Uxbridge schools may send layoff notices after voters shoot down budget plan

UXBRIDGE — The public schools in Uxbridge are without a budget for the next fiscal year after Town Meeting voters, by a margin of five votes, rejected the district’s proposal Tuesday.

While town leaders are moving to call a Special Town Meeting to get a budget in place, that likely can’t happen for several weeks on account of legal requirements and logistics.

As a result, School Committee Chairman Barry Desruisseaux confirmed, pink slips will likely go out to teachers and employees represented by two unions, since they are required to be notified of loss of their position by early and mid-June under their contracts.

“We’ve got to get (a new budget) done, because otherwise, come July 1, everybody in the schools is laid off,” he said. “If we do not have a budget, we are out of business.”

The School Committee, Board of Selectmen and Finance Committee all recommended approval of the $27.65 million school budget, which represented a roughly 12% increase that administrators told residents was long overdue.

Video of the meeting shows some residents saying they didn’t trust that the budget wasn’t inflated, and saying they were concerned by the roughly $700 increase the overall town budget — a large portion of which was the school increase — would have on the average tax bill.

The School Department elected not to do a presentation on the budget, instead publishing a summary that was handed out and offering to take questions.

Voters, by a margin of 221 to 216, rejected the budget proposal — a simple majority was required — though they approved a separate $2.8 million budget line for the regional school system, including Blackstone Valley Regional Vocational Technical High School.

Town Manager Steve Sette told residents at the meeting that the school district's budget, if not passed, would revert to a monthly budget that was level-funded at the current fiscal year's amount.

However the school system, in a press release sent out by a public relation firm it employs, John Guilfoil Public Relations, said Wednesday that state officials had clarified that the failure to pass a budget means the schools have a budget of $0 for fiscal 2025.

Superintendent Michael Baldassarre, when asked at Town Meeting to detail the impacts of a level-funded budget, said it would likely lead to at least 30 layoffs and class sizes that could approach 40.

Interviewed Friday, Baldassarre said that he had never seen a situation like this in his two decades-plus in education.

“I’ve never seen that before, so I didn’t have any basis to confirm or deny that that was the situation,” he said regarding Sette’s statement about the level-funded budget.

Baldassarre stressed that town officials were confident the budget would pass on the strength of the recommendations of the School Committee, selectmen and Finance Committee.

“We were surprised this took place,” he said.

Baldassarre said town officials will chart out the course to be taken next. He said he respects the will of town voters and would work within the parameters that emerge following the process.

Baldassarre said his “first, second and third priority is, and always has been, the students.” He said he believes his efforts to modernize the schools are vital to students’ success, but can lead to opposition.

“A lot of people don't like change,” he said, but he will always advocate for what he believes is best.

“Is it expensive to do it? It is,” he said, adding, “Public education is funded through taxation, and the voters will get the education they choose, that they vote for.”

Uxbridge school system has been in turmoil

The failed vote follows a period of tumult in the school systems that has included vocal criticism of Baldassarre.

Multiple critics of the superintendent, including a resident running for School Committee in Tuesday's election, Tina Ryan, told the Telegram & Gazette they saw the vote as a referendum on Baldassarre’s leadership.

Six of the town’s seven School Committee members resigned in May 2023, prompting Baldassarre to commission an investigation that concluded the two main reasons were likely the superintendent’s “perceived unwillingness to participate in his agreed evaluation process and his implied threat of a potential civil rights claim against some School Committee members within the same time period.”

Hundreds of town residents also signed a petition asking that Baldassarre's contract not be renewed, and have stated their concerns at School Committee meetings.

Also, a town selectman, Stephen Mandile, filed a federal lawsuit against Baldassarre and the School Committee after Baldassarre banned him from school buildings following an encounter outside a school.

Records obtained by the T&G show the suit settled in March, with the school district agreeing to vacate the ban and pay $60,000 to Mandile’s lawyer.

Neither side, as is typical in settlements, admitted to any wrongdoing.

Mandile told the T&G this week he personally voted for the school budget because it was the best thing for students. He said he does believe the vote Tuesday reflected concern about Baldassarre.

“I think the confidence wasn’t there in the superintendent,” he said.

Lack of a budget presentation may have impacted vote

Former state Rep. Kevin Kuros of Uxbridge, who attended Town Meeting, told the T&G that while he voted for the school budget, he believes it was a misstep to not give a presentation.

“I think the school department came up short there,” he said, adding that, with only five votes deciding things, perhaps that could have made a difference.

Desruisseaux told the T&G he believes Baldassarre, who was recently given a new three-year contract, is doing a good job and being unfairly attacked.

Asked why he thought the budget failed, Desruisseaux said he believed people “are focusing on a person and a personality, and not focusing on the education of the children.”

He acknowledged there is a contingent in town that does not like Baldassarre, but said he believes much of the criticism is misguided and that, in the end, the vote is punishing children.

“This isn’t a personality contest,” he said. “We wouldn’t have issued him another three-year contact if we didn’t think he was doing what was best for kids.”

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Uxbridge school budget voted down; layoff notices could be coming