To the Editor: Regarding the town budget

To the Editor:

Dartmouth schools will receive millions in additional funding in FY27.

In the Select Board’s FY27 Town Budget proposal, the school budget would grow by 3.5% (an additional $1.94 million). The School Committee were told that current revenues could not support their requested 6.85% budget increase (an added $3.85 million from FY26). Nevertheless, the School Committee decided to request a $3.85 million increase. 

School Board member Chris Oliver stated in a Mar 02, 2026 article here in the Dartmouth Week, "For me, the bottom line is, I think we need to push this budget forward, and let's see what happens. We need to get the word out that what we're doing right now is not enough. Let the Select Board tell us that they're not going to support the budget". School Committee Chair Elizabeth Coughlin, in the same article, said. "We've been careful with our budget and we have reduced it in past years, and it would only hurt the students to continue that."  

These statements seem to indicate the School Committee are ignoring the advice from town leadership about available revenue and making misleading claims about whether school appropriations have increased. 

The school department is just one of many town departments. If the school department needs $2 million more than revenue can support, then other town departments must be cut or a tax override approved. Let’s stop pretending some magical source of money exists that can fund whatever the School Committee asks for. The Select Board and the Finance Committee are being good stewards by considering the needs of all town departments, as they should. Not so for the School Committee. Take that into account as you hear about the FY27 budget deliberations.

William Trimble

Dartmouth