LS committee approves $40M FY27 budget, discloses five-year Stephens contract

SUDBURY — February 10, 2026 — LS School Committee approves $40M FY27 budget and signs Superintendent Andrew Stephens to a five-year contract. The Lincoln-Sudbury Regional School Committee voted 6-0 Tuesday on the FY27 budget after Interim Finance Director Susan reported the district's health insurance increase will hit 21.9 percent — not the 19.77 percent budgeted — a roughly $60,000 gap she said the district can absorb "without going back to communities to ask for additional funding." Vice-Chair Catherine "Kathy" Bitter announced that the negotiations subcommittee, with members Jack Ryan and Charles Morton and outside counsel Mark Terry, had agreed in executive session at the prior meeting to a five-year contract with Stephens. The panel also unanimously approved an overnight trip for nine LS cheer team members to the AmeriCheer International Championship in Orlando March 12-16 — Stephens said the program's first national bid on record. On a separate item, Ryan flatly rejected sketch language under discussion in the regional-agreement subcommittee that would require periodic review of the agreement: "I think it's absolutely nuts to put a sentence in there that says this has to be reviewed every certain number of years."