The Acton-Boxborough Regional School District Assessment and Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School District Assessment were both approved at the May 6 town meeting.
Article 7
On May 6, Acton Town Meeting overwhelmingly approved Article 7, which permits the Town to fund Acton’s portion of the Acton-Boxborough Regional School District budget for the fiscal year 2024-25.
The vote was 1,844 in favor of budget approval and 704 opposed.
Acton’s assessment of $79,070,675 is a 10.33 percent increase over last year and consists of an operating assessment of $73,260,419 and a capital assessment of $5,810,256.
Because Acton-Boxborough is a regional school district, the budget requires an additional affirmative vote from the Town of Boxborough’s Town Meeting which is scheduled for Monday, May 13. Boxborough’s portion of the School District’s budget is assessed at $15,960,274.
School Committee Vice Chair Rebeccah Wilson, who presented the budget to Acton Town Meeting, noted that while our schools continue to rank among the top in the state, ongoing inflationary pressure, combined with unprecedented increases in fixed costs and changes in high needs student demographics that necessitate more specialized staffing, have posed significant fiscal challenges for 2024-25.
During the pre-vote deliberation, proponents of Article 7 emphasized that a YES vote would allow the School District to continue to meet the needs of students and maintain its world-class-level education that attracts families to our community. Opponents invoked increasing staffing levels despite enrollment declines, depletion of reserves, and salary increases that are increasingly taking a larger percentage of taxpayers’ income, as evidence of poor fiscal stewardship.
Both the Town and School District budgets were contingent upon passage of an operational override which was approved by Acton voters in a very close ballot vote on Tuesday, April 30, with 3,191 voting in favor of a $6.6M override and 3,154 voting against it.
Article 8
On May 6, Acton Town Meeting approved an appropriation of $3,600,903 to fund Acton’s portion of the Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School assessment for the fiscal year 2024-25. This represents a 9.5 percent increase over last year’s assessment.
The article was approved by a voice vote.
The Minuteman Regional School District comprises nine member towns including Acton, Arlington, Bolton, Concord, Dover, Lancaster, Lexington, Needham and Stow, and offers 19 career majors within the context of an integrated vocational and academic education.
Total school enrollment is currently 686 students.
Pam Nourse, Acton’s representative to the Minuteman School Committee, noted, “We are proud to be an important option for Acton students who are seeking hands-on, skills-based secondary education and training.”
Assessments to member towns are largely driven by enrollment. Acton Finance Committee member Steve Noone noted that “eighty percent of the 9.5 percent increase to Acton’s assessment is due to increased enrollment and only 2 percent to anything other than enrollment.”
Acton currently has the second highest enrollment of all member towns and saw a 29 percent increase in enrollment in 2023-24. Minuteman’s Interim Superintendent Kevin Mahoney reported that the number of Acton students enrolled at the school has more than tripled since 2016 from 30 to 94 and is expected to fall to 84 students in 2024-25.
During the pre-vote deliberation, several Town Meeting attendees voiced concerns about Minuteman’s high per pupil cost and questioned whether Minuteman, which costs Acton taxpayers about $38K per student, is the best return on investment when 73% of Acton’s Minuteman graduates last year ended up going to 4-year colleges rather than directly into the trades. In response, parents of Minuteman current and former students shared that careers in the health care sector such as nursing require post-secondary education while other students may pursue an MBA to realize a goal of opening their own business. Other Minuteman graduates may pursue post-secondary degrees to be competitive in candidate pools in their chosen areas of focus.
