MIDDLEBORO — Middleboro School District Superintendent Carolyn Lyons is “very proud of the effort that went into working together with the town” to present a balanced school department budget for the coming fiscal year.

“We were talking about an 11% increase over last year's budget,” Lyons explained. “We've utilized all available offsets from a multitude of sources [and] are arriving at a 4.35% increase over last year's budget.”

In total, Lyons proposed that the district spend $50.2 million next year. Minus the “offsets,” or other funding sources, Lyons said that next year’s proposed budget would come to $45 million. 

“We are submitting a balanced budget in lockstep with the Town Manager,” Lyons said. 

It is not clear which revolving accounts will be drawn on to pay for next year’s budget. School Committee Chair Rich Young asked Lyons at the meeting to provide a list of “the revolving accounts and how much money will be taken out.”

Lyons described three “hurdles” in her presentation that represented challenges the district faced when planning their budget for next year.

One hurdle is increased special education costs, she said. A second hurdle was the loss of funding the district had received from the federal government in response to the covid pandemic. 

The third hurdle, she said, was that aid from the state government would be “effectively flatlined.” Although the state’s budget for next year was not finalized, the district had received what are essentially estimates of how much aid they would receive from the state. 

“It is not a good position to be in,” Lyons said of the lack of increases to state aid for school districts. “It warrants advocacy at the state level.”