- Heidi Walsh
The Medford School Committee passed a $43,185,000 budget for next year. The budget included two amendments, thanks to Mayor Michael McGynn, who uncovered $175,000 dollars in funding from a multitude of city accounts to demolish some of the proposed job cuts at Medford High School.
This helpful gathering of funds, which came from cash reserves and various city accounts, will be enough to provide one high school guidance counselor, one high school submaster position, one elementary school assistant principal, one elementary school teacher and Advanced Placement foreign language classes at MHS, all of which were facing cuts before this new funding.
The student activities account, which was originally being cut from $45,000 to $25,000, will be boosted with a $15,000 donation from Clear Channel. The account provides stipends for high school activities advisors.
In addition, the mayor has proposed to eliminate the $50,000 sports cut by donating money he raised from several golf tournaments. Nonetheless, the tournament funding is only for one year, so the sports user fee will still be raised $25 in order to compensate for next year. User fees for hockey and football will increase by $50, and the maximum family cap will increase $50 to $500.
The school budget will be put before the Medford City Council for approval on Tuesday, June 29th at 7:00pm at Medford City Hall.
