the budget, reflection of schools’ class sizes, and a comprehensive reorganization of District-wide positions. As a result of these cost/rate estimates and reductions, total budgeted personnel costs in the FY2026 Preliminary Budget reflect a 2.06% increase over the prior year. • The District’s share of FY2026 health insurance costs is budgeted at a 1.00% increase. These numbers do not reflect the remaining runout expenses from the Acton Health Insurance Trust. These numbers reflect the loss of positions over the last couple fiscal years as well as the increased participation in our Opt-Out plan. Generally, health insurance premiums are the responsibility of the District at 75% for active employees and 50% for retirees. • In December we introduced a new 10-year long range capital improvement plan. We have been looking to increase our CIP general fund expense and with the preliminary FY26 budget, we are proposing to increase the $700,000 line-item to $1,000,000. • Projected net tuition costs are expected to increase by 6.20% from FY2025 (from $4,813K to $5.112K), primarily the net result of the following: Inflation adjustments allowed to service providers through the state’s rate-setting authority, including an in FY25 for 4.69% and 3.67% in FY26 – for private special education providers; affected organizations (i.e., public school districts) and their officials have pleaded for commensurate relief from this increase. Use of projected FY26 Circuit Breaker reimbursement revenue ($3M) to offset tuition costs; regulations require that Circuit Breaker revenues be spent in full within one fiscal year. We have depleted our reserves more over the past two fiscal years due to increased costs and student needs. • Special education transportation primarily reflects the assessment by CASE Collaborative, the District’s main provider of that service. That assessment is effectively determined a year in advance, based on the number of students transported by district members in the current year. The FY26 increase reflected is 34.9% over the budgeted FY25 amount. FY25’s assessment came in higher than anticipated when the budget was voted and the preliminary increase for FY26 is also much higher. • The other transportation services we provide are for McKinney-Vento and Foster Care students. Those numbers have skyrocketed over the past couple of years. We will need to increase these combined line items by 77.3% in order to keep up with the transportation costs.
• The District’s assessment from the Middlesex County Retirement System (which funds retiree pensions for eligible, non-certified staff) will increase by $138K (3.78%) in FY26.
• The District continues to fund its OPEB Trust contribution. For the previous three fiscal years, the District’s budget reflected a 6.5% aggregate increase for MCRS and OPEB trust budgeted costs. This restorative OPEB trust contribution should allow a return to the joint funding strategy (6.5% combined increase) in FY2026 and beyond.
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