Andrew Shen Deputy Superintendent of Schools
To: From: Date:
The Acton-Boxborough Regional School Committee
Andrew Shen February 8, 2025 Staffing Report
Re:
We are pleased to present the proposed FY26 staffing budget for the Acton-Boxborough Regional School District. This budget includes salaries for all employees, and it represents approximately two-thirds of the total ABRSD budget. As you know, we continue to face funding challenges for the fourth consecutive year, and are presenting to you a proposed budget that includes $1.7m in personnel reductions from a level-service budget, and requires the elimination of 18.64 FTE staff positions. On the attached spreadsheet, you will find the staffing actuals for FY25 and the proposed staffing changes data for the FY26 budget. As we noted last year, we now calculate all FTEs regardless of job category based on a 40 hour work week. Please note that for comparing FY25 and FY26, you are viewing “apples to apples” with the same approach used for both fiscal years. You will see that for the proposed FY26 budget the overall salaries budget increases 1.87%. I am also including the class size and enrollment history from FY17 until now. Staffing FTE for all positions are included by school and department in Sections 5 through 8 of the budget materials. Additional enrollment information is included in the additional materials. At present, we are not proposing an increase in multilingual educators despite the steady and continued increase in students who require English language services. This was a difficult decision, and one that was made knowing that our current level of proposed staffing reductions is already significant and would require additional cuts in order to fund new positions. If the financial outlook for FY26 experiences a favorable shift, the addition of a multilingual educator may be one that is included later in the budgetary process. It should also be noted that our Pathways program is growing, and will include a cohort of students at the High School next year for the first time. The Pathways staffing that is currently at the Junior High will accompany the students to the High School as the Junior High is not expecting any students in the program for the 2025-2026 school year. There will be Pathways students who will be entering the Junior High school in FY27, and staffing will need to be provided at that time. As previously noted, a continuing investment in Pathways allows more students to remain in their home district with their peers, and is a financially prudent decision as it preemptively reduces the number of potential high cost out-of-district placements that would need to be funded by the District. Please see the attached information, and we will be happy to answer any questions at the budget workshop.
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