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Nashoba leaders flag steep special-education transportation and out-of-district tuition costs
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Summary
District officials told the Jan. 14 Nashoba workshop that special-education transportation and out-of-district tuition are volatile budget drivers; administration will run a route-by-route procurement review and report progress on Feb. 11.
District leaders told the Nashoba Regional School Committee during its Jan. 14 budget workshop that special-education tuition and transportation are major, variable cost drivers for FY27 and that the administration will pursue a route-by-route procurement review to seek lower vendor pricing.
Director of Student Services Lorraine Dimanche said the district currently has 42 students in added-district placements that carry statutory tuition obligations and 17 contracted routes (with additional in-district routes operated directly by the district). She said placements and transportation needs change rapidly: a single move-in with an IEP can materially alter costs for a fiscal year.
"Once we make a decision and we have to commit to sending a student out of district and we choose a school, the parents get the option to visit those schools … and then once the decision is made we sign a contract with that school and are obligated to that tuition rate," Dimanche said, describing the statutory and contractual constraints that make these lines volatile.
Superintendent Downing and finance staff said Assabet Valley Collaborative contracts and shared-route arrangements have proved useful but can also leave the district fully liable for a route if partner districts drop out of shared rides. Downing described a planned vendor outreach and route-by-route analysis to identify cost savings and said administrators will return with an update at the Feb. 11 meeting.
Numbers and offsets: administration said total special-education transportation before offsets is roughly $3.36 million; IDEA and other offsets reduce the operating-budget impact to about $2.6 million. Committee members requested clearer slides distinguishing total cost from year-over-year increases, and asked administration to show the grant offsets on the transportation slides.
Why it matters: out-of-district placements and contracted transportation are large and unpredictable spending items that can drive assessment pressure for member towns. The committee asked for more granular detail, including route counts, vendor rates and assumptions used to construct the current FY27 projections, ahead of budget hearings this spring.
Next steps: administration committed to provide a route-level procurement analysis, vendor pricing comparisons and a clearer presentation of offsets at the Feb. 11 meeting.
