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.