Brockton Public Schools proposes $268 million FY26 budget; special education, Schedule 19 drive increases

BROCKTON, Mass. — Brockton Public Schools on Tuesday presented a proposed fiscal year 2026 budget that school officials say totals about $268 million, driven largely by state aid changes, rising health insurance and increased spending to serve students with disabilities.

Superintendent (speaking at the finance subcommittee meeting) and Patricia Boyer, interim chief financial officer, said the district’s requested appropriation reflects state Chapter 70 calculations, city chargebacks known as Schedule 19 and district line-item refinements intended to increase transparency. "BPS is on a path of meaningful improvement in how we build and manage our annual budget," the superintendent said during the presentation.

The budget presentation matters because officials said it reflects both an increase in net school spending and an effort to better bind the district’s numbers to actual costs and state reporting requirements. Patricia Boyer told the committee the district used prior actual expenses and new account detail to craft the FY26 request and cautioned that the state budget was not yet final. "The state budget is not finalized yet, so there may be some fluctuation in these final numbers, but this is the best information that we have as of today," Boyer said.

Most important figures presented

- DESE (the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) foundation calculations produced a required net…