Lincoln School Committee Approves Hanscom Calendar Change, Confronts $567,000 Budget Gap

LINCOLN -- November 19, 2015, Lincoln School Committee grapples with a $567,133 Hanscom campus budget shortfall driven by surging special education costs. Meeting without Chair Jennifer Glass, the committee heard Superintendent Becky McFall and Business Administrator Buck Creel detail a Hanscom proposed budget of $13,067,338 against Band 3 contract funding of $12,500,205, a gap fueled by out-of-district special education tuition that roughly doubled in two years, from approximately $553,000 to over $1 million. Creel offered a measure of relief, reporting that a newly received vendor quote for furniture, fixtures and equipment for the new Hanscom Middle School building came in well below the previously anticipated $2.5 million figure, which could ease pressure on the Hanscom reserve fund. The committee unanimously approved a revised Hanscom school calendar that adds a half day of school on Good Friday and a full school day in June to compensate for two student days lost during the middle school's planned April vacation relocation, with 170 survey respondents, 109 of them parents, broadly backing the Good Friday option. The Lincoln campus budget of $10,903,613 carries no gap within Finance Committee guidance of 2.5 percent growth.