By NEIL ZOLOT
WAKEFIELD – The proposed School Department budget for Fiscal Year 2026 is currently $55,425,161, a $3,105,462 or 5.94 percent increase over Fiscal 2025’s $52,319,699, which was a 5.5 percent increase over Fiscal 2024.
When grants, gifts and state and federal aid is factored in later, the numbers will be different.
“For the last six years the budget increase has been in the 5 percent range,” Superintendent Doug Lyons said at the School Committee meeting Tuesday, March 11. “Additional money came to us from the town separate from the tax base, such as American Rescue Plan Act funds during the pandemic that allowed us to have the budget we needed with minimal impact on local taxes.
We’ve continued to replicate that strategy with money from revolving accounts.”
Offsets in the form of revenue from revolving accounts include $175,000 from the Doyle Pre-School; $75,000 from the Wakefield Academy before- and after-school programs for custodial overtime, utility costs and capital purchases and $50,000 from the facility rental revolving account. School Department Business Manager Christine Bufagna described the funds as “things these accounts generate for things the town can’t afford.”
She described the Fiscal 2026 proposal as a level service budget. “We built programs our base has adjusted to,” she said in reference to elements of service added during the pandemic with ARPA funds and other aid. “We need to maintain what was built.”
“Let’s not lose what we have,” Lyons added.
Most of the increase from $52,319,699 to $55,425,161 is in personnel costs, specifically $44,082,014 in Fiscal 2025 to $46,776,559 in Fiscal 2026, a 5.15 percent increase. Contractual services will rise from $6,221,011 to $6,626,928 and materials and supplies from $2,016,674 to $2,021,674.
A slide in a presentation by Lyons described these increases, as well as those in transportation and out-of-district Special Education tuition increases of $205,000, as “Cost Drivers,” but Bufagna pointed out any new teaching positions in the budget, like increasing staffing in Multi-Language Learning programs, formerly English as a Second Language and English as a Learned Language, are “budget neutral” because they are funded by reallocating money formerly paid to retired teachers.
The amount of state and federal aid that will be coming is unknown and could affect programming and services, especially in light of President Trump’s inclination to cut.
“We’re controlling what we can control, but we’ve been watching what’s happening in Washington very closely in regard to how things might shift,” Lyons said. “The Department of Agriculture is withholding payments that could affect food pantries and school meal programs. Massachusetts gets some of the funding for free meals from federal grants.”
“There’s been a lot of discussion about what grants will look like at the federal level,” Bufagna added. “Once we know what we have, we can program.”
Lyons’ slide deck was preceded by a 7-minute video describing some of the budget issues and positive aspects of the school system. “We’re trying some different things to communicate this year,” he said before it was shown. “We’re trying to get all the information we can out so the Finance Committee can have their questions answered.”
Afterwards he said the video “was not easy to make. To deliver all the information in 7 minutes was a bit of a feat.”
The next step is Public Hearing on the budget Tuesday, March 18. Town Meeting is Monday, May 5.
“Close to 6 percent is higher than most years, but it needs to be seen in the context of a well-run district,” School Committee chairman Stephen Ingalls said about the proposed increase.
“There are no extras, just things we need to pay for. Be it Special Education or transportation, there are things we have to do.”
He also commented that while aid related to the pandemic has expired, the effects of it remain.