This is the second in a six-part series about the district budget, with this week's focus on how budgetary priorities are determined.
The district's budgetary priorities begin with the District Strategic Plan, to which the current plan was approved in 2018 but extended by the Board since 2021, when the plan was originally scheduled to be completed. The extensions resulted from the pandemic years when priorities had to be shifted away from much of the Strategic Plan, though we largely returned to this work by 2023. Strategic priorities generally fall within one of these four priority areas: 
For example, one of the continuing priorities has been around safety and security, which aligns to Wellness: Foundation for Teaching & Learning. For FY 26, there is $99,200 set aside for interior and exterior bus cameras, behavioral threat assessments, cybersecurity, and a safety communication and notification program, all of which were endorsed by the Safety and Security Committee as furthering the district's safety planning as it relates to Wellness. Another item in the FY 26 budget is addressing an enrollment increase at GMS 6-8 over the last two years of nearly 60 students. Aligned to the priority area Every Student College and Career Ready, two classroom/content teacher positions were added to help keep class sizes at effective levels for student learning.
Of course, balancing new priorities with fixed costs, such as staff salaries/benefits, utilities, debt service, operations, and inflation (to name just a few) can be challenging. To put this in perspective, given the reality of fixed costs headed into FY 26, there was just over $1.5 million in requests that went unfunded. This is in addition to another $1.2 million in reductions to the FY 25 (current) operating budget. As we work through how and where to balance priorities, the Board's Finance Committee is an integral part of this process. Please see Finance Committee Chair Kim Vine's update included in this newsletter for more information about the budget. A reminder that this Thursday, May 8 @ 7:00 PM is the District Budget Meeting. All registered voters of the two towns are invited to attend and vote on the proposed 2025-26 district budget.
In case you missed it, here is part one of the district budget series: How budget priorities are determined.