School Committee member Fred Bahou speaks during the meeting. (Image captured from Lowell Telemedia broadcast)

by Qinglong Diep

LOWELL – The Lowell School Committee voted unanimously this past Wednesday May 6, 2026 to cut $400,000 from three budget line items, which would be used to bring back an additional three Student Support Specialists at Lowell High School.

The 7-0 vote came after a lengthy exchange triggered by committee member Fred Bahou, who had been reviewing meeting notes from the April 22 meeting and noticed “Line Item 91” reflected only three Student Support Specialist positions.

Bahou believed the committee’s earlier vote to restore three positions should have brought the total to six, prompting Skinner to walk through the suspense account process, which revealed the committee’s understanding of their previous vote was not aligned with what was actually in the budget.

Superintendent Liam Skinner explained that the discrepancy stemmed from an earlier trade-off in which Lowell High Head of School Michael Fiato offered to permanently cut three of the six suspended positions in order to fund the restoration of a fine arts chair and a music teacher, a proposal the committee agreed to.

That left only three positions remaining in suspense, and when the committee later voted to restore suspended positions, only those three were available to bring back.

The explanation landed poorly with the committee.

Committee member Dave Conway said that he had been under the impression all six were restored and that was what he had voted on. Committee member Danielle McFadden said she had gone back and watched the video recording of the previous meeting and was not persuaded otherwise.

“We clearly restored these six positions according to the vote last meeting,” McFadden said. “We’ve been doing this for, I think 12 hours. We need to have a better process.”

Skinner acknowledged the confusion but maintained no procedural error had occurred, adding that if the committee wished to restore all six, roughly $400,000 would need to be found elsewhere in the budget.

Before agreeing to honor the committee’s wishes, Skinner cautioned that the district had added roughly 250 staff over the past six years with no enrollment growth, while cutting only about 20 positions this cycle and that the high school had been protected despite losing 400 students next year. He warned that more significant reductions targeting the high school could be on the table in the next budget cycle.

Mayor Erik Gitschier made a motion to quickly resolve the issue by reducing three budget line items to come up with the $400,000 amount.

Those reductions encompassed Line Item 40 (Part Time Computer Repair Technicians by $52,000), Line Item 4 (MGL C44 S64 Outstanding Prior Year Expenses by $100,000) and Line Item 5 (Budget Reconciliation by $248,000).

Skinner raised concern about drawing from the Line Item 5 reserve, warning the committee that the fund had been deliberately padded to absorb an anticipated 15% reduction in Federal Title I funding expected in August. Without that cushion, he said, the district would be unable to pay tutors and other staff currently funded through Title I.

The mayor countered that the district has flexibility to transfer funds mid-year if federal cuts materialize, pointing to historically unspent balances in personnel accounts caused by lag time in filling vacancies.

“You can move hard money out of other accounts that don’t affect human people and move those funds over,” Gitschier said.

Following the vote, Skinner told the committee the approved cuts were sufficient to cover the three positions and suggested the committee could adopt the full final budget that same night.

Mayor Gitschier said that due to the fact the revised budget had not yet been properly noticed or put in writing, it would have to be brought back two weeks later at the next regularly scheduled School Committee meeting.

When the clerk asked whether the budget vote was being withdrawn, Gitschier confirmed it was, with the recommendations of the motion standing.

Skinner requested a special meeting as soon as possible rather than waiting the standard two weeks, citing the need to begin spring hiring.

The committee agreed to meet this coming Monday, May 11 at 5:30pm to take the formal final budget vote with the three Student Support Specialist positions added back into the budget.