By NEIL ZOLOT
NORTH READING — The initial estimate for the Fiscal Year 2026 School Department budget is $41,377,801, a 5.6% increase ($2,205,831) over the current budget of $39.1M.
Grants and revolving accounts are projected to rise by $224,013 — from $3,488,992 to $3,713,005 — making the current full budget total projected to rise in FY26 by $2,429,843, from $42,660,963 to $45,090,806.
Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Michael Connelly described it as a level services budget at the School Committee’s preliminary meeting on Monday, March 10.
“Staffing levels and educational services that exist this year will carry forward into the next year, including adjustments for increases in fixed costs and with no new staff, no restoration of previously eliminated positions,” Connelly said.
Most of that is for salaries, including mandated salary increases. Salaries represent $33,888,066 of the increase, up $1,776,450 from $32,111,616 in Fiscal 2025. Salaries also represent 81.8% of costs, with tuitions for out-of-district programs at 7.4%, utilities at 2.2% and transportation at 1.9%.
“There’s not a lot left in the pie,” Connelly pointed out. “Due to funding challenges, the preliminary Fiscal 2026 budget doesn’t restore any of the positions eliminated this year.”
That would have been an additional $255,306, including $116,640 planned for three paraprofessionals in the elementary schools and $81,866 for an elementary classroom teacher.
The $270,702 in salaries in the NRPS 20230 Plan will also be eliminated or delayed, including $106,970 for a K-12 Humanities Coordinator; $81,866 for a K-8 Math coach and $63,235 for an elementary-level Adjustment Counselor. Connelly warned not having these positions could “reduce the depth and breadth of curriculum,” lead to larger class sizes, reduce budgets for resources and materials, reduce extracurricular activities and lead to increased student activity fees.
“People don’t want to talk about fees, but I don’t see how we can’t,” Connelly said. He also said extracurricular activities are “where a lot of students thrive.”
School Committee member Tim Sutherland agreed fees have to be discussed and might need to be raised.
Committee Chairman Scott Buckley interjected that building rental fees could be raised.
Buckley also noted that North Reading spends 2.6% less than the state average of per pupil expenditures and has average class sizes of 18.3 students, compared to the state average of 17.2, but “we’re doing a really good job with those numbers.”
The student population is going up, but not by much, from 2,327 in Fiscal 2025 to 2,337 in Fiscal 2026. It is projected to drop to 2,316 in Fiscal 2027. The number of students placed in out-of-district programs will rise to 46, however.
“Special Education costs are rising in the district and for out-of-district placements, including transportation costs,” Connelly explained. “We have to adjust the budget for that.“
There are offsets, but user fees are expected to cover only $320,000 out of $981,260 in bus transportation costs; $290,000 out of $864,724 in costs related to athletics such as coach stipends; and $34,000 out of $67,980 in costs related to performing arts.
The School Department uses state bid lists, participates in regional programs for Special Education, and monitors energy use and light levels, among other efforts to control costs. “We’re doing what we can, but there are increases in fixed operating costs,” Connelly said. “Fixed costs rise much greater than revenue.”
“We’re bringing in less revenue than we spend,” Buckley acknowledged.
School Committee member Jennifer Lenders called the situation “potentially devastating.”
“We have an obligation to educate our children and I’m worried we’re failing in that,” Buckley added. He thinks residents need to know more about “the number of hours of service we’re providing in the school day and extracurricular activities. We need to show the cumulative effort. We’re talking about reducing programs. Do we want kids sitting in study halls all day?”
“A fluid process”
Nothing is set in stone, at least not yet. “It’s a fluid process,” Connelly said, referring to ongoing budget discussions between now and June Town Meeting.
Specifically, there will be ongoing discussions with the Financial Planning Team on available revenues; a budget webinar on Wednesday, March 26 from noon to 1 p.m. followed by a joint public meeting with other town boards that same day at 6:30 p.m. in the Distance Learning Lab at NRHS; a School Committee budget workshop on Monday, April 7 at 5 p.m. followed by the public hearing on the school budget at 7 p.m.; and a second School Committee budget workshop, if necessary, on Monday, April 28 at 5 p.m.
A vote by the School Committee on the budget will take place between April 28 and May 1 and the School Committee’s presentation to the Finance Committee is Wednesday, May 7, about a month prior to June Town Meeting on Monday, June 9.
Field naming
In other action, the members approved recommending Town Meeting name the Middle/High School multi-purpose athletic field after activist Charles “Chuck” Carucci and the softball field after School Department paraprofessional and former president and director of North Reading Girls Softball Jen Casoli Vant.
It was the main topic of conversation and given preliminary approval at the meeting February 24.