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.