School committee backs FY26 budget posture; committee and town officials outline gap‑closing steps

The Andover School Committee reviewed the superintendent’s recommended FY2026 budget and related town warrant articles on Feb. 27, and the committee voted to recommend the primary budget warrant and several capital and housekeeping articles.

Town and school finance staff presented the recommended FY26 budget framework and explained a remaining budget gap the district must close. The district’s preliminary FY26 total budget presented to the committee was $107,504,760 after the committee earlier endorsed maintaining a 3.75% increase for the district. Administration said the remaining deficit to close was approximately $1,869,503 as of the Feb. 27 presentation.

Key drivers and accounting actions discussed: - Health insurance: projected increase of about 10% (an estimated $2.7 million), cited as the largest single budgetary pressure. - Special education tuition and placements: residential and private day placements are volatile and can be individually large (presenters cited costs for some placements in the $200,000–$500,000 range). The administration separated the special‑education tuition challenge onto a parallel track and proposed a one‑time town appropriation to offset FY26 special‑education tuition costs. - Circuit breaker and reserves: administration described use of circuit‑breaker reimbursement, a strategic draw from the circuit‑breaker reserve and a town proposal for a $450,000 one‑time appropriation to eliminate the FY26 special‑education tuition deficit (town approval required; the appropriation was noted as subject to the town process). - Revolving accounts: to reduce operating pressure the administration proposed limited use of revolving account balances (for example, transportation and kindergarten revolving accounts) to cover one‑time costs. - Attrition/retirements: administration reported an above‑average year for retirements and expected natural attrition could help address a modest remaining deficit (the staff projected roughly 2.25 FTE equivalent still to close after other steps were applied).

The school administration described program priorities that the FY26 request preserves, including instructional coaching, social‑emotional supports and class size averages maintained near the district policy midrange. The committee and administration noted that smaller class sizes would require significant additional ongoing expense and classroom space; a district exercise showed adding elementary classes to meet the lower bound of the committee policy would require roughly 25 additional teachers and an estimated $2,064,300 in personnel cost.

Warrants and committee votes: the committee took recommendation votes on the main budget article and a series of capital and housekeeping warrant articles (all listed in the “Votes at a glance” box below). Several warrant articles were recommended to town meeting, including the school department’s primary FY26 appropriation and capital articles; the committee also recommended a $450,000 one‑time town appropriation to address special education tuition costs contingent on town approval.

Next steps and timeline: the administration said updated budget documents would be published the following day, the town and school will continue to refine financial assumptions through March 6 budget hearing and the March 8 tri‑board meeting, with the annual town meeting to follow in April. Finance staff said long‑range financial planning work would continue with a proposed cross‑board working group to model multi‑year scenarios and options for closing projected deficits beyond FY26.

Votes at a glance (committee recommendations at Feb. 27 meeting): see the structured “actions” list below for motions, tallies and brief notes.