With rising personnel costs alongside declining enrollment, the proposed 2025-2026 operating budget for the Concord School district would dip into trust funds and downsize its teaching staff to blunt the tax increase.

Spending would rise by 2.8% from around $108 million to more than $111 million under the proposal introduced to the school board Wednesday, carrying an estimated 4.4% increase in the school district tax rate. That increase of 62 cents per $1,000 of assessed value, would add $248 annually to the tax bill of a $400,000 home.

“You were very clear … you wanted us to try to work towards a flat budget,” Superintendent Kathleen Murphy said to the school board. “We also heard that it was important that we continue to close the learning gap and that we continued to work towards a rigorous curriculum and that we didn’t sell our students short.”

The school board will review and have a chance to make changes before the budget is approved on March 27. Notably, this plan does not include costs that would be associated with a new middle school or with Memorial Field renovations, two pivotal projects before the district.

Much of Concord’s increase is driven by a rise in salaries and benefits, special education and debt on capital projects. Administrators have proposed pulling about $2.5 million from its reserve accounts and making staff reductions to cushion the bill to taxpayers.

The increases in Concord are higher than last year, but on par with many other school districts in the area, such as Bow and Hopkinton.

Cost drivers

More than three-quarters of district spending goes toward employee compensation. The plan before the school board would eliminate teaching positions and support staff to offset steeply rising insurance rates and regular pay increases. Staffing changes would come from a mix of retirements and turnover as well as rearranging or removing positions because of declining enrollment.

More detail on what those reductions specifically mean will be outlined at Monday’s budget session, Murphy said, though she noted about five teaching positions would be impacted.

The board has been workshopping its class size policy over the last year — after similar conversations about teaching positions in last year’s budget — and will finalize it alongside its budget decisions in the coming weeks.

“We went through all of the schools up through high school and determined that we could, without hurting any positions, reduce our expenditures,” Murphy said.

As with other districts, Concord is facing a steady rise in its population of students with disabilities and associated special education costs. Currently, one in five students in the district is identified as having a disability, with a particular demand for resources at the elementary level. To meet these needs, the proposal would add staff in occupational and speech therapy.

Also tied to special education is transportation for students not on the bus system. About 175 students receive special transportation, including some in foster care and some experiencing homelessness. When students are placed in foster care, or their families are without housing in Concord and find it elsewhere, the district is still obligated to provide them transportation to school in Concord.

Currently, that’s contracted out, carrying high and unpredictable price tags. The district has overspent on transportation in the neighborhood of a million dollars each of the last few years.

As a solution, district administrators are proposing purchasing a fleet of vans to bring the service in-house. While there would be an upfront cost, and the added challenge of vehicle and staff maintenance, doing so stabilizes expenses going forward and saves the district money in the long run, administrators said. This is especially true if neighboring districts sign on to use them.

The initial proposal was for a 20-van fleet, a roughly $1 million purchase, but the school board has already talked about starting smaller. A full presentation on this proposal will come alongside the special education budget workshop.

Additionally, debt service is rising. Bonds hit tax bills the year after they are approved, meaning 2024 replacements of the HVAC system at the high school and new bus purchases are felt in this budget year.

Not included: Middle School and Memorial Field

A new middle school or an overhaul of the city’s athletic complex that could move forward in the next year are separate from what’s laid out in this budget.

So too, notably, are sunk costs tied to the year of preparation for a school at the Broken Ground site.

The district will have to eat as much $3 million for project work that can’t be adapted onto a Rebuild at Rundlett — things like soil testing and wetland examination at the East Concord property, according to Business Administrator Jack Dunn. Because that work was tied to a site the district isn’t pursuing, it can’t be covered by the bond for the final project on South Street.

The around $2.7 million in money going into the capital reserve account in this budget would be used to cover those expenses, he said.

“There are going to be some costs that we won’t get back,” Dunn said, though the exact figure is still being teased out.

Budget schedule

The school board will have three more meetings of budget presentations this month before officially posting a proposed budget on March 5.

There will be two public hearings, on March 17 and 19, before the budget is finalized on March 27. It needs a five-vote majority to pass.

Updated versions of the budget as the board makes changes will be linked on the school district website.

Catherine McLaughlin can be reached at cmclaughlin@cmonitor.com. You can subscribe to her Concord newsletter The City Beat at concordmonitor.com.