Wellesley Public Schools is asking for $94 million in town funding for the next school year—up 3.24 percent from last year—mostly due to contractually required salary increases and state- mandated increases in the cost of out-of-district special education placements.
Nearly all of the proposed budget increase comes from the cost of providing the same services (aka level services) offered this year, Superintendent David Lussier said during the School Committee’s Dec. 10 meeting (see Wellesley Media video beginning at 26:00).
Some of the increased salary costs will be offset by savings from staff reductions at the middle and high schools due to lower enrollment, Lussier said. Both WMS and WHS are expected to have three fewer classrooms (or sections) each. WPS will eliminate three people from its overall headcount, with additional savings coming from eliminating positions for 11 people that were budgeted for but never used.
The proposed budget increase of 3.24 percent is within the 3.25 percent guideline set by the Select Board in October 2024. The school department makes up nearly half of the town’s $200 million budget. The schools’ first budget presented in December 2024 called for a 3.5 percent increase; however the district revised its budget proposal to 3.24 percent on Jan. 7 due to salary reductions from several voluntary retirements and leaves of absence.
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The School Committee is holding a public hearing on the FY26 budget during its regularly scheduled Zoom meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 21 at 6:30 p.m.
The School Committee plans to vote on the proposed budget on Jan. 28. The budget then must be reviewed by the Advisory Committee and approved by Town Meeting in April.
Review the full 418-page budget document online.
3.68% Increase Due to Salaries
Increases to base salaries for teachers, staff and other educators account for a $3.5 million increase in the budget over 2024-25 (3.86 percent). The collective bargaining agreements negotiated in May 2023 include 3 percent cost-of-living raises for nearly all school employees for fiscal year 2026, which is the last year covered by the contracts, said Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Cynthia Mahr. Plus, 49 percent of the district’s teachers are eligible for additional 4.17 percent “step” raises, meaning they receive a raise because the number of years they have worked in Wellesley pushes them into the next salary bracket. Teachers moving to the next salary bracket get the cost-of-living raise and the step raise—for a cumulative 7.17 percent raise this year.
Special Ed
Increases in special education costs also bumped the FY26 budget up $796,000, or 3.67 percent. Wellesley doesn’t have much of a choice in paying this, since it involves students who the district is not capable of educating due to special education needs. The annual cost increase
is set by the state.
Staffing Changes
The proposed budget includes a slew of small changes at WMS and WHS due to enrollment declines. The proposed budget eliminates a total of 19.47 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs across all schools – but 10.75 FTE are for jobs that were posted and budgeted for but never filled. Note that FTE is different from headcount: for example, a part-time librarian could count as 0.5 FTE but 1.0 headcount. The district says staff changes will reduce overall headcount by just three people (see WPS presentation, page 44).
Here are notable staff changes proposed at WMS (see WPS presentation to School Committee, page 38):
● Increase Behavioral Technician (+1.00 FTE)
● Reduce Half team (-2.00 FTE)
● Reduce Health and Fitness (-0.20 FTE)
● Reduce Industrial Technology (-0.20 FTE)
● Reduce Mathematics (-0.20 FTE)
● Reduce School Counselor (-0.50 FTE)
● Reduce Visual Arts (-0.30 FTE)
● Reduce World Language (-0.10 FTE)
Notable staff changes proposed at WHS (page 39):
● Increase Family and Consumer Science (+0.40 FTE)
● Increase Library Instructional Assistant (+0.50 FTE)
● Increase Multilingual Language Learner (+0.30 FTE)
● Reduce English Language Arts (-1.00 FTE)
● Reduce Mathematics (-0.20 FTE)
● Reduce Mathematics Paraprofessional (-0.50 FTE)
● Reduce Performing Arts (-0.60 FTE)
● Reduce Science (-0.50 FTE)
● Reduce Social Studies (-0.40 FTE)
● Reduce Visual Arts (-0.20 FTE)
● Reduce World Language (-0.40 FTE)
● School Psychologist (-0.20 FTE)
● Reduce Instructional Support Professionals: Behavioral Technician (-3.00 FTE), Teaching Assistants (-3.00 FTE)
More Reading Specialists
A few more notes from the proposed budget:
● The budget includes a strategic priority to replace three part-time reading paraprofessionals with three full-time literacy specialists at the elementary schools. Lussier said the changes will mean that all elementary schools will have two reading
specialists and two math specialists.
● The high school will increase its library staff, changing a part-time library assistant into a full-time position, and add district-wide support for multi-language learners.
● A grant that helped pay for additional nursing staff is ending, but the district has opted to retain the same number of nurses on staff. Accordingly, some of the nursing salaries have been moved over to the district’s budget.
● There is no net reduction in teachers at the elementary schools.
Fewer in WMS/WHS, More in Elementary
Lussier emphasized that enrollment is a primary driver of changes to the district budget.
“After many years of enrollment decline at the elementary level, we now expect to see steady increases over the next number of years, which we’ve long anticipated would happen,” Lussier said. “At the same time, at the secondary level, those smaller cohorts are going to work their way through the middle school and high school and we don’t expect to see those increases arriving from the elementary school for a bit of time before those larger cohorts of students move on to the middle school and high school.
“So we do expect to see elementary enrollment increasing while our secondary enrollment will be either flat or declining in the short term.”
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