By Geena Monahan—For the North Star Reporter
In a symbolic stance against the fiscal year 2026 budget for the town’s public schools recently approved by Town Council, the School Committee voted unanimously at its June 24 meeting, 0-7, not to approve the operating budget.
School Committee Chair Tasha Buzzell explained that voting against the budget doesn’t mean the School Department won’t receive any funding come July 1, but instead serves as a way to inform the public of what she described as years of “banging her head against the wall” to get adequate funding for the town’s schools.
“Since I’ve been on the committee, for the most part we almost always unanimously voted yes on the budget every year, and my position on it is we need to stop doing that because we’re only getting what we’re handed and we’re not getting any more than that,” said Buzzell.
While the FY26 budget for the School Department is a level-service one and provides a 4.5% increase from FY25, Superintendent John Antonucci was quick to point out this only funds salary increases for existing personnel due to collective bargaining agreements.
“Our level-service funding is to meet our contractual obligations—it’s not anything else that we’ve presented,” said Antonucci. “We’re not getting ahead, we’re kind of treading water. That’s not where we want to be as a district. We’re trying to move forward.”
Antonucci’s proposed school budget included “high-need” asks such as an assistant principal at Amvet Elementary, three additional elementary teachers to keep up with increasing class sizes, a special education teacher at Amvet and a board-certified behavioral analyst for the district, none of which would be funded through the budget the council put forward.
Committee member Charlie Peters used visual aids to show how far behind he feels North Attleborough is compared to other Massachusetts school districts in per pupil expenditure spending.
He used a printout from the Department of Education and Secondary Education’s 2023 report. Highlighted in red, down towards the bottom 25% of the chart was North Attleborough, at $16,951.87 spent per pupil. In comparison, neighboring towns such as Foxboro, Mansfield and Plainville spend $21,553, $21,357 and $19,105 per student, respectively.
“We always say we’re unique in North Attleborough for many reasons, and we are. We’re extremely unique in the way we historically do not fund education in the way….any other town in the state does,” said Peters. “For a school district with 4,000 students, our budget is not comparable to other towns with any number of students.”
Philosophical differences
A main point of contention raised by committee members was how the town chooses to distribute Chapter 70 funds, which are described on DESE’s website as “the major program of state aid to public elementary and secondary schools.”
According to Buzzell, since 2019, the town has received $911,246 in Chapter 70 funds that the School Department has not seen.
“My struggle is how this is being presented to the public, as though they (Town Council) are meeting our budget, that we don’t have a structural deficit, that we are ‘level-service funded,’” said Buzzell. “We are not.”
For FY26, Chapter 70 funding from the state will see its largest increase in history, up from $104 per student to $150. A surplus of $287,850 exists this year, resulting from a difference in funding outlined in Gov. Maura Healy’s budget versus the Senate’s proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. That amount funding is what the School Committee focused on being put back directly in the hands of North Attleborough’s school district, not the town as a whole.
The Town Council has historically used a “one town, one budget” philosophy in distributing Chapter 70 funds, something that Council Vice President John Simmons referred to in a clip from a June 9 meeting that played during the School Committee meeting. Simmons suggested this year putting excess funds into the special education stabilization account, where it could be used at a later date to fund new hires in the special education department.
“I believe the School Committee is doing exactly what it should be doing, attempting to get the most money they can for the School Department and education. However, the council has to look at a much broader financial picture,” said Simmons in an email correspondence with the North Star Reporter. “This is a fundamental philosophical disagreement on how Chapter 70 funds should be used in town and the difference in opinion has been around longer than any of us in town government presently.”
Simmons also noted that Chapter 70 funds have been returned to the schools in the form of projects, such as $2 million for the new high school feasibility study, $1.4 million for the Community School roof and $2.4 million for the Roosevelt Avenue Elementary School roof. With over 60% of the overall town budget going to the schools, along with $14.3 million in additional support in the form of pensions, health insurance, unemployment and Medicare, Simmons said he has a “hard time seeing” how the schools are being shortchanged.
“The claim that the town is ‘shorting’ the schools by $288,000 leaves out key facts,” reads an emailed statement put forth by Simmons and Councilor Dan Donovan.“The town contributes close to $17 million in additional school support each year and continues to invest millions in school facilities. That’s not neglect—it’s a strong and ongoing commitment.”
To Buzzell, the conversations around Chapter 70 funds are “emblematic” of how she feels decisions have been made without the School Committee’s involvement in the past, and noted that putting funds in a stabilization fund would not address the deficit problem the schools face in the upcoming academic year. Instead, Buzzell rallied for the nearly $288,000 in excess funds to go directly to the School Department to use as it sees fit, which could include hiring additional teachers to keep up with ever-increasing class sizes and ensure that budget cuts to supplies be avoided.
“They’re giving us what they’re legally required to give us, there’s nothing illegal or untoward,” said Antonucci. “It’s just philosophically, we advocated for education money and the argument Tasha is trying to make here, and I support, is that we have education needs and it (Chapter 70 funding) should end up in the classroom, where it was intended.”
“Hundreds of children would benefit from us just getting the money we’re supposed to get,” said Peters, shortly before the committee voted against approval. “With all due respect to new Chevy Tahoes for the Police Department, hundreds of children would benefit from this.”