North Andover School Committee votes to forward $68.2 million FY26 budget, approves two MOAs

The North Andover School Committee voted to forward a $68,200,000 recommended Fiscal Year 2026 operating budget to the town, and approved two memoranda of agreement reached in executive session covering custodial pay differentials and administrative assistant hours.

The vote to send a $68.2 million budget to the Select Board and Finance Committee followed more than two hours of public comment and committee discussion about class sizes, staffing cuts and the risk of using levy capacity now rather than preserving it for a possible debt exclusion for the Kittredge school project. Superintendent Lathrop framed the recommendation as a middle path “between the blue and the purple” options the district presented and said the administration would make programmatic decisions within that total to keep elementary class sizes at or near 25 students where possible.

The committee’s motion directs the superintendent to work within the $68.2 million total and to prepare a detailed cost-center plan for how that number will be implemented. Committee members debated how much levy capacity to leave available for the town to use next year; the superintendent and town manager had previously advised leaving roughly $2.0 million in levy capacity to avoid an override for a level-services budget in FY27. Committee members who supported the $68.2 million figure said it strikes a balance between avoiding deeper cuts this…