Milton committee debates revised FY26 budget, balances new curriculum and ELL requests against proposed cuts

Milton School Committee members spent much of their Feb. 26 meeting debating a revised FY26 budget that attempts to combine the district’s top-priority needs with reductions identified in the non-override list. Committee members and staff described the package as a “revised proposed budget” that lowers the previous level-service ask by reallocating certain items and adding prioritized needs such as ELA curriculum development and increased ELL teaching staff.

Superintendent Burrows and central-office staff told the committee they began with the non-override reduction list and identified roughly $1 million of potential cuts; they also proposed adding back investments judged essential, including curriculum development for ELA and 1.4 full-time-equivalent (FTE) ELL teaching positions. As presented, the package reallocated about $400,000 to prioritized needs and produced a net reduction compared with the district’s earlier level-service number; committee discussion referenced a net change of about…