NORWELL — September 21, 2026 — The Norwell School Committee’s year-end fiscal 2026 report put district spending at $33,433,131, with utilities close to $300,000 past budget after the coldest winter in almost 10 years, and left the special education circuit breaker account roughly $750,000 below the reserve level the state recommends — a position the district’s own forecast shows going negative in fiscal 2029.
The Full Story
The district’s Director of Finance, Operations, and Technology Warren MacCallum presented the year-end report September 21. The fiscal 2025 budget of $33,398,000 had carried an extra $500,000 for special education and certain grant funds, a working total of $33,898,000. Fiscal 2026 came in flat against the base figure with no repeat of that $500,000; the only addition was $35,071 from Town Meeting to cover gas bills that arrived after the summer, tied to an Eversource billing error.
Personnel makes up about 80 to 81 percent of the budget and drove most of the variance; a position came off the instructional personnel line, saving about $27,000. Once the overruns were visible the district pulled back hard on instruction: aide positions went unfilled through medical and long-term leave, professional development was cut and principals trimmed building supplies, a pullback amounting to 1.7 percent of the budget.
Utilities ran close to $300,000 past the budgeted line.
It was a perfect storm. New contracts, terrible weather, low production of solar power, everything just hit at the same time.
— Warren MacCallum, Director of Finance, Operations, and Technology (1:16:32)
The winter was the coldest in almost 10 years, not because of any single cold day but because temperatures stayed below normal all season. Snow on the solar panels and an outage on one array cut credit production.
The longer-running problem is the special education circuit breaker account, which received $270,000 within the year’s other spending. Massachusetts best practice is to roll the full reimbursement into the next year’s expenditure so large unexpected costs can be absorbed without warrant articles or emergency town transfers, and Norwell has not reached that level: it revolved $764,000 out of $1.44 million last year. If the district spends what is budgeted, it would draw $2.147 million and roll $117,000 into next year. Nearly $4 million is currently expected for out-of-district tuitions, and on the present trajectory the account goes negative in fiscal 2029.
Superintendent Matthew Keegan told the committee the district runs a two-year lookout and was already tracking a negative fiscal 2028 projection, offset by $400,000 in a stabilization fund the schools did not tap until Town Meeting. Against state guidance the account sits about $750,000 short. Had the failed override delivered the $1,750,000 to $2,000,000 it carried for this purpose, the gap would have been closed; the cuts made instead raised the account by $250,000. Looked at two years out, the shortfall is almost always around $500,000.
Asked by member Scott Dyke what levers the board should consider, MacCallum pointed to strategies nearby towns have used, including separate Town Meeting budget lines for special education, and said he would never advocate for them.
I see a really dark place where town members start to look at other town members and look at their children and decide whether those children are causing their taxes to rise or not. And I think it’s a terrible place to go.
— Warren MacCallum, Director of Finance, Operations, and Technology (1:32:13)
Keeping the reserve at the recommended level is what stops the district from going to Town Meeting over a single new student, the business manager said.
