By Geena Monahan—For the North Star Reporter
On Monday, school officials presented a $53.5 million fiscal year 2027 budget to the Finance Subcommittee — a plan Superintendent John Antonucci said balances targeted investments in staffing and student support against rising costs and limited financial flexibility.
The proposal reflects a series of trade-offs as district leaders work with the town manager’s recommended 4% budget increase to address class size issues and evolving student needs.
“This is a very tight budget,” Antonucci said at the May 4 meeting. “We worked really hard to make some tough trade-offs to fund critical priorities for students.”
The district serves 3,859 students in grades pre-K through 12, supported by more than 600 full-time employees across nine school buildings.
While enrollment has remained stable overall — and declined in some areas — officials said costs continue to rise, driven largely by increasingly complex student needs.
Antonucci noted that shifts in enrollment do not produce straightforward savings. As class sizes fluctuate, positions are often reallocated to meet emerging needs elsewhere in the district, rather than eliminated outright.
“The question is always ‘Where does that money go?,’” he said. “It gets reallocated to address another need.”
About 24.5% of students — 912 in total — have individualized education plans, with special education services accounting for roughly $20 million—about one-third of the budget. More than a quarter of students are also classified as low-income.
The recommended 4% budget increase from the town — roughly $2.05 million — is largely absorbed by contractual salary obligations and rising special education costs, leaving little room to expand programming.
“Even though we’ve gotten those increases, we haven’t been able to grow programs and services,” Antonucci said.
Out-of-district placements, limited to about 36 students, remain a major cost driver, ranging from $50,000 to more than $470,000 per student annually.
“These are legally mandated services,” Antonucci said. “We have to meet students’ needs — and we do a good job.”
Finance Subcommittee Chair John Simmons said that dynamic can drive public confusion about school spending.
“You hear a lot that enrollment is going down, so why is the budget going up?” Simmons said. “The reality is costs go up — and student needs are different than they were 20 years ago. You can’t tie a school budget directly to student numbers anymore.”
He added that larger class sizes can disproportionately affect students who may not qualify for specialized services but still need additional support.
Reworking the proposal
In January, Antonucci presented an initial “needs-based” budget with a 7.7% increase and roughly 20 additional positions — a proposal he acknowledged exceeded what the town could support.
District officials instead identified a “minimum feasible” budget of about $53.18 million — the cost to open schools while meeting contractual obligations, rising tuition and utility costs.
From there, administrators reallocated resources and identified savings through anticipated retirements, adjustments to staffing based on enrollment shifts, and the elimination or repurposing of unfilled positions. Officials also increased reliance on revolving and outside revenue accounts. This created more than $600,000 in flexibility for budgetary investments.
“That’s a sustainable number for now, or at least for next the few years,” said Antonucci.
Maintaining manageable class sizes remains a central focus, Antonucci said, particularly as staffing levels have declined slightly in recent years. The proposal includes both new hires and internal reallocations to address classroom needs and student services.
The district plans to fund four new positions: an assistant principal and moderate special education teacher at Amvet Elementary School, a district-wide, board-certified behavior analyst and out-of-district coordinator to help manage placement costs.
Additional changes will come through staff reallocations, including classroom teachers at Falls Elementary School in grades four and five, a second grade teacher at Roosevelt Elementary School to reduce class sizes and an adjustment counselor at North Attleborough Middle School.
Together, those changes are expected to ease pressure in several of the district’s largest class groupings, though some — particularly at Roosevelt — may remain above preferred levels due to space constraints.
“We’re using virtually every classroom in the district right now,” Antonucci said.
Capital improvements and remaining needs
Antonucci described the town’s capital improvement planning process as “fair and equitable,” noting that several school priorities have been funded in recent years.
North Attleborough’s FY27 capital plan includes several school-related projects, such as a middle school fire control panel replacement, a districtwide Chromebook replacement, new school buses and smaller equipment purchases, including a maintenance vehicle and utility trailer.
However, Chris Murphy, the district’s director of buildings and grounds, pointed to larger projects still ahead, including a roughly $1.4 million window replacement at Amvet Elementary School, where many original single-pane windows lack insulation. A new fire control system is also needed in that same building.
“There’s still things to do,” Murphy said. “Not everything can be done at once.”
Antonucci said the district remains in a relatively stable position compared to others across the state. Over the past five years, he noted, the School Department has not sought supplemental funding from the town.
Still, broader structural challenges, including Proposition 2½ limits, rising health insurance costs and increasing special education expenses set by the state continue to strain local budgets.
“The model is getting harder,” Antonucci said. “But to be able to talk about any level of growth right now is something we should feel good about.”