School committee approves FY26 budgets after town and school adjustments; operating budget $37.34 million

The Rockland School Committee on March 24 approved a $37,335,069 operating budget for fiscal year 2026 and a separate $490,000 capital request after the superintendent and staff described adjustments reached with town leaders and internal reductions.

Superintendent Dr. Karan said the district reviewed an initial set of shortfalls and “did as much whittling as we could,” then returned to the town seeking an additional $300,000 to avoid deeper program cuts. “We came back to the need for another $500,000…asking the town to find a way to give us an additional $300,000,” Dr. Karan said. He told the committee the Board of Selectmen identified a way to provide that $300,000 and that the district added roughly $200,000 by tightening its own estimates.

Why it matters: the final figures reflect a multi-step negotiation that combined town one‑time resources with school-side reductions and accounting moves intended to make recurring costs easier to manage. Superintendent Karan said the district is aiming to rely less on revolving accounts and one-time appropriations in future years.

Committee discussion and detail - The superintendent outlined that the district originally faced a larger shortfall and trimmed expenses where possible before requesting help from town officials. He credited Finance Committee and Board of Selectmen conversations and singled out work by staff and town liaisons. - Business office staff member Jane Hackett identified accounting adjustments that shifted about $374,000 into town-side appropriations so those funds could be counted in the operating proposal rather than treated solely as one-time free cash allocations. According to the superintendent, that reclassification and the town’s additional funding raised the district’s working proposal to 4.39 percent; adding the agreed $300,000 brought the final year-over-year increase to 5.36 percent. - The superintendent said the budget intentionally reduces dependence on revolving accounts and town-meeting appropriations. He noted the limits of that approach — one‑time cash solves a single year’s shortfall but compounds the following year if underlying revenue or costs do not change. - Staff emphasized several expense lines that have moderated: out-of-district special education costs rose sharply last year (described as a 28% increase), but the superintendent said those costs are now projected to grow more slowly (he cited a 13% level this year). Substitute costs were also lower, he said, because the district had fewer leave events than in prior years.

Vote and next steps The committee voted to adopt the FY26 operating budget at $37,335,069 and approved the FY26 capital request at $490,000. Committee members also directed staff to carry forward the adopted budget figures for the town’s appropriation process and to continue working with town finance officials on the accounting changes that were applied this year.

Ending Committee leaders described the outcome as the product of several weeks of meetings among district staff, the union, the Finance Committee and the Board of Selectmen. The district’s leadership said staff will continue monitoring special-education demand, substitute usage and other variable costs as the new school year approaches.