Quincy approves school, police budgets to hire teachers, paraprofessionals, patrolmen

QUINCY — Superintendent Kevin Mulvey said small class sizes and the social and emotional wellbeing of students were the top priorities in drafting the school budget for the next fiscal year, which will work to combat staffing issues Quincy and districts across the nation have faced since the start of the COVID pandemic.

Quincy city councilors on Monday approved a $126.4 million education budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. The council also approved the FY23 budgets of the police department, veterans services, inspectional services, council on aging and traffic division.

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The school department is the single largest budget expenditure within the greater Quincy budget each year. Of the total proposed FY23 education budget, $120.8 million would come from the greater city budget and $5.6 million from the state. The city council funds the education department's bottom line, but the Quincy School Committee decides how to spend the money.

The Fiscal Year 2023 education budget is a $9.1 million, or 7.8%, increase over last year. Jim Mullaney, director of business affairs for the schools, said the budget proposal is $4.2 million more than what it would take for the district to maintain level services.

Mullaney said the district is looking to hire 10 academic teachers for the coming school year — six at North Quincy, two at the Parker school and two at South West Middle School. Six of those positions would be funded by moving around existing money and four would be completely new.

The budget also includes new positions in special education, English language learning, art, occupational education and physical education, as well as an adjustment councilor for Southwest Middle School, five assistant principals, a middle school paraprofessional and five special education paraprofessionals.

Mullaney said the district expects 24 people to retire this year, an increase over the typical number of 12 to 18.

"Last year it was even larger, the number of retirees, leave of absences and resignations," he said. "The great resignation has certainly affected schools as well... We are fully looking forward to staffing all of those positions and more."

Superintendent Kevin Mulvey said Quincy's class sizes are "the envy of the South Shore," and added that the district is in the final stages of hiring a coordinator of diversity, equity and inclusion. That position will be funded by the state for the first three years.

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Police Chief Paul Keenan presented a $34.6 million police budget he called "very reasonable." The increase over last year - about $1.3 million - will pay for the department's contractual obligations, five new patrolmen and several dispatch positions, the first new dispatchers hired in the last 20 to 25 years.

Keenan said the dispatch center is "at the breaking point" with the increase in calls over the last two decades. The budget also includes small increases to the court, training and police academy line items.

"It has been a challenging two years or so, but we've risen to the challenge and provided all the services provided to the citizens of Quincy without interruption," Keenan said.

The natural resources department budgets came under fire by councilors, who approved a $16.4 cemetery expansion after debate and cuts earlier this month. The department encompasses the proposed $1.16 million for cemeteries, $4.4 million for parks; and $979,000 for recreation.

The city took over the operation of the Furnace Brook Golf Course this year and David Murphy, head of the natural resources department, said he expects the city will have earned $200,000 from the course by the end of June. Within the parks budget is $229,000 for golf course maintenance and about $292,000 for labor.

"We are expecting a surplus in 2023, which should more than offset the appropriation request associated with the Furnace Brook Golf Course in this budget," he said. "We've really wasted no time taping into this as a community asset."

Murphy requested a $57,500 overtime line item increase under the cemetery budget to compensate for Saturday and Sunday burials at local cemeteries, but said that cost is largely made up from extra weekend burial fees that go into the city's general fund.

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City councilor at-large Nina Liang asked why that money wasn't accounted for in the cemetery budget and made a similar point about revenues coming from Furnace Brook Golf Course.

City councilor at-large Anne Mahoney  asked to cut a $30,000 request to replace trash cans at Mount Wollaston Cemetery, and said that should come out of the city's COVID relief allocation. The mayor has sole discretion over how federal COVID money is spent. The motion to cut failed by a vote of 3 to 3.

The cemetery and recreation budgets were passed Monday, but councilors asked Murphy to come back to further discuss the golf portion of the parks budget.

"I think it would be great if we could have a presentation from you showing us what your anticipations are for the golf course and how we plan on moving forward as a city," Mahoney said.

City councilors approved a $4.5 million budget for information technology; $1.7 for veterans services; $2 million for inspectional services, which includes a new building inspector; $872,571 for the council on aging; and $3.2 million for the traffic, parking, alarm and lighting department.

City councilors will continue to discuss the budget at a 6:30 p.m. meeting of the finance committee Wednesday. They will hear from the library, health department, city clerk, public works, public buildings, city council, parks department and the mayor's office. 

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Reach Mary Whitfill at mwhitfill@patriotledger.com. 

This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Breaking down Quincy's school, police budgets for Fiscal Year 2023