City Council Candidate, At-Large
Website: Robbins4NorthamptonCouncilor
Social Media – Facebook: Meg Robbins for City Council
Podcast 10/30/25: Panorama
Podcast 10/20/25: C-O-N-T-R-O-V-E-R-S-I-A-L
Podcast 9/5/25: The Art of Politics
League of Women Voters – Candidate Forum
August 26, 2025
At-Large City Council Candidate Meg Robbins on school funding:
”As a recent school committee member, I understand the dilemma of how we have allocated and prioritized our financial resources. I look forward to the across the table focus we can have as two branches of our city government and reverse our current council’s majority refusal to even meet with the school committee during the budget process this year . . . I’m an active part of a working group on creating equitably sound state legislative funding bills for our public schools. I have a good grasp of what our city budgetary process entails.
It’s time for us to step out of that box and start new conversations together about what we all see as essential priorities. You will hear some of that legacy argument say things like, ‘These people will bankrupt the city or we can’t trust them to know enough to be on council.’ But council fundamentally needs honesty, integrity, transparency, inclusion, and a true willingness to learn and listen as a cohesive and responsible group.
Council needs members who are willing to say, Why are we doing it that way? We need to know more. We need open doors. We need diverse voices. We need to know when things are great and when they are rocky and be part of figuring out what next.”
Video Clip – Meg Robbins introduces herself at the League of Women Voters Candidate Forum.
“Good evening Northampton. I’m Meg (Margaret Robbins), candidate for At-Large City Council. We’re very grateful to the League, to Bombyx and NOM for making these good debates possible in this beautiful people’s place. We love our Northampton for its unique personality, its foibles and flaws, its deep connection for us as home. But for many of us, we’re not sure what our city, our home, is up to.
While we see real need for change, we want to be a much bigger part of what that change looks like.
We missed the straight story.
We missed the Ask and the Input.
We missed the Us in city government.
I had a busy career as a history teacher and a whole school change coach, a profession with a dynamic skill set that ably lends itself to council demands. Teachers read the room. We troubleshoot dynamics. We revise our thinking based on new data. We multitask. We are deep and thoughtful thinkers. We research. We do our homework. We come prepared. We own database decision-making and we like human beings. We appreciate our many views and ways of learning, but once we create a shared common outcome, we work brilliantly to get there.
I’ve been a nurse at Hampshire Community Action, a census taker, a feature writer for the Gazette and a local jockey, training farmers’ race horses for the county fair circuit.
I was your Ward 1 School Committee member last term, 2022-2024. I was chair of the Curriculum Committee. I started the AD HOC group to collect data about BIPOC and LGBTQ+ staff loss. I motioned to add $250,000 to our NPS budget to retain talented teachers.
In our 2019 Strong Mayor Charter, city council is the only check and balance to the mayor, and even then our bucks stop with the mayor. Without a diverse set of voices to query and debate, we abdicate our responsibility to any kind of democratic governance.
None of this operates functionally now because we cannot check our actions against a working economic or strategic plan, winging it or having a City Hall agenda, there’s a mystery to many, is not Democracy. ‘Just do it‘ is not good policy.”
Video Clip – Meg Robbins responds to the question: Does the Mayor have too much power? Should power be returned to the City Council?
“I absolutely would love to see us abandon a Strong Mayor Charter. I don’t think most of us knew what was happening. It was a committee that was formed and decided in 2019 that really changed the dominant power structure in how decisions are made in our city.
The mayor is in charge of the budget. She’s the final person who says yes or no.
The mayor is the chair of the school committee, a voting member of the school committee, who brings the budget ceiling to the school committee and says ‘here’s how much money you have to spend’, which is really sort of the backwards way of approaching that budgeting, which is dependent on people who are experts to determine how much our schools need.
The mayor is in charge of all the departments, or most of them, as supervisor to the departments, and we have a lot of them. That’s a very difficult job.
The mayor is in charge of vetting appointments she sends to committees, to appoint to committees, and therefore has a certain amount of leverage and control of who actually serves on committees that are decision-makers.
We’ve recently had a very different experience than Mr.Spencer has had with citizens of Phillips Place coming to a citizens petition to city council on behalf of their community and a building that’s going to be erected there. They received negative determination by city council and they were also told that it really wasn’t relevant to those decisions. They left feeling as though they hadn’t been heard. It was not a responsive discussion and there wasn’t really a forum for being able to say ‘how can we do it better‘?”
Public Comment
Video Clip – Meg Robbins speaks about funding schools and supporting students in Northampton at the May 27, 2025 City Council meeting.
“I have two questions. One is really about what we do want the future of education to be in the city.
I thank Dr. Bonner very much for presenting the Strong Budget as she was asked to by the school committee. It is impressive to see. It’s one that we really need to look forward to.
And in the mayor’s presentation, she did say that for 13 years the average increase, I think, was 4.6% over the 13 years and before that in the previous thirteen years, the way the city funded the schools was around 1.1% and sometimes less than that.
A lot of that was off teachers backs, but we have for many years not funded the schools and it’s caught up to us. The question really in front of us right now is: have we given up on public education?
Do we want charters to become the alternative to public education in our district?
And are we ok with having our public schools just be catchments for a segregated population that requires individual education plans or whose caretakers don’t have those options to send their children elsewhere, because that’s the crossroads that we’re at right now.
One other question that I did have was, when I think about that Medicaid money, which the council approved being put into the Special Education Fund annually, and in the mayor’s budget, she says that is a fairly consistent amount at $200,000. I don’t believe that it has been in the school budget before that.
So the money goes legally to the city and it becomes part of the General Fund. And my understanding is that then the General Fund is open to be either assigned to one of the stabilization funds or used as free cash, or it’s split into one of the one twelfths.
But I don’t know if it’s ever come back to the schools, and if you do the math backwards at about $200,000 a year – and I’ve heard from educators that they haven’t actually regularly submitted Medicaid forms in the past because it’s a lot of work – that we’re talking about, two million dollars. And might it be a good idea to rethink that and say the city kind of owes the schools a big chunk of change, and now would be a good time to put it in place.”
Video Clip – Meg Robbins speaks about the Mayor’s lack of collaboration related to the FY26 school budget at the May 21, 2025 City Council meeting.
“I’m Meg Robbins, Ward 4. I’m going to talk about the FY26 city budget. Mayor Sciarra writes in her budget introductory statement that while she is adamant about the need for more state and federal funding, she also tells us quote ‘at the same time, we need strong collaboration here at home to explore the best ways to allocate our existing resources and ensure every child receives the best education possible,’ end quote.
Community members have stood at this podium month after month in open comments saying exactly that – council and school committee meeting after meeting. On this cold spring night, we witnessed another parent, teacher, child, concerned resident, City Hall many members, stand out before this council meeting saying exactly that.
We need strong collaboration here at home to explore the best ways to allocate our existing resources to ensure every child receives the best education possible.
I extend my gratitude to the very small number of this council who have accepted the opportunity to explore best ways to allocate existing resources with those who offered collaboration.
Most didn’t.
You’re essential check and balance body has abrogated the legal power you could have, even a little tiny bit, to opt in for an increase in school funding.
Our free cash allocation, which we can include in school funding resources, was shifted once again to capital spending. These priorities FY26-30 are decided by a small mayoral-picked no-minutes, no-access, closed doors group who approved funding every single item on that CIP irregardless of its priority status, except for Senior Center furniture.
Mayor Sciarra did not exhibit any interest in collaborating here at home to explore best ways to allocate resources, but she does not define what or where that home is or who lives here.
The council said it has plenty of other ways to work with Mayor Sciarra to increase school funding if they choose. I’m asking you now to do so.
Our children depend on you. Our future depends on you. I’m not kidding. Ask a teacher.”
Video Clip – Meg Robbins speaks about city councilors’ lack of response to constituent emails and Opt-In legislation at the March 6, 2025 City Council meeting.
“Meg Robbins, Ward 4, and I’m coming to talk to you because I’ve been trying to get hold of you by e-mail and I haven’t gotten any responses. I’ve written a couple of times to a few of you, who last year in May said that you needed more time to learn more about Opting-In to Chapter 329, the 1987 clause that allows you to increase the amount of the budget that the mayor gives you.
I’m just going to read you the letter that I sent to you in case you didn’t get a chance to read it when I did send it to you, twice.
Dear Councilors,
I’m writing to ask you each to please honor your statements made last May 16th 2024 in council to review opting in to Chapter 44 Section 32 by putting it on the council agenda as soon as possible. This allows you by 2/3 vote to increase the amount given to you in the budget on a budget submitted to you by the school committee.
Each of you stated that you needed more time to review this option last May 2024, but months have passed. Many towns and cities in the Commonwealth have voted to opt in to this legislation. One of you told the public last year that opting in would create chaos and bad budgetary behavior for the school committee. One of you read opting in as analogous to not trusting the mayor.
You all said you needed more time to study this and I wonder what that process has been, and what you have taken away from those months of inquiry. I do not believe that council has any oversight on school committee behavior as it is a separate branch of our government.
In our city, school committee brings council a budget that they feel is what they need to do the work of running the schools. Then, logically, council should have the means to address that as a part of functioning democratic system.
Democracy is poorly served when one official holds that solo responsibility.
You and the school committee serve as an integral part of that check and balance. Thank you for your attention and bringing this to you for reconsideration. Happy to offer additional information.
And I would really appreciate it if you would respond to constituents when they write to you by e-mail.”
