Coalition for a Greenfield People's Budget

05/11/2026

Visuals for the FY27 Budget - just in case you don't feel like clicking our blog link!

05/11/2026

Hello, we posted a visual overview of the proposed FY27 budget! Please take a look

Greenfield Mayor’s Budget FY2027 A Visual Overview Fiscal Year 2027: July 1st 2026 — July 1st 2027 Total City BudgetFY26-FY27 ChangeFY26-27 Percent$70,024,736+$2,099,862+3.1% Smaller divisions below $1M not shown above include:  Financial Administration, Human Services, Culture & Recreation, Ex...

05/10/2026

Hey all! Please note these important meetings for this year's budget season! The PUBLIC SAFETY budget will be discussed at Ways & Means this Monday, we need to show up and say we want to FUND KIDS NOT COPS! Below are some talking points.

1️⃣The Mayor’s FY27 budget ELIMINATES the rec room staff position. Many families depend on the rec room for after school and weekend activities.
2️⃣The recreation budget decreased 12.46% due to cutting the youth center coordinator for the middle school after school program. Why is a small department that Greenfield families depend on taking a big hit?
3️⃣Why is the Greenfield Police Dept (GPD) increasing 4.3% while schools are funded below level service? Crime is lower in Greenfield than the national average by 38%. Investing in our kids- giving them opportunities to engage in meaningful activities with peers IS preventative public safety.
4️⃣The GPS budget asked for a 7.46% increase ($1.77 mil), with the main drivers as contractual salary obligations (51%), Special Education Out-of-District Tuition (35%) and Special Education Transportation Services (15%). Instead, the mayor’s budget increased the budget by only $450k, which is below level service and will require significant cuts.
5️⃣The police budget increased at a higher rate (4.3%) than both the city budget on average (3.1%) and the school budget (1.9%). On top of the $171k police increase, it’s actually a 4.5% increase due to $10k in expenses previously billed via police now budgeted under Dispatch and Central Maintenance.
6️⃣Many items in the GPD budget are inflated, for example the police chief and deputy chief are some of the highest paid city employees. The starting salary of a patrol officer is higher than the starting salary of a teacher graduating with a masters. Also, salary lines don’t add up under scrutiny – the salaries for the top step patrol officers, lieutenants and sergeants appear inflated and don't match the union agreements.
7️⃣The GPD budget has large expense items listed that exceed other departments. For example, why does the GPD need 20k for uniforms, then another 40k for a clothing allowance? Other departments have much much smaller clothing allowances per person. GPD also has 30k set aside for meetings, seminars, dues and memberships, which vastly exceeds any other department.

01/26/2026

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED TO FEBRUARY 24. Come join the People's Budget on Tuesday for a yummy dinner at stone soup (pay what you want). Learn about the history & mission of the people's budget, active campaigns you can plug into, and connect with your neighbors in a hyperlocal way :)

RSVP helpful but not required https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdIr_9aqNg86GyZTVTJX14qJobItrv695nUhgL9o6jSODdD0A/viewform

11/03/2025

Greenfield schools have the same problems all high-needs, lower-income districts have. Defunding the schools while blaming GPS administrators and school committee members is self-destructive and won’t solve our problems.

We need collaborative school committee members who see the problems for what they are and help us get the money we need and deserve.

Vote Diteman, Craig-Williams, & Deneeve on Tuesday, 11/4

11/01/2025

We're continuing our fact check of claims about the Greenfield schools ahead of Tuesday's election. Thank you to candidates for your suggestion that we address cash reserves! See our blog for more details at https://peoplesbudgetgreenfield.com/2025-elections-fact-check-2-reserve-funds/

Also a reminder: Greenfield People’s Budget is an independent group and not affiliated with any campaign. However, we want local government that is transparent and responsive to the needs of regular people in Greenfield. For that reason we encourage you to vote for Adrienne Craig-Williams, Jeffrey Diteman, and Elizabeth DeNeeve.

CLAIM: Greenfield schools hoard money and don't spend it on education for our children, taking an unfair share of the city budget. (Goodwin, Terounzo, and Moscaritolo all make this claim.)

Fact: The mayor justified her $2 million cuts to the school budget based on the idea that GPS is hoarding excessive cash reserves across a few revolving accounts, a claim that Goodwin, Terounzo, and Moscaritolo are repeating.

Fact: The revolving accounts for special education, school choice, and transportation had a $5.3 million balance at one time, but that balance didn’t reflect all the bills that would be paid. It’s like looking at your bank account on payday: there might be money there, but you still have to pay your bills.

Fact: Those revolving accounts can only be used for specific purposes. The largest balance is in the Circuit Breaker account, which is state funding with strict rules for use and mandatory minimum reserves. Circuit Breaker shouldn’t be part of a debate.

Fact: Because of surprise expenses and funding shortfalls, it’s best practice to keep reserves on hand to avoid emergency financial orders. A single student with high needs who moves into the district could require up to $1m in services. It’s impossible to budget for that possibility without significant reserves. The Trump administration could also cut all federal funding to GPS at any time.

Fact: GPS plans on spending down reserves by about $1.3 million this year, including $308k for services for a high-needs student that just moved to the district. That amount could increase significantly depending on who moves here.

We agree school finance is complicated, but it's too easy to insinuate that complicated things are corrupt. Our kids don't need witch hunts and attacks on school funding. Our kids do need collaborative leaders advocating for better state funding formulas to get the resources we deserve.

10/31/2025

Certain school committee candidates have made claims about Greenfield schools, and we want to offer some corrections ahead of Tuesday’s vote. Here’s the first in a series of fact checks. Stay tuned for more and please come out and vote on Tuesday, Nov. 4!

All the info below plus links to data/video/etc. at https://peoplesbudgetgreenfield.com/2025-elections-fact-check-1/

Claim: GPS spends $3.5 million on administrator salaries (Melodie Goodwin) and we need to shift resources to instructional staff instead (Goodwin, Moscaritolo, Terounzo).

Fact: GPS spends $2m or less on administrative staff salaries across 6 school buildings, less than 8.5% of the school budget. Some central office staff provide direct services to students but lack office space in school buildings.

Fact: GPS is under DESE oversight due to pandemic-related declines in learning metrics. Our administrators are responsible for the intensive reporting and compliance DESE and the federal government require, in addition to other important responsibilities (such as grant-writing to bring in funding much greater than their own salaries).

Fact: When Goodwin, Terounzo, and Moscaritolo called for cuts to the school budget this spring, the teachers union stood behind the superintendent and fought the cuts. Teachers did not call for cuts to administration.

It’s not “administration vs. teachers.” We need both.

09/03/2025

VOTE SEPT. 9 TO SUPPORT OUR SCHOOLS!
Vote for a slate of progressive Greenfield School Committee candidates —Adrienne Craig-Williams, Elizabeth DeNeeve, and Jeffrey Diteman — in the preliminary election on September 9th from 7am-8pm at the Greenfield High School Gym 2 Barr Avenue!

See our recent blog post for background:

Vote Sept. 9 to support our schools! TL;DR – Please come out to vote for a slate of progressive Greenfield School Committee candidates —Adrienne Craig-Williams, Elizabeth DeNeeve, and Jeffrey Diteman — in the preliminary election on September 9th from 7am-8pm at the Greenfield High School Gym ...

11/11/2024

Please join us on Wednesday, November 13 at 6pm, to support Greenfield School Committee members as they work to build real safety for our kids and teachers. Lately the School Committee has been the target of bullying by those who think ONLY police and guns make people safe. If you cannot attend feel free to email [email protected] to thank them for their work and show your support for a holistic safety approach.

For more background information and why police do not make schools safer, please follow the link.

Come support holistic safety in Greenfield schools! Please join us and attend the School Committee meeting on Wed., November 13, at 6pm, at the John Zon community center and online over Zoom (link TBD), and give public comment if you can. Here is our situation:  Our elected School Committee is the ...

02/08/2024

Right before the November election, former Mayor Wedegartner signed an MOU with Greenfield Police Chief Haigh and Deputy Chief Gordon to massively increase their base pay and also, curiously, create new obstacles for the new mayor to discipline or fire the Deputy Chief.

Although Wedegartner signed the MOU to increase the chiefs’ pay, she wasn’t able to fund that commitment without city council’s approval. Mayor Desorgher is now bringing Wedegartner’s funding request to the city council.

City council must approve or deny the funding for these raises. Let our councilors know that we want them to vote NO to this funding request and stop these raises from happening.

Email the entire city council at [email protected] and come to the monthly city council meeting on February 21 at 6:30pm, online and in person at the John Zon Center. Give public comment if you can.

Haigh and Gordon are already highly paid. Haigh has demonstrated clearly and in numerous ways that he is not worthy of our public dollars, while Gordon went on the offensive in 2022, weaponizing GPD’s page to incite the public against a city council that reduced GPD’s funding. Increasing their base pay will also likely have cascading effects raising all of their incentive pay, as well, committing an ever greater share of our limited resources to the police and punishment bureaucracy and preventing us from funding programs that actually respond to our community’s needs.

See recent reporting from The Shoestring, Masslive and NEPM for more information, and please share this call to your friends and neighbors. Hope to see you at city council!