BOE Begins Budget Discussion

At a special meeting on January 6, 2026, the Board of Education met for the first in a series of budget workshops. Leading the way, Stafford’s Superintendent of Schools Scott Sugarman said that during Tuesday night’s meeting, they would not get into the major drivers of budget increases, which are salaries and benefits. Instead, he said, the presentation would “highlight the work that is being done in our buildings.”

Each school presented its requests for the 300-800 object codes, which include:

• 300 - Purchased professional and technical services

• 400 - Repair, rental, and other property services

• 500 - Other purchased services (transportation, tuition)

• 600 - Utilities, instructional and building supplies

• 700 - Property (equipment and software)

• 800 - Debt service and miscellaneous

Reviewing academic gains, enrollment changes, and the percentage of high-needs students in each school, the school principals discussed the changes underway. Some schools saw substantial reductions in specific budget lines largely due to reorganization within the budget. For instance, expenses for copy machines were once spread across schools but have now been absorbed into the district-wide budget.

For the sake of simplicity, we will present a few key slides here, but you can review the entire presentation.

Student enrollment & high needs populations

While West Stafford and Stafford Elementary School enrollment is up, the numbers are down at the middle and high school levels. However, there's an important caveat: the district uses the official numbers reported to the state as of October 1, 2025. Those numbers have already changed for most of the schools. For instance, West Stafford says that number is up to 194 students since October 1. The middle school, by comparison, is reportedly up to 283.

The high needs population in Stafford is, historically, high. This was the subject of a lengthy discussion at the end of the meeting. This group consists of special education students, English-language learners, and students who qualify for free or reduced lunch. However, this student population typically comes with higher costs as they need more supports. The district began addressing the spiraling special education costs by implementing the Effective School Solution program this school year, but this population still has a significant impact on costs.

A glimpse at budget requests

Superintendant Sugarman explained that there are two parts of the school budget that impact student instruction, and these school-level budget requests are one side of that. The other is, of course, salaries. That information will be coming later, but for now the requests made for object codes 300 - 800 by the schools represent a decrease of more than $1,000 and total less than $347,562. It's worth reiterating that some large expenses that were once split among the schools are now being absorbed at the district level.

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