Four Barrington residents submitted motions to amend the town’s budget. All four motions call for money to be added to the Barrington School Department budget — ranging from a $70,000 increase to a $534,000 increase.

Barrington taxpayers will vote on the proposed motions at the Barrington Financial Town Meeting, which is scheduled for Wednesday, May 28. 

Tom Rimoshytus submitted a motion to cut the Capital Reserve Account for Affordable Housing Assistance “in its entirety” and place the money from that account, $502,003, into “the bottom line of the school budget.”

Kate Berard, a member of the Barrington Town Council, submitted a motion to increase the school operating budget by $500,000 to replace the loss of state aid to the schools. “While the school operating budget is a general fund, this motion is proposed with the intention that the increase will be applied to staff salaries in an effort to reduce the contemplated staff efficiencies,” Berard wrote in the motion. 

Doreen Lindenburg, a teacher at Barrington High School, filed a motion to increase the school operating budget by $534,000. 

“This amount represents the difference between the school operating budget approved by the school committee for level services and the school operating budget approved by the Committee on Appropriations, which would require substantial cuts to necessary programs and services currently provided,” she wrote. 

(The Barrington Committee on Appropriations accepted both the municipal and school budgets as presented at the start of the budget review season. A COA official said no money was taken out of the school operating budget.)

Eleanor Donato, a student at the high school, filed a motion to increase the school budget by $70,000 to cover the salary and benefits for a high school art teacher “who would otherwise be laid off due to a decrease in the school budget…”

Barrington teachers learned recently that a tight operating budget is expected to impact staffing levels, including cuts to teaching positions.

That news was confirmed in the Barrington School Committee May 22 meeting agenda, which lists numerous references to staff layoffs. 

The tight budget is due, in part, to a decrease in state aid. The district received about $11.5 million in state aid this year and officials are expecting about $500,000 less next year.

Barrington School officials are proposing a $67 million operating budget — that is a $1.4 million (or 2.2 percent) increase over the existing budget. 

The state aid decrease for Barrington follows a significant increase in state aid in 2023 — the district received a 23 percent increase, going from $7.9 million in state aid in 2022 to nearly $10 million in 2023. That figure increased again in 2024 and now stands at $11.5 million.

According to previous Barrington Times reporting, Barrington School officials used the 2023 increase in state aid to cover $1.44 million in salary increases for existing staff and to add nine new positions or FTEs.