School committee approves budget figure

By Adam Swift

The school committee approved a $42,518,153 budget request for the 2026-27 school year at its meeting on Monday night.

That figure will now go before the town’s finance commission for review later this month before a vote by the town council as part of the overall town budget in June.

Superintendent of Schools Lisa Howard presented a $45,268,511 budget to the school committee for a public hearing on Monday night. However, Howard estimated that about $2.75 million of that level services operating budget will be paid for through grants and other revenue offsets, resulting in the $42.5 million budget requested from the town.

The figure represents a level services budget for the 26-27 school year, with no cuts to staff or services.

The superintendent also presented figures for a “beyond level service” salary request budget that included salaries for positions that building principal and district staff would like to see in the budget to raise the level of services in the schools. That figure came out to just under $49.5 million, according to Howard.

“A lot of costs are fixed costs in our district and required expenses,” said Howard. “Those increase annually between 4 and 7 percent, some a little lower and occasionally some a little higher.”

Revenue growth is based on Proposition 2-½, the state law limiting property tax increases to 2-½ percent per year.

Howard noted that the successful Proposition 2-½ override last year did bring the base budget for the schools from $37 million to $40 million for the current school year.

“That allowed us to open this school year with a level service, no cuts to staff and no reductions in programs,” said Howard. “The FY27 outlook, the base budget is predicted to increase by about 2-½ percent.”

The superintendent said that some people have the perception that with the override, the schools will be getting an additional $3.5 million per year.

“That’s not the case; you get it one time, that’s $3.5 million to improve your base budget, and then you get an annual percentage rate above that which is normally 2-½ to 3 percent,” said Howard.

Salary costs and expenses, such as healthcare, are typically much higher than 2-½ percent, according to Howard. Last year, healthcare costs increased 19 percent, she said. While the increase is predicted to be smaller this year, Howard said it will still be around 7 to 8 percent.

“The school budget continues to rely on money from the town, which is the allocated budget from the town, the town’s appropriation,” said Howard.

The district also looks at its stabilization fund, grants, and state and other earmarks when determining the budget for the coming school year, she said.

The presentation to the school committee did not include the FY26 and FY27 contractual increases because contracts with the teachers, educational support professionals, nurses, and secretaries bargaining units have not been settled.

Using increases for steps and lanes, as well as longevity, the budget for salaries for 26-27 is slated at just under $25.4 million, according to Howard.

“I’m anticipating that we’ll be able to charge $1.8 million of that to grants, so that is the Title I grant, special ed 240 grant, early childhood grant; those are entitlement grants and on average they stay the same,” said Howard.

The superintendent noted that this year and last year there was a contingency line in the budget for potential salary increases as a result of contract negotiations.

“When we don’t know what the salary increases are going to be, you have to show the money somewhere; the commitment to improving the salaries of all the staff in the school district especially during contract negotiation years, so that line item is in the current school budget and is called the contingency line item,” said Howard. “It doesn’t live in the salary lines, which is a little bit deceiving, so I wanted to point that out.”

The contingency line can be easily moved to a salary line.

“It’s not an exact amount of money but it covers salaries and it also covers expenses, so it’s a figure that is a prediction of what the school district may need moving forward,” Howard said.

Howard is expected to present the school budget to the finance commission on Monday, May 18 in the Harvey Room at town hall beginning at 6 p.m., with a second session if needed scheduled for Wednesday, May 20.