The cost of operating the Boston Public Schools system will rise by $38 million in the next fiscal year, based on a new budget estimate presented to the Boston School Committee on Wednesday evening. The hearing included a lengthy public comment period that lasted almost four hours and featured strong words from parents, students, and teachers fearful of cuts to special education and elementary programs.

An earlier plan to slash spending at the city high school level came under withering criticism. The new plan has scaled back cuts to high schools, but would include a $900,000 cut to the city’s five Early Learning Centers, trimming back the school day and defunding 15 para-professionals who work there. (See Editor's Note below.)

Since the first BPS budget was made public in January, the Walsh administration has added $13.5 million to the spending plan, not enough to keep up with rising costs. Last week, Walsh said the city would add $6 million to the high school budget by reallocating it from other BPS programs. In addition, $5 million dollars will be directed to the school budget from charter school reimbursements due in from the state.

Boston Public Schools' spokesman Dan O'Brien said there is "no connection between the early childhood cuts and restoration of high school funding."

"The early childhood changes were part of BPS's Feb 3rd proposal. The high school funding was restored thanks to anticipated increased revenue from the state," O'Brien told the Reporter.

Even with the new resources, it still leaves the administration with a significant deficit.

On Thursday, a smaller group of parents and students continued their lobbying efforts with a last-minute rally and impromptu meeting with the mayor himself at City Hall. About 20 protestors attended the morning rally outside the building.

Malikka Williams, a Dorchester resident, helped organize the protest. Her son, Malik, has special needs and attends JP Manning Elementary in Jamaica Plain, which has an inclusion program. She says new cuts to the school would defund music, playworks and arts program, leaving the school to fundraise independently. It would also mean that the school’s librarian would work just one day a week.

Mayor Martin Walsh with first-grader Malik ClossImmediately following the protest, the group gathered outside Mayor Walsh’s fifth floor offices and waited for an audience with the mayor, who was out of the building for Evacuation Day ceremonies in South Boston. As the group lingered, parents and students filmed statements that they intended to send to the Walsh.

About 15 minutes after the protestors’ arrival, the mayor walked into the fifth floor lobby, apologized for his busy schedule and thanked those gathered for their advocacy and concern on the budget.

“We’re going to work to continue to make sure we fully fund our Boston Public Schools,” Walsh assured the protestors. “I know there are challenges this year, we’re working, and there’s a process. We can’t just snap our finger to make money appear.”

Mayor Walsh then spent the next 40 minutes listening to protestors, young and old, and answering their questions on the budget.

When asked why he would not simply add more money to bolster the BPS budget, Walsh told the group that the cost of funding BPS is growing at an unmanageable rate.

“We need to get it under control to be sustainable,” the mayor said.

“Most importantly I want these guys to get an education,” added Walsh, gesturing to the students.

A few protestors wore stickers blaming the BPS budget deficit on the agreement to bring General Electric to Boston.

Walsh demurred. “GE coming to Boston is a good thing,” he said, “because they generate revenue that will be reinvested back into schools.”

Mayor Walsh meets with Liz Gomes: The mayor's Chief of Education Rahn Dorsey watches at right. Maddie Kilgannon photoLiz Gomes of Hyde Park, whose son Mason has autism and attends the sixth grade at the Joseph Lee Elementary School in Dorchester, invited the mayor to visit the school and see what proposed cuts would mean for his special needs classroom. If the current budget plan is ultimately approved, she said, the class size for students like Mason will increase from eight students for every one teacher to 12 students.

“Only a special needs parent can tell you what our lives are. If you come, I will personally walk you around and you will see,” Gomes told Walsh.

The mayor promised her that he would visit within the next few weeks. Gomes then talked with his scheduler to confirm a date.

At a Monday town hall meeting event at Dorchester’s Adams Corner branch of the BPL, a small group of parents discussed the latest iteration of the school budget with city councilors Tito Jackson and Annissa Essaibi-George, who co-chair the Education committee for the city council.

Councillor Jackson said at the meeting that the $6 million restored to the BPS budget for high schools is not new funding, but money that has been redirected to respond to the outcry over cuts.

“I’m not calling it a $6 million increase [to the budget],” Jackson said. “It’s a $6 million reallocation.”

The school committee will vote on the latest BPS budget next Wednesday. The budget will then be discussed and voted on by the City Council and it will ultimately end up on the Mayor’s desk for a signature.

(Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect figure for the current proposed funding cut to the city’s five Early Learning Centers. The correct figure is $900,000, not $1.3 million as initially reported in this story. The $900,000 figure is a reduction from the originally proposed cut of $1.6 million, according to a BPS spokesman, Dan O'Brien.)