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Marlborough committee reviews FY27 draft budget that reallocates staff, expands programs and seeks to reverse 400-student enrollment decline
Summary
Administrators presented a level-service FY27 draft budget of $85,199,324 (about a 2.94% increase), proposing reallocation of staff into intervention coordinators, added preschool classrooms, expanded SEL supports and an alternative education pathway while noting a roughly 400-student enrollment decline and a March 24 public hearing.
Marlborough Public Schools administrators presented a condensed version of the FY27 draft budget at the March 10 school committee meeting, outlining a plan that they called a level-service but "enhanced" budget through reconfiguration of existing positions to deliver more direct classroom supports.
The administration described three guiding principles: bring more supports directly to classrooms, realign staff roles to meet student needs, and streamline district operations. Specific proposals include adding two preschool classrooms (to address a wait list of about 70 children), increasing social-emotional learning interventionists at elementary and middle schools, creating six intervention coordinators and multiple interventionists across grades (targeting tier 2 and tier 3 needs), expanding K–8 special education programming, and launching a project-based alternative education pathway at Marlborough High School with possible eighth-grade access.
The budget would also add one middle-school music teacher and a Spanish teacher (the latter to serve approximately 125 additional students), continue an elementary after-school music enrichment program districtwide, and restore four buses to increase student ridership (raising the fleet from 25 toward prior levels).
Administrators reported a districtwide enrollment decline of about 400 students over the past year (about 200 at the elementary level and 200 at secondary), which reduces state funding; the FY27 level-service total presented was $85,199,324, described as approximately a 2.94% increase over the prior year, and the administration noted a near-term state funding adjustment of roughly -$324,680.
Committee members asked detailed implementation questions about K–8 special education (including intent not to increase out-of-district placements), alternative-education staffing and evaluation caseloads (administration said evaluator caseloads would increase by roughly three to four cases per evaluator under the proposal), and the effect of reallocation on class sizes (administration said typical ranges would be maintained: K–2 about 20–22; grades 3–5 about 22–25; middle school about 22–24; high school about 18–24). The public hearing on the budget was scheduled for March 24; if certified that evening, the committee planned to send the budget to the mayor.
