Westborough Select Board recommends $70.47 million school budget after agreeing on town reductions

The Town of Westborough Select Board on a joint budget night voted to recommend the Westborough School Committee’s FY26 budget of $70,466,789 after hearing a school presentation on tiered reductions and a separate town presentation on budget adjustments and proposed cuts.

School Superintendent Allison Porchers told the board the district engaged leadership teams and staff and that the budget presented in December already included reductions equivalent to 4.6 full‑time positions. “A reduced budget does mean a reduction in services for kids and families,” Porchers said, describing a tiered approach that left the school committee supporting Tier 1 reductions of about $398,000 while reserving deeper Tier 2 cuts for items with longer‑term impacts.

Porchers detailed Tier 1 actions the school committee approved: converting some K–3 full‑time fine‑arts positions to part‑time, eliminating a classroom position at Mill Pond that will raise class averages into grade 5, and removing low‑enrollment offerings such as grade 7 Mandarin at the Givens School. She also described tentative revenue offsets from increased preschool enrollment at the Westborough Early Childhood Center (WEC) that the district expects could generate up to roughly $150,000 if enrollment increases by two to three students per class.

Town Manager Christy presented town adjustments separate from the school reductions and described several one‑time and structural changes: a favorable bond issuance trimmed the town debt budget by more than $1,000,000; landfill costs were moved into a new waste‑management enterprise fund; and a prior certification error was corrected with the Department of Revenue, increasing available free cash for FY26 purposes. Christy said renegotiated health‑insurance plan design and carrier change reduced the projected increase to about 8.4% and yielded roughly $225,000 in savings overall.

Christy then outlined proposed town departmental reductions intended to meet a finance‑committee 1% target (about $301,000). Those proposals include eliminating youth & family overtime ($100,000), eliminating substitute minibus drivers for the Council on Aging (just under 1,000 hours), reducing library custodial hours from 40 to 25 per week, cutting a plumbing and gas inspector from 40 to 25 hours, and reducing several part‑time administrative positions. Christy said the aggregate effect of the proposed town cuts would be about 7,406 service hours annually (approximately 142 hours per week).

Board members pressed staff for clarifications throughout the meeting: they requested more detail on the jump in substitute custodial costs for the schools, asked the Assabet Valley regional school assessment to return with an explanation of its calculation, and discussed whether some reductions should be one‑year holds to be restored later. Several members warned that Tier 2 school cuts—such as eliminating curriculum coordinators, tutors and key co‑teaching supports—would have multi‑year impacts on student programs.

McMahon moved that the Select Board recommend the town vote to approve the Westborough School Committee’s $70,466,789 FY26 budget; the motion was seconded and, after brief discussion, passed on a roll‑call vote announced as 7 yes, 1 no (Shaffer voted no). The board then approved two free‑cash transfers: $70,000 for school HVAC and plumbing repairs and $25,000 for surveying on Rogers Road (the senior‑center property).

Board members and staff said they expect to resume budget work at a follow‑up meeting to finalize numbers that will incorporate outstanding non‑union compensation adjustments and the town’s reductions. The board also approved the January 30 joint budget summit minutes and adjourned, thanking Westboro TV for streaming the meeting.

The Select Board will reconvene to act on the outstanding budget numbers and to finalize recommended warrant articles for town meeting.