Hundreds of teachers, students, and Lexington Public Schools supporters, donned in red, lined Massachusetts Avenue outside Cary Hall on Monday evening, protesting the recently announced LPS layoffs.
To keep a balanced budget, LPS is cutting the equivalent of about 60 full-time positions and is giving pink slips to about 160 non-professional staff (the expectation is that many of those educators will find jobs within the district).
Homemade posters read, “Don’t fire your teachers to balance your budget,” and “Expensive high school, cheap education.” Demonstrators chanted, “SOS save our schools.” Regional news outlets such as NBC Boston and Boston 25 News came to the Center to cover the standout.
Many of the demonstrators attended the first night of Town Meeting’s annual session afterward inside Cary, making the event remarkably well-attended. An enthusiastic audience filled the balcony level of the Hall, posters in tow.
Town Meeting took a look at Articles 2, 4, and the consent agenda, albeit briefly, but didn’t vote on anything.
Article 4: Appropriate FY2027 Operating Budget
Many of those who demonstrated outside attended the meeting to show their opposition to Article 4, the town’s fiscal year 2027 operating budget.
The town has struggled to balance the FY27 budget due to increased healthcare, transportation, and waste removal costs. The school district is also feeling the heat of those pressures, coupled with declining enrollment. To balance the budget, the district is cutting about 60 FTE and giving pink slips to about 160 non-professional employees, Superintendent Julie Hackett said in her presentation video Monday night (that video was pre-recorded in February and includes an old estimate of the number of FTE the district thought it would have to cut, Hackett explained to the Observer).
The protestors at Cary on Monday, among other residents and LPS employees, want the town to allocate more money so fewer LPS employees must be cut to balance the budget.
“These cuts are so concerning. It’s not just a budget, we are talking about people,” LHS student Nyneishia Schneider said at Town Meeting on Monday. “Choose a solution that reflects what this town stands for.”
Protestors were also upset about the timing of the layoffs — the district made those cuts just a few months after Town Meeting passed a debt exclusion vote to pay for Bloom, the high school building project, which is poised to cost about $659 million. Some worry the cuts are a result of the passage of Bloom.
“Everyone in Massachusetts knows the solution is not to build Bloom,” Lititia Hom, a Town Meeting member from Precinct 7, said as she urged precinct representatives to vote ‘yes’ on Article 4. Hom has long been vocal about her opposition to Bloom. “You want good teachers, get rid of Bloom.”
Residents’ property taxes will not begin to increase until FY28 as a result of the debt exclusion, but the town is currently (and has been for years) funding a Capital Stabilization Fund to help pay for the new school.
Others argued the budget should be passed as-is because a budget must be passed during Town Meeting anyway and staff spent a lot of time making it.
“Please vote ‘yes’ on Article 4,” Thomas Diaz, a Town Meeting member from Precinct 8, asked of his fellow representatives. “Even though this budget is painful, the School Committee’s budget is basically heading in the right direction.”
Dawn McKenna, a Town Meeting member who represents Precinct 6, proposed an amendment to Article 4, which calls for $1.25 million to be taken from the town’s Free Cash, a nonrecurring revenue source used for one-time expenditures, and put toward LPS “Education Personal Services” to keep more teachers around. The town had about $24 million in free cash in 2025, according to the state.
“Many people, including me, were not aware of the depth of these cuts,” McKenna said. “So what do we do?”
After a caucus, the Select Board and the Appropriations Committee unanimously disapproved of McKenna’s idea, arguing it would only help the budget for one year.
Select Board Chair Jill Hai called it “weak fiscal management.” Appropriations Committee Chair Glenn Parker corroborated, arguing Lexington would be $1.25 million “in the hole” next year, and the amendment is only “kicking the can down the road.”
The School Committee, however, expressed unanimous support of McKenna’s amendment, in some part due to the public outcry over the district cutting employees.
“We have heard so much from our community…that is so distressed [by the cuts],” School Committee Chair Eileen Jay, said. “We are appreciative of any additional money we can use to remedy this issue.”
Eric Michelson, a Town Meeting member who represents Precinct 1, motioned to table the vote on Article 4 so precinct representatives could have more time to think. Town Meeting supported that motion with about 57 percent support. It has not been determined when Town Meeting will vote on the budget, though it will before the end of its annual session this spring.
Other articles
Town Meeting did not pass any of the other Articles it discussed on Monday night.
The representatives heard the Minuteman High School superintendent give her report and request for the local vocational school’s FY27 budget.
The crowd also began debating the consent agenda, which includes Articles 3, 5, 10 1-4, 10a, 10b, 10g, 11, 12a, 12e, 12f, 12g, 12h, 12i, 12l, 12n, 12p, 13, 14, 15, 16a, 16b, 16c, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 29, 32, and 35. That debate was cut short when Town Meeting representative Bridger McGaw, of Precinct 6, motioned to postpone voting on the consent agenda until after it voted on Article 4. He argued the body should do so because the consent agenda includes millions of dollars worth of items that also affect the operating budget. Fifty-three percent of Town meeting voted in support of that motion, so the consent agenda will likewise be voted on another night.
Town Meeting will reconvene on Monday, April 6, at Cary Hall at 7:30 p.m. It will not meet on Wednesday, April 1, due to the beginning of Passover.
I am a town meeting member from Precinct 2. When town meeting takes up Article 4 again I will, without hesitation, be voting “yes”. Our daughter is Bowman 2015, Clarke 2018, and LHS 2022. I would still be voting yes if she was LHS 2026, 2028, or 2030.
I was offended by the implication from some of the people urging us to vote no, that if we approved the budget we didn’t care about the students and teachers. If those town meeting members and residents had paid attention to the message Eileen Jay read on behalf of the School Committee, they would know that is not the true.
After I watched the presentations by Doctor Hackett and the town manager, one fact became crystal clear: the town’s revenues are not keeping pace with expenses. This will not be changing anytime soon, and certainly not before January 20th, 2029. If the town is going to meet its mandate to balance the budget, unfortunately, painful cuts have to be made.