Finance officials presented a fee-and-tuition report to the School Committee on Jan. 8 covering transportation, athletics and music lessons as the district prepares its fiscal 2026 budget recommendation.

Mr. Gerardi said the district’s current daily bus fee is $320 with a $960 family cap and that bus-fee revenue is budgeted at about $770,000 for FY25, covering roughly 20% of total transportation costs. "We last adjusted our fees to begin the fiscal year 2022," he said, adding that the median fee among Assabet Valley Collaborative communities that charge for busing is $250 and the mean is $231.

Athletics: Shrewsbury’s high-school per-sport fee is $325 with a $975 family cap; Oak Middle School charges $100 per sport. Gerardi said high-school athletic fees historically cover about one-third of program costs; the district uses reduced caps for families eligible for free or reduced-price meals.

Music lessons are run as a self-supporting program; the district raised the per–30-minute lesson rate to $37 in FY24. Gerardi said music fees pay 100% of instructor costs; parents sign up by semester for a package of lessons.

Gerardi provided participation and assistance data from 2023–24: 17.7% of students were identified as low-income; 19.8% of transportation participants received financial assistance, 11.7% in athletics and 6.4% in music lessons. He said district management group (a financial-review contractor) is finishing its assessment and that any fee recommendations for FY26 will be part of the superintendent’s budget proposal scheduled for Feb. 12. Final committee votes on fees must precede the town-meeting budget process in May.

Committee members asked the administration to provide deeper comparisons for music lessons (how other nearby districts structure lesson eligibility and whether lessons are required for ensemble participation) and to model the family-impact effects of fee changes over multiple years.