With the AB Forward elementary school reorganization in the initial stages of implementation, the School Committee turned their attention to the 2026-27 (FY27) budget, approving a preliminary budget for the district of $122,593,238 at their budget workshop on February 9. The amount represents a 4.75% increase over FY26.
Acton’s preliminary assessment is $82.8 million, a 3.75% increase, and Boxborough’s preliminary assessment is $17.7 million, a 5.57% increase. State aid is anticipated to come in at $20.3 million, a 1.96% increase. The district will utilize an additional $1.3 million in revenue from its “excess and deficiency” reserve fund, most of which will be used to cover an estimated $1 million in one-time expenses related to elementary school reorganization.
Fixed cost budget drivers in FY27 include double digit percentage increases in employee health insurance and tuitions for out-of-district special education programs for students with disabilities. The district’s finance director, Sheri Matthews, told the Committee that, based on discussions with the district’s health care benefit provider, MIIA, “We are assuming a 14% increase in health insurance for FY27 and FY28 and are projecting a 10% increase for FY29-31. Tuitions for out-of-district schools are expected to increase by 16.09%.”
Superintendent of Schools Peter Light warned workshop attendees, who included members of the Acton and Boxborough Select Boards and Finance Committees, that continued volatility of fixed costs will likely continue to negatively impact the sustainability of school funding. “We are still projecting overall budget increases of 5.25-5.5% each year over the next three years unless something changes significantly in our operational expenses on an annual basis,” Light said. “The only reason we were able to get to a lower increase for FY27 was through massive restructuring of the school district, and unless we get some kind of legislative relief at the state level or unless there is an increase in local revenue, we will continue to face financial challenges, and that would mean ongoing staffing reductions.”
Personnel, the largest budget driver of K-12 school districts, is budgeted at $75.7 million in FY27 which represents a 2.96% increase over FY26 according to Deputy Superintendent Andrew Shen. Shen reported that “the budget figure includes a placeholder for salaries as the district continues to negotiate new employment contracts with its three unions.” All three contracts expire on June 30, 2026.
Staffing was a central theme of budget workshop presentations by Gabby Abrams, the assistant superintendent for teaching and learning and Natalia Kierul, the director of special education. Both Abrams and Kierul conducted a review of the staffing and programs under their purview and proposed strategic changes that add new staff or repurpose existing staff to new roles with budget-neutral impact and with the goal of ensuring alignment between program and instructional quality, student support, and long-term sustainability.
The FY27 budget reduces 22.03 full-time equivalent staff, largely related to elementary school reorganization, and adds 17.55 full-time equivalent staff for a net reduction of 4.48 full-time equivalent positions.
The importance of these staffing additions cannot be overstated, as the proposed 17.55 full-time equivalent additions in FY27 marks the first time in five years that the district has been able to move away from what Superintendent Light calls “reactive cutting” and towards “strategic right sizing” that allows for staffing decisions that align with the district’s mission, core values, and long-range strategic plan and ensures that when elementary school students return to school in the fall, administrative offices and nurses’ stations will have adequate coverage in the larger grade-banded twin school buildings, specialist teachers can meet time-on-learning requirements for the over 400 English learners in the district, in-house specialized education programs for students with disabilities are adequately staffed, and social, emotional and instructional supports within a multitiered system of supports can be appropriately maintained.
Additional staffing proposals that involve reassigning current teachers to a new role include a K-8 humanities coordinator, which would lend coherence to literacy instruction across grade levels, and a robotics/engineering teacher at the high school, which would broaden course offerings for high school students that they would not otherwise be able to access in-district.
During the Q&A period, Boxborough Finance Committee Member Antony Newton and Acton Select Board Member Alissa Nicol pushed back on the district’s choice to add back positions. “We are going through this painful restructuring process, and I thought the idea was that we’d save money by consolidating schools and lowering headcount,” Newton said, “but it seems we are backfilling most of these positions.”
Nicol noted, “I think it’s wise to add positions back in for specific areas because of the increasing needs that we’ve been talking about for years in our student population and also because students are going to need a lot of support through this reorganization, but for other positions, what is the messaging here for future sustainability and to our taxpayers who will be voting on this budget?”
Light responded, “When we present a budget, we are trying to see how we can best use the resources we have available in the community to present the best educational program overall. The idea of repurposing existing positions to expand opportunities, that’s typically a win-win scenario. That’s the overall approach we are taking with some of the growth we are trying to make. The goal is not to stop growing as a school district; the goal is to continually improve and think about what improvement has to look like within constrained resources.”
The public will have an opportunity to provide additional feedback on the FY27 budget at a scheduled public hearing hosted by the School Committee on March 5. The final vote is scheduled for March 19. Once approved, the budget will be presented for approval by voters at Acton Town Meeting on May 4 and Boxborough Town Meeting on May 19.
Non-budgetary presentation and announcement:
Prior to the workshop, consultant Nick Stellitano, managing director and co-founder of Dillinger Research and Applied Data provided the Committee with an overview of the timeline and key decision points that will guide the work of identifying geographic zones for elementary school assignments next year as the district moves away from “open enrollment”. Dillinger is currently taking input from families and is scheduled to present specific scenarios for the Committee’s consideration at the February 26 school committee meeting.
Also prior to the budget workshop, Peter Light announced that he has accepted a position as the next Superintendent of the American Community School of Abu Dhabi starting July 2027. Light told the Committee that the move “fulfills a long-term aspiration to live and work abroad” and that his “primary focus remains on the critical work we are doing together throughout our entire district. AB has been and will continue to be an amazing place to be, and we are going to do some great things for kids.” The School Committee will begin discussion on next steps at their February 26 meeting.
Diane Baum is the School Committee beat reporter for the Acton Exchange. She served on the Acton-Boxborough Regional School Committee from 2015 to 2021.
