The Sheffield City Committee on July 24 moved to protect ongoing career and technical education (CTE) programs while trimming central staffing: the budget adopted by the committee removes the high school dean/CTE director position, the committee approved a $4,000 stipend template to be used if the full director post is not funded, and voted to accept Scituate into the Northwest Consortium of Superintendents, which the committee said caps outside CTE tuition at $5,000 per student.

At the same meeting the committee unanimously approved a donation of 12 gently used laptops from Bryant University and Fidelity (value cited as $4,200) for Smithfield High School's business and finance CTE program. The presenter said the laptops are "high end computers" and that Bryant and a Fidelity representative helped broker the donation; committee members approved the donation by voice vote.

Committee members debated how to run the CTE program without a dedicated director. The superintendent said the dean/CTE director post (about $90,000) was eliminated to meet FY26 reductions; the person in that role was promoted into an assistant-principal opening and no one was laid off. As a stop-gap, the committee approved a template for a CTE liaison stipend (approx. $4,000) to be funded out of Perkins funds if needed. The superintendent and staff said the stipend is not intended to replace a full director but could provide accounting, enrollment and program support while the committee seeks secure funding.

The committee also approved a mentorship stipend for the finance controller to support the newly hired finance director, David Lee.

On regional CTE cooperation, the committee voted to accept Scituate into the Northwest Consortium of Superintendents beginning the 202526 school year; under the consortium agreement Sheffield and member districts cap tuition charged for incoming CTE students at $5,000. The committee clarified that already-enrolled out-of-district students will keep their current tuition arrangements and the cap applies to new enrollments.

Committee members flagged that the district expects additional CTE revenue from updated FY26 rates (the superintendent estimated roughly $34,550) and said they would prioritize restoring staff if new recurring revenue becomes available. The committee approved the laptop donation, stipend template and consortium membership by voice votes.