“We’ve done a good job in not spending all the funds our town has,” said Rick LaFond, Webster’s Town Administrator, “we recently held a tri-board meeting between the Select Board, Finance, and School Committees. Our goal was for every board to agree and understand what we have to do for our 2026-2027 budget.” Webster School Superintendent Monique Pierangeli and Town Administrator LaFond felt that a tri-board meeting would be beneficial before a final budget meeting to get a sense of and to document Webster’s needs and then to analyze town budget goals in order for everyone to understand what upcoming cuts would entail. 

“Basically, what we’re looking at is approximately a $2.3 million shortfall (operating deficit),” LaFond noted. “We’ll balance our budget with our reserves. Last year, we used $1.3 million of our free cash to balance our budget but the budget process hasn’t begun yet. The state doesn’t finalize their budget process until after our town meeting. State aid was comprised of $900,000 and two years ago it was double this amount.”  $1.3 million is dedicated to Special Education transportation costs for out-of-district transportation. For two years it was $2 million-plus for local aid. The substantial decrease has a large effect on all town budgets. 

“We managed to put a lot in our reserves thank goodness,” said LaFond. “We put a lot in the bank. Unfortunately, we don’t have any reasonable expectations now for more state aid. We know we’ll be dealing with service cuts, there’s no way around it. Everyone’s in the dark about our state aid dollars. We’re in good shape with our reserves. Last year we had $6 million in free cash and $6 million in our stabilization fund but we simply cannot continue to plug these gaps of large budget shortfalls. State aid is critical. We know they will be revising their funding guidelines and we’re hoping it will be better for us and will provide more relief. We’re awaiting advice about a dollar commitment from the Millionaires’ Tax funding to help our budget process.”