Long-Term Financial Planning for Shrewsbury Public Schools

Operating Budget: Forecasting for the Future

To ensure the ongoing excellence of the Shrewsbury Public Schools for years to come, the Shrewsbury School Committee recently brought in a third-party team, the District Management Group (DMG), to assess the financial health of the district. DMG is an educational consulting firm that works with school districts nationwide to analyze educational budgets and assist with strategic planning. DMG gave Shrewsbury high marks. Residents of Shrewsbury can be confident that our schools are effectively managed, produce a high academic return on investment, and educational services are currently delivered at a cost per pupil which is well below average to comparable schools in Massachusetts.

“The historical analysis reveals that SPS has consistently delivered strong academic outcomes, performing in the top 15% of Massachusetts school districts, while spending in the bottom 15%. SPS students outperform their statewide peers in MCAS scores across grades 3-8 and 10, and students also demonstrate strong college matriculation and graduation rates. This success has been achieved despite SPS spending 13% less than its comparable districts and 18% less than the state average.” - DMG, March 2025 report

In addition to looking at the efficiency and effectiveness of our schools in terms of annual budget expenses and academic outcomes, District Management Group also aided the Shrewsbury School Committee in creating a budget forecasting model for future growth over the next 5 to 10 years. The purpose of this exercise was to project costs to maintain high-quality education from Pre-K to High School. The primary cost driver for Shrewsbury schools, like all school systems, is the cost of personnel. These costs tend to grow at a rate which is higher than inflation, due in part to the need to maintain a competitive environment in terms of recruiting high-quality teachers which, in turn, drive educational outcomes for our youth. DMG’s model demonstrates that Shrewsbury Public Schools educational needs are likely to grow between 4.7%-4.9% annually over the next decade.

The Shrewsbury School Committee encourages residents, parents, staff, and teachers to review this important long-term financial planning document.

Operating Budget: Override Model

In 2021, the Town of Shrewsbury municipal leadership, through the Select Board and Town Manager, and the Shrewsbury Public Schools, through the School Committee and the Superintendent, agreed upon a budget plan. Upon the voters' support for a property tax increase, the agreement stated that the School Department would exercise fiscal discipline and that the School Committee would contain annual budget growth with an annual cap of up to 4.25%, which could be increased up to a maximum of 4.75% dependent upon annual revenue projections. Critical to this agreement was the creation of an Override Stabilization Fund by a vote of Town Meeting, which brought financial stability to funding public education.

The “Override model” has brought predictability to the School Department’s budget and has allowed the School Committee, along with the Superintendent, to plan strategically knowing what the town’s investments in education will be over multiple years. Investments in the past three years have included targeted support for students with mental health and behavioral health challenges, supporting the growing population of students for whom English is not their first language, and a needed overhaul of our literacy curriculum from the Pre-K to 8 level to align with best practices for student learning.

More information about the override agreement can be found at the links below.

Long-Term Capital Planning and Needs

In addition to the needed operating budget to pay for staff salaries, transportation, and technology, the Shrewsbury Public Schools could not function without the space in the 9 buildings across the town, which are owned, maintained, and operated by the Town of Shrewsbury. The Shrewsbury School Committee appreciates the strong partnership between the municipal staff and the school staff to deliver high-quality spaces to the children of our town. The Public Buildings Division [link: https://shrewsburyma.gov/471/Public-Buildings-Division] provides the essential care of our spaces including everything from daily custodial support, ongoing preventative maintenance, building upgrades when schools are not in session, and when needed, major renovations or building replacements. In fact, the Public Building Division maintains a combined 971,556 square feet of facilities, of which the Shrewsbury Public School System accounts for approximately 860,133 feet of that space, or 88.5% of all public spaces in town.

In 2021, upon the completion of the Major Howard Beal Elementary School, the town completed a Pre-K-12 Capital Inventory & Improvement Study for all nine school buildings in town. This study detailed projected enrollment versus design capacity for each building and then conducted in-depth building assessments and preliminary budget estimates to address needs. A similar assessment had been completed in 1997, which was the basis for capital improvements over the prior decades. “The objective of the current report [was] to prepare the town for future improvements in a similar fashion.”- LPA/A Report

Each building was assessed relative to current code and educational needs including the following factors:

Site features including, but not limited to, size & configuration, access, topography, soils and wetlands, utilities, parking, sidewalks, and recreation areas
Accessibility in and around the facility
Building features, including but not limited to, building envelope, interior finishes, and structural system
Condition of modular classroom additions
Systems requirements to meet Climate Act with Net Zero target
Condition of the Fire Protection, Plumbing, HVAC, and Electrical fixtures, systems, and controls

This important assessment will be used as a guide for future needed investments to ensure that the Shrewsbury Public Schools have the needed safe and appropriate space to provide for the nearly 6,000 children educated within the district. This comprehensive assessment and the summary slide deck can be found at the links below.

First Capital Priority: Shrewsbury High School

The nearest term priority for the district identified in the Pre-K-12 Capital Inventory & Improvement Study is the expansion of Shrewsbury High School to address chronic overcrowding, while also conducting timely building upgrades to critical systems such as HVAC and the roof. In December 2024, the High School was selected as an eligible project by the Massachusetts School Building Authority in their competitive process to possibly receive state reimbursement for the capital costs of this critical project.

Recent school committee presentation on this topic can be found here:

Massachusetts School Building Authority Announcement
MSBA Process Slide Presentation (Mar 26, 2025)
SHS SOI Recommendation Memo March 13, 2024
SHS SOI Recommendation Slide Presentation March 13, 2024

Second Priority: Preschool and Elementary Buildings

In future years, the town will also need to address the needs at the elementary level in the district. The second priority of the Pre-K-12 Capital Inventory & Improvement Study was to address space conditions and system needs across the elementary schools. In the 2023-2024 school year, the School Committee engaged a cross functional group of town staff, educators, parents and community members to participate in a Pre-K to 4 Capital Planning Study Committee. This committee was supported by William H. Lupini, from Edward J. Collins, Jr. Center for Public Management at UMass Boston.

The Study Committee’s final report was presented on March 27, 2024 to the School Committee and provided a comprehensive assessment and strategy to address both the condition of Coolidge Elementary School and the needs of the community including possible expansion of the district’s Pre-K services in the future. The full report and the presentation are linked below, as is the page listing all the Study Committee’s work.

Questions may be directed to schoolcommittee@shrewsbury.k12.ma.us