that you've engaged in over the past week. This is my seventh budget for the PBD public schools, and I have to say that this is probably the most in-depth that the council has been in the city budget as well as the communications that we've had with the school budgets. It's been very collaborative. We've had a number of conversations and meetings with people over the past couple weeks, and I really appreciate uh all the time and effort that you've all put in. So thank you for that. And I look forward to presenting this year's budget and engaging in a conversation. So tonight I'm here on behalf of the school committee, and thank thank you to Mr. Amico, Mrs. Griffin Dunn, Dr. Cox, and Ms. Millman for being here tonight, and also thank you to Mr. Olimpio and Mrs. Carpenter for the work that they did, and of course the chair, Mayor Betancourt, for engaging in a great budget process. So as we look back at the budget, as the city council has taken quite a an extensive look at the city budget, as did the school committee this year. Uh we had between eight and ten budget meetings that started for us uh with an overview in January, and then we started sharing documents on February 10th, and we engaged in about a three-month process with several public meetings and uh many votes to to reduce our budget. So providing a little context, if we look at the current budget that we're working on for FY26, uh it's important to note that the PBD public schools relies on a variety of funding sources to operate our programs and services each year. Uh the appropriated budget, which we'll be talking about tonight, is the essential first step in the process. And I know that the school budget is a very complex one, uh, but it really starts with what is uh appropriated by the city council uh through through the school committee. And this year we have a $99 million budget. That's the FY26 budget that was approved last June on June 26, 2025. After the budget is approved by the city council, over the summer, we receive federal entitlement grants, and that those grants are designed to supplement the budget. So the city council and the school committee appropriate a set number of dollars uh through the city, and that is our baseline foundation budget, and then we receive entitlement grants over the summer to supplement that. And those grants have uh very strict processes and and and purposes, so we have to spend them a certain way, and they are approved by DESI in September. So last year the Federal Entitlement Grants were improved September 2025, and that budget is approved by DESE, and then they're audited on an annual basis. So uh it's very strict the way that we can spend that money. Anything that we're not able to fund from the appropriate budget that we'll get tonight or for from the federal entitlement grants, we can apply for competitive grants. And so this year we are fortunate enough to secure 14 competitive grants throughout FY26 to supplement the budget. So anything that we can't fund through through these means, we try to fund through competitive grants. A lot of this is uh things that are supplies or uh different resources that we try to bring in, a lot of professional development or uh a lot of things that we could not purchase on our own. Uh this year we were able to get 2.5 million in competitive grants, and that's through the work of a great team. Uh and for example, we were able to purchase uh a lot of materials for the uh CTE programs that we have that we could not possibly buy with within the appropriated grant. So those definitely help supplement the budget, and so we were able to do that this year, and we'll hope to do that again as we move forward. So, what we are proposing tonight is the FY27 appropriated budget uh that was approved by the school committee uh in May, and then our entitlement grants for from the federal government will be posted in July, and we'll hope to have those approved by DESE in September. So on February 10th, 2026, we presented this slide to the school committee. And this is a comparison of the chapter 70 funding from the state. So you'll see this big circle, the red circle here. Uh last year we received 38.1 million dollars in chapter 78, and this year in January, when this when the governor's budget was posted, it was 38,555,751 dollars. And that is because we were a minimum aid district receiving at the time a proposed $75 for each of the students in the foundation budget, the $5,746 students that attend the PBD public schools. So that's what that number was. Through a lot of advocacy from many people in this room, from our school committee, from our teachers union, uh, and from the superintendents association, we were able to increase the Chapter 70 aid to 160 dollars per pupil. So the amount of money that we're receiving is $39,044,161.