In a very brief meeting held Thursday night, March 20, in the Mt. Hope High School library, the Bristol Warren Regional School District's Joint Finance Committee unanimously passed the Fiscal Year 2025-26 operating budget.

The $61,756,227 figure for FY25-26 marks an increase of $1,603,900 from the current operating outlay of $60,152,327, or a 2.7 percent more in expenses year-over-year.

Per town, Warren's allocation will be $15,511,113 and Bristol's is $30,666,328.

The breakdown per municipality is based on enrollment: Warren has 1,207 students, representing 38.15% and Bristol 1,958 for 61.85%. The total school population is 3,165.

The entire discussion on the budget lasted seven minutes out of a meeting that took exactly 14 minutes, 45 seconds to complete.

The Bristol Warren Regional School Committee, at its February 24 meeting, similarly gave its overwhelming backing of the draft submitted by Superintendent Ana Riley and her administration.

The school committee, which is required to provide the JFC with a budget annually by March 1 per the enabling state legislation that created the district, was expected to give its final support of FY25-26 document at its next meeting set for March 31. At its forum earlier in the month, the budget passed on a 7-0 tally with two abstentions.

At the JFC gathering last week, Riley gave another short overview of the district's finances. She noted the collective bargaining agreement with the union of teachers is in its third and last year. In addition, a new contract with those employees represented by Council 94 is expected to begin sometime shortly.

The superintendent told the JFC the district just received the "official numbers" for healthcare coverage costs. Riley said they represent an eight percent increase is being incurred, which was above the six percent allocated. "So we'll have to find the money somewhere" from existing expenditures," she added.

Other aspects of the increase year-over-year came in the form of upshots in retirement benefit costs, while state aid to the towns dropped some $220,000.

"We did make quite a few cuts before bringing this to you. We cut some $2.2 million and approximately 17.6 staff members to get to this number," Riley continued. "So we feel like we've done our due diligence in bringing you a responsible budget."

At the previous full school committee meeting, Riley said the budget as presented "is tied to reaching the objectives that we laid out in our strategic plan," including the five core objectives, "climate and culture teaching and learning professional learning, career and technical education and communication."

School Committee Chair Adam McGovern credited Riley and Danielle Carey, the district's director of finance and administration, for what he termed as "being proactive" in meeting with officials from both towns during the budgetary process so "that we're not playing gotcha or hitting anybody with that."

"A raise in taxes is never appreciated, but as we all know, everything's going up and we're on a mission here. And where we started from with our initial communication from the superintendent and where we are I think exceeds my personal expectation of where we were going to be," McGovern said.

McGovern's counterpart on the JFC, Chairman and Warren Town Council President Joseph DePasquale, likewise, offered up supportive words pertaining to work of the administration.

"They created a good budget. It was presented well," DePasquale said after the proceedings.