Reconciling Stafford’s 2025-2026 budget at BOF
After the fiscal year closes, Stafford’s financial departments—both on the school and Town sides—start reconciling their budgets and preparing to submit them for the annual audit. Typically, Stafford has had a hard time getting those numbers into the State and to the auditors on time, but as of the August 20, 2026 Board of Finance (BOF) meeting, the Town feels confident that this year it will not have to request any extensions.
As of now, the report shows there will be more than $1 million left over. While some of this is due to savings, much of it is thanks to higher-than-expected revenues, which were budgeted at $47,363,283.40 but actually came in around $48,276,078.25. That’s $912,794.85 more than expected.
The increase in revenue includes everything from NIPS revenue to Excess Cost Sharing funds from the State, from investment income to additional revenue from Emergency Services.
The school district accounts for $662,355.89 of the excess balance and the Town accounts for $377,735.57.
BOF member Rob Proulx asked if these numbers could still change. Interim Chief Financial Officer Lynn Nenni said, “They’ll change some, but they’re pretty good.”
What happens to budget surpluses?
So, what happens to those excess funds? State law says, “...a local board of education may deposit into a nonlapsing account any unexpended funds from the prior fiscal year from the budgeted appropriation for education, provided (1) such deposited amount does not exceed two per cent of the total budgeted appropriation for education for such prior fiscal year, (2) each expenditure from such account shall be made only for educational purposes, and (3) each such expenditure shall be authorized by the local board of education for such town.” At the August 11, 2026, Board of Education (BOE) meeting, the board approved moving this year's excess balance to the non-lapsing fund and the self-insurance fund, a move that was discussed during the budget process to help bring down the 2026-2027 budget request.
On the Town side, unused funds generally go into the General Fund which allows any Town to handle unexpected emergencies or expenses. Towns can also use money in the General Fund to help reduce the Mill Rate in a given tax year. In fact, that’s exactly what the Town did to keep the Mill Rate from going up in 2025-2026. In other words, it's in every Town's interest to have a healthy General Fund.
Stafford’s policy says the General Fund should hold 10-14% of the budget in unassigned balance, which it has historically struggled to maintain but has made progress on over the past couple of years. In the last audit report, Kyle Connors, CPA and Managing Director of CBIZ, recommended that a healthy unassigned balance be between 8% and 16%. And the audit showed last year’s unassigned balance was $5.2 million, about 11% of the Town’s operating budget.
