BUDGET DEVELOPMENT
Watch School Committee Meetings and Discussions at this link
(Most recent at top - scroll down for prior)
BUDGET INFORMATION SESSIONS - April 2025
In partnership with our member towns, the School Committee will be holding budget information sessions in April and early May. These sessions, two of them at Newbury and Rowley Town Halls, and one held virtually, will be joint sessions with the School Committee. Select Board members, and Triton administration to help address questions around the school and town budgets and their impact on local taxpayers.
You can find the drop in dates and times at this link, and a 2 page summary of the budget and approval process this year here.
March 12, 2025 - Final Budget Approved
The School Committee continued the discussion of the FY26 budget, and approved the FY26 Final Budget at their meeting on March 12th.
It has become all too routine in recent years that the regular cost of doing business increases significantly over the prior year, and unfortunately, the FY26 year continues to follow that same trend. We are expecting much higher than normal increases to the routine spending on primary budget drivers such as health insurance and student transportation, while personnel costs remain a challenge to maintain but are not disproportionately higher this year. Other fixed charges are on par and increasing with inflation, but we will actually see a slight decrease in our Out of District tuition line which has been challenging in recent years. Some of these costs are largely out of our control as they are dependent on industry trends (health insurance), competitive bids with minimal competitors (student transportation), or collectively bargained contracts (salaries), while others like Out of District Tuitions have been impacted by our own internal efforts to build strong in district programming.
As a result of increased costs paired with relatively flat outside revenue sources, our towns are struggling to keep pace with the increases in their town assessments, and we are nearing a crisis point. Historically, this final budget is where the process substantively ends as we await approval at spring town meetings. At least 2 out of our 3 member towns have to pass our budget for it to be approved, which is normally a single vote at each town's Annual Town Meeting. This year, 2 of our 3 towns (Newbury & Rowley) have signaled that they will require an override to pass their budget.
With an override, there are 2 votes needed to approve the budget; at the Town Meeting as well as at the ballot box in the May 13th election. If either vote fails (meeting or ballot) in a particular town, then the budget does not pass for that town. If the Triton budget does not pass in at least 2 of the 3 member towns, the School Committee will need to further reduce the school budget beyond this spending plan and send the new budget back to the towns for another round of votes. When reducing the budget, it has to be reduced in the aggregate, it cannot be town by town per our regional agreement. If 1 town passes it on the first round and 2 fail, the town that passes cannot choose to pay that higher amount to reduce the impact on schools. The cycle of revising the budget and the towns voting on the new amounts continues until a budget is approved by at least 2 of the 3 towns.
This is the context in which this Final FY26 Budget is approved this year, knowing there may be a need to change and reduce our overall spending plan even further if this budget as approved is not supported by at least 2 of our 3 member towns.
February 26, 2025 - Continued Budget Discussion
The School Committee continued the discussion of the FY26 budget, working off of assumptions in the Tentative Budget approved on February 12th.
An updated summary that outlines all increases, savings, and reductions was also presented and can be viewed here.
The Committee also reviewed new information from the Town of Salisbury on their ability to fund this year's budget, and ultimately agreed that we should be pursuing a total budget increase of $2.45M. This would mean cuts of an additional $175,000 in services or staffing beyond what is outlined in the Tentative Budget.
While no further reductions were formally identified, the superintendent outlined where the savings would likely come from. There are some smaller potential savings with reducing services like late buses, and delaying some curriculum decisions, but we would likely be reducing some staffing to achieve the additional $432,000 in cuts required. At the elementary level, this could be achieved through reductions that would make slightly larger class sizes in some grades, as well as a reduction in specialists (Art, PE, Library, etc). At the middle school, it would again be larger class sizes, and the end result would be larger class sizes and the loss of teams due to those reductions. At the High School, we would have larger sections and also likely loose some breadth of programming and electives. There was no formal decision made, but these were the areas discussed if cuts are ultimately required.
The next meeting is March 5th, where we will have a public hearing on the budget prior to a final vote on March 12th.
February 12, 2025 - Tentative Budget Approval
The School Committee approved an FY26 (2025/2026 school year) spending plan at their meeting on February 12th, the first of 2 approvals needed in our budgeting process. This annual tentative spending plan sets the 'high water' mark for town assessments the following year, and we then continue to adjust the plan through a final approval on March 12th. This year, the Tentative Budget already includes over $1,200,000 in reductions (see budget page 2), and we have received word from our member towns that more reductions may be necessary in order to be supported in the town budgets. Those discussions and decisions will be happening in the weeks ahead.
Download PDF of the FY26 Tentative Budget
We will be meeting several times over the coming weeks with the School Committee and with our town officials to reconcile district-wide needs with town capacity to fund them. I wanted to make you aware of the changes already confirmed in the tentative budget as approved, and the dates and times of the upcoming meetings, including the Public Hearing on the budget which is everyone's formal opportunity to provide feedback to the School Committee before they approve the final plan. You can find all meeting agendas and documents on the BoardDocs website at https://go.boarddocs.com/ma/triton/Board.nsf/Public, which is also linked to our main website. Agendas are posted at least 48 hours (2 business days) prior to the date/time of the meeting, and all relevant documents and connection details for Zoom meetings are include
Upcoming Meetings:
Wednesday, February 26, 2025 at 7:00 PM in the High School Library - - School Committee budget discussion (full cuts detailed)
Thursday, February 27, 2025 at 6:30 PM in the High School Library - - District Communications Committee meeting (Town officials and School Committee)
Wednesday, March 5th at 7:00 PM in the High School Library - - Public Hearing and School Committee budget discussion
Wednesday, March 12th at 7:00 PM in the High School Library - - School Committee vote on FY25 Final Budget
The financial realities will mean some difficult decisions are ahead of us. If you have any questions about the meetings coming up in the next few weeks, or about the budget as a whole, please don't hesitate to contact the superintendent directly at [email protected].
February 6, 2025 - Budget Discussion
On Thursday, February 6th the Committee met to review the Administration's prioritized list of new costs included in the target increase of $2.5M.
You can see that prioritized listing here.
With a figure in excess of $3.7M, it was clear that is not a figure that could be supported by our member towns for next year. The list as presented included all highest priorities to be reviewed, and the School Committee set a target increase of $2.625M for the Administration in crafting a Tentative Budget proposal, which sets the high water mark for member town assessments.
It is expected that the Tentative Budget will include some cuts/reductions to reduce the spending down to that $2.625M figure, but it will also include 'yet to be determined' cuts when approved on February 12th.
The Administration will then finalize a list of reductions and present those to the School Committee on February 26th at 7:00 PM in the high school library. That information will be shared with the larger Triton community and be the basis for the public hearing on March 5th. The Committee will then review the impacts and feedback on March 5th and set a target for the Administration's Final FY26 budget proposal that is set to be approved on March 12th (required by regional agreement by March 15th).
January 25, 2025 - Budget Workshop
On Saturday, January 25th the Committee met for several hours in a workshop format to review the requests made on January 14th and 15th and set the priority spending for the FY26 budget development. There are several significant new costs driving abnormally large increases this year, including increasing transportation costs and health insurance that is adding roughly $1M to the overall budget projections for next year. These combined new costs reflect an increase of over $3.5M, just to continue to provide the same level of services for students in 2025/2026 that we do this year.
You can view a summary of those total requests here.
The Committee also reviewed the impact of the increased costs of member assessments. An aggregate assessment that results from these extraordinary increases is significantly larger than we've seen previously, and the Administration has committed to continue winnowing down the figures. The superintendent presented an assessment scenario for towns that represents the impact on each town, numbers which are not likely to be able to be supported.
Rather than setting a target for an aggregate increase, the School Committee scheduled another meeting with town officials on February 6th to review the costs and their ability to absorb increases. The Committee will discuss the budget again on February 6th and give final guidance to the Administration on a target increase before taking a Tentative Budget vote on Wednesday, February 12th at their regular meeting at 7:00 PM.
January 14 - 15, 2025 - Budget Presentations:
The FY26 budget development process kicked off on the evenings of Tuesday and Wednesday, January 14th and 15th, when district administrators and building principals presented their budget requests directly to the School Committee. The schedule was:
- Tuesday, Jan 14th - All five (5) building principals
- Wednesday, Jan 15th - Athletics, Student Services, Curriculum/Instruction, Technology, and General District
You can see all requests from all 5 schools and 5 district wide departments in the folder titled "School/Dept Budget Requests" to the right (or below on mobile).
Further, you can watch the presentations that were hosted virtually on Zoom on the School Committee YouTube Channel by clicking here.
Prior to the presentations beginning on January 14th, the Superintendent shared that the FY26 budget requests attempt to provide a measured proposal for spending that meets the current needs of our students while being responsive to our financial reality. Due to several factors and the overall increase in routine costs, the FY25 budget was challenging and we adjusted and simplified our process accordingly. For the development of the FY26 budget, we are returning to the traditional budget process that includes budget requests from each of the five (5) schools as well as all district-wide departments that reflect the needed funding in order to provide a high-quality academic experience.
It has become all too routine in recent years that the regular cost of doing business increases significantly year over year, and unfortunately, the FY26 outlook continues to follow that same trend. We are expecting sizeable increases to the routine spending on primary budget drivers such as health and liability insurance, student transportation, personnel costs, and other fixed charges, but will actually see a slight decrease in our Out of District Tuitions line which has been challenging in recent years. Some of these costs are largely out of our control as they are dependent on industry trends (health insurance), competitive bids with minimal competitors (student transportation), or collectively bargained contracts (salaries), while others like Out of District Tuitions can be addressed by efforts like building in district programming.
The School Committee will review these initial proposals in the collective at their Budget Workshop scheduled for Saturday, January 25th at 8:00 AM.