Tewksbury Public School, Shawsheen Leaders Brief FinCom on FY25 Budgets

Most TPS operating expenses are level funded

The Tewksbury Finance Committee met with five of six current members; Jason Christian was absent. There is one opening on the committee due to a resignation — interested residents can apply here.

The focus of last night’s meeting was reviewing the budgets for the Tewksbury Public Schools and the Shawsheen Valley Technical High School. 

Shawsheen Tech
Tony McIntosh, Shawsheen superintendent-director; Jenna Lesko, business manager; and Patty Meuse, one of Tewksbury’s two Shawsheen Tech School Committee reps, went first. 

For Shawsheen, the overall FY25 budget is $38,828,465, an increase of 3.75% over FY24. Tewksbury’s total assessment for FY25 will be $8,585,726, up just over 7%. That increase is largely because there are 14 additional students enrolled for FY25 — 363 versus 349 in FY24. Enrollment is around 1,300.

Key assumptions for the FY25 budget include:

• All collective bargaining agreements have been settled and will carry through FY25.
• The school absorbed three FTE positions that had been funded using ESSER money.
• English Learners (EL) and Former English Learners (FEL) programs are expanding to support a changing demographic from sending communities.
• Work is ongoing to address capital expenditures given that the facility is more than 50 years old.

Shawsheen spends 49% of its budget on instruction. It will begin union negotiations in the fall.

McIntosh shared that the school plans to issue, for the third time, a Statement of Interest to the Massachusetts School Building Association, for either a new facility or a significant renovation. The MSBA gets many such requests annually, said McIntosh. 

“I’ve talked to colleagues at other schools,” he said. “Some people have done it for 14 or 15 years and they’ve never gotten in the pipeline, other people have done it twice and got in the pipeline. I don’t know that there’s necessarily any rhyme or reason as to who gets accepted and why.”

Fincom member Stephanie Klinkenberg-Ramirez noted that Covid-era ESSER grants are running out and asked if there are other funding sources that could pick up staff salaries. McIntosh said he has not come across any grants that could cover the three employees absorbed into the budget. Vice Chair Richard Levasseur asked about the repairs that were done on the swimming pool; McIntosh said that work is complete and came in slightly under budget.

No finance committee member asked about McIntosh’s letter asking to establish a stabilization fund specific to the regional school district, though McIntosh stated that he spoke in Billerica about the plan. The Tewksbury Select Board tabled that fund request in January.

Member Thomas Cooke did speculate on another proposal.

“I just read on Whittier Tech, for a $476 million school,” said Cooke. “If that thing gets going, the bonding on the state level from the School Building Authority is going to really get crunched.”

A tech-induced crunch that would affect new proposals is unlikely given that plans for the tech school, which was priced at $444.6 million, were scuttled when voters in 10 of the 11 sending towns declined to approve funding by a wide — 16,123 to 5,714 — margin.

Tewksbury Public Schools
Superintendent Brenda Theriault-Regan and Business Manager David Libby walked through the TPS overall FY25 budget request of $75,151,409, up 3.09% from FY24.

Key assumptions for the FY25 budget include:

• A level workforce except for elimination of six-grant funded positions.
• A straight 3% COLA for all bargaining units, except 3.5% for TTA Steps 1 – 4
• Any retiree positions will be absorbed, reorganized or filled by current staff.
• Operating expenses are level funded except for transportation and a 4.69% increase for special-ed out-of-district placements and tuition.
• All capital outlay money is earmarked for the Heath Brook renovation project, which we’ll cover in more depth closer to Town Meeting. See more here. 

Libby explained that the school budget consists of four major buckets: Salary, operating and capital outlay spend are managed by the schools, while fixed costs such as health, retirement and building insurance, are managed by or shared with the town.

School expenses are about 60% of the town’s budget versus 40% for the town side. The Shawsheen assessment was about $86,000 higher than anticipated, so that will be split 60/40 with the town. The school portion of the shortfall was made up with a $51,652 reduction in the operating budget.

TPS spends 68% of its budget on teachers and 70.6% on salaries overall. 

Areas of focus, said Libby, include balancing preschool offerings between the Dewing and Heath Brook to offer programs at both locations; assessing personnel opportunities based on currently declining enrollment, especially at the upper grades; and exploring options for a new, longer-term, copier contract. 

As with Shawsheen Tech, the district plans to gauge interest by residents to submit a statement of interest to MSBA for a new lower elementary to replace the Heath Brook and Dewing.

“That was the direction that the building committee was heading when we applied for the statement of interest on the Center School, which was initially to replace all four schools,” said Libby. 

However, the MSBA approved a school large enough to handle only three grades, not five.

“We were instructed at the time by the MSBA to get right back in line after the Center School was completed,” he said. “They recognized that those schools were also in need of significant work.”

The town’s 10-year K-12 enrollment projection is fairly flat. 

Libby also covered circuit breaker numbers, revenue increases in the Food Services Department and available grant funding for FY24. Annual grants are expected to be about the same, though Title I money will likely drop by almost $200,000 based on fewer Tewksbury students living at or below the poverty level.

Levasseur asked about using empty space in TMHS given declining enrollment in the upper grades and the possibility of starting up a long-term school space planning committee.

Theriault-Regan said such committees have been convened in the past and said “it’s time” to look at our space use; she also said that while there are major issues with both the Dewing and the Heath Brook facilities, any new building project is at minimum a six-year project.

Town Manager Richard Montuori closed by promising a draft warrant for the May Annual and Special Town Meetings shortly. The Finance Committee will meet next on May 18, when it will take questions.