Finance panel restores $165,000 to school budget

Finance Committee · Meeting of April 1, 2026

Paxton Finance Committee restored $165,000 to a Wachusett Regional School District assessment after regional officials failed to adopt a lower budget. The panel voted unanimously to revert to the earlier assessment figure of $8,709,490, saying "we cannot adopt a budget that has not been adopted to us." Members estimated the move pushes the town's projected deficit to roughly $640,000, a figure one member calculated by hand, prompting a colleague to joke, "don't embarrass me, Robert." The committee also voted unanimously to restore $60,000 to unemployment compensation funding, approved a revised $1,284,387 police budget, and added $10,000 to the legal department's account, which was "fully exhausted" with three months left in the fiscal year. Members scheduled their next meeting for April 8.

In the full story:

• The Full Story
• Why It Matters
• Key Motions & Votes
• Source
• Paxton's community access TV: Finance Committee meeting, April 1, 2026
• The complete report: 757 words

Source: the Finance Committee meeting of April 1, 2026, reported from the official video recording and transcript.

Checked against the record: before publication this article was automatically compared with the meeting transcript.