LYNNFIELD — The School Committee unanimously agreed to support the Fiscal Year 2026 budget that is contingent on an operating budget override passing at Town Meeting on Tuesday, April 29, and then at the ballot on Wednesday, June 4.
Before this vote, Superintendent Tom Geary spoke on the possibility of the override not passing and how the district will be preparing in the event they don’t receive the 11% increase the schools have requested.
“We would then be level funded. We would not get a dollar more from the town. When I presented last on March 11, that was under the assumption of a 2.5 to 3 million dollar decrease from our budget request,” Geary said. “Since then, it’s come that we won’t get a dollar more, so we have to get to $3.4 million in budget reductions.”
What he characterized as a “brutal situation,” Geary explained, was that areas like class sizes, programming, electives, and activity fees would all be impacted.
“There really won’t be anyone who escapes the impact,” he said. “Our leadership team has spent many, many hours working through various scenarios at each level, what we would pull back from our request, how this would be impacted.”
Due to contract requirements, the district must notify the personnel who will be laid off if the override doesn’t pass before the vote takes place.
This means that the administration will be having these conversations by Wednesday, but these notices would be moot if the override passes and an agreement is met with the union regarding contract negotiations, according to School Committee Chair Kristen Elworthy.
“I want to handle this with as much compassion and care as possible; I want to do this the right way,” Geary said. “Any impacted staff deserve to know their status as soon as possible to give them the opportunity to potentially pursue a new future employment as soon as possible.”
After this, he will be looking at potential programming and class sizes, which could be pulled back in order to reduce the school’s budget, which could potentially lead to further staff reductions.
“We don’t expect, at this point, to have to vote on a level funding budget unless the vote fails,” Elworthy said. “We would like to have a discussion as a committee, so if there is input, changes, etc., it’s happening in the public, and there’s time to work through that prior to the May 15th deadline.”
She noted how the budget override was sent to Town Meeting through a unanimous vote from the Select Board and Finance Committee, which Elworthy said is a “great start for this.”
To build off this, the School Committee officially voiced their support for the override through their own unanimous vote, as well discussing a potential statement of support and organizing an override working group with members Jamie Hayman and Kim Baker Donahue.
“This is not a budget group; this is a communication plan group to liaise with the Select Board, to liaise if there is a ‘Yes’ campaign that is created,” Elworthy said. “Similar to how we’d vote on the budget, we’re expressing that we all are in support of the override… as it’s been presented by the Select Board.”
