Somerset School Committee Directs Bus Route Study to Offset Proposed Staff Cuts

SOMERSET — March 10, 2026 — Somerset School Committee orders bus route study to preserve staff amid $26.97M budget crunch. The committee, meeting remotely Tuesday, directed Superintendent Dr. Jeffrey Schoonover to work with transportation staff to model the elimination of two to three additional school bus routes — on top of one already cut — as a way to recover roughly $130,000 needed to restore a director of curriculum and assessment position and a second HVAC technician slated for elimination. The proposed FY27 budget, at $26.97 million, represents a 3.9 percent increase over the current year and is nearly $1.2 million below the January 12 preliminary figure of just over $28 million. Director of Finance Rachel Pellerin confirmed each full percentage point of increase equals approximately $260,000, meaning restoring the two positions would push the increase to roughly 4.45 percent. Chair Victor Machado, displaying a neighborhood bus route map on screen, argued that stop-based routing along main roads rather than door-to-door service on side streets could allow double-run scheduling and eliminate additional routes at $87,000 each. Member Jennifer Ashley expressed the sharpest concern over the curriculum director cut, saying of the departing Liz Haskell: "There's going to be something that's missed because she's constantly doing all these things." The committee separately voted 5-0 to adopt Schoonover's superintendent goals — building AI literacy and improving achievement for students with disabilities — and entered executive session on collective bargaining with the AFSCME administrative and custodial unit.