Stoneham School Committee Unanimously Requests $48 Million FY26 Budget

STONEHAM — January 23, 2025 — Stoneham School Committee votes unanimously to request a $48 million budget for fiscal year 2026, a 23 percent jump over the current year. The 5-0 roll-call vote came after Superintendent David Youngberg presented four budget tiers and committee members rejected the three lower options as insufficient, with member Melanie Laramee saying "even level service isn't okay at this point." The capital budget request would restore more than $3.5 million in cuts made over the previous two fiscal years, fund previously unfunded positions, and give the committee maximum flexibility to raise educator salaries toward regional market rates. The meeting also surfaced troubling news on electricity costs at the new high school: two Eversource bills covering November through January totaled more than $319,000, and the district is already roughly $100,000 over its annual electricity budget with five months remaining, partly because the school was never successfully enrolled in the town's community aggregation rate. State preliminary aid estimates received the same day showed Stoneham projected to receive a net negative $77,706 from the state in FY26, driven by a drop in charter school reimbursement from $1 million to roughly $754,000.