BOSTON — New staffing cuts proposed by Boston Public Schools’ FY27 budget may be felt across hundreds of current school employees in the coming year, hitting positions like general education teachers, bilingual education teachers and certain aides hard in a plan drawing early criticism from the district teachers union.

“The proposed BPS FY27 budget does not meet the needs of all students in all of our schools,” the Boston Teachers Union said Monday. “While the move away from Weighted Student Funding provides necessary transparency to the budgeting process, cutting school-based supports and positions will compound the harms caused by federal cuts to health care and education.”

BPS officials presented the initial draft of a $1.7 billion budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 to the School Committee last week, painting a stark picture of costs well outpacing revenues and falling enrollment hitting the coming year.

The proposed FY27 budget detail numerous cost saving measures including about 530 staffing cuts. The cuts would slash the jobs of 300 to 400 current BPS employees, in addition to removing already vacant positions.

BPS did not respond to inquiries regarding plans and timelines for staffing cuts as of Monday evening.

Positions hit hardest by the cuts include certain teachers, aides and administrators, according to a break-down by the Boston Municipal Research Bureau (BMRB). Overall, the district would drop just under 5% of all positions from the current year, reaching about 10,500 full time equivalent staff in FY27.

The proposal includes about 160 staffing cuts from three schools set to close at the end of the year under the district’s facilities plan, Dever Elementary, Excel High School, and Mary Lyon Pilot High School. The district has not detailed where the additional cuts to current staff would come from.

Teachers would see the largest drop in positions, losing 265 posts or 5.2%, the BMRB report states, though “significant variation in personnel changes existed by type of teacher.”

Among those hit hard, the district would lose 13.8% of all general education teacher slots, 159 positions, and 11.7% of all bilingual education teacher slots, 105 positions, the data shows. Special education teachers would see a slight increase, just under 1%.

At an 8% overall drop, aides would see the largest percentage decrease, the BMRB details, followed by administrators at 6.8% or about 63 positions.

All types of aides except sign language interpreters would see staffing cuts under the proposal, the BMRB states. Bilingual aides alone would drop by over a fifth, with about 24 positions cut.

Special education aides would decline by 6.9% or 106 positions, and instructional aides would lose 10.% or 10 posts.

Despite the proposed cut to district staffing, employees across the district have grown overall in recent years. The loss of over 500 positions in FY27 would bring BPS back to about the staffing level in FY25, and the district workforce has grown just under 17% from 2018, the report shows.

Over the period between the 2018-19 school year and the current 2025-26 year, enrollment has dropped from over 54,000 to just under 47,000 this year.

The teachers union argued “now is not the time to cut back, but to continue to invest in our schools,” urging city and state leaders to put additional funds into the cost pressures like federal cuts, health insurance rises and enrollment decline.

“As one of the wealthiest cities in one of the wealthiest states in the county, Boston and Massachusetts have the resources to protect classrooms by prioritizing education as the critical investment that it is despite the bad federal policies that are creating a range of challenges for students and school systems across the U.S.,” the BTU said, pointing to “federal fearmongering and overreach” driving enrollment declines.

Within the budget proposal presentation, the BPS superintendent pointed to several financial factors placing stress on the schools, including escalating health insurance costs, transportation expenses, special education costs, and collective bargaining agreement increases.

The BTU said it will continue to advocate for “a budget that centers students, protects essential jobs, and ensures every child in Boston has access to the well-resourced public schools they deserve.”

The Boston City Council was also slated to take up multiple measures related to BPS’s finances and outcomes in the coming week, including a proposed “full independent audit of Boston Public Schools’ finances, operations and program effectiveness” filed by Councilor Erin Murphy.

Murphy said the measures are “about accountability, not blame,” pointing to issues like over a third of seniors not on track to meet graduation requirements and stark racial disparities in literacy.

“(These filings) are about examining whether our investments are producing results, whether graduation standards are being meaningfully upheld, and whether waivers, rushed budgets, and temporary fixes are masking long-standing system failures instead of addressing them,” said Murphy. … “The City Council has oversight authority, and failing to use it allows these problems to persist.”

The School Committee is scheduled to conduct the next budget hearing on Feb. 12, detailing school investments and budgets, and vote on the budget proposal on March 25.

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