'Things Are Tight': Salem Schools Budget Proposal Set For Monday Night

SALEM, MA — A Salem Public Schools budget draft that Superintendent Steve Zrike said will include some position "swaps" and "trades" amid enrollment shifts and the expiration of federal COVID-19 funding will be presented to the School Committee during Monday night's meeting.

Zrike said that while "things are tight" amid the challenges of which previously ESSER-funded positions could be absorbed into the school operating budget, the budget ultimately includes about the same amount of positions as it did in Fiscal Year 2024.

"There's a high cost of doing business," Zrike said, "as we all know with the inflationary increases. We'll be proposing a budget that has a number of new positions that we really have to add based on shifting enrollment and bringing some new positions onto the operating budget that were previously funded under ESSER. As well as some trades, swaps that need to be made in schools.

"In the end, we're adding virtually the same number of positions that we're eliminating in the operating budget. But, of course, we're not able to fund everything that was previously funded on ESSER."

Monday's presentation will be followed by a public hearing on the school budget on April 23 at 7 p.m. and a School Committee vote to approve the budget proposal scheduled for April 29.

"Ultimately it is their budget," Zrike said. "They can choose to accept or not accept the superintendent's recommendations, or make adjustments to it."

Zrike also said during his bi-weekly Facebook Live session with the school community that Salem Public Schools will be providing eclipse-viewing glasses to all students in grades kindergarten through eighth grade for Tuesday's highly anticipated solar eclipse.

He said schools will hold programs and information sessions during the day about the eclipse with the nearest stage of totality — about 93 percent in Salem and across most of Massachusetts — occurring at 3:29 p.m.

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at [email protected]. X/Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)